12. Zachariah.

"The prophets and sibyls in the triangular compartments of the curved portion of the ceiling are the largest figures in the whole work; these, too, are among the most wonderful forms that modern art has called into life. They are all represented seated, employed with books or rolled manuscripts; genii stand near, or behind them.

These mighty beings sit before us pensive, meditative, inquiring, or looking upwards with inspired countenances. Their forms and movements, indicated by the grand lines and masses of the drapery, are majestic and dignified. We see in them beings, who, while they feel and bear the sorrows of a corrupt and sinful world, have power to look for consolation into the secrets of the future. Yet the greatest variety prevails in the attitudes and expression--each figure is full of individuality. Zacharias is an aged man, busied in calm and circumspect investigation; Jeremiah is bowed down absorbed in thought--the thought of deep and bitter grief; Ezekiel turns with hasty movement to the genius next to him, who points upwards, with joyful expectation, &c. The sibyls are equally characteristic: the Persian--a lofty, majestic woman, very aged; the Erythraean--full of power, like the warrior goddess of wisdom; the Delphic--like Cassandra, youthfully soft and graceful, but with strength to bear the awful seriousness of revelation."--_Kugler_, p. 304.

"The belief of the Roman Catholic Church in the testimony of the Sibyl is shown by the well-known hymn, said to have been composed by Pope Innocent III. at the close of the thirteenth century, beginning with the verse:--

'Dies irae, dies illa, Solvet saeclum in favilla, Teste David cum Sibylla.'

It may be inferred that this hymn, admitted into the liturgy of the Roman Church, gave sanction to the adoption of the Sibyls into Christian art. They are seen from this time accompanying the prophets and apostles in the cyclical decorations of the church....

But the highest honour that art has rendered to the Sibyls has been by the hand of Michael Angelo, on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Here, in the conception of a mysterious order of women, placed above and without all considerations of the graceful or the individual, the great master was peculiarly in his element. They exactly fitted his standard of art, not always sympathetic, nor comprehensible to the average human mind, of which the grand in form and the abstract in expression, were the first and last conditions. In this respect, the Sibyls on the Sistine Chapel ceiling are more Michael Angelesque than their companions the Prophets. For these, while types of the highest monumental treatment, are yet men, while the Sibyls belong to a distinct class of beings, who convey the impression of the very obscurity in which their history is wrapt--creatures who have lived far from the abodes of men, who are alike devoid of the expression of feminine sweetness, human sympathy, or sacramental beauty; who are neither Christians nor Jewesses, Witches nor Graces, yet living, grand, beautiful, and true, according to laws revealed to the great Florentine genius only. Thus their figures may be said to be unique, as the offspring of a peculiar sympathy between the master's mind and his subject. To this sympathy may be ascribed the prominence and size given them--both Prophets and Sibyls--as compared to their usual relation to the subjects they environ. They sit here in twelve throne-like niches, more like presiding deities, each wrapt in self-contemplation, than as tributary witnesses to the truth and omnipotence of Him they are intended to announce.

Thus they form a gigantic framework round the subjects of the Creation, of which the birth of Eve, as the type of the Nativity, is the intentional centre. For some reason, the twelve figures are not Prophets and Sibyls alternately--there being only five Sibyls to seven Prophets--so that the Prophets come together at one angle. Books and scrolls are given indiscriminately to them.

"The Sibylla Persica, supposed to be the oldest of the sisterhood, holds the book close to her eyes, as if from dimness of sight, which fact, contradicted as it is by a frame of obviously Herculean strength, gives a mysterious intentness to the action.

"The Sibylla Libyca, of equally powerful proportions, but less closely draped, is grandly wringing herself to lift a massive volume from a height above her head on to her knees.

"The Sibylla Cumana, also aged, and with her head covered, is reading with her volume at a distance from her eyes.

"The Sibylla Delphica, with waving hair escaping from her turban, is a beautiful young being--the most human of all--gazing into vacancy or futurity. She holds a scroll.

"The Sibylla Erythraea, grand bare-headed creature, sits reading intently with crossed legs, about to turn over her book.

"The Prophets are equally grand in structure, and though, as we have said, not more than men, yet they are the only men that could well bear the juxtaposition with their stupendous female colleagues. Ezekiel, between Erythraea and Persica, has a scroll in his hand that hangs by his side, just cast down, as he turns eagerly to listen to some voice.

"Jeremiah, a magnificent figure, sits with elbow on knee, and head on hand, wrapt in the meditation appropriate to one called to utter lamentation and woe. He has neither book nor scroll.

