II. The Archangels.

30 Archangels (Cimabue. In San Francesco d’Assisi)II. The Archangels.II. The Archangels.

30 Archangels (Cimabue. In San Francesco d’Assisi)

II. The Archangels.

The SevenWho in God’s presence, nearest to his throne,Stand ready at command.—Milton.

The Seven

Who in God’s presence, nearest to his throne,

Stand ready at command.—Milton.

Having treated of the celestial Hierarchy in general, we have now to consider those angels who in artistic representations have assumed an individual form and character. These belong to the order of Archangels, placed by Dionysius in the third Hierarchy: they take rank between the Princedoms and the Angels, and partake of the nature of both, being, like the Princedoms, Powers; and, like the Angels, Ministers and Messengers.

Frequent allusion is made in Scripture to the seven Angels who stand in the presence of God. (Rev. viii. 2, xv. 1, xvi. 1, &c.; Tobit xxii. 15.) This was in accordance with the popular creed of the Jews, who not only acknowledged the supremacy of the Seven Spirits, but assigned to them distinct vocations and distinct appellations, each terminating with the syllableEl, which signifies God. Thus we have—

I.Michael(i.e. who is like unto God), captain-general of the host of heaven, and protector of the Hebrew nation.

II.Gabriel(i.e. God is my strength), guardian of the celestial treasury, and preceptor of the patriarch Joseph.

III.Raphael(i.e. the Medicine of God), the conductor of Tobit; thence the chief guardian angel.

IV.Uriel(i.e. the Light of God), who taught Esdras. He was also regent of the sun.

V.Chamuel(i.e. one who sees God?), who wrestled with Jacob, and who appeared to Christ at Gethsemane. (But, according to other authorities, this was the angel Gabriel.)

VI.Jophiel(i.e. the Beauty of God), who was the preceptor of the sons of Noah, and is the protector of all those who, with an humble heart, seek after truth, and the enemy of those who pursue vain knowledge. Thus Jophiel was naturally considered as the guardian of the tree of knowledge and the same who drove Adam and Eve from Paradise.

VII.Zadkiel(i.e. the Righteousness of God), who stayed the hand of Abraham when about to sacrifice his son. (But, according to other authorities, this was the archangel Michael.)

The Christian Church does not acknowledge these Seven Angels by name; neither in the East, where the worship of angels took deep root, nor yet in the West, where it has been tacitly accepted. Nor have I met with them as a series,by name, in any ecclesiastical work of art, though I have seen a set of old anonymous prints in which they appear with distinct names and attributes: Michael bears the sword and scales; Gabriel, the lily; Raphael, the pilgrim’s staff and gourd full of water, as a traveller. Uriel has a roll and a book: he is the interpreter of judgments and prophecies, and for this purpose was sent toEsdras:—‘The angel that was sent unto me, whose name was Uriel, gave me an answer.’ (Esdras, ii. 4.) And in Milton—

Uriel, for thou of those Seven Spirits that standIn sight of God’s high throne, gloriously bright,The first art wont his great authentic willInterpreter through highest heaven to bring.

Uriel, for thou of those Seven Spirits that stand

In sight of God’s high throne, gloriously bright,

The first art wont his great authentic will

Interpreter through highest heaven to bring.

31 The Archangels Michael and Raphael (Campo Santo)

According to an early Christian tradition, it was this angel, and not Christ in person, who accompanied the two disciples to Emmaus.Chamuel is represented with a cup and a staff; Jophiel with a flaming sword. Zadkiel bears the sacrificial knife which he took from the hand of Abraham.

But the Seven Angels, without being distinguished by name, are occasionally introduced into works of art. For example, over the arch of the choir in San Michele, at Ravenna (A.D.545), on each side of the throned Saviour are the Seven Angels blowing trumpets like cow’s horns:—‘And I saw the Seven Angels which stand before God, and to them were given seven trumpets.’ (Rev. viii. 2, 6.) In representations of the Crucifixion and in the Pietà, the Seven Angels are often seen in attendance, bearing the instruments of the Passion. Michael bears the cross, for he is ‘the Bannerer of heaven;’ but I do not feel certain of the particular avocations of the others.

