CHAPTER VI
In the summer ofa.d.680 Rome was again gripped in the toils of an appalling plague that had spread over the greater part of Italy. Paul the Deacon[141]says that eclipses of both sun and moon in May were followed by pestilence in the months of July, August, and September. Describing its ravages at Ticinum (Pavia) Paul says that ‘the number of the dead was so great that parents were often carried to burial on the same biers as their children, and brothers along with sisters.... And then many saw with their own eyes a good and a bad angel passing through the city by night. And whenever at the bidding of the good angel, the bad one, who seemed to carry a lance in his hand, struck so many times with his lance on the door of each house, as many of that household would die on the following day. Then it was revealed to some one that the plague would not cease until an altar was set up to Sebastian, saint and martyr, at the church of S. Pietro in Vincoli. This was done, and as soon as the altar was set up, the relics of the martyr-saint Sebastian were brought from Rome, and forthwith the plague ceased.’
Paul the Deacon, beyond all doubt, was referring to the church ofS. Pietro in Vincoliat Pavia, but the Romans of later date claimed the legend for their own church of the same name, in which it has been embodied in a fresco of the fifteenth century, ascribed to Pollajuolo (1429-98). In the background, at the summit of a flight of stairs, presumably suggested by those of Ara Coeli, a citizen is telling to Pope Agatho, who is seated among his cardinals, his dream that thepestilence will not cease till the body of S. Sebastian is brought into the city. On the right the good angel indicates the condemned houses to the bad angel in the guise of the Evil One, who strikes on the door with his lance. On the left a procession, carrying a banner on which the Madonna is depicted with robe spread out in protecting attitude, is bringing in the relics. The foreground is strewn with corpses of the dead. In the sky, bow in hand, hovers the angel that spreads the pestilence. To the left is a group of the Almighty and angels, now almost obliterated.
It is not generally recognized that the well-known picture ‘La Peste à Rome’, by Delaunay (a.d.1828-91), now in the Musée du Luxembourg at Paris, was directly inspired by this fresco. The scene is laid in a street of Rome, which is strewn with bodies of dead and dying, among which the good and evil angels are busy at their task. The figure of a youth huddled up in a brown shawl on a doorstep is a living picture of misery. In the background a procession bearing a cross is descending a flight of stairs, and a fire to purify the atmosphere is burning in the open street. An effigy of Aesculapius and a colossal equestrian statue of Constantine are introduced in the manner of the Renaissance. The chief merit of the picture lies in the excellence of its draughtsmanship.
In this same church at Rome is a mosaic effigy of Sebastian, believed to have been executed ina.d.683. In spite, however, of the name of Sebastian, that it carries in gold mosaic letters, it is difficult to believe that it is anything but a figure of St. Peter, transformed perhaps in the presence of this epidemic to that of Sebastian. It represents faithfully the traditional lineaments of the apostle, an old man with white hair and beard, dressed in the true Byzantine style. Kugler considers that the careful shadowing of the drapery, executed with more than usual pains, indicates that the effigy was intended to be exposed to the close gaze of the pious. The figure on its blue mosaic background is stiff and inanimate, even beyond other similar archaic effigies. Beside it, on a marble tablet, is an inscription in Latin, reproducing almost to a word the story told by Paul the Deacon. Tradition has it that Pope Agatho (a.d.678-82) on this occasion caused the bones of the saint to be collected in the cemetery of Calixtus, and brought to the church of S. Pietro in Vincoli, there to be enshrined beneath an altar. In the ninth century the body seems to have been removed for safety to the Vatican, and again transferred to the church of S. Sebastiano, where it now is, by Honorius III ina.d.1216. This church, however, was completely rebuilt ina.d.1611.
PLATE VILA PESTE À ROME.BY DELAUNAYPhotograph by Giraudon, Paris(Face Page 96)
PLATE VILA PESTE À ROME.BY DELAUNAY
Photograph by Giraudon, Paris(Face Page 96)
From the time of this pestilence ina.d.680, Sebastian was universally recognized as the patron saint of pestilence. Gradually he comes to be identified more particularly with true plague, but never in the same exclusive fashion as his brother saint, St. Roch. His comprehensive patronage of pestilence indicates not only how rife were other epidemic diseases besides true plague, but how little they were differentiated in the public mind.