"Jonah is also without either. His position is strained and ungraceful--looking upwards, and apparently remonstrating with the Almighty upon the destruction of the gourd, a few leaves of which are seen above him. His hands are placed together with a strange and trivial action, supposed to denote the counting on his fingers the number of days he was in the fish's belly. A formless marine monster is seen at his side.

"Daniel has a book on his lap, with one hand on it. He is young, and a piece of lion's skin seems to allude to his history."--_Lady Eastlake, Hist. of Our Lord_, i. 248.

In the recesses between the prophets and sibyls are a series of lovely family groups representing the Genealogy of the Virgin, and expressive of calm expectation of the future. The four corners of the ceiling contain groups illustrative of the power of the Lord displayed in the especial deliverances of his chosen people.

Near the altar are:

_Right._--The deliverance of the Israelites by the brazen serpent.

_Left._--The execution of Haman.

Near the entrance are:

_Right._--Judith and Holofernes.

_Left._--David and Goliath.

It was when Michael Angelo was already in his sixtieth year that Clement VII. formed the idea of effacing the three pictures of Perugino at the end of the chapel, and employing him to paint the vast fresco of _The Last Judgment_ in their place. It occupied the artist for seven years, and was finished in 1541 when Paul III. was on the throne. To induce him to pursue his work with application, Paul III. went himself to his house attended by ten cardinals; "an honour," says Lanzi, "unique in the annals of art." The pope wished that the picture should be painted in oil, to which he was persuaded by Sebastian del Piombo, but Michael Angelo refused to employ anything but fresco, saying that oil-painting was work for women and for idle and lazy persons.

"In the upper half of the picture we see the Judge of the world, surrounded by the apostles and patriarchs; beyond these, on one side, are the martyrs; on the other, the saints, and a numerous host of the blessed. Above, under the two arches of the vault, two groups of angels bear the instruments of the passion. Below the Saviour another group of angels holding the book of life sound the trumpets to awaken the dead. On the right is represented the resurrection; and higher, the ascension of the blessed. On the left, hell, and the fall of the condemned, who audaciously strive to press to heaven.

"The day of wrath ('dies irae') is before us--the day, of which the old hymn says,--

'Quantus tremor est futurus, Quando judex est venturus Cuncta stricte discussurus.'

The Judge turns in wrath towards the condemned and raises his right hand, with an expression of rejection and condemnation; beside him the Virgin veils herself with her drapery, and turns, with a countenance full of anguish, toward the blessed. The martyrs, on the left, hold up the instruments and proofs of their martyrdom, in accusation of those who had occasioned their temporal death: these the avenging angels drive from the gates of heaven, and fulfil the sentence pronounced against them. Trembling and anxious, the dead rise slowly, as if still fettered by the weight of an earthly nature; the pardoned ascend to the blessed; a mysterious horror pervades even their hosts--no joy, nor peace, nor blessedness, are to be found here.

"It must be admitted that the artist has laid a stress on this view of his subject, and this has produced an unfavourable effect upon the upper half of his picture. We look in vain for the glory of heaven, for beings who bear the stamp of divine holiness, and renunciation of human weakness; everywhere we meet with the expression of human passion, of human efforts. We see no choir of solemn, tranquil forms, no harmonious unity of clear, grand lines, produced by ideal draperies; instead of these, we find a confused crowd of the most varied movements, naked bodies in violent attitudes, unaccompanied by any of the characteristics made sacred by holy tradition. Christ, the principal figure of the whole, wants every attribute but that of the Judge: no expression of divine majesty reminds us that it is the Saviour who exercises this office. The upper part of the composition is in many parts heavy, notwithstanding the masterly boldness of the drawing; confused, in spite of the separation of the principal and accessory groups; capricious, notwithstanding a grand arrangement of the whole. But, granting for a moment that these defects exist, still this upper portion, as a whole, has a very impressive effect, and, at the great distance from which it is seen, some of the defects alluded to are less offensive to the eye. The lower half deserves the highest praise. In these groups, from the languid resuscitation and upraising of the pardoned, to the despair of the condemned, every variety of expression, anxiety, anguish, rage, and despair, is powerfully delineated. In the convulsive struggles of the condemned with the evil demons, the most passionate energy displays itself, and the extraordinary skill of the artist here finds its most appropriate exercise. A peculiar tragic grandeur pervades alike the beings who are given up to despair and their hellish tormentors.

The representation of all that is fearful, far from being repulsive, is thus invested with that true moral dignity which is so essential a condition in the higher aims of art."--_Kugler_, p.

308.