In the Last Judgment of Orcagna, in the Campo Santo at Pisa (31), the Seven Angels are active and important personages. The angel who stands in the centre of the picture, below the throne of Christ, extends a scroll in each hand; on that in the right hand is inscribed ‘Come, ye blessed of my Father,’ and on that in the left hand, ‘Depart from me, ye accursed:’ him I suppose to be Michael, the angel of judgment. At his feet crouches an angel who seems to shrink from the tremendous spectacle, and hides his face: him I suppose to be Raphael, the guardian angel of humanity. The attitude has always been admired—cowering with horror, yet sublime. Beneath are other five angels, who are engaged in separating the just from the wicked, encouraging and sustaining the former, and driving the latter towards the demons who are ready to snatch them into flames. These Seven Angels have the garb of princes and warriors, with breastplates of gold, jewelled sword-belts and tiaras, rich mantles; while the other angels who figure in the same scene are plumed, and bird-like, and hover above bearing the instruments of the Passion (32).

Again we may see the Seven Angels in quite another character, attending on St. Thomas Aquinas, in a picture by Taddeo Gaddi.[58]Here, instead of the instruments of the Passion, they bear the allegorical attributes of those virtues for which that famous saint and doctor is tobe reverenced: one bears an olive-branch, i.e. Peace; the second, a book, i.e. Knowledge; the third, a crown and sceptre, i.e. Power; the fourth, a church, i.e. Religion; the fifth, a cross and shield, i.e. Faith; the sixth, flames of fire in each hand, i.e. Piety and Charity; the seventh, a lily, i.e. Purity.

In general it may be presumed when seven angels figure together, or are distinguished from among a host of angels by dress, stature, or other attributes, that these represent the ‘Seven Holy Angels who stand in the presence of God.’ Four only of these Seven Angels are individualised by name, Michael, Gabriel, Raphael, and Uriel. According to the Jewish tradition, these four sustain the throne of the Almighty: they have the Greek epithetarch, or chief, assigned to them, from the two texts of Scripture in which that title is used (1 Thess. iv. 16; Jude ix.); but only the three first, who in Scripture have a distinct personality, are reverenced in the Catholic Church as saints; and their gracious beauty, and their divine prowess, and their high behests to mortal man, have furnished some of the most important and most poetical subjects which appear in Christian Art.

The earliest instance I have met of the Archangels introduced by name into a work of art is in the old church of San Michele at Ravenna (A.D.545). The mosaic in the apse exhibits Christ in the centre, bearing in one hand the cross as a trophy or sceptre, and in the other an open book on which are the words ‘Qui videt me videt et Patrem meum.’ On each side stand Michael and Gabriel, with vast wings and long sceptres; their names are inscribed above, but without theSanctusand without the Glory. It appears, therefore, that at this time, themiddle of the sixth century, the title ofSaint, though in use, had not been given to the Archangels.

When, in the ancient churches, the figure of Christ or of the Lamb appears in a circle of glory in the centre of the roof; and around, or at the four corners, four angels who sustain the circle with outspread arms, or stand as watchers, with sceptres or lances in their hands, these I presume to be the four Archangels who sustain the throne of God. Examples may be seen in San Vitale at Ravenna; in the chapel of San Zeno, in Santa Prassede at Rome; and on the roof of the choir of San Francesco d’Assisi.

So the four Archangels, stately colossal figures, winged and armed and sceptred, stand over the arch of the choir in the Cathedral of Monreale, at Palermo.[59]

So the four angels stand at the four corners of the earth and hold the winds, heads with puffed cheeks and dishevelled hair.[60](Rev. vii. 1.)

33 The Three Archangels (from an ancient Greek picture)

But I have never seen Uriel represented by name, or alone, in any sacred edifice. In the picture of Uriel painted by Allston,[61]he is the ‘Regent of the Sun,’ as described by Milton; not a sacred or scripturalpersonage. On a shrine of carved ivory[62]I have seen the fourArchangels as keeping guard, two at each end; the three first are named, as usual, St. Michael, St. Gabriel, St. Raphael; the fourth is styledSt. Chérubin; and I have seen the same name inscribed over the head of the angel who expels Adam and Eve from Paradise. There is no authority for such an appellation applied individually; but I find, in a famous legend of the middle ages, ‘La Pénitence d’Adam;’ that the angel who guards the gates of Paradise is thus designated:—‘Lorsque l’Ange Chérubin vit arriver Seth aux portes de Paradis,’ &c. The four Archangels, however, seldom occur together, except in architecturaldecoration. On the other hand, devotional pictures of the threeArchangels named in the canonical Scriptures are of frequent occurrence.They are often grouped together as patron saints or protectingspirits; or they stand round the throne of Christ, or below the glorifiedVirgin and Child, in an attitude of adoration. According to the Greek formula, the three in combination represent the triple power, military, civil, and religious, of the celestial hierarchy: St. Michael being habited as a warrior, Gabriel as a prince, and Raphael as a priest. In a Greek picture, of which I give an outline, the three Archangels sustain in a kind of throne the figure of the youthful Christ, here winged, as being Himselfthesupreme Angel (ἂγγελος), and with bothhands blessing the universe. The Archangel Raphael has here the place of dignity as representing the Priesthood; but in Western Art Michael takes precedence of the two others, and is usually placed in the centre as Prince or Chief: with him, then, as considered individually, we begin.

