HEORTOLOGY
A History of the Christian Festivals from
their Origin to the Present Day. By Dr. K.
A. Heinrich Kelner, Professor of Catholic
Theology at the University of Bonn, trans
lated from the second(correctedandenlarged)
edition with the Author's permission, by a
priest of the diocese of Westminster. Demy
8vo, ios. 6d.
This work, which traces the different festivals and
sacred seasons of the Catholic Church back to their
earliest beginnings, and describes both their historical
development in the past and their present rank and
importance, has already won its way on the Continent
to a first place among works dealing with this subject.
It has been translated into Italian by the learned
liturgical scholar Mercatti, and a French translation
is in preparation. In a small compass the learned
author has skilfully compressed all that bears upon
the historical development of the Ecclesiastical year,
with the result that he has produced a work full of
interest and instruction.

FRANCIA'S MASTERPIECE

By the same Author

SKETCHES AND STORIES GRAVE AND
GAY.
IN TUSCANY: TUSCAN TOWNS, TUSCAN
TYPES, THE TUSCAN TONGUE.
LA BENEDIZIONE DI SAN FRANCESCO.
THE LADY POVERTY: A Mediaeval Allegory.
THE MAJOR-GENERAL: A Story of Modern
Florence.
THE LIFE OF JOHN WILLIAM WALSHE,
F.S.A. : A Spiritual Romance.
"ITALY" IN "ON THE OLD ROAD
THROUGH FRANCE TO FLORENCE."
EDITED "INSCRIPTIONS IN THE OLD
BRITISH CEMETERY OF LEGHORN."

FRANCIA'S ALTAR-PIECE IN SAN FREDIANO
"FLOS DE SPINA, SPINA CAR ENS"

FRANCIA'S MASTERPIECE
AN ESSAY ON THE BEGINNINGS
OF THE IMMACULATE
CONCEPTION IN ART

BY
MONTGOMERY CARMICHAEL
AUTHOR OF " IN TUSCANY," "THE LIFE OF
JOHN WILLIAM WALSHE," ETC.

NEW YORK
E. P. DUTTON AND CO.
1909

TO
THE ILLUSTRIOUS AND HOLY MEMORY
OF
THE VENERABLE JOHN DUNS SCOTUS
DOCTOR SUBTILIS
UPON
THE OCCASION OF THE SIXTH CENTENARY OF HIS
DEATH
1 308- 1 908

CONTENTS PAGE
Introduction  xiii
Iconography of the Immaculate Conception —
Malou, Molanus, M6ry, Rohau.lt de Fleury, May
nard, the Summa Aurea — Adolfo Venturi's "La
Madonna'' — Mrs. Jameson — Pictures from 1479
— The Franciscan type — Signorelli's influence —
Vasari's debased taste — Symbolical pictures — The
great Renaissance Painters — The prevailing type
— Need of an exhaustive work on the subject —
Ordinary view of the Religious Picture — Import
ance of the " provenienza " — Necessity of interro
gating the Altar — Defects of Art Gallery Catalogues
— Franciajs_llSt_Aiine " — Crivelli's " Immaculate
Conception" — An Immaculate Conception by
Timoteo Viti — The Fascination of Altar-pieces —
A Lesson in Research — Invitatorium.
The Blessing of an Altar-piece .... xxxiii
I. Description of the Picture  1
Francia's Altar-piece in San Frediano at Lucca
— Persons represented — Inscriptions on the Scrolls
— The kneeling figure — Fons signatus — The Pre
della— The Lunette — The Altar-piece unsigned:
Reasons — Opinions on the Significance. _.qL the
Picture. vii

viii CONTENTS PAGE
II. The Meaning of the Picture . . . 15
The Altar-piece represents the Immaculate Con
ception — Mrs. Jameson's view of such pictures —
The Rod of Ahasuerus — The old Altar-piece in
the Pinacoteca — Persons represented therein and
Inscriptions on Scrolls — The kneeling figure is
Duns Scotus — Francia took his idea from this
Altar-piece — The old Altar-piece not his handi
work.
III. The Inspiring Sources of the Picture . . 33
Conception Altar-pieces are all of the Immacu
late Conception — Development of the Dogma —
The Feast introduced into England by the Abbot
Helsinus — Favoured by St. Anselm — Opposed by
St. Bernard — Rome backward in recognizing it —
Duns Scotus champion of the Dogma — Sixtus IV's
Influence — Leonardo da Nogarolo's Office and
Mass — The Office and Mass of Fra Bernardino
de' Busti — Both inspiring sources of Altar-pieces
of the Immaculate Conception.
IV. The Predella of the Picture . . . -53
Incidents contained therein — Supposed Scenes
from History of the Augustinian Order — Descrip
tion of the Incidents — Miracles worked by in
voking the Virgin Immaculate — Miracle of Abbot
Helsinus and the Shipwreck — Miracle of the
Ordeal by Fire — Miracle of the Twisted Sword —
Miracle of the Child saved in falling — Francia's
exquisite imagination in the order of the Incidents.

CONTENTS

ix

V. The Chapel for the Picture ....
The Chapel of the Conception — The Basilica
of San Frediano — Its side Chapels — The Chapel
of the Assumption — Documentary evidence of a
Chapel of the Conception — The Stiatta Family —
The Founder Maddalena Stiatta — Her several
Wills — The Picture painted after 1511 — The
Liber Collationum — The Juspatronatus — Nominal
Ownership of the Picture — The Site of the Chapel.
VI. The Peregrinations of the Picture .
The first peregrination — The second peregrina
tion — The third and last peregrination — The
missing Tombs and Inscriptions of the Stiatta
Family — A matter of sentiment — Apologia pro
opere suo.
APPENDIX No. I 
Descriptions and Opinions of the Picture:
Tommaso Trenta (1820)
Trenta-Mazzarosa (1829) .
MlCHELE RlDOLFI (1832)
Editors of the Le Monnier "Vasari" (1850)
Mrs. Jameson (1852) .
Crowe and Cavalcaselle (1871)
Enrico Ridolfi (1877)
John Addington Symonds (1877)
Julia Cartwright (1881) .
Augustus J. C. Hare (1883)
Baedeker (1886) ....

73

95

H3"5119
121 124126
130
131 133i34 136
137

x CONTENTS PAGE
Kugler-Eastlake-Layard (1887) . . . 138
Murray (1892)  139
Dr. Williamson (1901)  140
APPENDIX No. II. An Immaculate Conception by
Pier di Cosimo  146
Description of the Picture — Inscriptions on the
Scrolls — Its inspiring Source — The date 1480 —
The probable date — The Picture taken for a
Coronation — Milanesi's view — Crowe and Caval-
caselle's view — The view of Canon Angelo Bandini
and others — The Lucca Picture undoubtedly the
older.
Gratiarum Actio  158
Postscriptum  165

ILLUSTRATIONS

TO FACE
PAGE

Francia's Altar-piece in San Frediano Frontispiece
The long-lost Lunette  6
The Crucifixion from St. Job's Church, Bologna . 8
The Altar-piece in the Duomo, Ferrara . . 10
The Altar-piece from San Francesco, Lucca . 20
The Chiaroscuros, Nos. i and 2 .... 64
The Chiaroscuros, Nos. 3 and 4 .... 68
The Facade of San Frediano, Lucca ... 76
The Chapels of the Conception and the Assumption 90
The Immaculate Conception by Pier di Cosimo at
Fiesole  146

INTRODUCTION I
THE Iconography of the Immaculate Con
ception has been singularly neglected both
by writers on Art in general, and writers on
Marian Iconography in particular. I know of but
one work entirely devoted to the subject, that of
Monsignor J. B. Malou, a former Bishop of
Bruges.1 It is a fascinating little book, well com
pacted, clearly arranged, and illumined through
out by the clearness of method and symmetry of
thought characteristic of the finished theologian.
And yet the learned author scarcely breaks the
ground of the subject in the aspects in which it
interests the world at large outside the circle of
archaeologically inclined Catholics. Great as is
his display of learning by the way, valuable and
1 " Iconographie de l'lmmacule'e Conception . . . ou de la
meilleure maniere de reprdsenter ce Mystere." Brussels, 1856,
pp. 152. The book loses some of its value by not having a single
illustration. xiii

xiv FRANCIA'S MASTERPIECE
suggestive as are the facts here amassed together,
he is concerned chiefly with what should have
been, what ought to be, not with what was and
is, and of all the great Renaissance painters who
depicted the Immaculate Conception, he only
mentions Girolamo Marchesi da Cotignola whose
picture he has not even seen.1
If we turn to other writers we get but the
veriest scraps. Molanus has no more than two
pages;2 the Abbe Mery even less;3 Rohault de
Fleury's contribution to the subject in his mon
ster volumes is scrappy and of small value;4 if
the chapter on the Immaculate Conception in the
Abbe Maynard's popular illustrated " La Sainte
1 Girolamo's altar-piece of the Immaculate Conception has
been described by Mrs. Jameson, " Legends of the Madonna,"
2nd edition, pp. 52-53. This singular picture was bought by
Mr. Bromley of Wootton at the Solly sale, and again by Lord
Ashburton in 1863 at the Bromley sale. It may no longer be
found at Bath House. Where is it now?
2 "De Picturis et Imaginibus Sacris." Louvain, 1570,
pp. 132^133.
3 " La Theologie des Peintres, Sculpteurs, Graveurs et Des-
sinateurs." Paris, 1765, pp. 99-100.
1 "La Sainte Vierge: Etudes archeologiques et iconogra-
phiques." Paris, 1878. 2 vols. Vol. i, pp. 29-37 (Iconographie).

INTRODUCTION xv
Vierge " is long, he is content to give us but two
representations, the Murillo (of course), and the
Dresden Dosso Dossi;1 even in the vast store
house where we should most of all have looked
for the fullest information, Migne's magnificent
" Summa Aurea," the subject is dismissed in
three or four meagre columns made up chiefly of
extracts from Molanus and Malou.2
Turning to professed writers on Art our plight
is even worse: with them the Immaculate Concep
tion in Art is still practically an untouched, almost
an unknown, subject. One up-to-date instance
will suffice. A modern writer of distinction and
merit, Adolfo Venturi, has compiled a popular
illustrated book on the Madonna which, from its
title-page, we are led to believe would be com
pletely representative of the subject.3 Nativity,
Presentation, Annunciation, Visitation, Purifica
tion, Assumption, Coronation, are all represented
1 "La Sainte Vierge." Paris, 1877, 2nd edition, pp. 84-106.
a "Summa Aurea de Laudibus B. V. M." Paris, 1862-1866.
13 vols. Vol. ii, pars i, sectio v, "Iconographia B. Mariae
Virginis," cols. 948-952.
3 "La Madonna: svolgimento artistico delle rappresentazioni
della Vergine " Milan, Hoepli, 1900.
b

xvi FRANCIA'S MASTERPIECE
and treated, but incredible as it may seem, there
is not one single conscious representation of the
Immaculate Conception, not even the inevitable
Murillo. True the writer does give some ex
amples of the meeting of St. Joachim and St.
Anne at the Golden Gate, and this subject has
been used to represent the Immaculate Concep
tion, but they occur in the author's chapter on
the Nativity, and he appears to be wholly con
cerned with the outer aspects of the Legend of
the Proto-evangelium S. Jacobi. At all events
he does not mention the possibility of any of
these pictures standing for the Conception of the
Blessed Virgin, though the beautiful Carpaccio
altar-piece which he reproduces was actually an
Immaculate Conception altar-piece.1 It is difficult
upon any hypothesis to understand how a com-
1 Now numbered 90 in the Venice Pinacoteca. Formerly in
the Church of San Francesco at Treviso. The latest instance
I am acquainted with in which this entirely unsatisfactory,
inconclusive and unconvincing manner of representing the
subject was resorted to, is a fine altar-piece by Ridolfo Ghir-
landaio (ob. 1560), formerly over the High Altar of the Church
of the Conception in the Via dei Servi, Florence (suppressed
by Peter Leopold), now in possession of the patron's descendant,
the Nobile Giulio Galli-Tassi Passerini.

INTRODUCTION xvii
plete work on the Madonna can omit all mention
of the privilege which was the fountain-head of
all her other privileges, but this example serves
to show how entirely neglected by writers on Art
is this aspect of Marian Iconography.
Mrs. Jameson has stated that the Immaculate
Conception does not appear in Art until the
seventeenth century,1 and this I suppose is the
popular view. Yet, without question, the doctrine
was pictorially represented above Altars at least
from 1479 onwards, and between this date and
the early seventeenth century, a great variety of
curious and beautiful representations, all altar-
pieces for Altars, were painted, some by the
greatest artists, for the churches of Italy. The
type illustrated by Francia's picture is rare, and
did not last long. Would that it had endured
forever! For a riot of ideas set in. The beautiful,
simple, deeply mystical form excogitated by the
Franciscan champions of the Dogma in the last
quarter of the fifteenth century, no longer con
tented later Renaissance people. Painters of the
nude, always eager, in season and but of season,
1 "Legends of the Madonna," ed. 1872, pp. 45, 46, 51.

xviii FRANCIA'S MASTERPIECE
to display the nude, took to introducing Adam
and Eve into their Conception pictures. Signo-
relli indicated,1 Vasari gladly trod the downward
path. In October 1540, at the age of twenty-
eight, he began his Conception picture for
Messere Bindo Altoviti's Altar of the Concep
tion in the Apostoli at Florence,2 and but that we
can expressly gather from his entertaining life of
himself that the picture is intended for an Im
maculate Conception it would be hard to think
of it as such. He confesses that he found the
picture a difficult task (" cosa . . a me . . assai
malagevole "), but instead of seeking inspiration
at the pure fountains of Franciscan symbolism,
he asks friends, men of letters, how he is to do
the uncomfortable thing, and in the end produces
the enormity which he has described with so
much gusto in his autobiography. On the same
low level is the similar Conception altar-piece
1 See his Conception picture now in the Duomo at Cortona,
the earliest perhaps to introduce Adam and Eve. Cavalcaselle
and Crowe (Italian edition, vol. viii, p. 498), actually take
this picture with all its trite and naked symbolism to be an
Assumption ! !
* Vasari (Milanesi's edition), vol. vii, p. 668.

INTRODUCTION xix
painted by him in 1 543 for the Carmine of Lucca
(San Pier Cigoli), now in the Communal Pina
coteca of that city.1
But side by side with such coarse materialism,
mystical Conception pictures were still produced,
especially for Minorite Convents. Very fanciful,
nay fantastic, are some of these pictures, though
always essentially devout. The prevailing type
is the Madonna surrounded by her attributes and
symbols, with but little attention to the correct
use of, or difference between, attributes and
symbols. These pictures betray how symbolical
was the cast of mind of the originators, how
steeped they were in knowledge and love of the
subject, how resolute that the dogma should be
clearly preached on canvas. Another type of
Immaculate Conception altar-piece is that which
represents the Blessed Virgin attended by the
Prophets and Saints who have borne witness to
the Privilege. To the world at large these, and
other varieties, will have far greater interest, for
many, perhaps all, of the great Renaissance
painters who were in their zenith during the rich
1 Vasari (Milanesi's edition), vol. vii, p. 672.

xx FRANCIA'S MASTERPIECE
efflorescence of the Dogma (1480- 15 30), painted
marvellous pictures of the Immaculate Concep
tion which have either disappeared or, through
ignorance, pass under other designations. Their
examples, however, failed to arrest the decay in
taste or to perpetuate any one type, and finally,
under Spanish ecclesiastical influence — just at
the time that Mrs. Jameson supposes the Dogma
first appeared in Art — the Immaculate Conception
was condemned, we will hope not forever, to the
empty, trivial, unimpressive type that now serves
to portray the Virgin Conceived without Sin.

II
Most unquestionably is there real need of a
book which should rescue, present and illustrate
the first types in Art of the Immaculate Concep
tion, and more especially the pictures of the late
quattro- and early cinquecento. I have been bold
enough to set about the task, but on coming to
Francia's Immaculate Conception in San Frediano
at Lucca, I soon found that study of the picture
carried me far beyond its dogmatic or artistic

INTRODUCTION xxi
aspects. The donor's l name and intentions, the
approximate date of the picture, the Altar over
which it stood, the Chapel which sheltered it, —
facts long lost and forgotten — all came to light in
the course of research, together with many other
details which would have been quite out of place
in a general work on the Immaculate Conception
in Art, but which have value because of the great
importance of the picture. I therefore decided
to hazard publication of a study of this one
picture only, partly because of the picture's value,
partly because I hope that it may in some sort
serve as an introduction to the whole subject in
contemplation. Ill
I do not here write for the learned. There
may, perhaps, be a few new facts in this little book
of interest to the learned. Chapters V and VI,
1 The word " Donor " is consecrated by use in such a con
nection, and it would be affectation to avoid it. But it does
not very happily describe the patron of a Chaplaincy who
ennobles the Altar of his private Chapel in a Church with an
altar-piece. He gives to God certainly, but not to the Opera.
Though ecclesiastical law leaves him but restricted rights,

xxii FRANCIA'S MASTERPIECE
for instance, record dry fact that might have
been summed up in a sentence or two but for the
need of exposition and proof, and the facts in
these chapters may be of importance to any
future learned writer on the picture. My real
concern, however, is with the well-intentioned
who go into art-galleries, admiring and loving
religious pictures, but hazy of their actual uses
both in the dead past and the living present. To
very many of them an altar-piece is no better
thing than an easel-picture painted to be framed
and hung upon bare walls, an object of mere
admiration, not of edification, a decorative ad
junct at best, not a moving spring of religious
feeling, greatly honoured because of the Divine
or holy persons it represents, the divinely-revealed
truth which it glorifies, or the Divine Mysteries
which are celebrated under its shadow. Without
ever being formally didactic, without formulating
principles in set phrases, I have yet systematically
nominal ownership of the picture remains with him as surely
as his right of presentation to the Benefice, and all the more
because the altar-piece is a mere res benedicta, and not a solemn
res consecrata like the Altar itself.

INTRODUCTION xxiii
sought to tell the readers to whom I am appeal
ing how to look at a religious picture. I bring
out the immense importance of locating the exact
" provenienza," the actual spot, that is, whence a
religious picture came by fraud or violence to
hang in meaningless isolation on the walls of an
art-gallery. It is useful to know whether the
picture was in a Cathedral, a Collegiate Church,
a Conventual Church, or a Parish Church ; useful
also to know what the Dedication, who the local
Patron Saint, who the first Bishop of the ancient
See, who the founders of the private Chapels.
All this is essential information to which too
much attention cannot be paid, but it does not
suffice; indeed it is as nothing to knowing the
Altar from which the picture has come, and the
Saint or Solemnity to which it is dedicated. For
want of elementary essential knowledge such as
this, some very learned and approved good
writers, as I shall show, have entirely failed to
grasp the significance of the Francia in San
Frediano. The thing is so simple too: if the
Altar is dedicated to the Conception, the altar-
piece must represent the Conception. But it

xxiv FRANCIA'S MASTERPIECE
is no uncommon thing to find a writer with
little Liturgy and less Theology attempting to
fix the meaning of a picture without having
first interrogated the Altar over which it at one
time was placed.1 This is the one sure test of
meaning. It is not employed, or it is ignored,
because the beauty, rather than the subject of a
picture, is too much regarded as its chief feature.
The more beautiful, the more artistic, the picture,
the more luminous, no doubt, the subject; but it
is beauty that is the accident, subject that is the
essential, beauty the matter, subject the form,
beauty the thing of limited expression, subject
the matter of infinite expansion. How many
picture-gallery Catalogues have subject indexes ?
Scarcely one.2 Nothing could more eloquently
emphasize the prevailing half-heartedness about
1 " L'autel est le plus eloquent de tousles livres ; des volumes
de commentaires suffiraient a peine pour l'expliquer." Gaume,
" Catechisme de Perseverance," 6th edition, Paris, 1849, v°l- v"i
p. 220.
2 The Catalogue of the Pisa Museo Civico, compiled by its
learned Director, Signor Augusto Bellini Pietri, has a full and
most useful subjects index. Some big Galleries have much to
learn from little Galleries.

INTRODUCTION xxv
subjects. If I am studying the subject of the
Assumption in Art I must walk through the
whole of our National Gallery, or go through the
whole of its excellent Catalogue, to find the three
or four examples which the Gallery possesses.
This is not as it should be; this is greatly to
hamper the study of pictures. The catalogue of
the future should be so compiled as to enable the
student to replace each picture over the Altar
from which it has been taken; as it is, most
catalogues, and perhaps all books about religious
pictures, need recasting from the point of view of
the ultimate "provenienza."
To take an instance here and now. A beautiful
Francia in the National Gallery (No. 179) is
described as " The Virgin with the Infant Christ,
and St. Anne enthroned, surrounded by Saints."
This is a faithful description of the picture, but
we are not told what, as an altar-piece, it really
is. By interrogating the Altar in San Frediano
whence it originally came, we find that it is an
altar-piece from a Chapel of St. Anne. This is
its raison cCitre, its one essential feature; to this
end alone was it brought into existence, and this

xxvi FRANCIA'S MASTERPIECE
explains the enthronement of St. Anne in the
picture. But not a word of all this is there in the
catalogue which does, however, mention that the
picture came from a Bonvisi Chapel, thus giving
more importance to the Patrician founders than
to the great Saint whom it was their delight to
honour. Yet another example from the National Gal
lery Catalogue, a monument of research and care
ful compilation, faulty only from this one important
point of view. After going through its 678
pages, I can find but one obvious picture of the
Immaculate Conception, that by Carlo Crivelli.
Not that the compilers call it so: far from it:
they call it instead "The Madonna in Ecstasy."
But as they have very carefully described it,
and reproduced the text of a scroll which appears
in it — Ut in mente Dei ab initio concepta fui, ita
et facta sum — it is easy enough, to one who has
studied the subject, to see that the picture is
an Immaculate Conception altar-piece. The title
here chosen has nothing to do with the raison
ditre of the picture, for never yet was there, or
could there ever be, an Altar dedicated to " The

INTRODUCTION xxvii
Madonna in Ecstasy." The designation besides
being misleading, effectually hides the fact that the
National Gallery does possess at least one repre
sentation of the Immaculate Conception.1
A volume might be filled with instances in
which the want of interrogating the Altar has led
to the most erroneous, and indeed ludicrous,
descriptions of pictures. But I will here, in con-
1 I have no sort of doubt that Leonardo da Vinci's exquisite
"Virgin of the Rocks" (No. 1093) is also an Immaculate Con-
, ception altar-piece, but that is too large a subject to enter upon
here. Crivelli's beautiful picture (No. 906) was painted in 1492.
The compilers of the Catalogue state that it was "formerly in
the Chapel of the Malatesta family in the Church of San Fran
cesco at Rimini." (Always the patrician founder, rather than
the religious dedication !) But there is no Chapel of the Mala
testa in San Francesco — the whole Church might more reason
ably be called of the Malatesta — and Marcheselli, " Pitture delle
chiese di Rimini descritte" (Rimini, 1756) makes no mention
of any such picture. Until further evidence is produced, I see
no reason to question the generally received statement of the
Marchese Ricci (" Memorie Storiche delle Arti e delle Artisti
della Marca d' Ancona." Macerata, 1834, vol. i, p. 215) that it
was painted for the Franciscans of San Francesco at Pergola.
See also p. 228, note 31, where the writer records that the picture
has recently been removed from this Church. Mr. M'Neil Rush-
forth, in his interesting book on Crivelli, does not fix the actual
" provenienza," but simply says "Pergola or Rimini," p. 120.

xxviii FRANCIA'S MASTERPIECE
elusion, rather take an instance in which, owing
to obscurity of treatment, a knowledge of the
Dedication alone could give the true meaning of
a picture. I refer to a peculiar picture by Timoteo
Viti in the Brera Gallery at Milan (No. 507). In
the centre stands the Blessed Virgin; on the
Gospel side St. John Baptist; on the Epistle side
St. Sebastian;1 above the Baptist is a descending
Angel, apparently in the act of Announcing;
above the Blessed Virgin the Divine Infant is
descending on the Holy Dove. As far as appear
ances go no sign or symbol of the Conception,
no champions or witnesses of the Dogma. As
far as appearances go one would say a bizarre
Annunciation, in which there is a complete pre
sentment of the Valentinian heresy which taught
that Our Lord, though born of His Mother,
took flesh in Heaven and not of the Blessed
1 Most, I think all, writers about pictures speak of the right
and left hand side of an altar-piece. With some the right is
the beholder's right; with others, more reasonably, the right is
the heraldic dexter. The Altar itself is so little in their vision,
that they have forgotten the convenient terms, Cornu Evangelii,
Cornu Epistolae, which alone can indicate beyond a doubt the
side of the Altar-piece to which a writer is referring.