The story of the life of Sebastian[142]is well authenticated in its main incidents. Born in the middle of the third centurya.d., he was a native of Narbonne in Gaul. His noble birth secured for him early in life the command of a company of Praetorian Guards, so that he was constantly about the person of the Emperor. Though secretly a Christian and using his position to secure the conversion of others to Christianity, he remained intensely loyal to the temporal interest of the Emperor. Among his friends were two young soldiers, Marcus and Marcellinus, like him of noble birth. They were convicted of embracing Christianity, and after enduring torture bravely were led out to die. On the way their aged parents, their wives and children, and their friends, implored them to relent, and they were about to recant, when Sebastian rushedforward and exhorted them not to renounce their Redeemer. So inspiring was his appeal, that the whole assembly, guards, judges, and all, were converted and baptized, and for a while Marcus and Marcellinus were saved. This scene is depicted in a spirited canvas by Veronese in the plague church of S. Sebastiano at Venice. Their respite was but short, for in a few months they were put to death with many others of the Christian community, and Sebastian himself was condemned to die. The Emperor Diocletian (a.d.284-305), by reason of his personal attachment, sent for him and exhorted him to abjure his heresy, but Sebastian meekly and courageously refused. Diocletian then ordered that he should be bound to a stake and shot to death with arrows, and that an inscription should be placed on the stake for all to see, saying that he was put to death only for being a Christian. A vast number of pictures, beside the masterpiece of Sodoma,[143]depict this scene. Pierced with arrows, Sebastian was left for dead, but at midnight Irene, the widow of one of his martyred friends, came to take away his body for burial, but found him still alive, the arrows having pierced no vital part. She and her attendants carried him to her house and tended him, till he was completely healed. After this they urged him to leave Rome, but Sebastian went boldly to the palace gate, and as the Emperor passed out, pleaded for those Christians who were condemned to suffer for their faith, and reproached Diocletian for his cruelty. The Emperor in fierce anger ordered his guards to seize Sebastian and carry him to the circus, there to beat him to death with clubs. To conceal his dead body from his friends it was thrown into the Cloaca Maxima, but a Christian woman, Lucina, received tidings in a vision of where the body lay, and recovering it had it secretly buried in the catacombs. The church of S. Sebastiano at Rome is now built over these catacombs.
PLATE VII(Face Page 99)SEBASTIANAS PROTECTOR AGAINST PESTILENCEBy Benozzo Gozzoli.Photograph by Brogi, Florence
PLATE VII(Face Page 99)
SEBASTIANAS PROTECTOR AGAINST PESTILENCE
By Benozzo Gozzoli.Photograph by Brogi, Florence
Though Sebastian was martyred ina.d.288, it was not till the plague ofa.d.683 that his cult as a protector from pestilence was firmly established.
The association of Sebastian with pestilence was in the first instance purely fortuitous. Devout men in seasons of pestilence were wont to acclaim their own peculiar patron saint a very present help in time of trouble: an altar, a church, a votive picture, a procession, these, now one, now another, were the price of the promised dispensation. But that Sebastian came to be the patron saint of plague and pestilence was due to the association of arrows with his effigy and with the story of his attempted martyrdom. From remote antiquity we have seen that arrows have been emblematic of plague. It was Apollo among the Greeks that scattered pestilence with his bow, and who was invoked also by sacrifice and hymns of praise to avert it. In Christian hagiology and Christian art Sebastian is the counterpart of the pagan Apollo. Whatever the variations of detail, Sebastian is practically always represented, either transfixed with arrows or carrying an arrow in his hand. Having regard to his story, it is a mistake to show the arrows piercing a vital part, such as the heart, the brain, or even the neck, as is often done. And for artistic effect it is well that they should not be so numerous as to suggest a well-filled pin-cushion: albeit theGolden Legendhas it that ‘the archers shot at him till he was as full of arrows as an urchin is full of pricks’.