Lat.Sanctus Michael Angelus.Ital.San Michele, Sammichele.Fr.Monseigneur Saint Michel. (Sept. 29.)‘Michael, the Great Prince that standeth for the children of thy people.’—Dan.xii. 1.

Lat.Sanctus Michael Angelus.Ital.San Michele, Sammichele.Fr.Monseigneur Saint Michel. (Sept. 29.)

‘Michael, the Great Prince that standeth for the children of thy people.’—Dan.xii. 1.

It is difficult to clothe in adequate language the divine attributes with which painting and poetry have invested this illustrious archangel. Jews and Christians are agreed in giving him the pre-eminence over all created spirits. All the might, the majesty, the radiance, of Thrones, Dominations, Princedoms, Virtues, Powers, are centred in him. In him God put forth his strength when He exalted him chief over the celestial host, when angels warred with angels in heaven; and in him God showed forth his glory when He made him conqueror over the power of sin, and ‘over the great dragon that deceived the world.’

To the origin of the worship paid to this great archangel I dare not do more than allude, lest I stray wide from my subject, and lose myself, and my readers too, in labyrinths of Orientalism. But, in considering the artistic representations, it is interesting to call to mind that the glorification of St. Michael may be traced back to that primitive Eastern dogma, the perpetual antagonism between the Spirit of Good and the Spirit of Evil, mixed up with the Chaldaic belief in angels and their influence over the destinies of man. It was subsequent to the Captivity that the active Spirit of Good, under the name of Michael, came to be regarded as the especial protector of the Hebrew nation: the veneration paid to him by the Jews was adopted, or rather retained, by the Oriental Christians, and, though suppressed for a time, wasrevived and spread over the West, where we find it popular and almost universal from the eighth century.

The legends which have grown out of a few mystical texts of Scripture, amplified by the fanciful disquisitions of the theological writers, place St. Michael before us in three great characters:—1. As captain of the heavenly host, and conqueror of the powers of hell. 2. As lord of souls, conductor and guardian of the spirits of the dead. 3. As patron saint and prince of the Church Militant.

When Lucifer, possessed by the spirit of pride and ingratitude, refused to fall down and worship the Son of man, Michael was deputed to punish his insolence, and to cast him out from heaven. Then Michael chained the revolted angels in middle air, where they are to remain till the day of judgment, being in the mean time perpetually tortured by hate, envy, and despair: for they behold man, whom they had disdained, exalted as their superior; above them they see the heaven they have forfeited; and beneath them the redeemed souls continually rising from earth, and ascending to the presence of God, whence they are shut out for ever.

‘Now,’ says the old Legend,[63]‘if it be asked wherefore the books of Moses, in revealing the disobedience and the fall of man, are silent as to the revolt and the fall of the angels, the reason is plain; and in this God acted according to his wisdom. For, let us suppose that a certain powerful lord hath two vassals, both guilty of the crime of treason, and one of these is a nobleman of pure and lofty lineage, and the other a base-born churl:—what doth this lord? He hangs up the churl in the market-place as a warning and example to others;—but, for the nobleman, fearing the scandal that may arise among the people, and perhaps also some insult to the officers of the law, the judge causes him to be tried secretly, and shuts him up in a dungeon; and when judgment is pronounced against him, he sends to his prison, and puts him privily to death; and when one asketh after him, the answer is only “He is dead:”—and nothing more. Thus did God in respect to the rebel angels of old; and their fate was not revealed until the redemption of man was accomplished.’

This passage from the old Italian legend is so curiously characteristic of the feudal spirit of Christianity in the middle ages, that I have ventured to insert it verbatim. If religion did, in some degree, modify the institutions of chivalry, in a much greater degree did the ruling prejudices of a barbarian age modify the popular ideas of religion. Here, notwithstanding the primary doctrine of Christ—the equality of all men before God, we have the distinction between noble and churl carried into the very councils of Heaven.