INTRODUCTION xxix
Virgin.1 The compiler of the Catalogue, Signor
Francesco Malaguzzi Valeri, calls the picture a
Conception. He makes no mention of the Altar,
but must surely have taken his information from
that open book. For I find on inquiry, what I
would otherwise never have believed, that the
picture was painted for a Chapel of the Con
ception founded by the Bonaventura family in
the Church of San Bernardino outside Urbino.2
Altare locutum est, causa finita est.
IV
I think that this is the first time that any one
single picture has ever been dealt with in a bound
1 Me"ry, "La Theologie des Peintres," lib. i, cap. v, p. 25.
2 Information kindly obtained for me by P. Candido Mariotti,
Provincial of the Minors in the Marches. Crowe and Caval-
caselle ("History of Painting in North Italy," vol. i, p. 579,
and note) who style this picture an Annunciation, also say it
came from the Chapel of the Bonaventura. Needless to say
they make no mention of the Altar. Viti has taken this curious
idea from his master, Francia, who painted a similar picture
for San Francesco in Bologna (now in the Pinacoteca, No. 371).
Mr. Berenson ("North Italian Painters," p. 220) also calls
Francia's picture a Conception, and must surely have interro
gated the Altar, which I have not had an opportunity of doing.

xxx FRANCIA'S MASTERPIECE
volume all to itself. But that can only be because
the subject and significance of pictures receive
too meagre an attention at the hands of writers.
There must be many a single picture which
merits treatment in the noble proportions of royal
in-quarto. What can be more instructive and
suggestive than an altar-piece ? It often represents
contemporary enthusiasms, contemporary hopes
and aspirations, and illustrates the development
of doctrine and devotion more vividly, and as
surely, as the learned treatises of theologians or
the mellifluous works of spiritual writers. This,
too, I have sought to show by the way in the
course of illustrating Francia's divine altar-piece.
One other object have I had before me in this
book: to show how it was written. Modest as
are these researches yet every book of the kind
should be so constructed as to be a lesson in
research. Again I repeat that I am not writing
for the learned, who must bear with me if I
invariably translate simple Italian and Notarial
Dog Latin. Many books crammed with learning,
fail of their purpose through the reader not being
made familiar with the quarries whence the know-

INTRODUCTION xxxi
ledge comes, nor ever once being invited to
inspect the process of building. He should have
the opportunity of seeing for himself that the
marble is genuine, that the builder's material is
of good quality, that his order of construction is
according to the rules of architecture. Then
indeed will he take quite a different interest in
the author's edifice. V
And now, amice lector, I invite thee without
more ado to come with me, and in one only picture
explore the mind and taste the fancy of as great a
painter as ever the Christian Faith produced. And
I err greatly if once taught by the mind and il
lumined by the fancy of Francesco Francia, an
altar-piece do not become to thee what it is to me,
an enchanted land of ever-varied wonders, an
ecstasy of the imagination, the heart's desire, the
mind's delight, the soul's supernal treasure in the
realms of Art. M. C.
LlVORNO, 8tA December, 1908.

THE BLESSING OF AN ALTAR-PIECE
V. Adjutorium nostrum in nomine Domini.
R7. Qui fecit coelum et terram.
W. Dominus vobiscum.
R7. Et cum spiritu tuo.
Oremus
OMNIPOTENS sempiterne Deus, qui Sanct
orum tuorum imagines pingi non reprobas,ut
quoties illas oculis corporis intuemur, toties eorum
actus et sanctitatem ad imitandum memoriae oculis
meditemur: hanc, quaesumus, imaginem in hon-
orem et memoriam Beatissimae Virginis Mariae
sine labe originali conceptae adaptatam bene*-
dicere, et sancti*ficare digneris: et praesta; ut
quicumque coram ilia, Immaculatam Virginem
suppliciter colere et honorare studuerit, illius

xxxiv FRANCIA'S MASTERPIECE
meritis et obtentu a te gratiam in praesenti, et
aeternam gloriam obtineat in futurum. Per
Christum Dominum nostrum.
R7. Amen.
Ultimo aspergat acqua benedicta}
1 From the "Rituale Romanum," tit. viii, cap. 25. Trans
lation, y. Our help is in the Name of the Lord. 1$. Who
hath made Heaven and Earth, f- The Lord be with you.
1$. And with thy spirit. Let us pray. Almighty and Ever
lasting God, Who art well pleased that the likenesses of Thy
Saints should be made manifest in painting, so that as often as
we behold them with our bodily eyes so often may we resolve
in our hearts to imitate their holiness of life: vouchsafe, we
beseech Thee, to bl*ess and sancti*fy this picture painted in
honour and memory of the most Blessed Virgin Mary Conceived
without sin : and grant ; that whosoever shall venerate and honour
the Immaculate Virgin in prayer before it, may by her merits
and intercession obtain from Thee grace in this life, and eternal
glory in the life to come. Through Christ our Lord. 1$. Amen.

FRANCIA'S MASTERPIECE i
DESCRIPTION OF THE PICTURE
IN the old Lombard Basilica of San Frediano
in Lucca, and, to be precise, on the North
wall of the Chapel called of the Assumption,
hangs in a great gilt frame a noble altar-piece,
the work of the immortal Bolognese painter,
Francesco Raibolini, detto il Francia. The pic
ture is in oils, painted upon wood; it is unsigned
and undated; the height of it is eight feet, ex
cluding the predella; the breadth six and a half
feet; and it is covered by a thick red curtain.
The whole scene is one of great beauty, of ex
traordinary serenity, of deep religious feeling,
of perfect faith illustrated by such reasoning as
flows from the premises of Faith undoubted.
Above, in the Heavens, in a glory or mandorla,
B

2 FRANCIA'S MASTERPIECE
surrounded by the heads of adorable cherubs and
attended by two adoring angels, sits the Eternal
Father1 in benign majesty; at His feet kneels
the Queen of Virgins in exquisite humility, her
head bowed to receive the touch of His life-
saving, life-giving Sceptre. Below upon Earth
are the standing figures of two Kings in Israel,
Solomon and David, and two Doctors of the
Church, Anselm and Augustine, each with a
scroll in his hand, and, between them, the kneel
ing figure of a Saint of the Franciscan Order,
apparently Saint Anthony of Padua — all without
halo. i. On the scroll of King Solomon is written:
TOTA PULCRA ES AMICA MEA ET MACULA NON EST
in te. (Thou art all fair, my love, and in thee
there is no spot. Canticle of Canticles, iv, 7.)
2. On the scroll of King David, who is strik
ing his Psalmist's lyre with one hand, is written:
IN SOLE2 POSUIT TABERNACULUM SUUM. (He hath
1 The Father and not the Son, for hair and beard are a
sable, silvered.
2 " In Sole, id est in Beata Virgine Maria," comments Denis
the Carthusian in his Commentary on the Psalms.

ST. AUGUSTINE AND ST. ANSELM 3
set His tabernacle in the Sun. Psalm xviii, 6;
Authorized Version, xix, 4.)
3. Saint Augustine bears the words: in celo
QUALIS EST PATER TALIS EST FILIUS; IN TERRA QUALIS
EST MATER TALIS EST FILIUS SECUNDUM CARNEM.
(In Heaven such as the Father is such is the Son ;
on Earth such as the Mother is such is the Son
according to the flesh. 6". Aug. Serm. 20 ad
Fratres.) 4. On Saint Anselm's scroll we read : non puto
ESSE VERUM AMATOREM VIRGINIS QUI CELEBRARE
respuit festum sue concepcionis. (I do not reckon
him a true lover of the Virgin who refuses to cele
brate the feast of her Conception. S. Anselm.
Sermo de Concept. B. V.M. in Migne Patr. Lat.
clix. 322.1) An unusual circumstance: the Saint
himself holds, not his Crosier, but the Archi-
episcopal Cross borne before an Archbishop and
the symbol of his jurisdiction. Of course there is
a nice reason for this ; Francia never outraged the
proprieties for the sake of mere decoration; the
object here is that the Lucchesi should by no
1 Edited by Migne among the spurious works of Saint
Anselm.

4 FRANCIA'S MASTERPIECE
manner of means think that he intended to depict
their Saint Anselm, Bishop of Lucca {ob. 1086).
5. The kneeling figure, whose face is a masterly
combination of intellectual force and saintly beauty,
bears no witness upon earth. His office is alto
gether different. He looks up into Heaven and
sees the Heavenly vision; the great subject of
the picture is literally revealed to him. That he
is a Franciscan the habit, though white rather
than grey, clearly tells us.1 The shape of the
capuce, too, is undeniably Franciscan, as also are
the bare feet, and if other evidence were wanting
the picture plainly reveals the girdle of rope,
characteristic only of the Sons of Saint Francis.
That the kneeling figure must, by the ordinary
laws of interpretation, be taken for Saint Anthony
of Padua is manifest from the flame in his hand,
a favourite symbol to indicate the Seraphic thau-
maturgist with the painters of the tre- and quattro
cento. One further small point of description. Be-
1 See innumerable specimens in Niccolo Catalano's "Fiume
del Terrestre Paradiso," Florence, 1652, and especially the
plates of kneeling figures on page 460.

FONS SIGNATUS 5
tween the figures of the Franciscan Saint and
King David is a low marble structure, having at
a superficial glance something the resemblance of
an open tomb. Lilies sprout on the hither side of
it, and roses on the farther side. If a tomb, it
could only be the tomb of the Virgin Assumed,
but that assuredly it cannot be, for the flowers
grow outside in the earth, and not inside in the
space lately hallowed by the Body of the Mother
of God ; besides, who ever saw the tomb of the
Virgin without attendant Apostles. The marble
structure has at the first glance the appearance of
an oblong, but look at it under a lens and'another
angle at least will come out. It is quadrate, if
not sexagonal,1 and is no other thing than a well.
A tomb would be utterly meaningless in this
picture, a well is full of beautiful significance.2
But I must have done with description before
coming to meaning.
1 Restoration appears to me to have played havoc with the
angles. 2 "Hortus conclusus, fons signatus." Cant. Cantic, iv, 12.
I am entirely unable to identify the place in the distance. It
is not Lucca, but the hills have a look of the Lucchesia.
I hazard that it is Castello Nozzano.

6 FRANCIA'S MASTERPIECE
Below the magnificent altar-piece, once separ
ated therefrom as the predella, but now inclosed
in the same great gilt frame, are four exquisite
little chiaroscuro sketches, a veritable delight to
all people of artistic sensibilities. To the descrip
tion of these little pictures, to their touching
significance, I will return in a later chapter.
Let this be the place to state that like Francia's
altar-piece in the Bonvisi Chapel of Saint Anne,
now in the National Gallery, this work, too, had
a lunette. The Canonico Tommaso Trenta, author
of a guide to Lucca published in 1820, distinctly
tells us that the work is divided into three princi
pal parts, the main picture, the lunette, and the
predella. " In the lunette," he says, " is the
Saviour." No writer before him that I know
of, and certainly no writer since, mentions the
lunette. I thought that it had wholly and entirely
disappeared from the ken of man, but just at the
close of these researches I gleaned from the old
Reverend Father Sacristan of San Frediano, that
he remembered years ago a lunette above the
altar where the picture then stood, and that that
very lunette was now hanging in a little room

MRS. CARMICHAEL

THE LONG LOST LUNETTE

THE LUNETTE 7
opposite the Sacristy used for hearing the Con
fessions of deaf people. It was rather an excit
ing moment, the thought of seeing an unknown
Francia, remembering, too, that some of his finest
work has been put into lunettes.
The lunette that I found in the little room
where the Confessions of deaf people are heard,
was disappointing at the first glance.1 To begin
with, the picture is in a woeful state of deteriora
tion, so mutilated and disfigured by the ravages
of time (and, I should say, an old-time restorer),
that it is impossible for the profane eye to judge
of the quality of the flesh-tints. The face, seen
with difficulty, grows upon one strangely. The
outstretched arms and hands, if by Francia, are
Francia spoiled by time and the restorer. The
green curtains, looped up with trivial pale red
ribbons, are utterly unpleasing and surely were
never the work of Francia. The prominence of
the ear is not like Francia, who was given to
concealing ears.2 I reproduce a photograph of
1 Width 7 ft. 2 in. ; height in centre 2 ft. 1 in. Painted on
wood, of course, and in oils.
2 Dr. Williamson, "Francia," p. 55.

8 FRANCIA'S MASTERPIECE
the lunette, and also a photograph of the Cruci
fixion, once in Saint Job's at Bologna, now in
the Louvre, so that the reader may make a com
parison. There is a certain similarity between
the heads in this and the long-forgotten lunette
at Lucca; the Crown of Thorns in both is in the
same style ; but in the Saint Job picture the ear
is hidden. Whether by Francia or not one thing
is certain : that this is the lunette which has
always gone along with the tavola and predella.
Of course a lunette would certainly have been
ordered from Francia, and if this is not his work,
or the face only is his work, we can but conclude
that he was prevented by death from finishing
the commission. Once assured that the lunette
is not Francia's, we should be justified in placing
the altar-piece in the last days of his life, perhaps
in considering it his very last work.1
One other point connected with description. It
is singular that this noble and important picture
should be unsigned. Francia signed his pictures
1 Francia died on the 5th January, 1 5 1 7. I have unearthed,
and shall presently produce evidence to show that this altar-
piece was painted after 151 1.

THE CRUCIFIXION FROM ST. JOB'S, BOLOGNA

ATTRIBUTION OF THE PICTURE 9
freely, adding sometimes abundant detail, and not
infrequently dating. This altar-piece is certainly
the most considerable one of his without signature.
That the picture is his there can, of course, be no
manner of doubt. It suffices, as Mazzarosa has
indicated, to compare the cherub at the feet of the
Eternal Father in this picture with the cherub at
the feet of the Crowning Saviour in his signed
altar-piece in the Duomo of Ferrara, to see at
once that the two works are by the same hand.1
Look at the San Frediano altar-piece and see how
awkwardly close the feet of the Franciscan are to
the bottom of the picture. And then look again
at the Ferrara altar-piece and see how much the

1 A photograph of the Ferrara altar-piece is here reproduced
so as to give the reader an opportunity of making the compari
son, Francia's signature is on a small scroll near the Holy
Innocent. Crowe and Cavalcaselle, "North Italy," I, 566,
note 2, describe the Innocent — it is a picture of All Saints,
too — as " the Infant Christ, foreshortened, with His head to
the spectator." The position of the child, the wound in his
head, the subject of the picture, the presence of Our Lord in
glory, should have saved them from so droll an error. But the
meaning of pictures is not a strong point with these learned
writers.

10 FRANCIA'S MASTERPIECE
greater space at the bottom of the picture adds to
its natural freedom and majesty. It seems to me
likely that when the picture arrived from the
great painter's studio in Bologna it was, owing
to some misunderstanding about measurements,
found too long for its altar frame, and that some
six inches of green sward, including the cartellino
with Francia's signature, were ruthlessly sawn off.
In this way only can one explain the absence of
his signature on such an altar-piece. Francia is
said to have been deeply devout: it was his almost
invariable habit to sign his altar-pieces, no doubt
in the hope that the priest, when saying Mass
before the picture, might catch his name and re
member him at the Memento, and that the people,
too, might not forget him when praying before
the altar.1
What is the significance, the meaning of this
sublime picture of Francia's ? The writer of Baede
ker's Guide calls it a Coronation? so do Mrs.
1 " Orate pro pictore " appears at the base of several of Fra
Bartolommeo's altar-pieces.
2 Edition 1886, p. 365. To be on the safe side he omits all
reference to the kneeling figure.

THE ALTAR-PIECE IN THE DUOMO, FERRARA

NOT A CORONATION n
Ady,1 Dr. Williamson,2 and myself3 (I regret to
say) among English folk, Woltmann and Woer-
mann* among the Germans, and Tommaso Trenta,5
the Marchese Antonio Mazzarosa,6 and Professor
Enrico Ridolfi,7 author of the modern guide,
among the Lucchesi. The merest glance at the
picture is surely sufficient to dispel such a notion.
The picture might conceivably be an Incoronata,
never a Coronation, for the Virgin here is already
crowned, and in all pictures of the Coronation
proper, the Crown is in the act of being placed
on her head. The writer of Murray's excellent
Handbook8 is still further wide of the mark. He
calls it an Assumption! So does John Addington
1 "Mantegna and Francia," by Julia Cartwright, 1881,
p. 91.
2 "Francesco Raibolini, called Francia," 1901, p. 76.
3 "In Tuscany," 1901, p. 153.
4 " History of Painting," translated by Clara Bell, London,
Kegan Paul, 1887, vol. ii, p. 415.
5 " Guida del Forestiere per la Citta. e il Contado di Lucca,"
Lucca, 1820, p. 97.
8 "Guida di Lucca," Lucca, 1843, p. 107.
7 " Guida di Lucca," Lucca, 1877 and 1899.
8 "Central Italy," edition of 1892, p. 159.

12 FRANCIA'S MASTERPIECE
Symonds,1 so do Crowe and Cavalcaselle,2 Wil-
helm Liibke3 and A. Seubert.4 An Assumption!
But where are the supporting angels, where the
wondering Apostles ! Mr. Hare is more cautious.
He calls it the Reception of the Virgin into
Heaven? a conjunction, I suppose, of Assumption
and Coronation. Dr. Jacob Burckhardt,6 our use
ful cicerone in many a gallery, says no more of
this noble piece than that it "deserves attention,"
excellent advice, however, which I am following
to the extent of a whole volume. The editors of
the Lemonnier edition of Vasari (Florence, 1846-
1857),7 and Gaetano Milanesi, who was one of
them, in his later and even more monumental
1 "The Renaissance in Italy: the Fine Arts," p. 221, note.
2 "A History of Painting in North Italy," 1871, vol. i, p. 566.
3 "Geschichte der Italienischen Malerei," Stuttgart, 1878,
vol. i, p. 449.
4 " Kunstler Lexicon," vol. i.
5 " Central Italy," vol. i, p. 62. St. Anthony he describes as
" a monk standing by the tomb filled with flowers." The monk
is a friar and is kneeling, not standing ; the flowers are outside,
not inside, the marble structure which he calls a tomb.
6 " The Cicerone, or Art Guide to Painting in Italy," London,
Murray, 1873, p. 96, 1.
7 Vol. vi, p. 19.

ITS MEANING 13
edition (Florence, 1878-1882),1 describe this pic
ture as Our Lady Assumed into Heaven receiving
the Benediction of the Eternal Father. But in
what representation in art is there ever a blessing
given with a sceptre or a rod, and not with the
right hand? It is certainly disconcerting to find
that writers such as these, and some of the others
I have cited, can err so readily in the face of a
representation which the painter has been at par
ticular pains not to leave obscure. But this chapter
is descriptive and not critical, and having done
with description I pass on to the meaning of the
picture.
1 Vol. iii, p. 555.

II
THE MEANING OF THE PICTURE
THIS altar-piece of Francia can, of course,
signify no other thing than the Conception,
nay the Immaculate Conception, of the Blessed
Virgin Mary. The texts on the scrolls tell us that
surely enough. Saint Anselm even uses the word
Conception in all its letters, and yet men of learn
ing, men of habits of careful thought, talk con
fidently of a Coronation and an Assumption.
There is little enough excuse for it. Many of
them saw the picture over an Altar: they did but
need to turn to the nearest praying peasant-woman
and ask what Altar this was, to be told the Altar
of the Conception. Then one writer, at least, who
deserved to be consulted, has correctly enough
called the picture la Concezione di Nostra Donna.
1 Michele Ridolfi. " Scritti d'Arte e d'Antichita in Lucca."
Florence, 1879. Edited by his son Enrico Ridolfi who, in spite
of the father's warning calls the picture a Coronation. First
edition, 1844.

16 FRANCIA'S MASTERPIECE
Mrs. Jameson, too, whose works cannot be too
attentively studied, whose opinions deserve to be
carefully weighed before being rejected, expressly
repudiates the idea that such a picture could be an
Assumption or a Reception of the Blessed Virgin
into Heaven.1 She will not however have it a
Conception "so styled by ecclesiastical authority,"
to use her quaint old-fashioned phrase,2 but con
siders it " the election or predestination of Mary
as the Immaculate vehicle or tabernacle of human
redemption — the earthly parent of the Divine
Saviour."3 Here she comes near at least to the
true meaning of the altar-piece. Pictures of the
kind, she adds, date from the beginning of the
sixteenth century ; pictures of the Conception only
from the beginning of the seventeenth century.
" Although, as representations, so very similar, yet
the intention and meaning are different. In the
Conception it is the sinless Virgin in her personal
1 "Memoirs of Early Italian Painters," London, Murray,
1874, p. 148 (note). First edition, 1845.
2 "Legends of the Madonna," second edition, London,
Longmans, 1857, p. 51. First edition, 1852.
3 Ibid., p. lxxiv.