Such is the effect of an interesting fresco by Benozzo Gozzoli (c.a.d.1420-97) in the Chiesa della Collegiata at San Gimignano, dedicated to Sebastian ina.d.1465 in a time of plague. At the head of the picture, Christ, with the marks of wounds in His hands, communes with the Virgin and a group of saints. Sebastian is standing on a pedestal, his whole body studded with arrows, while archers on either side of him are rapidly increasing the number. This Collegiatafresco has been closely followed in an ItalianPestblätter, reproduced in the Heitz-Schreiber portfolio ofPestblätter(q.v.).
Another votive fresco in the church of S. Agostino at San Gimignano, also by Benozzo Gozzoli, commemorating the disastrous plague ofa.d.1464, shows Sebastian turning aside with his cloak the broken arrows of pestilence. In the uppermost part of the fresco the Almighty is launching forth His shafts, and attendant angels are aiding in the task. Between them and Sebastian Christ and the Virgin kneel in an attitude of prayer. Sebastian stands in the centre of the foreground on a low stone pedestal, on which are inscribed the words, ‘Sancte Sebastiane, Intercede Pro Devoto Populo Tuo.’ His body is fully draped, and the broken arrows lie behind him, removed by the hands of angels, two of whom hold a crown of martyrdom above his head.
PLATE VIII(Face Page 100)SODOMA’S SEBASTIAN PLAGUE BANNER(REVERSE)SS. Roch and Sigismund, and Brethren of Compagnia di S. SebastianoPhotograph by Alinari, Rome
PLATE VIII(Face Page 100)
SODOMA’S SEBASTIAN PLAGUE BANNER(REVERSE)
SS. Roch and Sigismund, and Brethren of Compagnia di S. Sebastiano
Photograph by Alinari, Rome
These older representations of Sebastian by Benozzo Gozzoli, and others by Albrecht Dürer and the early German school, showing Sebastian as an elderly bearded man, offer but little attractiveness. By far the most beautiful pictures are those of Perugino, Sodoma, and Francia, who use his nude and youthful figure, as the Greeks used Apollo, as a model for the exhibition of elegance of form and accuracy of anatomical design. As one of the few nude forms permitted to Christian art, it is readily understood why Sebastian figures in such a multitude of pictures. The finest example of this type is the peerless masterpiece of Sodoma (1477-1549), now in the Uffizi Gallery at Florence, one of the most beautiful creations of Renaissance art. It was formerly a banner, painted ina.d.1528 for the Sienese Compagnia di San Sebastiano in Camollia, and was carried in procession when Siena was afflicted with pestilence. It was kept in the church of the Confraternity at Siena, until it was removed to Florence ina.d.1786. The undraped body of the saint is modelled on the lines of the youthful Apollo. He is bound to a tree in the foregroundof a wild Italian landscape. His neck, side, and one thigh are transfixed with arrows. The upturned face wears an expression of ecstasy, in spite of suffering, as an angel descends to place the crown of martyrdom on his brow. Symonds has said of this picture:
‘Gifted with an exquisite feeling for the beauty of the human body, Sodoma excelled himself when he was contented with a single figure. His St. Sebastian, notwithstanding its wan and faded colouring, is still the very best that has been painted. Suffering, refined and spiritual, without contortion or spasm, could not be presented with more pathos in a form of more surpassing loveliness. This is a truly demonic picture in the fascination it exercises and the memory it leaves upon the mind. Part of its unanalysable charm may be due to the bold thought of combining the beauty of a Greek Hylas with the Christian sentiment of martyrdom. Only the Renaissance could have produced a hybrid so successful, because so deeply felt.’
On the reverse of the banner is theMadonna with the Childin her arms, enthroned on clouds, above a kneeling group of SS. Roch and Sigismund and members of the Compagnia di S. Sebastiano, wearing their characteristic garments. The work is much inferior to that of the face of the banner, and is said to be in part the work of Beccafumi (1486-1551).
Another superb, but little known picture, by Perugino (a.d.1446-1524) in the Musée at Grenoble, shows the same type of nude figure of Sebastian bound to a tree. Face and figure alike are the very embodiment of youthfulness and grace, verging almost on effeminacy. In this picture S. Apolline stands beside Sebastian.