But, to return to St. Michael: on whom, as the leader of his triumphant hosts, God bestowed many and great privileges. To him it was given

to bid sound th’ archangel trumpet,

and exalt the banner of the Cross in the day of judgment; and to him likewise was assigned the reception of the immortal spirits when released by death. It was his task to weigh them in a balance (Dan. v. 27; Ps. lxii. 9): those whose good works exceeded their demerits, he presented before the throne of God; but those who were found wanting he gave up to be tortured in purgatory, until their souls, from being ‘as crimson, should become as white as snow.’ Therefore, in the hour of death, he is to be invoked by the faithful, saying, ‘O Michael, militiæ cœlestis signifer, in adjutorium nostrum veni, princeps et propugnator!’

Lastly, when it pleased the Almighty to select from among the nations of the earth one people to become peculiarly his own, He appointed St. Michael to be president and leader over that chosen people.[64]‘At that time shall Michael stand up, the great prince which standeth for the children of thy people’ (Dan. x. 13, xii. 1): and when the power of the Synagogue was supposed to cease, and to be replaced by the power of the Church, so that the Christians became the people of God, then Michael, who had been the great prince of the Hebrewpeople, became the prince and leader of the Church militant in Christendom, and the guardian of redeemed souls, against his old adversary the Prince of Hell. (Rev. xii. 6, 7.)

The worship paid to St. Michael, and which originated in the far East, is supposed to have been adopted by the Oriental Christians in consequence of a famous apparition of the Archangel at Colossæ, in Phrygia, which caused him to be held in especial honour by the people of that city, and perhaps occasioned the particular warning of St. Paul addressed to the Colossians. But although the worship of angels was considered among the heresies of the early Church, we find Constantine no sooner master of the empire, and a baptized Christian, than he dedicates a church to the Archangel Michael (by his Greek name Michaëlion), and this church, one of the most magnificent in Constantinople, became renowned for its miracles, and the parent and model of hundreds more throughout the East.

In the West, the honours paid to St. Michael are of later date: that a church dedicated to him must have existed in Rome long before the year 500 seems clear, because at that time it is mentioned as having fallen into ruin. But the West had its angelic apparitions as well as the East, and St. Michael owes his wide-spread popularity in the middle ages to three famous visions which are thus recorded.

In the fifth century, in the city of Siponte, in Apulia (now Manfredonia), dwelt a man named Galgano or Garganus, very rich in cattle, sheep, and beasts; and as they pastured on the sides of the mountain, it happened that a bull strayed and came not home: then the rich man took a multitude of servants and sought the bull, and found him at the entrance of a cave on the very summit of the mountain, and, being wroth with the bull, the master ordered him to be slain; but when the arrow was sent from the bow it returned to the bosom of him who sent it, and he fell dead on the ground: then the master and his servants were troubled, and they sent to inquire of the bishop what should be done. The bishop, having fasted and prayed three days, beheld in a vision the glorious Archangel Michael, who descended on the mountain, and told him that the servant had been slain because he had violated a spot peculiarly sacred to him, and he commanded that a church should be erected and sanctified there to his honour. And when they enteredthe cavern they found there three altars already erected, one of them covered with a rich embroidered altar-cloth of crimson and gold, and a stream of limpid water springing from the rock, which healed all diseases. So the church was built, and the fame of the vision of Monte Galgano, though for some time confined to the south of Italy, spread throughout Europe, and many pilgrimages were made to the spot on which the angelic footsteps had alighted.

The second vision is much more imposing. When Rome was nearly depopulated by a pestilence in the sixth century, St. Gregory, afterwards pope, advised that a procession should be made through the streets of the city, singing the service since called the Great Litanies. He placed himself at the head of the faithful, and during three days they perambulated the city; and on the third day, when they had arrived opposite to the mole of Hadrian, Gregory beheld the Archangel Michael alight on the summit of that monument, and sheathe his sword bedropped with blood. Then Gregory knew that the plague was stayed, and a church was there dedicated to the honour of the Archangel: and the Tomb of Hadrian has since been called the Castle of Sant’ Angelo to this day.

This, of all the recorded apparitions of St. Michael, is the only one which can be called poetical; it is evidently borrowed from the vision of the destroying angel in Scripture. As early as the ninth century, a church or chapel dedicated to St. Michael was erected on the summit of the huge monument, which at that time must have preserved much of its antique magnificence. The church was entitledEcclesia Sancti Angeli usque ad Cœlos. The bronze statue, which in memory of this miracle now surmounts the Castle of St. Angelo, was placed there in recent times by Benedict XIV., and is the work of a Flemish sculptor, Verschaffelt. I suppose no one ever looked at this statue critically—at least, for myself, I never could: nor can I remember now, whether, as a work of art, it is above or below criticism; perhaps both. With its vast wings, poised in air, as seen against the deep blue skies of Rome, or lighted up by the golden sunset, to me it was ever like what it was intended to represent—like a vision.