MRS. JAMESON'S VIEW 17
character who is held up to reverence as the purest,
wisest, holiest, of created beings. The earlier
theme involves a yet more recondite signification.
It is, undoubtedly, to be regarded as an attempt
on the part of the artist to express, in a visible
form, the idea or promise of the redemption of the
human race, as existing in the Sovereign Mind
before the beginning of things. They do not per
sonify this idea under the image of Christ, — for they
conceived that, as the second person of the Trinity,
He could not be His own instrument, — but by the
Image of Mary surrounded by those attributes
which were afterwards introduced into pictures of
the Conception. . . . This is the proper interpreta
tion of those effigies, so prevalent in every form
of art during the sixteenth century, and which are
often, but erroneously, styled the Immaculate
Conception." x How profound, and how well said!
That Mrs. Jameson is entirely wrong, that these
pictures represent the Immaculate Conception
merely, is sufficiently proved by the fact that they
only exist as altar-pieces painted for altars of the
Conception. Fancy an altar dedicated to " the idea
1 " Legends of the Madonna," p. 51.
C

18 FRANCIA'S MASTERPIECE
or promise of the Redemption . . . before the be
ginning of things." Still a statement such as this
of hers should at least have made it for ever im
possible for any one who came after her to style
Francia's altar-piece in San Frediano an Assump
tion, a Coronation, or a Reception of the Blessed
Virgin into Heaven!
There is one feature certainly in the picture
which might reasonably mystify — the action of
the Eternal Father. He does not crown; He does
not bless; lovingly, with obviously intense mean
ing — just look again for a moment at the picture
— He touches the head of the Virgin with a rod.
What is the significance of the rod? The con
ventional writers on art are one and all silent on
the subject, and disconcerting as it may be, one
can but attribute their silence to ignorance. Yet
in face of the references to the Conception on the
scrolls, the rod can obviously be no other thing
than the sceptre of Ahasuerus with all its mystical
significance. You remember the touching and
beautiful scene in the Book of Esther where the
Queen, saviour of her people, is exempted from
the edict of general destruction. She is, in the

ESTHER 19
liturgy, a type of the Blessed Virgin, who, Im
maculate in her Conception, was, by Divine Provi
dence, exempted from the general law by which
all mankind are born in original sin. Let us turn
for a moment to the Book of Esther. There we
read : " Quid habes, Esther ? Ego sum frater tuus,
noli metuere. Non morieris : non enim pro te sed
pro omnibus haec lex constituta est. Accede igitur
et tange sceptrum. Cum ilia reticeret, tulit auream
virgam, et posuit super collum ejus. . . ."1 The
picture, therefore, undoubtedly represents, not
merely the Conception, but the Immaculate Con
ception, a dogma which during the Pontificate of
the Franciscan Pope, Sixtus IV (1471-1484), grew
greatly in popularity and gained great ground, and
this picture of Francia's might even be the earliest
representation of the Immaculate Conception in
Art. So I thought until I once more examined an
1 Esther, xv, 12-15. "What ails thee, Esther? I am thy
brother, fear naught. Thou shalt not die : not for thee was this
law made, but for all mankind. Approach therefore and touch
my sceptre. And as she held her peace, he took the golden
sceptre and laid it upon her neck."

20 FRANCIA'S MASTERPIECE
entirely similar picture of unknown authorship,
now in the Pinacoteca, but formerly existing in
the Church of San Francesco at Lucca. I must
have seen the picture half a dozen times; I can
never have looked at it once. What a surprise it
was! Even the photograph of it which I repro
duce will enable the reader to judge that it is
quite a quarter of a century older than the
Francia altar-piece. Francia, therefore, has liter
ally lifted the whole idea of his sublime treat
ment from this ancient picture. Here are King
Solomon, King David, Saint Augustine and Saint
Anselm, holding scrolls with precisely the same
words as in the Francia picture. Between them
also kneels, with upward gaze, a Franciscan Friar.
At the foot of each figure is a label with the name ;
the Franciscan is labelled Saint Anthony of Padua.
Above, surrounded by adoring angels, sits Our
Lord — not the Eternal Father — in the selfsame
attitude, extending the same life-giving sceptre of
Ahasuerus over the Blessed Virgin, who kneels
at His feet. The old picture is more symbolical,
more liturgical, richer in ideas than the newer.
One may see in it the Cedar of Lebanon, the

THE ALTAR-PIECE FROM SAN FRANCESCO
LUCCA

THE OLDER ALTAR-PIECE 21
Cypress of Mount Sion, the Palm of Cades,
the paradisaical pomegranate, the Rose-garden of
Jericho, all typical of the glories of Mary. On
the marble parapet, clearly discernible in the
photograph under a lens is written: plantatio
rose in hierico ; on one of the jars is the word
mirra, on the other balsamum.1 On the scroll
peculiar to Our Lord are those familiar words
from the book of Esther which I have just
quoted: non enim pro te sed pro omnibus hec
lex constituta est. On Our Lady's scroll is
written: eruisti a framea deus animam meam,2
words which occur in the first authorized Office
of the Conception (1477), of which Office, and
another, more anon. Saint Anthony, silent in
Francia's picture, is strangely eloquent here, for
1 " Quasi cedrus exaltata sum in Libano, et quasi cypressus
in Monte Sion: Quasi palma exaltata sum in Cades, et quasi
plantatio rosae in Jericho : . . . Sicut cinnamomum et balsamum
aromatizans odorem dedi : quasi myrrha electa dedi suavitatem
odoris." — Ecclesiasticus, xxiv, 17, 18, 20.
" Emissiones tuae paradisus malorum punicorum cum pom-
orum fructibus." — Cant. Cantic, iv, 13.
2 Psalm xxi, 2 1 (Authorized Version, xxii, 20). " Thou hast
delivered, O God, my soul from the sword."

22 FRANCIA'S MASTERPIECE
he has borrowed well-known and famous words
from another great son of Saint Francis, John
Duns Scotus: videtur probabile quod est ex-
cellentius attribuere marie.1 This is altogether
startlingly singular. Saint Anthony is in no way
associated with the development of the dogma of
the Immaculate Conception; there is not a single
reference to the subject in his writings, nor any
saying of his that can be, or has been, twisted
into a reference; the Friars Minor did not begin
to preach the doctrine till seventy or eighty years
after his death (ob. 1231). How then comes he
to figure in a picture glorifying the Immaculate
1 Opera Omnia, Paris, 1894. Vol. XIV. In III Sent.
Dist. 3, Quaest. 1. The " Quaestio " has also been separately
printed in Vol. Ill of the " Bibliotheca Franciscana Scolastica
medii aevi," Quaracchi, 1904, together with the invaluable
treatises of William of Ware (Guglielmus Guarra) and Peter
Aureolus. Scotus in the " Quaestio " discusses three possi
bilities : that the Blessed Virgin was never tainted by original
sin; that she was for one instant only in sin; that she was for
some short time in sin before being completely sanctified. If
it be not against the authority of Holy Church or Holy
Scripture, he considers it probable that the more excellent of
these three states should be attributed to Mary (" excellentius
est attribuere Mariae ").

ST. ANTHONY OF PADUA 23
Conception ? One cannot allege ignorance on the
part of the painter. This altar-piece was painted
for the Confraternity of the Conception founded
in San Francesco about 1477; it must have been
inspired, designed, and controlled by Franciscans
themselves.1 The liturgy, the theology, is without
flaw. It is impossible to imagine the friars of
San Francesco who had been under the influ
ence of Fra Paolo da Lucca (Paolo Jova), a
great champion of the doctrine and author of a
"Symbola de Conceptione Beatae Mariae,"3 it is
impossible, I say, to imagine these friars, full of
the subject, introducing Saint Anthony of Padua
into a picture of the Conception, and making him
use words which would be familiar as being those
of Scotus even to their theological students of
the first year. The only reasonable theory is that
the kneeling figure is intended for Duns Scotus
1 There were some excellent miniaturists among the friars
of San Francesco between 1480 and 1540. Professor Campetti,
Director of the Lucca Pinacoteca, holds the extremely probable
theory that the old picture is by one of them.
2 P. Heribert Holzapfel O.F.M., " Bibliotheca Franciscana
de Immaculata Conceptione B.V.M." Quaracchi, 1904,
P- 93'

24 FRANCIA'S MASTERPIECE
himself! The year of grace 1908 marks the cele
bration of the sixth centenary of his death.
His Order, under the vigorous guidance of the
Postulator-General, Padre Paolini, are working
hard for his formal beatification, which it is
piously hoped may be secured ere many years
have gone by. This picture would be a valuable
bit of evidence in proof of past honours paid him,
for he is put on a level with Anselm, Augustine,
and David, and granted the halo of Saint (note,
in passing, that King Solomon has been denied
the halo: Francia by leaving out halos altogether
preaches less, and courteously softens an uncom
fortable situation). Consider the very marked
and significant treatment of the Franciscan figure.
The two kings and the two saints stand bearing
witness upon earth to the truth of the Immaculate
Conception: the little friar looks up into Heaven,
he sees the vision, divines the dogma, and, in the
old picture, proclaims it upon earth. Most as
suredly there is some good reason for assigning
a central and a marked position to the kneeling
Franciscan. But is that kneeling figure really John Duns?

JOHN DUNS SCOTUS 25
I answer without any hesitation — yes.1 Still there
are two pieces of evidence against the alluring
theory which I must not neglect to consider.
Each of the five figures, as I have said, bears on
a scroll at foot, most legibly, his name, and the
name assigned to the central figure is Anthony of
Padua. That is one piece of evidence, damning
enough if things went by rote in the Middle Ages.
Then there is the undoubted fact that the kneeling
figure holds in his hand the emblem of Saint
Anthony, the flame of fire, and this would appear
upon first thoughts to make it decisive that, in
spite of the eloquent scroll, the friars really did
1 It is as well to confess that I am a fellow-countryman of the
Subtle Doctor, for I cannot away with the arguments of Father
Luke Wadding (of County Waterford !) that this Scotsman was
an Irishman. I hold to the old distich:
" Scotia me genuit, Anglia me suscepit;
Gallia me docuit, Colonia me tenet."
John (Christian name) Duns (Latin abbreviation of his native
town or village) Scotus (a Scotsman) was born in 1274 and
died at Cologne in 1308, aged only thirty-four. Any specula
tion as to who was the greatest intellect that ever lived is idle,
but in any such speculation the name of Scotus would assuredly
be freely mentioned.

26 FRANCIA'S MASTERPIECE
intend, for some unfathomable reason, to represent
Saint Anthony rather than the first great cham
pion of the Immaculate Conception whose name
springs unbidden to the mind at the bare mention
or thought of the dogma. But men were ingenious
and subtle in the Middle Ages, skilled in attaining
an end which they seemed not to attain. It would
have been natural and fitting, but it would have
been rash in the extreme in 1480 to represent the
uncanonized Scotus with a halo among canonized
Saints. So the friars, resorting to a ruse, wrote
underneath the name of Saint Anthony, but intro
duced the words of Scotus to show all friars, pre
sent and to come, who really was intended by
that little Franciscan. Saint Anthony would be
found more than any other Franciscan Saint to fit
the figure, as he and Scotus were much of an age,
Anthony thirty-six, John Duns thirty-four. That
Francia knew whom he was depicting I shall
prove in the fourth chapter of this book, to my own
satisfaction at all events. Suffice it here to call
attention to the fact that in Francia's picture, far
more than in the other, the Franciscan directly
sees the vision of the dogma. The white habit, too,

FRANCIA A PLAGIARIST 27
may have significance : it may signify the purity
of heart, the clarity of mind of him who sees the
divine revelation. In any case I venture to claim
with entire confidence that we must in the future
call the kneeling Franciscan in both pictures, not
Anthony of Padua, the Seraphic thaumaturgist,
but John Duns Scotus, the Subtle Doctor.1
The one point of interest in this chapter to the
conventional student of art is the fact, here lumin
ously proved, that Francia took the idea, nay, the
very design of one of his finest pictures, straight
away and wholesale from the work of another
painter. He has changed the colour of the vest
ments, he has clad his Bishops in albs instead of
rochets, he has put in the hand of Saint Anselm,
by a happy touch, the Archiepiscopal Cross of
Jurisdiction rather than the Crosier, he has rightly
1 The flame has long since ceased to be the emblem of Saint
Anthony. It might most fittingly be adopted as the emblem of
Duns Scotus when he comes to be raised to the Altars of the
Church. In this picture Francia has presented the Order with
an ideal type of Scotus. I fear the white habit is a bungle of
the restorer rather than anything else, for it is exactly of the
same hue and texture as the Bishops' albs, which should be of
fine linen, and must have been painted as fine linen by Francia.

28 FRANCIA'S MASTERPIECE
substituted the Eternal Father for the Son, and
he has softened and sweetened the whole picture
in his own inimitable way, eliminating accessories,
and concentrating himself on essentials. But he
has added nothing to the order of ideas, and
appears to stand convicted of wholesale plagiariz
ing. Tommaso Trenta1 considers that the old
picture is an attempt at a copy of Francia's, made
by some surviving artist of the old school. The
thing, of course, is utterly impossible; I do but
mention it to exhaust my subject. Even a follower
of the old school would not, in copying, have put
back the shape of the mitre by a quarter of a
century.2 Then I may just mention that the
Government Inventory of Works of Art in Lucca
describes the old altar-piece as of the sixteenth
century, and says it is attributed to one of the
sons of Francia!3 This simply for the sake of
1 " Guida," p. 84.
2 Observe that the mitres in Francia's picture have emerged
from the quasi-Gothic form, and are already tending towards
the majestically imposing Roman shape.
3 The Inventory is at Rome. I take the above from a
synopsis preserved in the Record Office at Lucca: "Prospetto
dei Monumenti ed Oggetti d'Arte esistenti nella Provincia di

THE OLD PICTURE 29
registering all that there is to be said about the
old picture.
One other theory remains to be dismissed as
soon as stated. Could the old picture possibly be
an early work of Francia, the earliest known pic
ture, when he was still entirely " aurifex," and
only struggling to be "pictor"? His first dated
work is of the year 1490, when he was already
forty years old. The San Francesco altar-piece,
as I shall show, is of the year 1480, there or there
abouts. Why might not Francia at thirty years
of age have already been painting ? The old pic
ture is undoubtedly very decorative; Solomon's
cloak particularly smacks of the goldsmith : it is
altogether a noble -^picture, finely designed, richly
coloured, loftily conceived, in every way worthy
of a master hand. The theory is tempting simply
because it would make Francia executor of per
haps the first conception of the Immaculate Con
ception in Art. But it is idle even to state such a
theory. The old picture is assuredly the work of
Lucca." The " Prospetto " assigns Francia's own picture to the
fifteenth century ! In other words the older is said to be the
newer !

30 FRANCIA'S MASTERPIECE
a man in the full maturity of his powers. It can
not represent a step in the artistic development
of such a painter as Francia became. Francia cer
tainly underwent changes, but his style from
the beginning was "new"; he never underwent
any change from old to new, only from new to
newer. As for the fact that Francia took his lofty idea
from another painter, that is most easily, naturally,
and honourably explained. It is likely enough
that the old altar-piece in San Francesco speedily
acquired fame and favour as a picture inspiring
devotion, or as a picture before which great graces
might be obtained, or as a miracle picture. People
at the time were much wrought up about the Con
ception of Our Lady, and the Lucchesi from even
an earlier date have been famous for their devo
tion to the dogma. One thing is quite certain,
that the person who gave the order for Francia's
picture must have wished for one " like " the old
one for some altar of the Conception. What more
natural then that Francia should have executed
the order? This would relieve him entirely of
stealing a good idea for his own glory. He simply

FRANCIA IN LUCCA 31
did one " like " to satisfy some person's devotion,
"like," yet how unlike!1
' There is no evidence that Francia ever was in Lucca, only
Vasari's evidence that he worked for Lucca. It would now
almost seem natural that he came to Lucca to see this picture,
and yet he may merely have been furnished with a sketch. His
own picture, of course, he would almost certainly have painted
in his studio at Bologna.

Ill
THE INSPIRING SOURCES OF THE
PICTURE
I THINK I have made it plain that this altar-
piece of Francia's represents not merely the
Conception of the Blessed Virgin, but the Im
maculate Conception. The scroll held by King
Solomon is evidence sufficient (tota pulchra es
. . . et macula non est in te), but we are most of
all certified of the fact by our knowledge of the
significance of Ahasuerus' sceptre — Not for thee
is this law but for all mankind. These words can
not be intended to mean that the Virgin's privi
lege was Sanctification before birth, for St. John
the Baptist1 and Jeremiah the Prophet2 were
both likewise thus privileged : here it is obviously
question of a unique privilege. Here they can
only be intended to convey that all mankind was
1 Luke, i, 15, 4i) 44- 2 Jeremiah, i, 5.
D

34 FRANCIA'S MASTERPIECE
conceived in sin, save only one woman. Gravois1
has said truly, so far as I know, that no one ever
yet heard of miracles worked or graces obtained
by express devotion to the Virgin cleansed from
original sin, that no one ever yet heard of Cities,
Provinces, Kingdoms, Religious Orders expressly
placing themselves under the Protection of Our
Lady Sanctified. Never yet, he says, has there
been a Confraternity of Our Lady conceived in
the order of nature, nor ever yet an Indulgence
granted to such a devotion, nor has any Supreme
Pontiff ever encouraged or blessed such a de
votion. All these things have only been done in
the name of Mary Immaculate, Conceived in
Grace. These reflections of Pere Gravois' suggest
to me another quite noteworthy reflection : that
never yet was there an altar-piece of the Con
ception of the Virgin that is not an Immaculate
Conception. When the Immaculate Conception
first appeared in art (1477-1480), it never seems
to have occurred to the powerful and influential
opponents of the privilege to attempt pictures in
1 "De Ortu et Progressu Cultus ac Festi Imm. Concept.
B.D.G.V.M." Lucca, 1764. Art. Ult. § 260. A fine book.

THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION 35
accord with their theory. The man who should
find an altar-piece or picture showing, in conscious
and deliberate opposition to the privilege, a pre
sentment of the Blessed Virgin Conceived in Sin,
would have discovered the greatest curiosity in
the whole range of religious pictures. Even art
would seem to have conspired to teach us with
Duns Scotus that " excellentius est attribuere
Mariae." A few facts culled from that most fascinating
page in the history of the development of Chris
tian Doctrine, the Immaculate Conception, are,
perhaps, necessary to a right understanding of
the importance and significance of Francia's altar-
piece. The Church was extraordinarily backward in
recognizing a Feast of the Conception.1 The
feast was certainly celebrated in the East as
1 For a succinct, clear, and critical history of the Feast, see
Dr. K. A. H. Kellner's altogether admirable work, "Heorto-
logie, oder das Kirchenjahr und die Heiligenfeste in ihrer
geschichtlichen Entwicklung." Freiburg, Herder, 1901. There
is an excellent Italian translation, " L'Anno Ecclesiastico," by
the Rev. Dr. Angelo Mercati. Rome, Desclee, 1906. For

36 FRANCIA'S MASTERPIECE
early as the eighth century. Here it was called
the Conception of Saint Anne and celebrated on
the 9th December. By the year 1166, in the so-
called Eastern Empire, it had become a holiday
of obligation recognized by the State. The Feast
first penetrated to the West in Southern Italy and
Sicily and Sardinia, precisely because these terri
tories formed part of what is styled the Byzantine
Empire. The Normans on their conquest of Sicily
and South Italy found the Feast in vigour, found
it and loved it, and introduced it into Normandy.
So much did they make this Feast their own,
that we of the West came to speak of it as the
"festum nationis normannicae." From Normandy
it easily crossed the Channel and passed into
England. It was introduced into the Abbey of
Ramsey in the Diocese of Worcester by Abbot
Helsinus between the years 1080 and 1087, how
information regarding the devotion in early England, see
FF. Thurston and Slater's edition of Eadmer's "Tractatus de
Conceptione Sanctae Mariae." Freiburg, Herder, 1904. Also
extremely interesting articles by Father Thurston, "Abbot
Anselm of Bury and the Immaculate Conception," in the
"Month" of June, 1904, and "The Legend of Abbot Elsi,"
in the July, 1904, number of the same magazine.

GROWTH OF THE DEVOTION 37
and why we will learn presently. Saint Anselm
(ob. 1 109) greatly favoured the feast. Anselm the
Younger established it in Bury Saint Edmunds,
1 1 28- 1 1 29. But it was slow in spreading from
abbeys and monasteries, to cathedrals and parish
churches. Exeter, in the year 1287, seems to be
the first See to impose the Feast on the whole
Diocese. Anglo-Saxons may be justly proud of
the leading share they took in establishing a
festival which even the reformers could not root
out of the Anglican Calendar. In devotion to
this most beautiful feast, the zeal of Canterbury
outstripped Rome, as surely as the nimble feet of
Saint John the Divine outran the steady, sure,
long-distance pace of Saint Peter, the first Pope.
About 1 140, we find that devout lover of Mary,
the mellifluous Saint Bernard, sharply reproving
the Canons of Lyons for having introduced a novel
festival unsanctioned by Rome,1 while Alvarus
Pelagius writing in 1330-1332, states, indeed, that
1 Ep. 1 74. " Celebritatem, quam ritus ecclesiae nescit, non
probat ratio, non commendat antiqua traditio," strong words,
but he adds still stronger: "Non est hoc Virginem honorare,
sed honori detrahere."

38 FRANCIA'S MASTERPIECE
a Feast was celebrated in Saint Mary Major on
the 8th December, but that it was a Feast of Our
Lady's Sanctification, not of her Conception.1
The tardy approval given to this Festival by
Rome, Mother and Mistress of Churches, is most
comprehensible, and to-day excites our wonder
and admiration. The issue involved was one of
infinite moment, of Divine Revelation in fact.
Once approve a Feast of the Conception, and the
Dogma of the Immaculate Conception is a foregone
conclusion: so must deep-thinking Rome have
pondered in petto throughout the ages. For the
Church can only celebrate what is holy. Of all her
Saints she only celebrates one_ birthday, that of
St. John the Baptist, because all men and Saints
are born in sin, and he alone, among Saints, was
sanctified in his mother's womb. Her other
Saints she commemorates on the day of their
Death or Transitus which procured them instant
1 "De Planctu Ecclesiae." Venice, 1560. Fol. noa.b.
Alvarus Pelagius, though an ardent Friar Minor, was opposed
to the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, which he calls a
new-fangled doctrine. He also speaks of the Feast as never
having been approved, only tolerated, " maxime in Anglia."

DEVELOPMENT OF DOCTRINE 39
Sanctification in Heaven. Thus, too, she could not
celebrate a Conception stained with the blot of
original sin, for that would be tantamount to cele
brating the Feast of a thing not holy.1 So great
an issue needed centuries in which to come to fruit.
In contemplating the mystic original deposit of
the Christian Faith we seem to see two things,
separate in themselves, but united in their nature
and essence — seeds and fruit. The essential dog
mas, necessary to the persecuted and catacomb
life of the first Christians, were given from the
beginning in the form of ripe fruit that might
nourish and sustain: in the great mediaeval days
to come, the stately days of a public, recognized,
united Universal Church, there is no need for the
exceptional manna of the wilderness. The seeds
have become blossoms, have blossomed into devo
tions which beautify, magnify, exalt, attract. The
grain of the Immaculate Conception, tiniest of all
1 I do not forget the old and long since obsolete Feast of
the Conception of Saint John, celebrated on the 24th Sept
ember. The object was to do honour to his Sanctification be
fore birth. But the name was unfortunately chosen, and, since
there never could be any question with him of a Conception in
grace, the name itself was instrumental in killing the Feast.