Exceptionally, and more particularly in the older pictures, the youthful Sebastian is depicted clothed in the costume of the period, with or without an arrow in his hand. In the Brera at Milan is a folding altar-piece of five panels by Nicolò da Foligno (a.d.1430-92), in which he is represented as a youth in kilted tunic and hose. He is similarly clad in another picture in the Vatican, ‘TheCoronation of the Virgin and Saints,’ also by Nicolò da Foligno, and in a few others as well.
Sebastian is very frequently represented in plague pictures along with other saints: his most frequent companion by far is St. Roch. In the sacristy of S. Maria della Salute at Venice, itself a plague church, isTitian’s well-known picturecommemorating the great plague ofa.d.1512, in which St. Sebastian, St. Roch, and the physician-saints Cosmo and Damian stand before the throne of St. Mark, across whose majestic figure the shadow of a cloud has fallen. These groups of saints are not infrequently represented mediating with the Madonna.
Travelling through Italy from town to town one becomes aware that the land of pestilence has been roughly partitioned into separate dominions under the tutelage of varying presiding saints. In Milan it is Carlo Borromeo: in Venice, S. Rocco: in Rome, the Madonna: in Central Italy, in Siena, and in Florence, S. Sebastiano. In Florence he was the patron saint of the Compagnia della Misericordia, the institution that has for seven centuries been so closely interwoven with the daily life of the city, and has left no small mark on the products of Florentine art.
Christian sculpture has also seized the opportunity of the nude figure for a model. Well-known statues are those by Matteo Civitali (c.1470) at Lucca, and by Puget (1622-94) in the church of Carignano at Genoa. A colossal recumbent figure of the saint by Bernini (1598-1680) lies beneath the high altar of the church of S. Sebastian on the Via Appia at Rome.
In Switzerland especially, but also in southern Germany and south-eastern France, wooden statues of Sebastian are commonly met with, mostly belonging to the three centuries following the Black Death. Several may be seen in the Historical Museum at Basle, more or less archaic in character, and a very fine example in the Cluny Museum at Paris. The same museum also possesses a pair of quaint coloured high reliefs in wood of St. Sebastian and St. Roch respectively. These wooden effigies are naturally most common in districts where wood-carving has been extensively pursued.
PLATE IX(Face Page 102)SS. MARK, SEBASTIAN, ROCH,COSMAS AND DAMIAN.BY TITIANPhotograph by Naya, Venice
PLATE IX(Face Page 102)
SS. MARK, SEBASTIAN, ROCH,COSMAS AND DAMIAN.BY TITIAN
Photograph by Naya, Venice
It must not be supposed that the cult of Sebastian was widespread from the first, or that the record of its growth is continuous and unbroken from its inauguration in this Roman plague ofa.d.683. Circumstance chanced to be arrayed against its continuity. The seventh century was not a notable period of plague in Europe, and that was now the dominating epidemic. There was famine and pestilence in Ireland,[144]but its nature is not known, and the kings of Erin faced their Irish question in the spirit of Cromwell. In a season of famine they summoned the leading clergy and laity to a council to consider the situation. No one, in the circumstances, will dispute the propriety of their injunction to clergy and laity to observe a fast. But the further injunction that they should employ their hours of abstinence in praying that some sickness might carry off the surplus of the lower orders, as the excess of population was the cause of the famine, is more debatable. (‘Petebant ut nimia multitudo vulgi per infirmitatem aliquam tolleretur, quia numerositas populi erat occasio famis.’) At the instance of St. Gerald, who contended that the Almighty could relieve the situation more suitably and quite as easily by multiplying the fruits of the earth, it was proposed to recommend this course to His adoption, at any rate as a preliminary measure. But clergy and laity, headed by the holy St. Fechin, were in no mood for such half-hearted measures as promised no finality, and St. Gerald’s suggestion was set aside. Pestilence followed in due course, and the Divine working was made manifest in that it claimed St. Fechin and the two kings of Erin among its innumerable victims.