A third apparition was that accorded to Aubert, bishop of Avranches (A.D.706). This holy man seems to have been desirous to attract to his own diocese a portion of that sanctity (and perhaps other advantages)which Monte Galgano derived from the worship of St. Michael. In the Gulf of Avranches, in Normandy, stands a lofty isolated rock inaccessible from the land at high water, and for ages past celebrated as one of the strongest fortresses and state prisons in France. In the reign of Childebert II., St. Aubert, bishop of Avranches, had a vision, in which the Archangel Michael commanded him to repair to this rock, then the terror of mariners, and erect a church to his honour on the highest point, where a bull would be found concealed, and it was to cover as much space as the bull had trampled with his hoofs: he also discovered to the bishop a well-spring of pure water, which had before been unknown. As the bishop treated this command as a dream, the Archangel appeared to him a second and a third time; and at length, to impress it on his waking memory, he touched his head with his thumb, and made a mark or hole in his skull, which he carried to the grave. This time the bishop obeyed, and a small church was built on the spot indicated; afterwards replaced by the magnificent Abbey Church, which was begun by Richard duke of Normandy, in 966, and finished by William the Conqueror. The poverty of invention shown in this legend, which is little more than a repetition of that of Monte Galgano, is very disappointing to the fancy, considering the celebrity of Mont-Saint-Michel as a place of pilgrimage, and as one of the most picturesque objects in European scenery, with its massive towers, which have braved the tempests of a thousand years, rising from the summit of the peak, and the sea weltering round its base. It failed not, however, in the effect anticipated. The worship of St. Michael became popular in France from the ninth century; the Archangel was selected as patron saint of France, and of the military order instituted in his honour by Louis XI. in 1469. The worship paid to St. Michael as patron saint of Normandy naturally extended itself to England after the Norman conquest, and churches dedicated to this archangel abound in all the towns and cities along the southern and eastern shores of our island; we also have a Mount St. Michael on the coast of Cornwall, in situation and in name resembling that on the coast of France. At this day there are few cities in Christendom which do not contain a church or churches dedicated to St. Michael, some of them of great antiquity.

I must not omit that St. Michael is considered as the angel of goodcounsel:—that ‘Le vrai office de Monseigneur Saint Michel est de faire grandes revelations aux hommes en bas, en leur donnant moult saints conseils,’ and in particular, ‘sur le bon nourissement que le père et la mère donnent à leurs enfans.’[65]It is to be regretted that ‘Monseigneur Saint Michel’ should be found rather remiss in this part of his angelic functions.

We shall now see how far these various traditions and popular notions concerning St. Michael have been carried out in Art.

In all representations of St. Michael, the leading idea, well or ill expressed, is the same. He is young and beautiful, but ‘severe in youthful beauty,’ as one who carries on a perpetual contest with the powers of evil. In the earlier works of art he is robed in white, with ample many-coloured wings, and bears merely the sceptre or the lance surmounted by a cross, as one who conquered by spiritual might alone. But in the later representations, those coloured by the spirit of chivalry, he is the angelic Paladin, armed in a dazzling coat of mail, with sword, and spear, and shield. He has a lofty open brow, long fair hair floating on his shoulders, sometimes bound by a jewelled tiara; sometimes, but not often, shaded by a helmet. From his shoulders spring two resplendent wings. Thus we see him standing by the throne of the Madonna, or worshipping at the feet of the Divine Infant; an exquisite allegory of spiritual and intellectual power protecting purity and adoring innocence.

There is a most beautiful little figure by Angelico, of St. Michael standing in his character of archangel and patron of the Church Militant, ‘as the winged saint;’ no demon, no attribute except the lance and shield. The attitude, so tranquilly elegant, may be seen in this sketch (34). In the original the armour is of a dark crimson and gold, the wings are of rainbow tints, vivid and delicate; a flame of lambent fire rests on the brow.

But the single devotional figures of St. Michael usually represent him as combining the two great characters of captain of the heavenly host, and conqueror of the powers of hell. He stands armed, setting his foot on Lucifer, either in the half-human or the dragon form, and is aboutto transfix him with his lance, or to chain him down in the infernal abyss. Such, however varied in the attitude, expression, and accessories, is the most frequent and popular representation of St. Michael, when placed before us, as the universally received emblem of the final victory of good over evil.