40 FRANCIA'S MASTERPIECE
seeds in the original deposit of the Faith, so tiny
indeed as to need the expert's eye and eye-lens to
discover it at all, this seed has, in the fifteenth
century, grown into a stately tree covered with
richest blossoms. In the nineteenth century this
same tree is abundantly bearing ripest fruit, for
the Church has once more entered upon a recon
dite, unrecognized, persecuted life, which once
more needs the Heaven-sent manna of the wilder
ness. I should suppose that the impartial student
of religious history would regard the Definition of
the Dogma of the Immaculate Conception — de
fined, too, by a Pope without Council — as the
strongest evidence of, humanly speaking, inex
plicable vitality, ever manifested by the Catholic
Church. The Definition of Papal Infallibility
pales before it: the seeds of Papal Infallibility
very soon took the form of fruit, and from the
first are discernible even to the unpractised eye : 1
this Definition was, humanly speaking, far more
1 "The seeds of Popery were sown even in the Apostles'
time." (Bishop Newton's Dissertation on the Prophecies,
vol. iii, chap. 10, p. 148.) Quoted by De Maistre in "Du
Pape," Conclusion, § viii, note 4.

DUNS SCOTUS 41
certain to come, far more easily gathered from
Holy Writ and the Unwritten Divine Word, than
the Dogma of Mary Virgin Conceived in Grace.
But did the Greeks, the Sicilians, the Normans,
and our Anglo-Saxon ancestors, did Abbot Hel
sinus, did Anselm the elder and Anselm the
Younger, really believe in the Dogma of the Im
maculate Conception, or merely intend to honour
the Sanctification in the womb ? I am here hardly
concerned with that question. One thing is certain,
that all Christians before them, and all Catholic
Christians after them, believed Mary to be Im
maculate, that is to say, sanctified before birth,
and sinless unto death. The dispute that arose
related only to the moment in which this sanctifi
cation began.1
That great light among the Sons of Saint
Francis, John Duns Scotus, ennobled in successive
ages by the highest attribute that can be given to
the intellect of man, Subtle, the Subtle Doctor,
was, I think, the first theologian, or at all events
the greatest among the first, to formulate the
1 "The Mother of Jesus," by J. Herbert Williams, London,
Kegan Paul, 1906, chap, viii, p. 258.

42 FRANCIA'S MASTERPIECE
question and to answer: that the moment of
Sanctification was in the very instant of Concep
tion, that the Mother of Christ was in very deed
never sanctified, because sine labe originali con-
cepta.
potuit :
decuit :
ergo fecit.
This is the syllogism of his which eventually sub
dued the Schools and captured the University of
Paris. Scotus' Order took up the cause of the
Privilege with true Seraphic ardour, and with the
advent of the Franciscan Pope Sixtus IV (1471-
1484), the eventual triumph of the Cause was as
sured.1
1 The Feast had already been celebrated in the whole Order
since 1263. See decision of General Chapter in "Chronologia
Historico-Legalis Seraphici Ordinis," Naples, 1650, vol. i, p. 27.
A fascinating book on Scotus by P. Marianus Fernandez
Garcia, O.F.M., has lately been produced at the Quaracchi
Press in honour of the Centenary : " Mentis in Deum Quoti-
diana Elevatio duce Doctore Subtili et Mariano B. Ioanne
Duns Scoto O.F.M." In Part II, extracts from the writings of
Scotus are given for every day in the year according to the
Romano-Seraphic Calendar, and in Part I extracts for all Sun
days, holidays and special feasts. The whole is preceded by

LITURGY OF THE CONCEPTION 43
Sixtus IV was the first Pope to sanction an
Office (Sicut lilium), and a Mass (Egredimini), of
the Immaculate Conception. This was in 1477.
He did not impose either, but he endowed both
with Indulgences, and both soon began to find
their way into Breviary and Missal. There they
remained until Pius V reformed the Service Books,
when both Office and Mass were expunged (1568-
1570). But Pius V, in a sense, did more than
Sixtus IV. If he abolished the existing Office and
Mass, which were purely voluntary and only to
be found in certain books, it was to make com
pulsory on clerics an Office and Mass of the Con
ception, identical with the Office and Mass of the
Nativity, save that the word " Conception " was
to be substituted for the word " Nativity" wher
ever that occured, The lessons of the first two
nocturns, however, were proper of the Concep
tion.1 The Friars Minor, however, obtained leave
the most satisfactory attempt as yet made to write a life of the
Subtle Doctor.
1 " In festo Conceptions B. Mariae. Omnia praeter lectiones
primi et secundi nocturni dicuntur ut in Nativitate ejusdem
mutato nomine Nativitatis in nomen Conceptions. In primis

44 FRANCIA'S MASTERPIECE
from Pope Pius V to use the Office and Mass
sanctioned by Sixtus IV,1 and, with some slight
changes, they continued to use both until the new
Office and Mass, written for the solemn definition
of the Dogma in 1854, became the general use.
The Office and Mass sanctioned by Sixtus IV
in his Constitution Cum prae excelsa, dated 27th
February, 1477, were written by Leonardo Noga-
rolo of Verona, Protonotary Apostolic and Secre
tary to the Pope. Pere Gravois gives a list of
twenty-nine Breviaries and fifty-three Missals,
extending from 1478 to 1566, in which this Office
and Mass may be found.2 Sixtus IV attached the
same indulgences to those who recited the Office
or said the Mass, or who attended the Mass and
the Canonical Hours, as were granted for the like
pious acts on Corpus Domini. P. Candido Mariotti
recounts that the Franciscans, in many provinces,
did not say Matins and Lauds at midnight on this
vesperis omnia de Conceptione cum commemoratione Sancti
Ambrosi." — Rubric.
1 "La Donna dell' Apocalisse," by Fra Michel' Angelo da
Bibbiena, Lucca, 17 12, p. 284. A fascinating book.
2 "DeOrtu." Appendices 6 and 7.

NOGAROLO'S OFFICE 45
Feast, but after First Vespers, so that it might be
possible for the Faithful to attend and gain the
Indulgences.1 The new Office, which is a fine
liturgical performance, has, however, no proper
hymns. Nogarolo has been content with the
"Ave Maris Stella" for Vespers, the "Quern
terra, pontus, aethera " for Matins, and the " O
gloriosa" for Lauds. His noble Collect has sur
vived, and is, with scarcely perceptible verbal
changes, the Collect used in the modern Office of
the Immaculate Conception.4
In 1480 another very remarkable Office and
Mass of the Conception were written. The author
was Fra Bernardino of the Order of Friars Minor
Observantins, scion of a distinguished Milanese
family, the Busti.3 Fra Bernardino was in his day a
1 " L'Immacolata Concezione di Maria ed i Francescani,"
Quaracchi, 1904, p. 135.
2 It could scarcely be improved upon : Oremus. Deus, qui
per immacolatam Virginis conceptionem dignum Filio tuo
habitaculum preparasti; concede quaesumus : ut sicut ex morte
ejusdem Filii tui praevisa earn ab omni labe preservasti: ita nos
quoque mundos ejus intercessione ad te pervenire concedas.
Per eundem Dominum nostrum. Amen.
3 Not of Busto, a place in Lombardy, as Fabricius and
others among the learned have imagined. See ArgelaL,

46 FRANCIA'S MASTERPIECE
very famous preacher, and at all times an enthu
siastic champion of Our Lady's privilege. When
he presented his Office and Mass to Sixtus IV,
humbly begging that it might be examined by
some learned theologian, the Pope replied that
he would himself be the examiner. The Office
and Mass were approved by Brief under the
Fisherman's Ring, dated 4th October (Feast of
Saint Francis), 1480, and the same Indulgences
were attached to them as to the Office and Mass
of Leonardo Nogarolo. Leave to recite the Office
was not confined to the Franciscans, but extended
to " omnes qui id voluerint." The Office of Ber
nardino de' Busti is printed in his " Mariale "
(Milan, 1493), a work which has become exceed
ingly scarce. The " Patres Editores " of Quar
acchi, who have done so many noble services to
scholars, reprinted the Mass and Office in 1904,
and, worth its weight in gold though it be in illus
trating this subject, it can be bought for the in
significant sum of thirty centimes.1 Would that
"Bibliotheca Scriptorum Mediolanensium," Milan, 1745, I,
ii, 244.
1 " Officium et Missa de Immaculata Conceptione B. M. V.

BUSTI'S OFFICE 47
somebody had also thought of reprinting Leon
ardo Nogarolo's Office and Mass ! The liturgy of
the Conception and the Immaculate Conception,
still needs treatment as a separate subject, volu
minously and critically. For instance, I do not
think that a single example of the rare Office of
the Sanctification has ever been printed.
In Bernardino's Office there are proper hymns
for Vespers, Matins and Lauds, and also, if halt
ing here and there in its quantities, a very beauti
ful Sequence for the Mass.1 Bernardino has pro-
composita a Ven. Fr. Bernardino de Bustis, O.F.M." Ad Claras
Acquas (Quaracchi), 1904.
1 Here are some specimens of fine sentiment and bad metre :
Salve Sponsa Deitatis,
Maria, fons pietatis,
Angelorum Domina.
Tu magistra clementiae
Mater Misericordiae,
Nostra delens crimina.
Tu in coelis coronata
Ab Angelis venerata,
Micans super sidera.
Nos famulos rege tuos
Atque tibi fac devotos
Pro tua dementia.

48 FRANCIA'S MASTERPIECE
vided nine lessons for the Feast, and nine lessons
for every day of the Octave, seventy-two lessons
altogether, a feat of extraordinary learning. As
may be imagined these lessons are a veritable
treasure-house of Marian science. Bernardino's
Office, however, never made any headway, not
even among the Franciscans, though it no doubt
attracted a good deal of attention at the time of
its composition, and under his influence may have
been used in the Milan Province (of which he was
Minister Provincial) until the time of his death
(circa 1500). It is manifestly inferior to Nogar-
olo's work from the liturgical point of view, and
that it never enjoyed any popularity in the Order
is sufficiently evident from the fact that the Fran
ciscans petitioned to retain the use of this, and not
of their own Office, when Pius V expunged Office
and Mass from Breviary and Missal. So utterly
forgotten did it become that Gravois, the best
historian of the cult, and Fra Michel' Angelo da
Bibbiena, in his chapter on Sixtus IV, make no
mention of Busti's Office.
I seem to be wandering far away from Francia's
picture, but indeed I have really been leading

INSPIRING SOURCE 49
straight up to it. For both these Offices were in
spiring sources of pictures of the Immaculate Con
ception. But in this case I think there can be no
question that Bernardino's Office was the inspir
ing source of the old altar-piece in San Francesco.
With the exception of the words of Duns Scotus
which occur in neither Office, all the selections
for the scrolls are to be found in the lessons, anti-
phons, responsories or versicles of both Offices,
save only the quotation from Saint Augustine
(In coelo qualis est, etc.) which occurs in Bernard
ino's Office alone. Thus the picture could not
have been painted before 1480, the year in which
the Office received papal approval. This seems
to me proof positive as to the inspiring source,
while a verse in the Vesper Hymn may actually
have suggested the position of the two central
figures, and it may have been in Lucca that the
idea of Ahasuerus' sceptre first had birth in art as
a means of illustrating the Immaculate Conception :
"Assueri regis sceptrum
Caput tangens Virgo tuum
Mori fecit laqueatum
Aman Sanctis inimicum."

50 FRANCIA'S MASTERPIECE
We may safely conclude, then, that the old altar-
piece was not painted before October, 1480,
though, from its style, very soon after, probably
in the next year, and I think we may claim for it
that it is the inspiring source, the Mother and
Mistress of all pictures of the Immaculate Con
ception in which a sceptre is used. The painter
— almost certainly a Friar of the Lucca Convent —
drew from Bernardino, and Francia, under orders,
drew from the painter. Possibly the old altar-
piece is the most ancient representation of the
Immaculate Conception that has survived.1
One other point. Bernardino in his Offices
quotes David, Solomon, Anselm and Augustine;
and he magnifies Duns Scotus in a place of
honour,2 saying that he "was destined by Our
Lord Jesus Christ to defend the dignity of His
Mother." Of Saint Anthony of Padua there is
1 The Altar of the old "Cappella del Coro" (founded by
Sixtus IV and pulled down in 1609) was dedicated in 1479 to
the Conception of the Blessed Virgin, to Saint Francis of Assisi,
and Saint Anthony of Padua. There was no altar-piece properly
so called, but the fresco above the Altar was by Perugino.
2 Not within the Octave, but in the fourth lesson of the
Feast.

LUCCA AND THE CONCEPTION 51
not a word. Now if the Office of Bernardino be
the inspiring source of the old picture (as unques
tionably it is), if David, Solomon, Anselm and
Augustine, passed from it into the picture, then is it
not more than ever evident that that little kneel
ing figure is, not Saint Anthony as he is called,
but John Duns Scotus, Doctor Subtilis and Doc
tor Marianus. So at least I intend for the future
to call him, both in speaking of this picture and
the Francia, and if I can but convince the guide
books that he is not Peter Igneus, as they tell
travellers, some little thing will have been done
for his honour and glory in this year of the sixth
centenary. Lucca possesses the oldest known Altar dedi
cated to the Conception; it preserves the oldest
known Bull relating to the Conception ; it claims
to have the oldest known Confraternity of the
Conception in all Italy, and the oldest Chaplaincy
of the Conception; to a church in Lucca was
granted the first Indulgence for devotion to the
Conception; Lucca raised the first known column
in honour of the Conception, anticipating the
famous column in the Piazza di Spagna by nearly

52 FRANCIA'S MASTERPIECE
a hundred and seventy years,1 and in Francia's
altar-piece I claim for Lucca, without any fear of
being gainsaid, the most beautiful picture of the
Immaculate Conception ever yet painted by the
hand of man. To this circlet of precious gems I
now with reverent hand, mindful of all that she
has given me, add yet another jewel and not the
least of them — the oldest known picture of the
Immaculate Conception, for such assuredly is the
altar-piece from San Francesco.
1 The Altar 1333, the Chaplaincy 1360, the Confraternity
about the same time, the Indulgence 1387, the Column 1687.
The Altar is in the lovely little Church of Santa Maria della
Rosa; the Bull, dated 8th December, 1387, is preserved in the
Archives of the Compagnia della Rosa; the Column is fittingly
placed in front of San Francesco. The Bull was actually not
known at the time of the Definition: it would have been a
valuable bit of evidence to the Consultors. See Canon Almerico
Guerra " Istoria della Miracolosa Immagine, Chiesa e Confra-
ternita di Maria SS. della Rosa," Lucca, 1858. Also a valuable
work which I hope its learned author may expand: "L'lm-
macolata a Lucca," by Canon Pietro Guidi, Pavia, 1905.
Monsignor Guidi gives a facsimile of the wonderful Bull.

IV
THE PREDELLA OF THE PICTURE
I AM now free to attempt an explanation of the
significance of the four exquisite little chiar
oscuros in the predella.1 In asking oneself what
they can possibly mean, the natural thing to
suppose is : incidents in the lives of the Saints
above the Altar, were it not that there are five
Saints and only four compartments. Still, seeing
the marked position assigned to the kneeling
figure, it might have been the painter's intention
to emphasize all the more the fact that he is
seeing a vision, by leaving him out among scenes
which perhaps only bore witness. Of course most
writers on art have kept discreetly silent about
these pictures, or have confined themselves to
praising their exquisite beauty. Not one, that I
know of, has even had recourse to that favourite
resource of the art-writer when baffled by the
1 I regret that I cannot offer the reader more satisfactory
reproductions. They are enlargements made at home of
Alinari's excellent photograph.

54 FRANCIA'S MASTERPIECE
meaning of a picture — elaborate, solemn descrip
tion; not one, that is to say, has described to us
what may be seen in these pictures. Mazzarosa
and Kugler and Hare say not a word of any sort ;
" in a predella four monochromes," suffices for
Crowe and Cavalcaselle ; Mrs. Jameson extols
their " exquisite beauty; " to the Editors of Vasari
they are a " sweet thing;" to Michele Ridolfi they
are " the most gracious little figures imaginable."
What if they are gracious and sweet, exquisite
and beautiful — that all of us can see for ourselves :
but we want to know what the great artist is
representing. There are men and women and
children in the pictures : at least tell us what they
are doing if you cannot tell us why they are
doing it.
Some weighty writer, whom it must be the
custom to regard as infallible, has started the
theory that they relate to the history of the
Augustinian Order. I have failed to trace the
culprit but he has had a bad influence on others
and deserves to be shown up. The writer of
Murray's " Handbook to Central Italy," for in
stance, says that they are "four scenes from the

THE AUGUSTINIAN ORDER 55
foundation of the Augustinian Order," but he does
not tell us what the scenes are. It would be
interesting to know, in No. 1, how a number of
Benedictines at a Conventual High Mass, or, in
No. 2, how a Franciscan Friar standing in a
bonfire, or, in No. 3, how a brawl and reconciliation
between two laymen, or, in No. 4, some great
excitement and wonder about a child, it would be
interesting, I say, to know how these things can
have anything to do with the foundation or history
of the Augustinian Order, whether of Canons
Regular or Hermit Friars. Mrs. Ady opens up a
wider vista and holds that they are " scenes from
the history of the Augustinian Order ; " Baedeker
is of the same opinion ; Dr. Williamson holds that
they are scenes from the early history of the
Order. These three statements, so like yet so
unlike, foundation, history, and early history, poiht
to the original source being of a very puddled
nature indeed.
I grant that it is not easy to make out what
these pictures are, since a cursory glance shows
that they cannot relate to the lives of the Saints
above. But seeing that my reproductions are none

56 FRANCIA'S MASTERPIECE
too clear, I will attempt a bald description before
coming to their meaning.
In No. i there are two scenes (a) a ship at sea,
first seen in the distance, then nearer land, with
mast broken and sails and rigging flying; a mitred
head is visible in the tightly packed terror-stricken
crowd of passengers and men ; Our Lady appears
in the heavens above, (b) High Mass, with Deacon
and Subdeacon ; that the celebrant is a Bishop or
Abbot is evident from the fact that the acolyte by
the Altar is holding a Mitre ; Benedictine monks
in wide-sleeved surplices (no, not cowls) are assist
ing at the Mass; over theAltar is a picture; it would
look as if the Bishop or Abbot were saying a Mass
of thanksgiving for deliverance from shipwreck.
In No. 2 there are likewise two scenes, (a) a
group of Religious and layfolk in argument; the
most prominent figure is a Franciscan ; a Domini
can extends his arms in surprise or remonstrance;
I can also see a Benedictine in his cowl; the
Franciscan is obviously trying to convince some
body : (b) outside, a Franciscan stands in a bonfire ;
a small group gaze at him in wonder; Our Lady
is in the heavens above.

THE CHIAROSCUROS 57
In No. 3 there are perhaps three scenes, (a) a
Cavalier threateningly draws his sword upon an
unarmed man ; (b) presently these two are kneel
ing in an embrace of reconciliation, the sword
having been thrown on the ground; a few figures
lean against the pillars of the loggia and look on,
tranquilly admiring; (c) under the loggia a man
is praying before a picture.
In No. 4 there are likewise three scenes: (a) a
woman is sitting under a loggia, apparently on a
roof, judging by the distant view not discernible
in my reproduction; a child is walking away from
her, holding a stick or some object in his hand;
(b) a man and two women are grouped round the
child, marvelling greatly; (c) a woman is praying
before a picture; the child is lying on the floor
clinging to the train of the woman's skirt.
There is nothing so peculiar as the extraordinary
density that comes over the mind of man when he
looks at a picture. As often as not he cannot see
straight; more often than not the order of ideas
gets itself completely inverted. So at least I found
it in trying to make out the meaning of these little
pictures. That they represented miracles it was

58 FRANCIA'S MASTERPIECE
easy enough to see from the second glance, when
I had abandoned the idea that they could be
incidents from the lives of the Saints above. But
what miracles among the myriad miracles worked
in fifteen hundred years of Catholic history? Shall
I ever be able to unearth and locate them ? The
task for a moment seemed hopeless.
I examined and considered the pictures over
and over again, ever so carefully as I thought;
but without result. These were the only gloomy
moments I had in these delightful researches. It
was my own fault. I was before a picture, and
therefore suffering from that curious intellectual
depravity which afflicts the best of us when we
are trying to see a picture. A section of the order
of ideas had got itself inverted : I left unexamined
and examined last of all, that which it should have
been my business to examine first of all, the only
clue, the picture in the pictures. That in No. i is
clearly visible: there is a sitting figure and a
kneeling figure, the sitting figure apparently ex
tends a rod over the kneeling figure. If only this
is repeated in the other pictures! My hopes rose
high: yes, sure enough, under a strong lens, the

THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION 59
picture in No. 3 and No. 4 reveals the same figures
the same attitude, the same action of giving an
accolade. Then at length the fog lifted, and all
became clear as the noonday sun. This picture in
the pictures was itself a representation of the
Immaculate Conception. The prayers before it
showed me that these were miracles worked by
invoking Our Lady conceived without Sin, con
ceived in Grace. The invocation was still new in
Francia's time. I need therefore only study the
history of miracles for a hundred years or so, not
for fifteen hundred, and I need only search for
miracles worked by Our Lady Immaculate, and
not by Our Lady generically, or under one of her
many other designations. One of the miracles I
recognize on the spot, for I know my Golden
Legend and I know the elements, at least, of the
history of the Immaculate Conception. It is the
well-known story of how the Abbot Helsinus was
miraculously saved from shipwreck on the condition
that he should introduce the celebration of the
Festival of the Conception into his Abbey of
Ramsey. There is the imminent shipwreck clear
enough, and there clear enough, surrounded by

60 FRANCIA'S MASTERPIECE
his monks, is the Abbot celebrating a Mass of the
Conception before a picture of the Conception.
What a delight to discover thus unexpectedly that
the great Bologna painter had painted a character
istic and famous incident in the making of the
English liturgy. Of the other three pictures I can
then and there make nothing whatsoever.
But owing to the commonsense practice of con
sulting theologians about the meaning of religious
pictures rather than turning to the recognized
authorities on art, I am advised to make search
in that great Marian storehouse, Migne's " Summa
Aurea de Laudibus Beatissimae Virginis." There
sure enough in Dom Cimarolo's " Miranda Mari
ana," x in Vol. XII, at Column 1108, I read the
welcome title of No. XXXII: " Franciscanus
Laicus defendens Immacolatam Conceptionem stat
in flammis illaesus," 2 and I am at once in posses
sion of the miracle depicted in Chiaroscuro No. 2.
1 "Miranda Mariana, sive mira ope Deiparae Beatae Mariae
Virginis circa mortales patrata, a R.P. Ignatio Brentano Cima-
rolo, O.S.P. Benedicti in Monastero Banthensi professo."
2 " A Franciscan lay-brother in defence of the Immaculate
Conception goes through the ordeal of fire unscathed."