In spite of the retrocession of plague from Europe after the seventh century, Syria,[145]the Euphrates valley, and Irak were still devastated at frequent intervals by recurring epidemics. From this persistent source it spread as far as Constantinople ina.d.697 and 794, in the latter case almost completely depopulating Constantinople according to Nicephoras Byzantinus. Constantinople was in such intimate relation, commercial and political, with Syria and Central Asia that transference of plague was wellnigh inevitable. After this there was a long lull in Europe, and to a less extent in Syria, until the eleventh century. It is often confidently stated that the Crusades brought plague back to Europe, but it must not be forgotten that there was a severe epidemic of plague on that continent ina.d.1094, before the Crusades commenced. Doubtless they served to maintain the continuity of infection. The pestilence that decimated the army of Louis IX and carried off him and his son was by no means certainly bubonic plague. The surviving accounts suggest rather cholera or dysentery. Again, ina.d.1167, the army of Frederick Barbarossa, while encamped before Rome, was swept away by a pestilence, that seems to have been bubonic plague, which penetrated into the city also and worked great havoc. Thomas à Becket, writing to Pope Alexander III after the retreat of Frederick, congratulates him on the Lord having destroyed Sennacherib’s army. Again, ina.d.1230, a destructive inundation of the Tiber was followed by plague, that led the Romans to recall the banished pope, Gregory IX. Ina.d.1244 plague was in Florence, and led to the institution of the Compagnia della Misericordia. Its foundations were laid in the fines paid by wool-porters for the use of foul and blasphemous language at their meeting-house. One of them, the good old Piero di Luca Borsi, induced them, when the total had reached a largesum, to spend it in the provision of six litters, one for each ward of the city, and to select two of their members weekly for each litter, to carry sick persons to the hospitals or dead bodies to the mortuaries.
Ina.d.1294 plague was again widespread and severe in Europe, and a succession of scattered epidemics, of which the most severe were those ofa.d.1320 and 1333 respectively in southern France and Spain, led up to the virulent pandemic ofa.d.1348 and after, commonly known as the Black Death.
Out of the desolate wilderness of the Black Death arose the figure of St. Roch,[146]patron saint of the plague-stricken and intercessor against the plague. Born at Montpellier, the son of noble parents, probably abouta.d.1295, he seemed designed for a life of sanctity by the birthmark of a small red cross on his breast. So Mahomet before him had borne in the imprint of a mole between his shoulders the token of his divine mission. From boyhood he was attracted by the active virtues of the Redeemer, and aspired to follow that example rather than to devote himself to the life of the cloister. The death of his parents, before he was twenty years old, left him with great riches, which he distributed forthwith among the poor and hospitals. His lands he left in the management of his brother, and set out on foot, as a pilgrim, for Rome. On his way he found plague raging at Aquapendente. There he gave himself to the service of the sick in the hospital, and such was his skill and sympathy that his ministrations were regarded as more than human. The sick seemed to be healed by his mere prayers, or by the sign of the Cross as he stood over them, so that when the plague soon ceased, they in their enthusiasm attributed it to his intercession. So Roch himself became inspired with the belief in a divine Providence specially guiding his ministry. Hearing that plague was devastating the province of Romagna, he hastened thither and devoted himself to the sick in the cities ofCasena and Rimini. Thence he went to Rome, where plague was raging fiercely (c.1306), and for three years tended the sick, devoting himself to those most destitute of help. His constant prayer to God was that he might be a martyr in his task, but for long he passed unscathed through daily peril. Visiting city after city, wherever plague was rife, he succumbed at last to the infection at Piacenza, while nursing the sick in the hospital. Along with a burning inward fever, a horrible ulcer broke out on his left thigh. The pain was so intolerable that he shrieked aloud. Fearing to disturb the inmates of the hospital, he crawled into the street, but the officers would not let him remain there for fear of spreading infection. With the aid of his pilgrim’s staff he dragged himself to a solitary spot outside the gates of Piacenza, and there laid himself down to die. But still a kind Providence watched over him. His little dog, that had attended him faithfully in all his pilgrimage, went daily into the city and brought back a loaf of bread, none knew whence. An angel came, too, and dressed his sore and tended him, till he was well. Others say that it was the dog of a countryman, one Gothard, that brought food to him. On his recovery he turned his steps back to his native Montpellier, but his sufferings had so changed him that even his own retainers there did not recognize him. He was arrested as a spy, and condemned by the judge, who chanced to be his own uncle, to be thrown into the public prison. Roch, believing it to be God’s will, yielded to the punishment without revealing his identity, and languished in a dungeon for five years. One morning, when the jailer entered his cell, he found it filled with a bright supernatural light, but his prisoner dead, and by his side a writing that revealed his name and the words: ‘All those that are stricken by the plague, and who pray for aid through the merits and intercession of St. Roch, the servant of God, shall be healed.’ His uncle, the judge, gave him an honourable burial, and the whole city lamented his death.