34 St. Michael. (Angelico, Fl. Acad.)

In those churches of Christendom which have not been defaced by a blind destructive zeal, this image meets us at every turn: it salutes us in the porch as we enter, or it shines upon us in gorgeous colours from the window, or it is wreathed into the capitals of columns, or it stands in its holy heroic beauty over the altar. It is so common and so in harmony with our inmost being, that we rather feel its presence than observe it. It is the visible, palpable reflection of that great truth stamped into our very souls, and shadowed forth in every form of ancient belief,—the final triumph of the spiritual over the animal and earthly part of our nature. This is the secret of its perpetual repetition, and this the secret of the untired complacency with which we regard it; for even in the most inefficient attempts at expression, we have always the leadingmotifdistinct and true, the winged virtue is always victorious above, and the bestial vice is always prostrate below: and if to this primal moral significance be added all the charm of poetry, grace, animated movement, which human genius has lavished on this ever blessed, ever welcome symbol, then, as we look up at it, we are ‘not only touched, but wakened and inspired,’ andthe whole delighted imagination glows with faith and hope, and grateful triumphant sympathy,—so at least I have felt, and I must believe that others have felt it too.

In the earliest representations of this subject, we see the simplest form of the allegory, literally rendering the words of Scripture, ‘The dragon shalt thou trample under foot’ (Ps. xci. 13). Here there is no risk of a divided interest or a misdirected sympathy. The demon, grovelling under the feet of the victorious spirit, is not the star-bright apostate who drew after him the third part of heaven; it is the bestial malignant reptile:—not the emblem of resistance, but the emblem of sin; not of the sin that aspires, which, in fact, is a contradiction in terms;—no sin aspires;—but of the sin which degrades and brutifies, as all sin does. In the later representations, where the demon takes the half-human shape, however hideous and deformed, the allegory may so be brought nearer to us, and rendered more terrible even by a horrid sympathy with that human face, grinning in despite and agony; but much of the beauty of the scriptural metaphor is lost.[66]

The representations of St. Michael and the dragon are so multifarious that I can only select a few among them as examples of the different styles of treatment.

The symbol, as such, is supposed to have originated with the Gnostics and Arians, and the earliest examples are to be found in the ancient churches on the western coast of Italy, and the old Lombard churches. I have never seen it in the old mosaics of the sixth century, but in the contemporary sculpture frequently. It would be difficult to point to the most ancient example, such is the confusion of dates as regards dedications, restorations, alterations; but I remember a carving in white marble on the porch of the Cathedral of Cortona (about the seventh century), which may be regarded as an example of this primitive styleof treatment: the illustration, from a slight sketch made on the spot, will be better than any description (35).

Another instance will be remembered by the traveller in Italy, the strange antique bas-relief on the façade of that extraordinary old church the San Michele at Pavia; not the figure in the porch, which is modern, but that which is above. In the Menologium Grecum is a St. Michael standing with a long sceptre, a majestic colossal figure, while kneeling angels adore him, and the demons crouch under his feet.[67]

By Martin Schoen: St. Michael, attired in a long loose robe and floating mantle, tramples on the demon; he has thrown down the shield, and with his lance in both hands, but without effort, and even with a calm angelic dignity, prepares to transfix his adversary. The figure is singularly elegant. The demon has not here the usual form of a dragon, but is a horrible nondescript reptile, with multitudinous flexile claws, like those of a crab, stretched out to seize and entangle the unwary;—for an emblematical figure, very significant (36). In an old fresco by Guariente di Padova[68]the angel is draped as in Martin Schoen’s figure, but the attitude is far less elegant.

Sometimes the dragon has a small head at the end of his tail, instead of the forked sting. I recollect an instance of St. Michael transfixing the large head, while a smaller angel, also armed, transfixes the other head.[69]This is an attempt to render literally the description in the Apocalypse: ‘For their power is in their mouth, and in their tails: for their tails were like unto serpents, and had heads, and with them they do hurt.’ (Rev. ix. 19.) In a most elegant figure of St. Michael, from the choir of the San Giovanni, at Malta, I found the demon thus characterised, with a tail ending in the serpent head.

In an old Siena picture[70]St. Michael is seated on a throne: in onehand a sword, in the other the orb of sovereignty; under his feet lies the dragon mangled and bleeding: a bad picture, but curious for the singular treatment.