CHIAROSCURO No. i 61
The remaining two miracles are likewise recounted
by Dom Cimarolo, who gives the rare " Mariale "
of Bernardino de' Busti as his authority. And so
it happens that Bernardino, whose Office inspired
the old picture in San Francesco, which in turn
inspired Francia, was also the inspiring source of
Francia's predella.
I will now proceed to an orderly narrative of
the four miracles, But as regards No. i I cannot
refrain from leaving aside the " Summa Aurea "
and the " Mariale " and quoting instead the story
of Abbot Helsinus as given in Caxton's ever
fresh and delightful translation of the "Legenda
Aurea."1

No. i
" Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury and
pastor of England,2 sendeth greeting and bene-
1 " The Golden Legend or Lives of the Saints as Englished
by William Caxton." London, Dent (Temple Classics), vol. ii,
pp. 126-128.
2 The reader must beware of taking this letter as a genuine
Encyclical of the great Archbishop: but I am not going to
interrupt my narrative with a treatise on the subject.

62 FRANCIA'S MASTERPIECE
diction in Our Lord perpetual unto the Bishops
that be under me, and to all them that have
remembrance of the Blessed Virgin Mary Mother
of God.
" Right dear brethren, how the Conception of the
glorious Virgin Mary hath been showed sometime
in England, in France, and in other countries by
miracles I shall rehearse to you.
"In the time that it pleased to God for to correct
the people of England of their evils and sins, and
to constrain them to his service, he gave victory
in battle to William, the glorious Duke of Nor
mandy, to win and conquer the realm of England.
And after that he was King of the land, anon by
the help of God, and of his prudence, he reformed
the estates and dignities of Holy Church into
better reformation than it had been. To which
the Devil, enemy unto all good works had envy,
and pained him to empesh and let the good works,
as well by falseness of his servants as by encumber
ing of his strangers. For when the Danes heard
say that England was subject unto the Normans,
anon they made them ready to withstand it. When
King William understood this, anon he sent the

ABBOT HELSINUS 63
Abbot of Rumsey, which was named Helsinus,
into Denmark for to know the truth. This Abbot
after that he had done well and diligently the
charge of his commission, and that he was returned
a great part of the sea homeward, anon arose a
great tempest on the sea, in such wise that the
cords and other habiliments of the ship brake.
And the masters and governors of the ship, and
all they that were therein, lost the hope and trust
to escape the peril of this tempest, and all cried
devoutly to the glorious Virgin Mary, which is
comfort to the discomforted, and hope to the de
spaired, and recommended themselves in the keep
ing of God. And anon they saw coming tofore
the ship, upon the water, an honourable person in
the habit of a Bishop, which called the said Abbot
in the ship, and said to him: Wilt thou escape
these perils of the sea, and go home whole and
safe to thy country? And the Abbot answered,
weeping, that he desired that above all other
things. Then said the Angel to him : Know that
I am sent hither by Our Lady for to say to thee
that if thou wilt hear me and do thereafter, thou
shalt escape this peril of the sea. The Abbot

64 FRANCIA'S MASTERPIECE
promised that gladly he would obey to that he
should say. Then said the Angel: Make covenant
to God, and to me, that thou shalt do hallow the
Feast of the Conception of Our Lady, and of her
creation, well and solemnly, and that thou shalt
go and preach it. And the Abbot demanded in
what time this feast should be kept. The Angel
answered to him : The eighth day of December.
And the Abbot demanded him what office and
service he should take for the service in holy
church. And the Angel answered : All the Office
of the Nativity of Our Lady, save where thou
sayest Nativity, thou shalt say, Conception,1 and
anon after the Angel vanished away and the tempest
ceased. And the Abbot came home safely into his
country with his company, and notified to all them
that he might, that he had heard and seen. And,
right dear sirs, if ye will arrive at the port of
health, let us hallow devoutly the Creation and the
Conception of the Mother of Our Lord, by whom
' The instructions, precisely, of the rubric in the Pius V,
and subsequent Breviaries down to 1854. " Well and solemnly,"
indeed, does Abbot Helsinus hallow the Feast of the Concep
tion of Our Lady in Francia's exquisite little sketch.

THE CHIAROSCUROS. Nos. I AND 2

CHIAROSCURO NO. 2 65
we may receive the reward of her son in the glory
of paradise celestial." 1

No. 2
"Certain priests of various Religious Orders,
who once met upon a journey, began to talk of
the Immaculate Conception, and each gave his
own opinion. One of them denied that Mary was
conceived without sin; another as strenuously
affirmed her Immaculate Conception. As each
obstinately kept to his own opinion, a lay-brother,
socius of the Franciscan father, no longer able to
stand by and hear Our Lady's privilege impugned
by the other Religious, in a moment of anger
struck him, priest though he was, a swingeing
blow (validissimam alapam). The Religious thus
outraged was of a very noble family, whose house
1 Migne, "Summa Aurea," Vol. XII, Col. 1102, No. xxiv.
FF. Thurston and Slater, op. cit., give three versions of this
story. It also forms Lessons V and VI of the Fourth day in
Bernardino's Office.
Francia has not introduced the venerable figure habited as a
Bishop into his picture. He has preferred with finer feeling,
and a didactic purpose, to introduce the Blessed Virgin who
sent him.

66 FRANCIA'S MASTERPIECE
was not far distant, and when the lay-brother
heard that the Religious intended to be revenged
upon him by means of his relations, he was greatly
dismayed. But he put his trust in Our Lady Im
maculate, and when a few days afterwards he
appeared before the outraged priest's friends and
relations, he declared fearlessly that he had not
struck him out of malice, but only because he
had so bitterly assailed the Immaculate Concep
tion of the Most Pure Mother of God, the truth
of which he undertook to prove then and there
before them all. ' Light a big fire,' he said, ' and
I promise to enter it with the priest whom I
struck; whichever of us is consumed by the
flames let his opinion be considered the false
one.' The proposal was approved by all, and a
large fire was soon lighted. The lay-brother,
taking the priest by the hand, sought to lead
him into the fire, but overcome by the horror
of death, he utterly refused to move. The lay-
brother then did not hesitate to enter the flames
alone, calling upon the Immaculate Virgin in
fervent prayer, imploring her that as she was
created without the fire of sin, so might she keep

CHIAROSCURO NO. 3 67
her poor servant unharmed in the flames. And
it is a fact that he remained a long time without
scathe of sort in the fire, repeatedly inviting the
priest, though in vain, to join him in the midst
of the flames. As may be easily imagined, so
great a miracle converted the bystanders to belief
in the absolute innocence of the Virgin Mother,
and won for the lay-brother full pardon for the
blow he had struck." * No. 3
"A certain Italian, a citizen of Aquila, was
greatly incensed against his dearest enemy, and
overcome in the weakness of human nature by
his wrath, he determined to kill him, when having
1 Bern, de Busti, "Mariale de Excellentiis Regine Celi.
Impressum Mediolani per Magistrum Leonardum Pachel.
Anno Domini mcccclxxxxiij." The copy in the Quaracchi
library is unpaged, but the folio number has been added in pencil.
The above story is taken from "Serm. de Concept.," viii,
fol. 48a, and appears in the "Summa Aurea," in Vol. XII,
No. xxxii, Col. 1 108 (Miranda Mariana).
Cimarolo has taken his facts from Bernardino, but he has
worked them up into a more sprightly narrative, and I therefore
translate him rather than the original in Nos. 2, 3, and 4.
From the artistic point of view this little picture seems to
me the gem of the series.

68 FRANCIA'S MASTERPIECE
already taken up his sword to that end, he was
suddenly smitten with the consciousness that his
purpose would greatly offend the Divine Majesty,
and that on no account must he put it into effect.
Wherefore, commending himself devoutly to the
Mother of God, he humbly prayed her that by
virtue of her Immaculate Conception she would
save him from committing so grave a sin as to
attempt his neighbour's life, and soil his own
conscience forever. Scarcely had he conceived
this pious thought when lo! he found his sword
so twisted in its scabbard that he could by no
manner of means draw it forth to stab and thrust
withal. Thereupon the two enemies were wholly
reconciled, and from that moment each vied with
other in celebrating, with pious fervour, the fame
of Our Lady Conceived without Sin. The sword
which had been so miraculously twisted is still
preserved and shown in Aquila, a lasting me
morial of so great an event." 2
1 Mariale, "Serm. de Concept," vii, fol. 43b. "Summa
Aurea," Vol. XII, No. xlix, Col. 1140. Of the existence of the
sword in 1493, Bernardino testifies " sicut mihi retulit quidam
frater noster." I have been unable to ascertain whether the
sword is still preserved and shown in Aquila.

THE CHIAROSCUROS. Nos. 3 and 4

CHIAROSCURO NO. 4 69
No. 4
" There lived at Bergamo in Italy a certain
woman of blameless life, known for her singular
devotion to the Mother of God Conceived Im
maculate. She had a little son of four, who in the
sweet innocence of that age, was the only joy of
his parents, and the general delight of the whole
household. It happened that the mother took the
little boy with her to the terrace on the roof so as
to enjoy the cool breezes at sunset, and there she
let him run about at will. But lo! while he was
thus disporting himself, by unlooked-for mischance
and before his mother could save him, he fell
headlong from the terrace. What could the af
flicted mother do, who would rather have lost her
own life than this little son so dear to her? As
soon as she saw him fall she had humble recourse
to the Most Pure Mother of the Divine Child,
beseeching for the honour of the holy mystery of
her Immaculate Conception, that Our Lady, a
more careful mother, would rescue the little son
of whom his earthly mother had been too careless.
Scarcely had the afflicted lady uttered this prayer
than she rushed down stairs to look for her son

70 FRANCIA'S MASTERPIECE
whom she believed to be dead. But, although he
had fallen from so great a height on to the hard
stones, she found him without bruise or scathe, to
the universal marvel, and all were filled with deep
thankfulness to the Mother of God, who, when
invoked, had granted so great a favour in memory
of her Holy Conception." 1
One other point to show how delightful was
the cast of mind of Francesco Raibolini detto il
Francia. This idea will certainly be his own, and
not that of the theologians who coached him. He
has to depart from custom: in the predella he is
to place not incidents from the lives of the Saints
in the main piece as the custom is, but miracles
worked by invoking Mary Immaculate. He obeys,
1 Mariale. "Sermo de Concept.," viii, fol. 49a. "Summa
Aurea," Vol. XII, No. xxii, Col. 1 1 2 7. Francia does not show us
the child in the act of falling, but then he never painted horrors.
He has preferred to show us the child, prone indeed, but joined to
his mother while in the act of prayer, saved indeed by her prayers.
Of course both in this picture, and in No. 3, the figures
kneeling in prayer before a picture of the Immaculate Concep
tion, are only symbolical of the prayer offered up in two very
diverse moments of mental anguish.

FRANCIA'S FANCY 71
but nevertheless, with infinite art and exquisite
imagination, he does make the miracle pictures fit
in with the Saints above. Beneath Saint Anselm
he puts the story of the Abbot Helsinus, the
popular account of which was supposed to have
been written by the Saint himself; beneath Saint
Augustine, the Prince of Controversialists, he
places a religious disputation; then taking the
second scene of the second picture, beneath a fiery
champion of the Immaculate Conception — Duns
Scotus — he places another and a humble champion
in the fire;1 beneath King David, who so often
escaped the vengeance of his deadly enemy Saul,
he places that man of Aquila who was likewise
thus spared; and beneath King Solomon, whose
immortal judgment gave back a child to its law
ful mother, he places the incident in which the
prayer of a mother to the Mother Immaculate
restores a child in peril to the maternal embrace.
What lively imagination, what true and happy
1 This is proof to my satisfaction that Francia was perfectly
well aware that the kneeling figure was not Saint Anthony of
Padua, but that vigorous champion of the privilege, John Duns
Scotus.

72 FRANCIA'S MASTERPIECE
fancy, what benign intelligence, what compassion
ate loving-kindness! It is beyond all praise, and
beggars our admiration. Francesco here surpasses
all his fellows, lifts us up into regions where it is
good for us to be, and assuredly takes us deep
down into the inner workings of one of the noblest
minds that ever taught the Christian Faith in
tempera and oils.

V
THE CHAPEL FOR THE PICTURE
I HAVE now done with the description and
meaning of Francia's sublime Altar-piece, and
can pass to the subject of the hitherto unknown
donor, and of the Chapel and Altar of the Concep
tion, effaced and forgotten, for which the picture
was destined by an act of deep and touching piety.
As soon as I became aware that this fine work
was not an Assumption or a Coronation, as the
best writers tell us, but a Conception, I began to
ask myself the very natural question: how comes
it that an Altar-piece of the Conception is found
hanging in a Chapel of the Assumption ? Hanging
is, as it happens, the right word, for the picture,
as I have said, is placed flat on the wall of the
Chapel without any reference to the sacred use
for which it was painted, just as if it were on the
walls of a melancholy pinacoteca, full of works
torn from the churches where they were meant to

74 FRANCIA'S MASTERPIECE
honour God and inspire devotion. If an altar-
piece, I argue, then surely there was an Altar, if
an Altar then, as surely, in a Church which is all
side chapels must there have been a Chapel of
the Conception to contain the Altar. But where
is this Chapel? All the existing side-chapels are
quite satisfactorily accounted for by the writers on
San Frediano, and not one mentions a Chapel of
the Conception.
For a moment I thought I had discovered the
vanished Chapel. On the wall space between the
Chapels of the Annunciation and Assumption, in
which there is deeply embedded a wooden Con
fessional, high up on a level with the other arches
of the side-chapels, I noticed in the stuccoed wall
the faint outline of an arch. Here, assuredly, a
space had been walled up, and why might not this
once upon a time have been a dark narrow Chapel ?
The walled-up space, when I got inside it, proved
to be one of the stanzas of the Opera used for
storing church furniture. A careful examination
of its structure showed that it could never have
been a vaulted Chapel like the others. Yet some
where in the Church there must have been a

SAN FREDIANO 75
Chapel of the Conception. I was destined to find
it without too much difficulty, but before proving
the point I had better have done with elementary
description of the Chapel of the Assumption as it
stands to-day.
The Basilica of San Frediano was for centuries
in the hands of Canons Regular of the Lateran.
They were suppressed in 1780 at the request of
the Republic of Lucca with the consent of Pius VI,
but on the condition that their monastery and
revenues should be used for public education.
The huge monastery is still a boys' school, the
Regio Collegio. The Church has since been minis
tered by secular priests. The chief priest has the
style and title of Priore. The Church itself is a
very noble specimen of the simple Lombard
basilica. From the purist's point of view it is
spoiled by its side-chapels, all added in the four
teenth, fifteenth, and early sixteenth centuries by
breaking down the Church walls. Look at the
representation of the facade here reproduced: it
shows clearly how the side-chapels, by expanding the
width of the Church, have deprived it of its original
gracefulness of form. On the other hand the side-

76 FRANCIA'S MASTERPIECE
chapels have done much to make the interior
entirely devout. The Chapel of the Assumption
was built by a famous Lucca family, the Micheli,
and completed in 1528. The last of the Micheli,
Pompeo, died in 1840. The Guinigi-Magrini were
his heirs. To them now belongs the Chapel and,
as one might suppose, all that therein is.1
On the west2 wall of the Chapel is a modern-
looking Altar called of the Conception, and mani
festly of the Conception, for above it, in an oval
frame, is a picture of the Immaculate Conception
of the conventional type, which took birth in Spain
in the seventeenth century. On the pedestal of
either pillar are the Guinigi arms: gules, on a
cross argent, twenty (sometimes sixteen, some
times eighteen) lance-heads azure. On the wall
opposite the Altar, fixed in a stucco frame for
show, is a splendid carved wood coloured group
1 By both the ecclesiastical and the modern law the patron
of a private chapel forming part of a public Church is nomin
ally owner of the contents, none of which, however, may he
remove or alienate.
2 San Frediano is the only Church in Lucca that has its
sanctuary to the west. How that came about is highly interest
ing, but is far too long a story to tell here.

THE FACADE OF SAN FREDIANO, LUCCA

CHAPEL OF THE CONCEPTION 77
of the Assumption by Masseo Civitali, a nephew
of the great sculptor Matteo — obviously an altar-
piece, but wanting its Altar.1 Another mystifica
tion, for odd indeed it seemed, nay unthinkable,
that in a spacious Chapel of the Assumption there
should be no Altar of the Assumption. But this
Altar, too, I was able to trace later on.
My search in the Public Library and Record
Office for evidence of a Chapel of the Conception
was speedily rewarded, thanks to the kindly aid
of willing and intelligent helpers. Existing records
of San Frediano are deplorably thin owing to a
great fire which occurred in the Monastery in 1596,
carrying away every vestige of a title-deed. But a
certain Canon, one Pietro Carelli, betook himself
to the Office of Notarial Archives, and there for a
month 8 industriously made a note of all the deeds
relating to the Church and Monastery between the
years 1454 and 1549. These notes exist in a MS.
volume in the Record Office, and from them I first
learnt that I had been quite right in deducing a
1 The Chapel is popularly called " degli Angeli " on account
of the choir of Angels in Masseo's altar-piece.
2 December 3rd, 1598, to January 2nd, 1599.

78 FRANCIA'S MASTERPIECE
Chapel of the Conception. This is what I read to
my delight: " Madonna Maddalena, relict of Bar-
tolommeo Stiatta founded and endowed the Chapel
of the Conception in San Frediano, which is in
the patronage of the Stiatta family, as appears
from several Wills made by the said Madonna
Maddalena, executed by Ser Benedetto Franci-
otti." (A noted Lucca notary.) 1
The discovery was revolutionary as regards the
Francia picture. It hangs, according to all ac
counts, in a Chapel built by the Micheli family.
It was only natural to have searched Micheli
records for the origin of this picture. It now ap
pears that there really was a Chapel of the Con
ception, founded and endowed by quite another
family, the Stiatta, and that since this picture is
an unquestionable Conception, it was ordered not
by the Micheli for the Chapel of the Assumption,
but by the Stiatta for the Chapel of the Conception.
At all costs I must see those several Wills of
Madonna Maddalena Stiatta.
But before going to the Archivio Notarile I will
find out all I can about this family whose name is
1 MS. No. 1 6, Archivio di Stato, p. 56b.

THE STIATTA FAMILY 79
entirely new to me, whose memory has fallen into
complete oblivion in modern Lucca. MS., No.
2965 in the Library,1 MS. No. 128 in the Record
Office,2 give me a bare genealogy and the arms :
or, a lion rampant, gules.3 I learn that the family
are noble and Consular; I see that they have been
traders of consideration. The latter MS. tells me
they became extinct in 1675. One Girolamo was
the last scion of the house. MS. No. 130 shows
that the family had considerable property in the
country, at Massa Pisana, Stabbiano, Moriano,
and other places.4 From Baroni I glean a few
other particulars, more or less useful.5 Scanty
enough details these, but in the matter of the
Chapel I have a further little good fortune in the
Library. Once more I have occasion to bless the
memory of that self-same Canonico Pietro Carelli
1 " Memorie Storiche e Familiari di Lucca," p. 566.
2 Baroni, " Famiglie Lucchesi," vol. v, p. 83.
* The Arms on the cover of this book are taken from a
shield on the Palazzo Stiatta, 25, Via Fillungo. Drawing by
Mario Carlesi, a promising student at the Belle Arti.
* Barsanti, "Pantheon delle Famiglie Patrizie di Lucca,"
pp. 133^134.
5 Notizie genealogiche delle Famiglie Lucchesi, MSS. Nos.
no 1 to 1 139. The Stiatta family is in No. n 32.

80 FRANCIA'S MASTERPIECE
who spent such an industrious month among the
Notarial Archives of his native city. He has also
left us a description of San Frediano, and in this
he treats of the Chapel of the Conception.1 " Altar
of the Conception of the Madonna in San Frediano.
Madonna Maddalena Stiatta, widow and relict of
the late Bartholomew, son of Baldassare Stiatta of
Lucca, founded and endowed the Altar of the
Conception in the Church of San Frediano which
is in the gift of the Stiatta family as appears from
several Wills made by the said Madonna Madda
lena and executed by Ser Benedetto Franciotti.
And note that the Chaplain of this Altar is a secu
lar priest presented and confirmed by the Bishop
as appears in the Books of the Collations (of Bene
fices) and more particularly in Book P., p. 39, O.,
p. 160, L., p. 3." This latter bit of information was
to prove of priceless value.
But it is time that I hurry off to the Archivio
Notarile to see if I can find those several Wills of
Madonna Maddalena Stiatta. I trust that the
1 MS. No. 415, "Notizie Antiche di San Frediano," p. 13.
The introductory letter to Don Frediano Burlamacchi, Prior of
San Frediano, is dated 30th March, 1599.

THE PLEASURES OF RESEARCH 81
reader will bear with me if I take him thus step by
step through all the stages of these modest re
searches. An author should always show how a
book of the kind grew under his hand; he should
put his reader in the position to build it up for
himself bit by bit. Above all should he be careful
to emphasize what he does not know. If writers
on art, especially, had only plainly pointed out
what they did not know or understand, instead of
taking cover under description, what a lot might
have been found out for them by humbler crafts
men. I am also anxious to show the reader how
very pleasant, how very exciting, and above all,
how very easy is research work of the kind. At
least I'm sure 'tis so in Tuscany. Most of it is
based on abundant talk, on the acquired or natural
knowledge of other living human beings, extracted
by eager question, put forth in courteous, patient,
ungrudging replies, and common politeness will be
found a far more serviceable instrument of research
in Tuscany than erudition gained by the flicker of
the midnight oil.
The vast storehouse of the Archivio Notarile is
arranged entirely according to Notary in two main
G

82 FRANCIA'S MASTERPIECE
divisions — Wills and Deeds. It was not therefore
difficult to lay hands on the musty tomes contain
ing the Wills executed by Ser Benedetto Franci
otti, and the index to the volumes made it easy to
find the several Wills of Donna Maddalena Stiatta.
Her first Will is dated 6th May, 1479, eleven
years, as is supposed, before Francia began to
paint. In it there is already mention of a Chapel
of the Conception. The Wills are in the third
person, the wishes of the testatrix being expressed
by the Notary. " Her body she willed, ordered
and decreed should be buried in the Church of San
Frediano in Lucca with the body of her late hus
band Bartholomew, in a certain Chapel which she
willed, ordered and bequeathed should be built in
the said Church of San Frediano in honour of and
under the name of the Conception of the Blessed
Virgin Mary, and for the building of the said
Chapel and the tomb to be constructed in it she
willed, assigned and left the sum of two hundred
and twenty ducats to be expended out of her
estate." 1
1 Vol. i of Protocollo of Wills executed by Ser Benedetto
Franciotti, p. 446. " Corpus vero suum sepeliri voluit jussit et

THE CHAPEL COMPLETED 83
But that she did not await the day of her death
for carrying out the darling project of a Chapel of
the Conception, the following important extract
from her Will of the 30th August, 1 504, most fully
proves : " Likewise for the love of the Mother of
God she ordered and willed that in the Chapel
newly built in the said Church there should be and
should be made an Altar with an honourable pic
ture or icon of the Conception on which her exe
cutors and assigns shall spend the sum of one
hundred ducats of her estate." J Here at length is
mandavit ad ecclesiam Sancti Fridiani de Luca cum corpore
quondam Bartholomei viri sui in quadam Cappella quae con-
struire voluit judicavit et reliquit in prefata ecclesia Sancti Fri
diani sub honore et vocabulo Conceptionis Beatae Mariae
Virginis pro cujus fabrica cum monumento in ea construendo
expendi voluit judicavit et reliquit ducatos ducentos viginti
sumptibus haereditatis suae."
The " construire voluit " and " pro cujus fabrica," the refer
ence to a tomb to be in a Chapel, clearly show that a Chapel
was to be built, not merely a chaplaincy to be " erected " at an
Altar, as one might infer from Carelli's " Notizie Antiche di
San Frediano" (MS. No. 415, Bib. Pub., p. 13).
1 Franciotti Wills, vol. ii, p. 283. " Item amore Dei Matris
judicavit et reliquit quod in Cappella noviter constructa in dicta
ecclesia fiatur et erigatur unum altare cui fiatur tabula sive an
cona honorabilis Conceptionis de qua et quo videbitur infra

84 FRANCIA'S MASTERPIECE
mention of a picture. Therefore, in August, 1 504,
Francia had not yet received his order for the
altar-piece of the Conception.
Donna Maddalena certainly had a mania for
making Wills, and was a desirable client for a
Notary. There is a Codicil of 1484 to the Will
of 1479; there is a Will of ist October, 1487; and
another of the 25th June, 1493; neither of which
concerns us. But there is an unexecuted and un
dated Will from which a bit of information of great
interest to the student of art may be gleaned. The
Will that precedes it is dated 27th May, 151 1, the
Will that follows after 9th August, 1512. Mad
dalena's was probably drawn at the end of May,
151 1,1 and renews the bequest for an honourable
picture of the Conception for her Chapel. There
fore Francia's altar-piece was not painted before
May, 1511, and belongs to the period of his life
(ob. 15 1 7) in which he had attained to the full
zenith of his magnificent powers, nay, possibly, as
scriptis ejus executoribus et fide commissariis in qua expendant
sumptibus haereditatis suae ducatos centum latos."
1 The gap in the Wills of so popular and busy a Notary points
to long absence or illness, and probably accounts for Madda
lena's Will never having been executed.