St. Roch is believed to have died ina.d.1327 in his thirty-second year. At Montpellier he was venerated from the first, and this veneration was quickened and extended by the great pandemic ofa.d.1348. But it was not till the fifteenth century that his cult became widespread. This was the direct consequence of an outbreak of plague at Constance ina.d.1414, during that Council of prelates that condemned Huss to the stake. They were about to disperse and fly from danger, when a young German monk told them of the power of St. Roch. On his advice the Council ordered an effigy of the Saint to be carried in procession through the streets with prayers and litanies: and immediately the plague was stayed. His festival has been celebrated for centuries on the sixteenth day of August.
Ina.d.1485 the Venetians, who from their trade with the Levant, were constantly subject to plague, carried off the body of St. Roch from Montpellier by stealth, and the church of San Rocco was built to receive it.
Such is the legend of St. Roch. He and Sebastian commonly figure together in dedicatory plague pictures, as dual protectors against plague. They seem to represent in art two attitudes to suffering, St. Roch that of compassion, St. Sebastian that of courage and resignation—two attitudes well expressed in four short lines of an obscure Australian poet that deserve to be better known than they are:
Life is mostly froth and bubble:Two things stand like stone:Kindness in another’s trouble,Courage in your own.
Life is mostly froth and bubble:Two things stand like stone:Kindness in another’s trouble,Courage in your own.
Life is mostly froth and bubble:Two things stand like stone:Kindness in another’s trouble,Courage in your own.
Coming into general knowledge about the time of the revival of art, the legend of St. Roch and his figure were favourite and familiar subjects in the Christian art of the West. The whole legend has been frequently used as a theme for the decoration of churches dedicated to his name:such a one may be seen in Siena, and another, though less complete, in Venice. In the Scuola di S. Rocco his life-story is set out in a series of twenty carved reliefs on the walnut panelling of the upper hall.
Sometimes several scenes from his life are blended in a single picture. In the Brera, at Milan, is a picture ofSt. Roch with Madonna and Child, by Ambrogio da Fossano, called ‘Borgognone’ (a.d.1480-1523). In the background are scenes from his life, among which his dog is shown carrying a loaf in its mouth. The picture formerly belonged to the Company of Charity of Milan.
St. Roch is generally represented as a man in the prime of life, with a short pointed beard, delicate features, and a gentle expression of countenance. As a rule he wears a pilgrim’s dress, with a cockle-shell in his hat and a wallet at his side. In one hand he holds a long staff, while with the other he lifts his robe to show the plague sore in his groin or thigh. Very rarely he is figured as a youth in the dress of the period, and is then nearly always introduced to balance a similar Sebastian.
Numerous pictures deal with single episodes in his life—his tending the plague-sick, his healing by an angel, his life and death in prison. The best known are perhaps those by Tintoretto in the church of S. Rocco at Venice. Many show him praying among the sick, as in the picture by Domenichino of Bologna (a.d.1584-1641) in the Palazzo Rosso at Genoa. An angel with a drawn sword hovers over the scene, and St. Roch holds out one arm, as though entreating the angel to put up his sword into its sheath. Jacopo Bassano (a.d.1510-92), in a picture in the Brera, represents him among a number of plague victims, with hand raised in attitude of benediction.