"The Last Judgment is now more valuable as a school of design than as a fine painting, and it will be sought more for the study of the artist, than the delight of the amateur. Beautiful it is not--but it is sublime;--sublime in conception, and astonishing in execution. Still, I believe, there are few who do not feel that it is a labour rather than a pleasure to look at it. Its blackened surface--its dark and dingy sameness of colouring--the obscurity which hangs over it--the confusion and multitude of naked figures which compose it--their unnatural position, suspended in the air, and the sameness of form and attitude, confound and bewilder the senses. These were, perhaps, defects inseparable from the subject, although it was one admirably calculated to call forth the powers of Michael Angelo. To merit in colouring it has confessedly no pretensions, and I think it is also deficient in expression--that in the conflicting passions, hopes, fears, remorse, despair, and transport, that must agitate the breasts of so many thousands in that awful moment, there was room for powerful expression which we do not see here. But it is faded and defaced; the touches of immortal genius are lost for ever; and from what it is, we can form but a faint idea of what it was. Its defects daily become more glaring--its beauties vanish; and, could the spirit of its great author behold the mighty work upon which he spent the unremitting labour of seven years, with what grief and mortification would he gaze upon it now.

"It may be fanciful, but it seems to me that in this, and in every other of Michael Angelo's works, you may see that the ideas, beauties, and peculiar excellences of statuary, were ever present to his mind; that they are the conceptions of a sculptor embodied in painting.

" ...St. Catharine, in a green gown, and somebody else in a blue one, are supremely hideous. Paul IV., in an unfortunate fit of prudery, was seized with the resolution of whitewashing over the whole of the Last Judgment, in order to cover the scandal of a few naked female figures. With difficulty was he prevented from utterly destroying the grandest painting in the world, but he could not be dissuaded from ordering these poor women to be clothed in this unbecoming drapery. Daniele da Volterra, whom he employed in this office (in the lifetime of Michael Angelo), received, in consequence, the name of Il Braghettone (the breeches-maker)."--_Eaton's Rome._

Michael Angelo avenged himself upon Messer Biagio da Cesena, master of the ceremonies, who first suggested the indelicacy of the naked figures to the pope, by introducing him in hell, as Midas, with ass's ears. When Cesena begged Paul IV. to cause this figure to be obliterated, the pope sarcastically replied, "I might have released you from purgatory, but over hell I have no power."

"Michel-Ange est extraordinaire, tandis qu'Orcagna[345] est religieux. Leurs compositions se resument dans les deux Christs qui jugent. L'un est un bourreau qui foudroie, l'autre est un monarque qui condamne en montrant la plaie sacree de son cote pour justifier sa sentence."--_Cartier, Vie du Pere Angelico._

"The Apostles in Michael Angelo's Last Judgment stand on each side of the Saviour, who is not, here, Saviour and Redeemer, but inexorable Judge. They are grandly and artificially grouped, all without any drapery whatever, with forms and attitudes which recall an assemblage of Titans holding a council of war, rather than the glorified companions of Christ."--_Jameson's Sacred and Legendary Art_, i. 179.

The Sistine Chapel is associated in the minds of all Roman sojourners with the great ceremonies of the Church, but especially with the Miserere of Passion Week.

"On Wednesday afternoon began the Miserere in the Sistine Chapel.... The old cardinals entered in their magnificent violet-coloured velvet cloaks, with their white ermine capes; and seated themselves side by side, in a great half-circle, within the barrier, whilst the priests who had carried their trains seated themselves at their feet. By the little side door of the altar the holy father now entered in his purple mantle and silver tiara. He ascended his throne. Bishops swung the vessels of incense around him, whilst young priests, in scarlet vestments, knelt, with lighted torches in their hands, before him and the high altar.

"The reading of the lessons began.[346] But it was impossible to keep the eyes fixed on the lifeless letters of the missal--they raised themselves, with the thoughts, to the vast universe which Michael Angelo had breathed forth in colours upon the ceiling and the walls. I contemplated his mighty sibyls and wondrously glorious prophets, every one of them a subject for a painting. My eyes drank in the magnificent processions, the beautiful groups of angels; they were not to me painted pictures, all stood living before me.

The rich tree of knowledge, from which Eve gave the fruit to Adam: the Almighty God, who floated over the waters, not borne up by angels, as the older masters had represented him--no, the company of angels rested upon him and his fluttering garments. It is true I had seen these pictures before, but never as now had they seized upon me. My excited state of mind, the crowd of people, perhaps even the lyric of my thoughts, made me wonderfully alive to poetical impressions; and many a poet's heart has felt as mine did!