THE REGISTER OF BENEFICES 85
I have shown (p. 8), to the very last year of his
splendid career.
Happy in this treasure trove, my next visit was
to the Archiepiscopal Chancery to see what the
" Libri Collationum," or Registers of Benefices
had to tell about the institution of a Chapel of the
Conception in San Frediano. In volume P, fol.
39, just as the Canonico Pietro Carelli of happy
memory had noted in MS. 415 of the Public Lib
rary, I find the institution of a Chaplain to Ma
donna Maddalena Stiatta's Chapel of the Concep
tion in San Frediano. And I find other matter to
arouse interest and astonishment. To begin with
this deed of conferment is dated 27th January,
1 5 1 9 : Maddalena Stiatta must therefore only have
quite recently deceased. But I commenced to read
in a script far more easily decipherable than the
Wills of Ser Benedetto: " Donna Maddalena, relict
of the late Bartolommeo Stiatta of Lucca, in her
last Will, now published, and executed on the
seventh (sic) of August, 1 5 1 8, by Ser Jacopo, son
of the late Bartolommeo Serantoni, Notary Public
of Lucca, amongst other things founded and en
dowed a Chaplaincy under the name of the Con-

86 FRANCIA'S MASTERPIECE
ception of the Blessed Virgin Mary at the Altar
[a blank space] in the Church of San Frediano
in Lucca." So after all there is a later Will of
Donna Maddalena, not drawn up by the family
Notary, Ser Benedetto Franciotti, whom she must
have survived, but by Ser Jacopo Serantoni, who
succeeded him.
In the tomes of Ser Jacopo at the Archivio I
found the real last Will and Testament of Madda
lena. It is dated 17th, not 7th August, 1518, as
stated in the " Liber Collationum," vol. P. In this
I read : "Her body she willed ordered and decreed
should be buried in the Church of San Frediano in
the family vault of the Stiatta. . . . Likewise the
said testatrix founded and erected a Chaplaincy
under the name of the Most Immaculate Concep
tion of the Blessed Virgin Mary, endowing it and
bequeathing to it annually the sum of six golden
ducats."1 There is a Codicil to the Will dated
1 " Protocollo of Ser Jacopo Serantoni," vol. ii, p. 6b. " Cor
pus vero suum sepeliri voluit jussit et mandavit in ecclesiam
Sancti Fridiani in tumulo familiae de Stiattis. . . . Item cum
ipsa testatrix fundavit et erexit unam cappellaniam sub titulo
Immaculatissimae Conceptionis Beatae Virginis Mariae in
ecclesia Sancti Fridiani dotando earn, reliquit eidem annuatim
ducatos sex auri latos."

DONNA MADDALENA'S LAST WILL 87
1 8th January, 15 19: " By this Codicil she desired
to be buried not in the family vault of the Stiatta
as stated in her Will, but in the new vault in her
Chapel in the aforesaid Church of San Frediano
in front of the Altar of the Chapel of the Most
Immaculate Conception."1
Here indeed is matter for reflection. The Codi
cil is dated 18th January, 15 19; the act of confer
ment in the " Liber Collationum " bears date the
24th January: therefore Maddalena Stiatta died
between the 1 8th and 24th January, 15 19. There
is no longer question of an Altar for the Chapel :
therefore the Altar was already made. Of course
there is no longer talk of any picture, for Francia
died in January, 151 7, and the picture was already
painted. In this last Will and Testament Maddalena
1 Codicil, "Cum istis codicillis voluit sepeliri non in sepulchro
de Stiattis prout dicebatur in Testamento, sed voluit sepeliri
in sepulchro novo suae Cappellae ecclesiae predictae monas-
terj S. Fridiani ante altare ipsius cappellae Immaculatissimae
Conceptionis." That superlative " immaculatissima " and not " immaculata,"
is a revelation of Donna Maddalena's touching devotion, and
likewise of the firm foothold already gained by the dogma in
the Marian city of Lucca.

88 FRANCIA'S MASTERPIECE
Stiatta also makes provision for the future of her
Chapel. On her death the patronage of it is to go
to a young grand-nephew, Giovanni Battista, who
was the son of Baldassare, who was the son of
Gasparre Stiatta, and to his heirs male for ever.
Should his descendants in the male line fail, then
the Chapel is to go to two brothers of the great
house of Bernardini, Paolino and Silvestro, sons
of Bartolommeo, and to their heirs male for ever.
And if their descendants in the male line should
die out, then the Chapel is to revert to the female
line of this same favoured grand-nephew. Giovan
Battista, as it happened, died (1542?) without
either male or female issue. The Chapel then
reverted to the Bernardini. Monsignor Pietro
Guidi, Secretary to Cardinal Lorenzelli, has with
a kindness for which I can never be sufficiently
grateful, searched the whole of the Registers of
Benefices for me, and has found only two references
to the Chaplaincy of the Conception. In 1622 a
Chaplain was presented by Silvestro, the last of
the Bernardini, with a right of presentation.1 In
1653 Monsignor Rota, the Bishop of Lucca him-
1 "Lib. Coll.," K. 3, fol. 199.

THE OWNER OF THE PICTURE 89
self presented to the Chaplaincy,1 Silvestro Ber
nardini evidently being dead.2 The juspatronatus
having thus passed away from the Bernardini,
and Giovanni Battista Stiatta having had no
female issue, to whom did the Chapel, the vest
ments, the chalices and other furniture, and the
noble altar-piece of Francia, then revert? Not to
the present heir-at-law of the Stiatta — if any — be
cause specifically excluded by Maddalena's Will.
Therefore to the Church, i.e. to the Opera. That
was the consensus of opinion among the Doctors
of either Law whom I had the privilege of con
sulting on the subject. Dryasdust details, I fear,
and drier, but it is at least interesting to have
established the present nominal owner of Francia's
superb altar-piece.
It still remained to locate the mysterious Chapel
of the Conception whose structural existence was
so clearly established by these Wills, and that I
was happily able to do by consulting the Will of
the founder of the Chapel of the Assumption.
1 " Lib. Col.," B. 4, fol. 232.
2 Pedigrees in the Bernardini family Archives, though want
ing in the precise deate of dath, show that he died without
male issue.

90 FRANCIA'S MASTERPIECE
That Chapel, as at present understood, like the
Chapel of the Blessed Sacrament (Trenta) oppo
site, has two arches. All the other private Chapels
(except the Bonvisi) have one arch only, and are
divided from each other by stout walls. The truth
of the matter can only be that one half— the western
half — of what to-day is called the Chapel of the
Assumption, really was the Chapel of the Concep
tion. The two Chapels, so as to be symmetrical
with the double-arched Chapel of the Trenta oppo
site, were probably never divided by a wall. The
Micheli and the Stiatta were closely related, and
were joint patrons of the Altar of Santa Fausta in
this very Church : 1 it is easy to imagine them
coming to such an arrangement. The Opera would
almost certainly insist upon it. Had these two
Chapels been divided by a wall it would greatly
have spoiled the harmonious symmetry of the
interior. But it is possible to prove this point as to the
ubication of the Chapel of the Conception. And
as follows: Niccolo, son of Francesco Micheli, in
his Will, dated 19th May, 1499 makes provision
1 Will of Maddalena Stiatta, ist October, 1487.

MRS. CARMICHAEL

THE CHAPEL OF THE
CONCEPTION

THE CHAPEL OF THE
ASSUMPTION

THE SITE OF THE CHAPEL 91
for carrying out the last wishes of his father about
a Chapel of the Assumption. He states that he
has come to an agreement with the Prior and
Canons that the Chapel is to be built in that part
of the Church where there is a large picture of the
Blessed Virgin on the wall, and he orders that one
arch is to be made in that place.1 That only one
arch can have been intended, as is said, is evident
from the reference to a fresco of the Madonna, for
it would be impossible to suppose that such a
picture could be so large as to fill the space re
quired for two arches (about forty feet).2 I have
1 What vandalisms were committed to secure these much-
coveted private chapels, we can surmise perhaps, but only
know in infinitesimal part.
2 "Ser Benedetto Franciotti's Wills, vol. I, fol. 183. " Et quia
dictus quondam ejus pater non declaravit locum in quo debeat
collocari et fabricari dicta capella in prefata ecclesia Sancti
Fridiani, ideo dictus testator dixit se composuisse et concord-
asse cum Domino Priore et Canonicis dictae ecclesiae . . . et
ita voluit ac judicavit et reliquit quod capella debeat hedificare
et construi et poni et fabricari in eo loco in quo est picta in
muro una ymago magna gloriose Virginis Marie sedens cum
filio in brachiis suis in quo voluit fieri unus arcus magnus."
See also the Abbate Telesforo Bini's interesting essay on
San Frediano " Della Basilica di San Frediano e della question
se la facciata un di fosse dove ora e il coro," read before the

92 FRANCIA'S MASTERPIECE
also clear seventeenth-century evidence to show
that the two Chapels were not then divided by a
wall, for the Acts of Bishop Rota's Visitation of
1 65 1 speak of the Altar of the Conception being
in the Chapel of the Assumption.1 Even at so
early a date had the Chapel of the Conception be
come forgotten and effaced! Then a famous Lucca
archaeologist, Sebastiano Donati, in his " Iscrizioni
delle Chiese di Lucca," speaks of the tomb of
Bartolommeo Stiatta as being " near the Altar of
the Assumption." 2 This clearly excludes any idea
of a dividing wall. He adds that the tomb has on
it " the arms of Trenta and Stiatta as on the Altar,"
Lucca Academy, ist August, 1843, and printed in vol. xii of
the Academy's " Atti," pp. 512-558. Bini knowing the will, is
surprised to find two arches in existence instead of one, but
then he had never heard of a Chapel of the Conception. It is
a pity, for our sakes, that he does not seem to have examined
the walled-up Stanza dell' Opera or attached the slightest im
portance to it. I may here mention for the sake of friends in
Lucca a little discovery that does not concern my present argu
ment. This walled-up space undoubtedly represents — hitherto
a fruitlessly debated point — the old entrance from the Monas
tery into the Church, before the present sacristy was built, and
while the Choir was still in the middle of the Basilica.
1 Rota, 1650-1656, p. 108.
2 MS. 1209, Bib. Pub., p. 67.

MADDALENA STIATTA 93
i.e. the Altar of the Conception. Trenta, too, writ
ing in 1820, says that the Francia picture is "in
the Chapel of the Assumption " over " the Altar
of the Conception." Clearly from these records
there was, since the seventeenth century, no divid
ing wall between these two Chapels as between all
the other private Chapels in the Church, and it is
as good as certain that there never was one. But
as the Stiatta died out and were forgotten, the
Micheli, in all good faith, like the Guinigi after
them, came to regard the whole of the double-
arched space as being one and their own Chapel.
One thing only would I make clear to the reader
who may have done a little justifiable skipping
among all these dry details, and that is, that to
Madonna Maddalena Trenta nei Stiatta, whose
name has hitherto remained buried under the dust
of ages, and to her alone, belongs the merit of
ordering, and paying for, Francia's superb picture
of the Immaculate Conception, the significance of
which (like her own name) had lain hidden from
educated mankind, thanks mainly to the imperfect
theological equipment of writers on art. To her,
then, all honour and glory, and to her memory the

94 FRANCIA'S MASTERPIECE
benediction both of those who hold true art dear
and those who revere the splendours that should
ever be effulgent upon the Altars of God.1
1 Maddalena Stiatta's Will shows a bequest to the Friars of
San Francesco. This proves that she loved and would frequent
that Church. It is likely enough that devotion inspired, that
graces received, by prayer before the old picture, moved her to
desire " one like it " for her own Chapel of the Conception.
It will interest friends in Lucca to know that she left two
pearls set in gold to be borne on the breast of the Volto Santo
forever. Are they there now?

VI
THE PEREGRINATIONS OF THE
PICTURE
FRANCIA'S altar-piece of the Conception has
undoubtedly gone through some peregrina
tions. The places in which it can be stated with
certainty that the picture has found itself since
Francia painted it are four in number, and the list
is almost certainly complete.
i. In Madonna Maddalena's dark Chapel of the
Conception. 2. In 1827, when the picture was restored, it
was brought forth from the Chapel and placed over
an altar which was situated in the nave behind
the pulpit, in fact against the walled-up space to
which I have alluded.1
1 "Cenni Storici Artistici sulla Cappella Guinigi." By an
anonymous writer in the Lucca "Araldo," No. 7, 1857. The
Altar of the Conception was of wood, in the early cinquecento
style. It was removed from the Chapel in 1836, on account of

96 FRANCIA'S MASTERPIECE
3. In 1 856 this Altar, with the picture still above
it, was removed from the nave to the place where
we now see it, and almost completely restored.
4. In 1 88 1 the picture ceased to serve the pur
pose for which it was painted, and was taken from
above the Altar and hung against the North wall,
where the light in which to see it may be a trifle
better, but where its meaning is effectually dark
ened to the ordinary passer-by.
Unfortunately our sole authorities for the pere
grination of 1827 are Michele Ridolfi and the
anonymous writer in the "Araldo." Of course an
Altar cannot be transferred from one Chapel to
another without the sanction of the Opera and the
approval of the ecclesiastical authority. I have
been courteously allowed by the present Operaro,
Dr. Giulio Lippi, to spend many hours in the
Archivio of the Opera of San Frediano, acting as
my own archivist, turning over papers and records
at will — I found nothing whatsoever. Four kind-
hearted ecclesiastics have made unremitting search
its sad state of disrepair, and was sold a few years ago to a
Florence dealer ! Thus altar and altar-piece are separated be
yond all hope of ever being conjoined together again.

MICHELE RIDOLFI 97
for me in the Archiepiscopal Archives — again no
thing whatsoever. Signor Adolfo Lippi and Signor
Mario Bongi have searched and searched again
in the Archivio di Stato — absolutely nothing
whatsoever. In the Municipal Archives, however,
something — that the " Protocollo sopra gli Edili"
for the years 1 824-1827 was missing beyond hope
of recovery! I have therefore to fall back on the
earliest known source of information, Michele
Ridolfi, and him I will quote in full.
"This picture, before the restoration,1 was in
a very dark Chapel where its beauty could not be
appreciated, and the predella was hidden by the
so-called carta-glorie (altar-cards). It was then by
a wise provision transferred to the Altar we now
see, and the predella was joined to the picture,
being separated therefrom only by a frame " 2 (i.e.
a gilt strip). As will be seen he does not tell us
the name of the Chapel. The Altar was trans
ferred from this dark Chapel to the Nave, and
1 I at least was able to unearth the Ministerial consent to the
restoration of the picture. It is dated 30th August, 1827. See
"Commissione sopra le Belle Arti. Scritture." Archiv. Filza,
viii, No. 79.
2 "Scrittid'Arte,"p. 10. H

98 FRANCIA'S MASTERPIECE
placed in the space between the two chapels of the
Annunciation and Assumption, in fact, against my
walled-up arch. This is proved by the statements
of various writers, as, for instance, by Mazzarosa,
who says that Francia's picture " is over the altar
behind the pulpit."1 There it remained till 1856.
We marvel to-day — at least, I suppose so, — at
the barbaric sentiment which could join together
in one frame that which should be separate though
not separated, to wit, altar-piece and predella, and
we smile — I will hope, — at the childish complaint
that the predella was partially hidden by three
movable altar- cards. The museum and art-gallery
view of a picture which has darkened men's minds
for a century, is happily dying fast, and if Church
pictures have unfortunately found their way into
art galleries, we are going to try in future to look
at them as if they were still in the places, and still
put to the uses, for which they were painted. For
in the future people are more likely to be concerned
about the meaning of a picture than its artistic
beauties. The glories of its colouring, the cunning
folds of its draperies, the charm of its flesh tints,
1 "Guida," 1843, p. 107.

THE SECOND PEREGRINATION 99
its sweet reposeful landscapes, its subtle space
compositions, will be as nothing to us compared
with its sublime symbolism, its nice and subtle
theology, its profound and happy realization of the
religious dogma it is intended to represent. It is
nothing to the purpose whether we believe or not
— the artist believed, or painted for believers. By
Belief alone can he be judged; only if he were
faithful to Belief could he be great in his subject,
however great a master of technique or composi
tion. But this is something of a digression, and
may still be distasteful to a few.
I can now pass to the second known peregrina
tion (1856), and as to this (fortunately) there
exists full documentary evidence in the Archivio
of the Opera. Count Niccolao Guinigi, patron of
the Assumption Chapel, in a letter dated 26th
March, addressed to the Operaro and Council,
proposed to restore entirely the Assumption
Chapel,1 adding the two existing skylights to relieve
the darkness, on the condition that he should be
allowed to sell the Altar of the Assumption and
1 Of course including that half which we now know to be the
Chapel of the Conception.

ioo FRANCIA'S MASTERPIECE
remove into his Chapel from the nave, the altar
with the Francia picture above it, he to exercise
thereupon all the rights pertaining to the Altar of
the Assumption. Leave was granted, no question
apparently being asked, by the Grand Duke's1
Ministry of Ecclesiastical Affairs, or by the Curia
of the Archbishop of Lucca, as to who might have
rights upon the Altar in the nave, and the priceless
picture above it. But both the Civil and Religi
ous Authority insisted that leave was given only
on the condition that Count Niccolao Guinigi in a
public act expressly declared that he had no pro
prietorship in the picture which, both authorities
affirmed, remained with the Opera or the real
owners. The dossier on this subject is complete,2 save
only for the act, or a copy of the act, of Count
Guinigi. But this is of no importance. The letter
from the Prefect quoting the decree of the Minis
ter of Ecclesiastical Affairs, is dated 20th April,
1 Lucca reverted to Tuscany in 1847, when the Duke of
Lucca, returned to what was his by right, the Dukedom of
Parma. 2 Correspondence. Filza, No. 10. 1853-1857.

THE THIRD PEREGRINATION 101
1856; the letter of the Archbishop, 23rd April.
There is also a copy of the Contract dated 1 ith
May, 1856 (in Cartolario, numbered 27) by which
Count Guinigi sells to the parish priest of Antrac-
coli, the Altar of the Assumption for 400 frances-
coni or lire 2666 13^. \d., Florentine currency.
(Lire 2240, modern currency.) The contract, how
ever, exempts from the sale Masseo Civitali's altar-
piece of wood, which Count Guinigi in his letter
of petition offers to display in a frame of " gesso."
The Altar of the Assumption stood where its
framed altar-piece now stands, facing, that is, the
Altar of the Conception. It is still in the parish
church of Antraccoli, a huge and hideous bar
barity of the late seicento, which we may be thank
ful no longer cumbers the devout and noble
Basilica of San Frediano.
To come to the last of these peregrinations. In
1 88 1 Count Niccolao Guinigi was allowed to move
the picture from above the Altar, frame it, and
place it in the place where it now hangs, at right
angles to the Altar. I had got wind that there
was a paper writing on the back of the picture.
The reader will share my curiosity as to whether

102 FRANCIA'S MASTERPIECE
this was true, and what it can have contained.
Somehow everybody in Lucca conspires to help
where research is concerned: ecclesiastics, author
ities, librarians, archivists, friends, the very people
themselves. And so I confidently asked leave to
have the great picture taken down for a leisurely
examination. I sincerely thank the inspector of
public monuments, Cavaliere Medarse Cappel-
letti, for being personally present at so responsible
an operation. Sure enough we found a paper
writing. It is quite recent; date ist August, 1 88 1.
The paper recounts how certain restorations were
made, leave being duly obtained, and how the
picture was removed from the Altar and placed in
this great gilt frame at the expense of Count
Guinigi so as to save it from damage by the drop
pings of wax candles.1 Nothing more. The whole
1 Grave is the responsibility of those who have the custody
of noble works of art still put to a religious use ! There is not
the slightest reason why a picture should suffer because wax
candles are lighted before it, if only elementary care is used.
Grave indeed is the responsibility of those custodians who, by
wanton carelessness, give a motive to the vandals who, ignoring
donors' wishes, and flouting painters' hopes and feelings, desire
nothing more than a pretext to remove pictures and statues

INSCRIPTIONS 103
is signed "II Patrono: Niccolao Guinigi." The
picture has remained in the same place ever since.
I fear I have drifted into very dry details, but
there are yet other minute points which should be
stated to make my subject as complete as may be.
The minutest point is interesting if only it can be
elucidated, but here I have to deal with what I
cannot properly elucidate. Giuseppe Matraja, a
devoted Lucchese of the last century, compiled a
noble guide to the monuments of his native city.
It was never printed, alas! but, happily, lies in the
public library for the use of students.1 Matraja
was very careful to copy all inscriptions which he
saw. Let us hear him on the subject of the Chapel
of the Assumption, for of the buried existence of
the Chapel of the Conception he seems to have
been quite unaware. " A little further on," he says,
(than the Chapel of the Annunciation) "is the
from a living use over altars and shrines to the chill fastnesses
of meaningless museums and art galleries.
1 MS. No. 553, Bib. Pub. "Guida Monumentale della Citta
e Diocesi di Lucca fino a tutto il i860."
Baroni and Donati have also copied the inscriptions, but it
is important to have later testimony that what they saw still
existed when Matraja wrote.