PLATE X(Face Page 108)S. ROCH.BY AMBROGIO BORGOGNONEPhotograph by Anderson, Rome
PLATE X(Face Page 108)
S. ROCH.BY AMBROGIO BORGOGNONE
Photograph by Anderson, Rome
PLATE XI(Face Page 109)AN INTERCESSORY PLAGUE PICTUREBY NIKLAUS MANUEL.S. ROCH TENDED BY AN ANGEL
PLATE XI(Face Page 109)
AN INTERCESSORY PLAGUE PICTUREBY NIKLAUS MANUEL.S. ROCH TENDED BY AN ANGEL
A picture by the Swiss painter, Niklaus Manuel (a.d.1484-1530), at Basle, painted in tempera on linen,shows St. Rochwith a little angel tending his wound. It is typical of a large group ofintercessory plague pictures. At the summit of the picture is the Almighty in glory in the heavens. Beneath Him is St. Anna with the Virgin Mary and the Child Jesus: they are placed between the Almighty and the plague-stricken to indicate that they are the appropriate medium of intercession. They are flanked on the one side by St. Roch, and on the other by St. James. St. Anna appears in many pictures of this period, as Pope Alexander II in 1494 promoted her worship, by making her feast-day one of the chief festivals of the Church. At the foot of the picture is a rough delineation of the city attacked by plague: on the right of it, a group representing probably the donors of the picture: on the left, a group of sufferers, two of whom show plague marks on their limbs. On the woman’s arm is a raised sore: on the man’s arm black petechial blotches, on his body large circular spots, and an open red ulcer on the inner side of his leg.
One of the most famous pictures of St. Roch is the altar-piece by Rubens, at Alost, near Brussels. The upper part of the picture shows the interior of a prison illuminated by a supernatural light. St. Roch kneels looking up into the face of Christ, in radiant gratitude, as he receives his commission as patron saint against the plague. An angel holds a tablet on which is written, ‘Eris in peste patronus,’ in allusion to the words revealed in his cell at his death.
Statues of St. Roch are hardly so frequently met with as those of Sebastian: he was a less attractive model for sculptors. In the Musée of Grenoble is a quaint archaic wooden figure of St. Roch of the early fifteenth century, which stood formerly in the chapel of the Château of Bressieux. It shows him in pilgrim guise, holding aside his garments to show the bubo in his left groin. It is deeply incised, according to the surgical practice of the period.
The plague mark of St. Roch is depicted in a variety of forms. Sometimes it is simply a bubo in the groin, usually the left, or justbelow it, to satisfy artistic decency. This form may be seen in a picture by Crivelli (a.d.1468-93) of ‘Four Saints’, in the Academy at Venice, and in another of St. Roch and St. Sebastian, by Alfani, in the Pinacotheca at Perugia.
Far more commonly the mark is a short longitudinal incision in the upper part of either thigh, as in Sodoma’s plague banner (see Plate VIII, p. 100).
Sometimes the incision is in the substance of a bubo. This may be seen in a portrait of St. Roch over a side-altar in the church of S. Maria dei Servi at Siena.
Not infrequently the incision is slanting or transverse and displays a complete disregard for the femoral artery. A notable example is Titian’s ‘St. Mark and Saints’ in the Salute at Venice (see Plate IX, p. 102).
Sometimes the hose is slit over the incision in the flesh, as though some bold and busy surgeon had been pressed for time. This may be seen in Caroto’s picture of ‘Four Saints’ in the church of S. Fermo Maggiore at Verona: also in a picture by Perugino, ‘Virgin and Saints,’ in the cathedral at Perugia, and in another of St. Roch in the Palazzo Borromeo at Milan.
A solitary example of St. Roch with a black pustule on the inner side of his left thigh, surrounded by a pink zone of inflammation, may be seen in the Brera. The picture is by Bernardino Borgognone (a.d.1490-1524).
In some of thePestblättera gash in the thigh is shown as well as a small circle, which would seem to indicate the circular plague pustule.
PLATE XII(Face Page 110)MADONNA AND CHILD,S. ANNA AND SAINTSBY G. FRANCESCO CAROTOPhotograph by Alinari, Rome
PLATE XII(Face Page 110)
MADONNA AND CHILD,S. ANNA AND SAINTSBY G. FRANCESCO CAROTO
Photograph by Alinari, Rome