"The bold foreshortenings, the determinate force with which every figure steps forward, is amazing, and carries one quite away! It is a spiritual Sermon on the Mount in colour and form. Like Raphael, we stand in astonishment before the power of Michael Angelo. Every prophet is a Moses like that which he formed in marble. What giant forms are those which seize upon our eye and our thoughts as we enter! But, when intoxicated with this view, let us turn our eyes to the background of the chapel, whose whole wall is a high altar of art and thought. The great chaotic picture, from the floor to the roof, shows itself there like a jewel, of which all the rest is only the setting. We see there the Last Judgment.

"Christ stands in judgment upon the clouds, and the apostles and his mother stretch forth their hands beseeching for the poor human race. The dead raise the gravestones under which they have lain; blessed spirits float upwards, adoring, to God, whilst the abyss seizes its victims. Here one of the ascending spirits seeks to save his condemned brother, whom the abyss already embraces in its snaky folds. The children of despair strike their clenched fists upon their brows and sink into the depths! In bold foreshortening, float and tumble whole legions between heaven and earth. The sympathy of the angels; the expression of lovers who meet; the child that, at the sound of the trumpet, clings to the mother's breast, is so natural and beautiful, that one believes oneself to be among those who are waiting for judgment. Michael Angelo has expressed in colours what Dante saw and has sung to the generations of the earth.

"The descending sun, at that moment, threw his last beams in through the uppermost windows. Christ, and the blessed around him, were strongly lighted up; whilst the lower part, where the dead arose, and the demons thrust their boat, laden with damned, from shore, were almost in darkness.

"Just as the sun went down the last Psalm was ended, and the last light which now remained was extinguished, and the whole picture-world vanished in the gloom from before me; but, in that same moment, burst forth music and singing. That which colour had bodily revealed arose now in sound: the day of judgment, with its despair and its exultation, resounded above us.

"The father of the Church, stripped of his papal pomp, stood before the altar, and prayed to the holy cross; and upon the wings of the trumpet resounded the trembling quire, 'Populus meus, quid feci tibi!' Soft angel notes rose above the deep song, tones which ascended not from a human breast: it was not a man's nor a woman's: it belonged to the world of spirits: it was like the weeping of angels dissolved in melody."'--_Anderson's Improvisatore._

"Le _Miserere_, c'est-a-dire, _ayez pitie de nous_, est un psaume compose de versets qui se chantent alternativement d'une maniere tres-differente. Tour-a-tour une musique celeste se fait entendre, et le verset suivant, dit en recitatif, et murmure d'un ton sourd et presque rauque, on dirait que c'est la reponse des caracteres durs aux curs sensibles, que c'est le reel de la vie qui vient fletrir et repousser les vux des ames genereuses; et quand le chur si doux reprend, on renait a l'esperance; mais lorsque le verset recite recommence, une sensation de froid saisit de nouveau; ce n'est pas la terreur qui la cause, mais le decouragement de l'enthousiasme. Enfin le dernier morceau, plus noble et plus touchant encore que tous les autres, laisse au fond de l'ame une impression douce et pure: Dieu nous accorde cette meme impression avant de mourir.

"On eteint les flambeaux; la nuit s'avance; les figures des prophetes et des sibylles apparaissent comme des fantomes enveloppes du crepuscule. Le silence est profond, la parole ferait un mal insupportable dans cet etat de l'ame, ou tout est intime et interieur; et quand le dernier son s'eteint, chacun s'en va lentement et sans bruit; chacun semble craindre de rentrer dans les interets vulgaires de ce monde."--_Mad. de Stael._

Opposite the Sistine Chapel is the entrance of the _Sala Ducale_, in which the popes formerly gave audience to foreign princes, and which is now used for the consistories for the admission of cardinals to the sacred college. Its decorations were chiefly executed by Bernini for Alexander VII. The landscapes are by _Brill_. This hall is used as a passage to the Loggie of Bramante.

The small portion of the Vatican inhabited by the pope is never seen except by those who are admitted to a special audience. The rooms of the aged pontiff are furnished with a simplicity which would be inconceivable in the abode of any other sovereign prince. It is a lonely life, as the dread of an accusation of nepotism has prevented any of the later popes from having any of their family with them, and etiquette always obliges them to dine, &c., alone. No one, whatever the difference of creed, can look upon this building inhabited by the venerable old men who have borne so important a part in the history of Christianity and of Europe, without the deepest interest.

"Je la vois cette Rome, ou d'augustes vieillards, Heritiers d'un apotre et vainqueurs des Cesars, Souverains sans armee et conquerants sans guerre, A leur triple couronne ont asservi la terre."