104 FRANCIA'S MASTERPIECE
third and last Chapel dedicated to the Assumption
of Mary Virgin and built towards the beginning
of the fifteenth [error for sixteenth] century. I
do not find in this Chapel, as in the others, tombs
of the patrons, but on the wall there is the follow
ing [he first gives a drawing of a coat of arms,
which being blazoned, reads: argent, three bars,
gules — Micheli] : ' Aram in Assumptae Deiparae
Honorem / a nobili et pervetusta / Michaelorum
olim Moccidentium / familiam excitatam / Martius
Pompei F. Hieronimi F. / de Michelis/ marmori-
bus exornavit A. S. mdclxiv.' " 1 (This is the Altar
which was sold to Antraccoli in 1856.)
" This Chapel," he goes on, " has recently been
restored by the Counts Guinigi Magrini, heirs of
the Micheli, who have removed the above inscrip
tion and replaced it by the following: ' Questa
Cappella gia dei Micheli / eretta per l'ultima
volonta. di Francesco / morto il due Luglio mille
quattrocento settanta nove / I Signori Conti
1 " Marzio, who was the son of Pompeo, who was the son of
Girolamo Micheli, in the year of Salvation, 1664, enriched with
marbles the Altar erected by the noble and ancient family of
Micheli, once called Moccidenti, in honour of the Assumption
of the Mother of God."

FURTHER INSCRIPTIONS 105
Guinigi Magrini Eredi / restaurarono 1' anno del
Signore mdccclvl' " x
"In this restoration," Matraja continues, "a
tomb was removed from the middle of the Chapel.
I cannot explain how it got there, for its date was
anterior to the building of the Chapel. I can only
suppose that the tomb once existed in some other
part of the Church, and that owing to some chance
restoration or other work it was closed, and the
inscription transferred to this place. Be that as it
may I transcribe the inscriptions and the arms.
[Arms: — Or, three bulls' heads, gules, Trenta; or,
a lion rampant, gules, Stiatta. M.C.]
" ' Magdalena Nobili Trenta / Familia orta gra-
viss. matrona / Bartholomeo Stiatta claro genere
nato / integerrimo mercatori viro suo benemerenti /
Hoc monumentum Amoris conjugalis / vivens
faciendum curavit mcccclxxxviil' " 2
1 "This Chapel formerly belonging to the Micheli, and
erected by the last Will of Francesco who died the 2nd July,
1479, was restored by the Counts Guinigi Magrini, heirs of that
family, in the year of Our Lord 1856."
N.B. — The testamentary dispositions of Francesco were not
fully carried out till 1528.
2 " To the memory of Bartolommeo Stiatta of noble family, an

106 FRANCIA'S MASTERPIECE
The tomb or slab with inscription which Matraja
saw in 1856, or thereabouts, has now wholly dis
appeared! Nay, even the recent inscription record
ing the restoration of 1856 is no longer in the
Chapel of the Assumption! I was allowed to
ransack attics and cellars, lumber-rooms and
crypts, and I did find the inscription of 1856 with
its face turned to the wall in a store-room leading
out of the Chapel of the Soccorso. Why was it
ever taken down? Marzio Micheli's inscription
was removed, I suppose, because his big ugly
Altar had gone out into the country. But why
remove the record ? Of course, of Bartolommeo
Stiatta's tomb — last relic of the family in San
Frediano— I found no trace, nor could anyone
tell me where it was moved. Maddalena, as we
know from her last Will and Testament, was to
be buried in a special tomb in her beloved Chapel
of the Most Immaculate Conception; of that, too,
alas! not a vestige remains, and I can find no
upright merchant and an excellent husband, this monument of
conjugal affection was erected during her lifetime by his wife,
the venerable Dame Maddalena of the noble family of Trenta,
a.d. 1488."

A MATTER OF SENTIMENT 107
record of its disappearance. It is important to
note that Matraja observes that Bartolommeo's
tomb could not have been in the Chapel of the
Assumption from the beginning, because the date
of the tomb is anterior to the construction of the
Chapel. It was not in the Chapel of the Assump
tion, but only seemed to be. It was really in the
western portion of what is to-day called the Chapel
of the Assumption, but which we now know to
have been the Chapel of the Conception.1
One other little matter, a matter of sentiment
if the reader will bear with me. Nay, rather will
I hope that he may share the sentiment, since all
straight-thinking people, apart altogether from
beliefs and prepossessions, prefer the natural fit
ness of things. I was present one evening at the
function of the Novena of the Immaculate Concep
tion in San Frediano, a function of course held at
the present restored Altar in the Guinigi Chapel.
The modest service was reverently done, and in
every way edifying. But still the sight was sad. I
beheld above the Altar the conventional Madonna
1 For proof of the position of the tomb see extract from
Maddalena's Will of the 6th May, 1479.

108 FRANCIA'S MASTERPIECE
of the Immaculate Conception, brilliantly illumin
ated with the beautiful fires of wax candles, and I
beheld upon the wall at right angles and in close
proximity to the altar, gloomily shrouded away
from the sight of man by a red curtain, Francia's
picture of the Immaculate Conception ordered by
Maddalena Stiatta, to do honour on that very
evening to this modest service of prayer and
praise. Made bold to the point of interfering in
what does not concern me by the constant spirit
of courtesy which everywhere comes out to greet
one in Lucca, I called upon the Priore of San
Frediano the next day and poured into his patient
ears the story of Maddalena Stiatta, of all she did
to make this very feast glorious in Lucca, how she
founded and endowed a Chapel of the Conception,
how she would have her honourable picture of
the Conception painted by the greatest painter of
her time. And then I begged that never in future
should there be a service in honour of the Con
ception in San Frediano without Francia's picture
of the Conception being unveiled in honour of
the occasion.
I went to the function the next evening, and

DONNA MADDALENA STIATTA 109
sure enough the great red curtain was drawn
aside. For the first time since 1881 this deeply
religious picture was being put to the uses for
which it had been painted. How nobly and
radiantly it shone out under that most softly
illuminating of all lights, the united flame of a
goodly number of wax candles. It was not much
perhaps, it may have been more the satisfaction
of a thought than anything else, but this much at
least I had been able to accomplish in keeping
alive in this Chapel the testamentary dispositions
of the poor lady who, unconscious of the vandal
days to come, thought to have provided forever,
for the due and reverent devotion to the Immacu
late Conception in the Basilica of San Frediano
in Lucca.
O noble and pious Dame Magdalen Trenta,
true and faithful relict of that upright patrician
merchant, Bartholomew Stiatta, thy tomb eclipsed,
his tomb despoiled, thy Chapel of the Conception
lost to sight and memory, thy Altar of the Con
ception gone the vulgar way to the haggling
dealer, the Masses for this thy Altar all left un
said, thy most honourable picture of the Concep-

no FRANCIA'S MASTERPIECE
tion ignobly treated as a show piece and taken
by the leading historians of art to be an Assump
tion or a Coronation, — all this were enough to
make thee turn in thy tomb, but that they have
robbed thee of this also. Rest in peace ! We can
not change dour circumstances, but we can trans
mute and transfigure them in the recesses of the
soul. If thy name be no longer cut in marble
upon an honourable tomb, rest assured it is deep
engraven in our grateful hearts. The name of the
woman who gave to God, without any thought of
the world or its art-galleries to come, Francesco
Francia's incomparable altar-piece of the Most
Immaculate Conception, that name I say shall
never die, but shall assuredly live forever, bright
and glorious, a dear and sweet memory in the
ages to come!
# # # # #
And now, having described the picture, eluci
dated its meaning, identified its donor, and re
placed it above the Altar in its Chapel, my joyful
task of illustrating Francia's divine altar-piece
has come to an end. It has been a labour of love,
but it will be full of defects. The academic pro-

CONCLUSION in
prieties, I know, are wanting, and a proper know
ledge of technique would have made my work
more useful. I have been curt, didactic, rigorous,
sacrificing all the delights of art to the great
question of significance, being firmly convinced
that all beauty is heightened by a perfect under
standing of its subject, that all talk of religious^
pictures is a weariness of the flesh unless based
on a knowledge of the painter's theology, that
what physiology has done for identification, theo
logy alone can do for hermeneutics. May I hope
that the benevolent reader, indifferent to mere
beauty that has no clear significance, will fa
thom my motives, supply my shortcomings, bear
with my impatience, share my enthusiasms, glow
with my hopes, scatter broadcast my doctrine,
and finally forgive much to one, who, in this adven
ture, has laboured not a little and never without
love!

APPENDIX No. i
DESCRIPTIONS AND OPINIONS
OF THE PICTURE

*#* All Italics are mine. I have underlined here and there
to call attention to errors, peculiarities, and
matters otherwise interesting.

TRENTA 1820
" Beside it [Chapel of the Annunciation] in the
Chapel of the Assumption, which belongs to the
Micheli Guinigi family, and on the altar called
after the Conception, is a fine painting on wood
divided into three parts. The main picture re
presents the Virgin being crowned by the Eternal
Father; below, two on either side, are the Bishops
SS. Anselm and Augustine, and the Kings David
and Solomon, all four with scrolls in their hands
bearing Latin mottoes written in a fine character;
between them kneels a Saint of a Religious Order,
looking away from the spectator. In the lunette
is the Saviour ; in the predella some little incidents
painted with much grace. We are without docu
ments giving us the name of the painter of this
picture, but from the style which is quite in con
formity with Raphael's before it became perfect,

n£ FRANCIA'S MASTERPIECE
there can be no doubt that it is the work of one
of the best painters of the old school which was
still working with applause in the first lustres of
the sixteenth century. Now if the traveller who
loves the fine arts will note in this picture, bit by
bit, the correct simplicity of the design, the life
like beauty of the heads, the arrangement of the
draperies, slight but well thought out, the soft touch
in the mixture of the pigments, the strength of the
still brilliant colours which give life to the figures,
and finally if he will examine the lunette 1 and the
predella (' gli accennati scompartimenti '), he will
perhaps agree with me that this is one of the
best works of Francesco Francia who died on the
6th January 15 17." — Guida del Forestiere per la
Cittd e il Contado di Lucca. Lucca, 1820, pp.
97-98. Of the old picture in the Pinacoteca, Trenta
writes: ("Guida," p. 84): "The pictures worthy
of attention in this great Church are, etc. . . . ,
but above all the beautiful picture in which the
Coronation of the Virgin in San Frediano, attri-
1 Thus Trenta positively attributes the lunette to Francia
himself.

TRENTA 117
buted to Francia, is repeated, but with considerable
liberties in the details. The picture in San Fran
cesco appears to be a copy of that in San Frediano,
but made by a painter of the old school himself
advanced in years."
There never was a family of Micheli Guinigi
as Trenta seems to say, but there is of Guinigi
Magrini. However, the names of Micheli and
Guinigi were much associated about this time, for
by a special arrangement the Guinigi Magrini were
to become the heirs of the last survivor of the
Micheli. Trenta's is the first reference to the picture in
print which I have come across. The oldest guide
to Lucca1 is silent on the subject, but it does
mention the altar-piece in the Buonvisi Chapel
and attributes it to Franciabigio ! The numerous
MS. sources consulted by me are also silent, even
in the likeliest places. Suffice it to mention a list
of the principal pictures in the churches of Lucca
compiled by a noted painter of his day — Pietro
1 "II Forestiere informato delle Cose di Lucca. Opera del
Reverendo Signore Vincenzio Marchio, Lucchese." Lucca,
1721, p. 358. San Frediano described pp. 285-290.

118 FRANCIA'S MASTERPIECE
Paolini (1603-1681).1 Here, too, not a word of our
picture, but the Saint Anne altar-piece (which is
signed) is said to be by " Francesco Francabio "
(sic). All the other pictures in San Frediano
come in for mention, including work of his own in
the Refectory. One can only suppose that the
joint Chapels of the Assumption and Conception
were, as Michele Ridolfi says, very dark indeed,
before the existing two skylights were made by
Count Niccolao Guinigi in 1856.
1 MS. Bib. Pub., No. 966, "Miscellanea Varia: No. 19-
' Nota dei Quadri piu cospicui che si ponno vedere nelle Chiese
di Lucca fatta dal celebre pittore Pietro Paolini, Lucchese.' "

H9

TRENTA-MAZZAROSA 1829
" Continuing along the nave towards the pulpit
the traveller will observe on the altar behind it,
a highly prized picture, with the Virgin above
crowned by the Eternal Father, and below four
Saints, two on each side.1 It has always been
considered the work of Francesco Francia, and
reckoned among the most beautiful in his early
manner, that is to say before he adopted a greater
freedom of style following the example of Raphael.
We are confirmed in our theory of attribution by
the repetition of the upper part of this picture 2 in
a picture in the Cathedral of Ferrara, which is
known without doubt to be by Francia. The
heads, the folds of the draperies and the colouring
1 No mention of the kneeling figure.
2 There is no repetition whatever, only a certain resemblance
between the only angel in the Ferrara picture and an angel in
the Lucca picture.

120 FRANCIA'S MASTERPIECE
are wonderful. The 'fascia' in chiaroscuro at
the bottom of the picture is most beautiful, and
more than ever warrants us in attributing the
work to Francia. This picture used to be in the
next chapel higher up the Church (' nella prossima
superiore cappella ') but as it could not be seen
there on account of the bad light, it was moved
here a short time ago." — Guida del Forestiere per
la Citta e Contado di Lucca. Lucca, 1829, p. 131.
This is a second edition of the guide by
Tommaso Trenta, recently deceased, revised by
the Marchese Antonio Mazzarosa.
Mazzarosa brought out another guide to Lucca
in 1843, "Guida di Lucca e dei Luoghi piu im
portant del Ducato." His description of the
picture here is exactly the same as in the 1829
edition.

121

MICHELE RIDOLFI
1832
" In the same year (1827) a divine picture by
Francesco Francia in San Frediano was restored.
It represents the Conception of our Lady, who is
surrounded by graceful cherubs, and below there
are five characters who have treated of the Con
ception, either literally or symbolically. They are
David, Solomon, Anselm, Augustine and Peter
Igneus.1 And speaking of this picture I cannot
pass over in silence a predella which is below it
in which are painted in chiaroscuro the most
graceful little figures imaginable. This picture
before it was restored was in a very dark chapel
where its beauties could not be appreciated, and
where the predella was covered by the so-called
carta-glorie.2 It was then by a wise provision
transferred to the Altar we now see, and the
1 Never "treated of the Conception."
2 Why "so-called"? They are called so.

122 FRANCIA'S MASTERPIECE
predella was joined to the picture, being separated
therefrom only by a frame [i.e., a gilt strip] so
that all can now admire it at ease."
The above is taken from a paper read by
Ridolfi before the Lucca Academy on the 25th
June, 1832, and printed in vol. viii of the " Atti"
of the Academy (my extract, pp. 228-229). It
was reprinted in his " Scritti Vari riguardante
le Belle Arti," Lucca, 1844 (my extract, pp. 18-19),
and again in the " Scritti d'Arte e d'Antichita,"
Florence, 1879, edited by his son Enrico Ridolfi
(my extract, pp. 9-10).
Ridolfi (except the anonymous writer in the
" Araldo ") is the one and only writer who calls
the picture a Conception: even his son will have
it a Coronation.
But the son loyally follows the father in calling
the kneeling Franciscan " Peter Igneus." Peter
Igneus! But Saint Peter Igneus was a Black
Benedictine, a Vallombrosan, and even if painted
in white without a cowl would have the Benedic
tine scapular. Besides, who ever saw Saint Peter
in art save in the alb, stole and maniple in which
he walked through the flames outside the Abbey

ST. PETER IGNEUS 123
of Settimo. The sight of a Franciscan in a bon
fire just below the figure of Duns Scotus, coupled
with the fact that igneus means fiery, accounts, I
suppose, for the haphazard guess.

124 FRANCIA'S MASTERPIECE

EDITORS OF THE LE MONNIER
"VASARI" 1850
" Lucca. Church of San Frediano. Over one of
the altars in the left nave [should be right] there
is a picture of Our Lady who, Assumed into Heaven,
is receiving the blessing of the Eternal Father, sur
rounded by angels and seraphs. Below SS. An
selm and Augustine, David and Solomon, erect;
in front of the flowering tomb, kneeling, Saint
Anthony of Padua, with his back to the spectator.
What a sweet thing ('che cara cosa') the pre
della with four histories of little figures in chiaros
curo ! The picture is not signed by Francia, but it is
sufficiently authenticated by the style." — Vasari,
Florence, Le Monnier. 1846- 185 7, vol. vi, p. 19.
Vol. vi, from which I quote, was published in
1850, so at that date the picture was still over the
altar in the nave behind the pulpit, and had not
yet been moved into the Chapel of the Assump-

MILANESI'S VASARI 125
tion. The editors of the Florence Vasari were
P. Vincenzo Marchese, O.P., Carlo and Gaetano
Milanesi, and Carlo Pini. Gaetano Milanesi sub
sequently brought out a monumental edition of
Vasari's complete works (Florence, Sansoni, 9
vols. 1878-1882). In vol. iii he reproduces word
for word the above extract from the Le Monnier
Vasari.

126 FRANCIA'S MASTERPIECE

MRS. JAMESON 1852
" Those pictures which represent the Virgin Mary
kneeling before the celestial throne, while the
padre eterno or the Messiah extends his hand or
his sceptre towards her, are generally misunder
stood. They do not represent the Assumption,
nor yet the reception of Mary into Heaven, as is
usually supposed; but the election or predestina
tion of Mary as the immaculate vehicle or taber
nacle of human redemption — the earthly parent of
the divine Saviour. I have described such a pic
ture by Dosso Dossi, at p. 47, and another by
Cottignola at p. 53. A third example may be cited
in a yet more beautiful and celebrated picture by
Francia, now in the Church of San Frediano at
Lucca. Above, in the glory of Heaven, the Virgin
kneels before the throne of the Creator; she is
clad in regal attire of purple and crimson and
gold; and she bends her fair crowned head, and

MRS. JAMESON'S VIEW 127
folds her hands upon her bosom with an expres
sion of meek yet dignified resignation — ' Behold
the handmaid of the Lord!' — accepting, as woman,
that highest glory, as mother, that extremest grief,
to which the Divine Will, as spoken by the pro
phets of old, had called her. Below, on the earth
and to the right, stand David and Solomon, as
prophets and kingly ancestors .-1 on the left hand,
Saint Augustine and Saint Anselm in their epis
copal robes. (I have mentioned, with regard to
the Office in honour of the Immaculate Concep
tion, that the idea is said to have originated in
England; v. p. 43. I should also have added, that
Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury, was its strenu
ous advocate.) Each of these personages holds a
scroll. On that of David the reference is to the
4th and 5th verses of Psalm xxvii — ' In the secret
of his tabernacle he shall hide me.' On that of
Solomon is the text from his Song ch. iv, 7. On
that of Saint Augustine a quotation, I presume,
from his works, but difficult to make out; it seems
to be, ' In Caelo qualis est Pater, talis est Filius ; 2
1 No; as witnesses to the Immaculate Conception.
2 "In terra" left out.

128 FRANCIA'S MASTERPIECE
qualis est Filius, talis est Mater.' x On that of Saint
Anselm the same inscription which is on the picture
of Cottignola quoted at p. 53, 'non puto vere
[sic\ esse, etc.,' which is, I suppose, taken from
his works. In the centre Saint Anthony of
Padua kneels beside the sepulchre full of lilies
and roses; showing the picture to have been
painted for, or under the influence of, the Franciscan
Order; 2 and, like other pictures of the same class,
' an attempt to express in a visible form the idea
or promise of the redemption of the human race,
as existing in the Sovereign Eternal Mind before
the beginning of the world.' This altar-piece has
no date, but appears to have been painted about
the same time as the picture in our National Gal
lery which came from the same Church. As a
work- of art it is most wonderfully beautiful. The
editors of the last excellent edition of Vasari speak
of it with just enthusiasm as ' Opera veramente
stupenda in ogni sua parte.' The predella beneath
1 " Secundum carnem " left out. By the omission Mrs. Jame
son has, all unconsciously, been guilty of what, from the orthodox
point of view, would be considered unquestionable heresy.
2 What wonderful divination on Mrs. Jameson's part. Fran
cia's exemplar was entirely inspired by the Franciscan Order.

"EARLY ITALIAN PAINTERS" 129
painted in chiaroscuro, is also of exquisite beauty ;
and let us hope that we shall never see it separated
from1 the great subject, like a page or paragraph
torn out of a book by ignorant and childish col
lectors." — Legends of the Madonna, second edition,
London, Longmans, 1857, p. Ixxiv. First edition
1852, p. 108.
Mrs. Jameson has also written of this picture in
her " Memoirs of Early Italian Painters," London,
Murray, 1874, p. 148 (note). First edition, 1845.
Here, too, she sounds the warning note against
calling such a picture an Assumption, and styles
it a " Predestination of the Madonna." But, again,
fancy an Altar dedicated to the " Predestination
of the Madonna." There is no such devotion.
1 Separated, no; separate, yes, were it not altogether too late
to hope for anything so rational.

K

130 FRANCIA'S MASTERPIECE

CROWE AND CAVALCASELLE
1871
" But now came forth a new and strongly con
trasted series in which conception was regulated
by most engaging grace — a grand Coronation in
the Duomo of Ferrara ... an Assumption at San
Frediano." In a note on the same page the authors
add : " Lucca. San Frediano. Wood, Oil. The
Virgin in glory with Angels receiving the blessing
from Christ; below and erect St. Anselmo, Au
gustine, David and Solomon, and Saint Anthony
kneeling with his back to the spectator before the
tomb. In a predella four monochromes." — A His
tory of Painting in North Italy. London, Murray,
1871, vol. i, p. 566.

i3i

ENRICO RIDOLFI
1877
" Beyond the Chapel of the Annunciation ... is
the Chapel once belonging to the Micheli, now to
the Guinigi Magrini, and restored by them in 1856.
. . . Above the altar is a picture by Francesco
Francia representing the Coronation of the Virgin
in the upper part, and below five Saints, David,
Solomon, Anselm, Augustine and Peter Igneus.
I tis a beautiful picture, more especially on account
of the figures of the two holy Kings, whose atti
tude is full of grace, and whose faces are magnifi
cent in their expression. The picture cannot be
thoroughly appreciated on account of the poor
light in the chapel, while the predella, on which
various little episodes are painted in chiaroscuro
most tasteful in their design, is altogether invisible."
— Guida di Lucca. Lucca, 1877, pp. 123-4.
In 1899 Signor Ridolfi (who by the way is that
popular and much-loved Signor Ridolfi who for

132 FRANCIA'S MASTERPIECE
many years was director of the Uffizi) brought out
a second edition of his guide. It is little more than
a reprint of the first edition, and contains the old
statement, no longer accurate, that the picture is
over an altar.