36 St. Michael (Martin Schoen)

In the sixteenth century these figures of St. Michael become less ideal and angelic, and more and more chivalrous and picturesque. In a beautiful altar-piece by Andrea del Sarto, now in the Florence Academy, there is a fine martial figure of the Archangel, which, but for the wings, might be mistaken for a St. George; and in the predella underneath, on a small scale, he is conqueror of the demon. The peculiarity here is, that the demon, though vanquished, makes a vain struggle, and has seized hold of the belt of the angel, who, with upliftedsword, and an action of infinite grace and dignity, looks superior down, as one assured of victory.

Raphael has given us three figures of St. Michael, all different, and one of them taking rank with his masterpieces.

The first is an early production, painted when he was a youth of nineteen or twenty, and now in the Louvre. St. Michael, armed with a shield on which is a red cross, his sword raised to strike, stands with one foot on a monster; other horrible little monsters, like figures in a dream, are around him: in the background are seen the hypocrites and thieves as described by Dante; the first, in melancholy procession, weighed down with leaden cowls; the others, tormented by snakes: and, in the distance, the flaming dolorous city. St. Michael is here the vanquisher of the Vices. It is a curious and fantastic, rather than poetical, little picture.

The second picture, also in the Louvre, was painted by Raphael, in the maturity of his talent, for Francis I.: the king had left to him the choice of the subject, and he selected St. Michael, the military patron of France, and of that knightly Order of which the king was grand master.

St. Michael—not standing, but hovering on his poised wings, and grasping his lance in both hands—sets one foot lightly on the shoulder of the demon, who, prostrate, writhes up, as it were, and tries to lift his head and turn it on his conqueror with one last gaze of malignant rage and despair. The archangel looks down upon him with a brow calm and serious; in his beautiful face is neither vengeance nor disdain—in his attitude no effort; his form, a model of youthful grace and majesty, is clothed in a brilliant panoply of gold and silver; an azure scarf floats on his shoulders; his wide-spread wings are of purple, blue, and gold; his light hair is raised, and floats outward on each side of his head, as if from the swiftness of his downward motion. The earth emits flames, and seems opening to swallow up the adversary. The form of the demon is human, but vulgar in its proportions, and of a swarthy red, as if fire-scathed; he has the horns and the serpent-tail; but, from the attitude into which he is thrown, the monstrous form is so fore-shortened that it does not disgust, and the majestic figure of thearchangel fills up nearly the whole space—fills the eye—fills the soul—with its victorious beauty.

37 The St. Michael painted by Raphael for Francis I.

That Milton had seen this picture, and that when his sight was quenched the ‘winged saint’ revisited him in his darkness, who can doubt?—

Over his lucid armsA military vest of purple flowedLivelier than Melibœan, or the grainOf Sarra worn by kings and heroes oldIn time of truce.By his side,As in a glittering zodiac, hung the sword,Satan’s dire dread, and in his hand the spear.

Over his lucid arms

A military vest of purple flowed

Livelier than Melibœan, or the grain

Of Sarra worn by kings and heroes old

In time of truce.

By his side,

As in a glittering zodiac, hung the sword,

Satan’s dire dread, and in his hand the spear.

A third St. Michael, designed by Raphael, exists only as an engraving.[71]The angel here wears a helmet, and is classically draped; he stands in an attitude of repose, his foot on the neck of the demon; one hand rests on the pummel of his sword, the other holds the lance.

It seems agreed that, as a work of art, there is only the St. Michael of Guido (in the Capuccini at Rome) which can be compared with that of Raphael; the moment chosen is the same; the treatment nearly the same; the sentiment quite different.

Here the angel, standing, yet scarcely touching the ground, poised on his outspread wings, sets his left foot on the head of his adversary; in one hand he brandishes a sword, in the other he holds the end of a chain, with which he is about to bind down the demon in the bottomless pit. The attitude has been criticised, and justly; the grace is somewhat mannered, verging on the theatrical; but Forsyth is too severe when he talks of the ‘air of a dancing-master:’ one thing, however, is certain, we do not think about attitude when we look at Raphael’s St. Michael; in Guido’s, it is the first thing that strikes us; but when we look farther, the head redeems all; it is singularly beautiful, and in the blending of the masculine and feminine graces, in the serene purity of the brow, and the flow of the golden hair, there is something divine: a slight, very slight expression of scorn is in the air of the head. The fiend is the worst part of the picture; it is not a fiend, but a degraded prosaic human ruffian; we laugh with incredulous contempt at the idea of an angel called down from heaven to overcome such a wretch. In Raphael the fiend is human, but the head has the god-like ugliness and malignity of a satyr; Guido’s fiend is only stupid and base. It appears to me that there is just the same difference—the samekindof difference—between the angel of Raphael and the angel of Guido, as between the description in Tasso and the description in Milton; let any one compare them. In Tasso we are struck by the picturesque elegance of the description as a piece of art, the melody of the verse, the admirable choice of the expressions, as in Guido by the finished but somewhatartificial and studied grace. In Raphael and Milton we see only the vision of a ‘shape divine.’

One of the most beautiful figures of St. Michael I ever saw, occurs in a coronation of the Virgin by Moretto, and is touched by his peculiar sentiment of serious tenderness.[72]

In devotional pictures such figures of St. Michael are sometimes grouped poetically with other personages, as in a most beautiful picture by Innocenza da Imola,[73]where the archangel tramples on the demon; St. Paul standing on one side, and St. Benedict on the other, both of whom had striven with the fiend and had overcome him: the Madonna and Child are seen in a glory above.

And again in a picture by Mabuse,[74]where St. Michael, as patron, sets his foot on the black grinning fiend, and looks down on a kneeling votary, while the votary, with his head turned away, appears to be worshipping, not the protecting angel, but the Madonna, to whom St. Michael presents him (38). Such votive pictures are not uncommon, and have a peculiar grace and significance. Here the archangel bears the victorious banner of the cross;—he has conquered. In some instances he holds in his hand the head of the Dragon, and inallinstances it is, or ought to be, the head of the Dragon which is transfixed:—‘Thou shalt bruise his head.’

38 St. Michael (Mabuse, 1510)

Those representations in which St. Michael is not conqueror, but combatant, in which the moment is one of transition, are less frequent; it is then anaction, not anemblem, and the composition is historical rather than symbolical. It is the strife with Lucifer; ‘when Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon fought and his angels, and the great dragon was cast out.’ (Rev. xii. 7.) In churches and chapels dedicated to St. Michael, or to ‘the Holy Angels,’ this appropriate subject often occurs; as in a famous fresco by Spinello d’Arezzo, at Arezzo.[75]In the middle of the composition, Michael, armed with sword and shield, is seen combating the dragon with seven heads, as described in the Apocalypse. Above and around are many angels also armed. At the top of the picture is seen an empty throne, thethrone which Lucifer had ‘set in the north;’ below is seen Lucifer, falling with his angels over the parapet of heaven. (Isaiah xiv. 13.) The painter tasked his skill to render the transformation of the spirits of light into spirits of darkness as fearful and as hideous as possible; and, being a man of a nervous temperament, the continual dwelling on these horrors began at length to trouble his brain. He fancied that Lucifer appeared to him in a dream, demanding by what authority hehad portrayed him under an aspect so revolting?—the painter awoke in horror, was seized with delirious fever, and so died.

In his combat with the dragon, Michael is sometimes represented alone, and sometimes as assisted by the two other archangels, Gabriel and Raphael: as in the fresco by Signorelli, at Orvieto, where one of the angels, whom we may suppose to be Raphael, looks down on the falling demons with an air of melancholy, almost of pity.

In a picture by Marco Oggione,[76]Michael has precipitated the demon into the gulf, and hovers above, while Raphael and Gabriel stand below on each side, looking on; all are clothed in voluminous loose white draperies, more like priests than warriors; but it is a fine picture.

In the large Rubens-room at Munich, there are two pictures of Michael subduing the revolted angels. The large one, in which Michael is the principal figure, is not agreeable. Rubens could not lift himself sufficiently above the earth to conceive and embody the spiritual, and heroic, and beautiful in one divine form; his St. Michael is vulgar. The smaller composition, where the fallen, or rather falling, angels fill the whole space, is a most wonderful effort of artistic invention. At the summit of the picture stands St. Michael, the shield in one hand, in the other the forked lightnings of divine wrath; and from above the rebel host tumble headlong ‘in hideous ruin and combustion hurled,’ and with such affright and amazement in every face, such a downward movement in every limb, that we recoil in dizzy horror while we look upon it. It is curious that Rubens should have introduced female reprobate spirits: if he intended his picture as an allegory, merely the conquest of the spiritual over the sensual, he is excusable; but if he meant to figure the vision in the Apocalypse, it is a deviation from the proper scriptural treatment, which is inexcusable. This picture remains, however, as a whole, a perfect miracle of art: the fault is, that we feel inclined to applaud as we do at some astonishingtour de force; such at least was my own feeling, and this is not the feeling appropriate to the subject. Though this famous picture is entitled the Fall of the Angels, I have some doubts as to whether this was the intention of the painter; whether he did not mean to express the fall of sinners, flung by the Angel of judgment into the abyss of wrath and perdition?

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