133

JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS
1877
"The Assumption in San Frediano at Lucca
should also be mentioned as one of Francia's
masterpieces." — The Renaissance in Italy: the
Fine Arts. London, Smith Elder, 1890, p. 221
(note). Of Francia's art Mr. Symonds says, and it
would be impossible to say more truly or more
beautifully : " Deep religious feeling is combined
with physical beauty of the purest type in a
masterpiece of tranquil grace."

134 FRANCIA'S MASTERPIECE

JULIA CARTWRIGHT (MRS. ADY)
1881
" For the same Church x of San Frediano at Lucca
Francia painted another large altar-piece the
' Coronation of the Virgin ' which is still to be
seen there. Here again he gives the subject a
mystical character and introduces the patriarchal
ancestors of Mary and the chief advocates of the
dogma of the Immaculate Conception 2 among the
figures who stand below in devout contemplation.
Each bears a scroll in his hand: David points to
a verse in Psalm xxvii ' In the secret of his
tabernacle shall he hide me ' ; Solomon, a noble,
kingly profile, gazes earnestly upwards, showing
us a text from his song ' Thou art all fair, my
love ' ; while Anselm and Augustine bear scrolls
1 No; for a private Chapel in the Church, a very different
thing. 2 And yet the author did not divine that this was a picture
of the Immaculate Conception, but calls it a Coronation.

MRS. ADY'S DESCRIPTION 135
on which we read passages from their own writings
relating to the Virgin, and Anthony of Padua
kneels at the empty tomb where lilies and roses
have blossomed. This altar-piece, although less
known than Francia's other masterpieces, yields
to none of his works in grandeur and finish. The
kneeling Madonna who, robed in purple and
gold receives her crown ( !) from the hands of the
Eternal,1 retains the same expression of sweet
humility touched with sadness which marks all
his Virgins, and the scenes from the history of the
Augustinian Order on the predella are painted
with exquisite taste and delicacy." — Mantegna
and Francia. London, Sampson Low, 1881,
pp. 91-2. 1 The crown is on her head.

136 FRANCIA'S MASTERPIECE

AUGUSTUS J. C. HARE
1883
" The reception of the Virgin into Heaven. Below,
David, Solomon, Saint Anselm, Saint Augustine,
and a Monk, standing by the tomb filled with
flowers — a most beautiful picture." — Cities of Cen
tral Italy. Vol. i, p. 62.
In a note Mr. Hare adds: "This picture has
probably ere this been seized for the Gallery
(1883)." No. But it has been put to picture
gallery uses in the Church itself.

137

BAEDEKER 1886
" Opposite, next the altar to the right behind the
pulpit, is the Coronation of Mary: below are
King David and Solomon, Saint Anselm and
Saint Augustine,1 by Francesco Francia (covered).
At the foot of the picture are four scenes from the
history of the Augustinian Order" — Northern
Italy. Ed. 1886, p. 364.
1 No mention of the kneeling figure.

138 FRANCIA'S MASTERPIECE

KUGLER 1887
" Pictures by Francia existing out of his native
city are too numerous to specify. The Coronation
of the Virgin in the Duomo of Ferrara, the As
sumption in the Church of Saint Frediano at
Lucca and a Nativity in the Museum of Forli,
however unequal in parts, are all examples of
spiritual expression with gem-like colour, etc."
— Handbook of Painting. The Italian Schools.
Based on the Handbook of Kugler. Originally
edited by Sir Charles Eastlake, P. R.A. Fifth
edition. Thoroughly revised and in part re
written by Austen Henry Layard, G.C.B., D.C.L.
London, Murray, 1887. Vol. ii, p. 367.

139

MURRAY 1892
"At the altar x beyond the pulpit is an Assump
tion by Francesco Francia with Solomon and
David, SS. Anselm and Augustine.2 Below are
four scenes from the foundation of the Augustinian
Order." — Handbookfor Travellers in Central Italy.
Eleventh edition revised, 1892.
The author of the first edition (1842) writes as
follows : " Francia, the Virgin received into Heaven,
in his early style; 3 and has repeated portions of
the composition in one of his pictures in the
Duomo of Ferrara. The worshipping figures con
sist of two Kings, two Bishops, and a Friar, the
last evidently a portrait:* smaller subjects5 are
introduced into the frame below."
1 No longer at the altar in 1892.
2 Omits all mention of the kneeling figure.
3 After 15 1 1, as we now know, perhaps 15 16.
4 Why "evidently"?
5 " Smaller subjects " — quite true, the subjects are smaller.
How convincingly spun the phrase, yet how delightfully un-
illuminating.

I4Q FRANCIA'S MASTERPIECE

DR. WILLIAMSON 1 901
"The altar-piece at Lucca has many points in
common with the Berlin one. There is the same
mandorla of glory and the same cherubs' heads.
There are the same clouds in the sky, and the
figures are grouped in the same way on the earth
at the foot of the picture. In the Lucca picture,
however, the scene depicted is the Coronation of
the Madonna, who kneels humbly before the
Father, who is attended by two adoring Angels,
and who, with a rod, touches the crown of the
Queen of Heaven as she kneels. Below, on the
flower-bedecked ground, stand four figures, and
in the centre kneels a fifth; and in respect to these
figures Francia has returned to an old habit, and
has given to each of the standing figures scrolls
upon which are lengthy inscriptions. The figures
are those of Saint Anselm and Saint Augustine

DR. WILLIAMSON'S DESCRIPTION 141
on the right, both habited in rich copes (one of
which can still be seen in Lucca and is perfectly
copied), wearing mitres, and carrying, the one a
cross, and the other a crosier. On the left are two
Kings — David and Solomon — wearing crowns,
etc., carrying -scrolls, as are the other two; and
King David is playing upon a psaltery, to which
a further allusion will be found on p. 84. In the
centre kneels an Augustinian monk in his habit,
and below, in the predella, are painted four scenes
from the early history of the Order; and the whole
picture is a glorification of that influential Order
for the important Church where it still remains.
The inscriptions were selected by reason of their
reference to the Virgin. That of Saint Anselm
reads: non puto esse verum amatorem virginis
qui celebrare respuit festum suae conceptionis ;
and may be thus translated : ' I do not consider
him to be a true lover of the Virgin who refuses
to recognize the festival of her conception ' : and
that of Saint Augustine reads: in caelo qualis
est pater, talis est filius; in terra qualis est
mater, talis est filius1 and may be thus ren-
1 " Secundum carnem " left out.

142 FRANCIA'S MASTERPIECE
dered : ' What the Father is in heaven, such is the
Son; what the Mother is on earth, such is the
Son.' It is not easy to identify the work of Saint
Anselm from which the words used by Francia
could be taken. There are two documents bound
up amongst his works in Migne's edition which
used to be attributed to the Saint, one a sermon
on the Immaculate Conception, the other an ac
count of the legend of Abbot Helsinus, to whom
Our Lady is reported to have made a communica
tion during a storm at sea to the effect that if he
would promise to celebrate the Feast of the Con
ception in his monastery at Ramsey, she would
cause the storm to cease. Later on a Council in
London in the fourteenth century states that Saint
Anselm instituted the feast in England, which may
have been the case, or more probably may have
been gathered from the document as to the Abbot
Helsinus, which was at that time attributed to
Saint Anselm. These documents are not, however,
accepted by all scholars as the work of Saint
Anselm, although they belong to his period, and
there are passages in the works of the Saint that
do not support the doctrine which these passages

THE DOGMA 143
enunciate."" The words from Saint Augustine I
have been quite unable to trace. The theological
question involved in these quotations was at the
time of Saint Anselm a matter of discussion, as it
had not yet been declared deflde. I n all probability
Francia was guided solely by the words of his
instructions, and attributed to the Saints the words
which the Augustinians at that time accepted as
their utterances. The question is purely one of
the science of criticism." — Francesco Raibolini
called Francia. London, Bell, 1901, pp. 76-78.

APPENDIX No. 2
AN IMMACULATE CONCEPTION BY
PIER DI COSIMO

THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION BY
PIER DI COSIMO AT FIESOLE

A CONCEPTION BY PIER DI COSIMO
In the Church of San Francesco at Fiesole there
is an altar-piece of the Conception by Pier di
Cosimo of which a word must be said here for
reasons which will appear in the sequel. The pic
ture is signed and dated " Pier di Cosimo 1480."
I regret to say that it is hung flat against a wall
instead of being over an Altar, but as the frame is
of ancient wood, and not of modern gilt, the effect
is less melancholy and pinacoteca-like than in the
case of Francia's great altar-piece at Lucca.
First to attempt a brief description. Above sits
the Eternal Father, a tablet with writing in the
left hand, extending with the right hand the sceptre
of Ahasuerus over the Blessed Virgin, who kneels
at His feet; on either side, Angels holding scrolls;
below, in the centre, Saint Francis of Assisi and
Saint Jerome, kneeling; on the Gospel side, Saint
Augustine of Hippo and Saint Bernard; on the

148 FRANCIA'S MASTERPIECE
Epistle side, Saint Thomas of Aquinas and Saint
Anselm ; all four standing. The tablets or scrolls
of all the Saints, except Saint Francis, bear ex
tracts from their writings.
The following are the whole of the texts to be
seen in the picture, and I add references to show
where they occur in the two Offices of Leonardo
Nogarolo and Bernardino de' Busti:
i. The Eternal Father: non enim pro te sed
PRO OMNIBUS HAEC LEX CONSTITUTA EST: Not for
thee was this law made but for all mankind.
Esther, xv, 13. Leon., Resp. after 7th lesson.
Busti. Resp. throughout oct. after 9th lesson.
2. The Angels on the right : o virgo bene-
dicta que angelos vincis puritate : O Virgin
most blest who surpasseth the Angels in purity.
Attributed to Saint Hilary by Leon., 4th lesson,
and Busti, ist lesson, but is really by Saint Anselm,
In Oratione, 50 (Migne, P. L., clviii, 949).
3. The Angels on the left: quam pulchri
sunt gressus tui1 filia principis: How beautiful
are thy footsteps, O daughter of the Prince! Cant.,
vii, 1. Leon., Ant. Magnif. Not in Busti.
1 " In calceamentis " omitted.

INSCRIPTIONS 149
4. Saint Francis: conceptionem virginis
mariae celebremus : O come let us celebrate the
Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary! Leon.,
Invit. Mat. Not in Busti}
5. Saint Jerome : quidquid (in) maria gestum
(est) totum puritas, totum veritas, totum gratia
fuit : That which was accomplished in Mary was
all purity, all truth, all grace. Epist. 9, ad Paul.
et Eustoch. (P. L.,xxx, 131). Not actually by Saint
Jerome, but to be found among his works. Leon.,
ist lesson. Busti, ist lesson.
6. Saint Augustine (in the act of writing):
MAGNIFICA ILLUM QUI TE AB OMNI PECCATO RES-
(ervavit) : Magnify Him Who hath preserved
thee from all sin. ^9. Aug. in Libro de Natura
et Gratia, c. 36 (Migne, P. L., xliv, 267)/* Leon.,
2nd lesson. Busti, 4th day, 3rd lesson.
1 It is rather a happy touch of the imagination to make
Saint Francis invite devotion to the Immaculate Conception
in the words of the Invitatory.
2 Words wrongly attributed by Bernardino de' Busti to Saint
Thomas, rightly by Leonardo Nogarolo to Saint Augustine.
On the subject of this quotation, P. Teodorico Asson writes
me : see (which I have not been able to do) " Opus Theologicum
in quibus ostenditur Immacolatam Dei Genitricem, P. Salvat.
Montalb. Sambucensis," vol. ii, p. 296, No. 280.

150 FRANCIA'S MASTERPIECE
7. Saint Bernard : x caro virginis ex adam
sumpta maculas adae non admisit: the flesh
which the Virgin took from Adam had none of
Adam's blemishes. Attributed to Saint Bernard
by Leon., 6th lesson, and by Busti, 5th day, 2nd
lesson, but is really by Saint Peter Damian, In
Serm. 40 de Assumpt. (P. L. cxliv, 721).
8. Saint Anselm: non puto esse verum ama-
torem virginis qui celebrare respuit festum
suae conceptionis: I do not reckon him a true
lover of the Virgin who refuses to celebrate the
Feast of her Conception. Sermo de Concept.
(Migne, P. L., clix, col. 322). Leon., 5th lesson.
Busti, 7th day, 3rd lesson.
9. Saint Thomas Aquinas:2 maria ab omni
1 There is a pious tradition among the Friars of Fiesole that
this figure is Duns Scotus. Would that it were! But since all
the Saints except Saint Francis, for obvious reasons, hold tablets
or scrolls with extracts ostensibly from their own writings, it is
only logical to conclude that the figure is intended for the
great reformer of Clairvaux. Besides the habit, closely examined,
even if the capuce resembles a Franciscan capuce, is white
rather than ashen gray, and is undoubtedly the white cowl of
a Cistercian. 2 I owe it entirely to the kindness and extraordinary learning
of P. Teodorico .Asson, O.F.M., Editor of the monumental

TEXTS IN LUCCA PICTURE 151
PECCATO ORIGINALI ET ACTUALI IMMUNIS FUIT :
Mary was without sin whether actual or original.
In / Sent. Dist. 44, quaest. 1, art. 3. Leon., 6th
lesson. Busti, 1st lesson, Oct.1
edition of Alexander of Hales now in preparation at Quaracchi,
if I am able to give the references to Nos. 2, 5, 6, 7, and 9,
and to correct Leonardo and Bernardino's errors. This is a
feat of learning entirely beyond my comprehension: even a
" dicit Augustinus in quodam loco " seems to have no terrors
for Padre Teodorico. These references have been obtained at
a great sacrifice of time — a matter of days. I am indeed deeply
grateful to him for such wonderful aid.
1 For the sake of giving the references to the Offices, I re
peat the remaining texts to be found in the old picture at
Lucca :
The Blessed Virgin: eruisti a framea, deus, animam
meam : Thou hast delivered, O God, my soul from the sword.
Ps. xxi, 21; A. V. xxii, 20; Leon., Versic. after 6th Ps.; Busti,
Versic. 3rd Noct, Versic. Tierce, and Resp. Sext.
David : in sole posuit tabernaculum suum : He hath set
his tabernacle in the Sun. Ps. xviii, 6; A.V. xix, 4; Leon.,
Versic. 2nd Ps.; Busti, 2nd Ant. 1st Noct.
Solomon: tota pulchra es amica mea et macula non
est in te : Thou art all fair, my love, and there is no spot in
thee: Cant, iv, 7; Leon., 2nd Ant. Vesp.; Busti, ist Ant.
2nd Vesp.
Saint Augustine : in coelo qualis est pater talis est
filius; in terra qualis est mater talis est filius se
cundum carnem : In Heaven such as the Father is such is the

152 FRANCIA'S MASTERPIECE
All these quotations are to be found in Leon
ardo's Office; No. 3 "quam pulchri " is not in
Bernardino's; where Leonardo has " Caro Vir
ginis" (No. 7), Bernardino has "Caro Mariae";
and then Leonardo's I nvitatory has been used in this
picture.1 The picture is dated 1480: Bernardino's
Office was not approved till 4th October, 1480:
therefore it is clear as the noonday sun that
Piero's altar-piece is older than the old altar-piece
from San Francesco, and the jewel I have placed
among the gems of Lucca loses half its value.
This reasoning seems to be flawless. Happily,
however, these solid looking premisses turn out
to be nothing but a castle of cards which topples
at a touch. The real date of Pier di Cosimo's
birth has been ascertained.2 Hitherto it had been
Son; on Earth such as the Mother is such is the Son according
to the flesh. Serm. 20 ad Fratres; Busti, ist lesson, 6th day,
Not in Leonardo.
1 Yet another difference: Nogarolo makes Saint Thomas
say " Maria ab omni peccato originali et actuali immunis fuit ";
and Busti : " Et talis fuit puritas Beatae Virginis quae a peccato
originali et actuali immunis fuit."
2 Crowe and Cavalcaselle, III, p. 421. Vasari (Milanesi)
III, p. 131 (note 2), "Piero, who was the son of Lorenzo, who
was the son of Piero, who was the son of Antonio, gimlet-maker,

THE DATE AN ADDITION 153
thought that he was born about 1441, but the
exact year was 1462, and we further know that
in 1480 he was "an assistant without pay" in
Cosimo Rosselli's shop. It is certain therefore,
that he was not in a position to paint such a
picture as this Conception in 1480. I adduce the
date of birth merely as confirmatory evidence, for
truth to tell the first glance at the date on the
picture reveals it to have been added by a much
later hand. The fact that the date is in Arabic
and not in Roman numerals also makes against
its being written in 1480. I should suppose that
it was added at the end of the sixteenth or begin
ning of the seventeenth century. The greater
antiquity of the Lucca picture is therefore most
easily vindicated.
The Fiesole altar-piece is of considerable im
portance as evidence that Bernardino de' Busti's
was born in 1462, as appears from his father's statement of in
come in 1480. In this statement he declares that ' Piero his
son works with a painter without pay. He goes to the shop of
Cosimo (Rosselli) at Santa Maria in Campo.' Piero at that
time was eighteen years of age. Vasari says that he died at
eighty in 152 1, but in that year Piero was only fifty-nine
years old."

154 FRANCIA'S MASTERPIECE
Office never found any favour in the Order and
was speedily forgotten. According to Vasari Piero
died in 1521. Even if this picture were a late
work it would show that Busti's Office was entirely
forgotten by Franciscans say twenty-five years
after it was written. But I think the picture an
early rather than a late work. The example of
Sixtus IV, the immense impulse which he gave
to the Devotion, caused Altars and Confraternities
to spring up very rapidly in Franciscan churches.
It would be almost safe to place Piero's picture in
the fifteenth rather than in the sixteenth century,
and we thus get stronger evidence than ever of
the complete desuetude into which Bernardino's
Office speedily fell.
In the course of the brief studies which I made
for the purpose of destroying the date 1480, I
came across several curious and rather alarming
instances of that particular intellectual obliquity
which possesses mankind when looking at religious
pictures. For instance: the Editors of the Le Monnier
Edition of Vasari, and Gaetano Milanesi in his
later Edition, actually take this picture, in which

CROWE AND CAVALCASELLE 155
there is no sign of a Crown, for a Coronation!
Commenting on Vasari's statement that Piero
painted a Conception for Fiesole they write:
" The picture of the Conception is no longer
there; but instead in the Choir behind the High
Altar there is a picture of the Coronation of Our
Lady with six kneeling Saints attributed to Pier
di Cosimo." x Crowe and Cavalcaselle simply say
that the Conception is " missing " ; they, as likely
as not, if they saw it at all, took the picture to be
a Coronation. " Rumohr," they add, " speaks of a
picture in the Church inscribed ' Pier di Cosimo
1480' (Forsch. II, p. 352) but this also is not to
be found, especially as Rumohr does not give the
subject."2 Not to be found! (How Ivan Ler-
1 Le Monnier. Vol. vii, p. 121 (note 3). Milanesi. Vol. iv,
p. 141 (note). Identical language in both editions. N.B. —
Only two of the Saints are kneeling; four are standing. The
writers have apparently not noticed the signature and date on
the picture. Intellectual depravity such as could take this pic
ture with all its inscriptions to be a Coronation, is often accom
panied by an inattention which points to almost total corporal
blindness. 2 Vol. iii, p. 425 (note). True, Rumohr does not give the
subject or describe the picture, but he does tell where to look

156 FRANCIA'S MASTERPIECE
molieff would chuckle). Not to be found! But
did you ever look for it, or failing to find it, were
you too lofty to do the obvious thing and in
terrogate one of the ignorant friars? The Sacristan
lay-brother would have had sufficient knowledge
to take you behind the altar, and there, sure
enough, you would have found the picture, for
though it has made many peregrinations it has
never been away from the Church.
One does not look for great knowledge of
mediaeval pictures in the eighteenth century, but
one does expect to find a knowledge of theology
in a Canon of San Lorenzo. Yet the weighty and
learned Canon Angelo Bandini, Prefect of the
Laurenzana, Prefect of the Marucelliana, etc., etc. ,
takes Piero's picture for a Coronation.1 So does
the Cavaliere Professore Giuseppe Dal Rosso,
twice over.2 So does Giovanni Maselli, editor of
a complete edition of Vasari, who also gravely
for it: "hinter dem Hauptaltare der Franciscanerkirche zu
Fiesole." 1 " Lettere Fiesolane." Siena, 1800, p. 211.
2 "Una Giornata d'Istruzione a Fiesole," Florence, 1826,
p. 82, and " Guida di Fiesole " (in Italian and French) Florence,
1846. The two books are practically identical.

THE DATE 1480 157
announces that Piero's Conception is "missing." *
Further research would no doubt bring forth other
the like oddities, but my one concern in this brief
appendix has been to demolish the lying date of
1480, and vindicate for the City of Lucca a unique,
and very well-merited honour.
1 Florence, 1832-1838. Vol. i, p. 469.

158 FRANCIA'S MASTERPIECE

GRATIARUM ACTIO
There is no end to the thanks which are due
from the author of a book which, like this, is
largely based on the knowledge of others gleaned
in the course of persistent talk and intrusion. I
owe it to many friends and acquaintances to tell
what they did for me, but I fear that a bare re
hearsal of my thanks is all that I can now venture
upon. The picture is a religious picture, dealing with
a somewhat abstruse though very beautiful dogma,
and I have therefore, to my own great profit,
had constant recourse to living theologians. I
must particularly thank Padre Carlo da Castel del
Piano, Provincial of the Tuscan Capuchins, for
pointing out to me the significance of Ahasuerus'
sceptre, and another Capuchin friend, Padre Sisto
da Pisa, librarian at Montughi, for sending me to

THANKS TO FRANCISCANS 159
the " Summa Aurea " in search of Marian miracles,
To P. Teofilo Domenichelli, O.F.M., Commissary
of the Holy Land in Tuscany, whose residence,
to my good fortune, is fixed at Livorno, I owe
much indeed, and am correspondingly grateful.
His library of rare books (adusum), his vast learn
ing, his good counsel, have ever been at my dis
posal these ten years and more, and I have been
greatly the gainer. To P. Eletto Salandri, of
the same Order, an enthusiastic Scotist, I am
indebted for the patience with which he expounded
to me abstruse points in the doctrine of his Master.
How could I ever rightly thank the courteous and
learned " Patres Editores " of the Franciscan pub
lishing house at Quaracchi for the favours re
ceived on this and many another occasion — P.
Girolamo Golubovich, editor of a noble Review,
the "Archivum Franciscanum Historicum," which
has entered upon its first year of vigorous life,
my old friend Father Paschal Robinson, whom
I found among them, though as yet he has no
permanent abiding, place there, P. Teodorico
Asson, the Patristic scholar, P. Michael Bihl, and
P. Atanasio Lopez, who worked for me when I

160 FRANCIA'S MASTERPIECE
should have been working for myself — all these
have my grateful, warm, undying thanks. P.
Bonaventura Dei, who has written an interesting
guide to the Church of San Francesco at Fiesole,1
was most helpful to me in my brief study of Pier
di Cosimo's picture, and I thank him heartily.
My thanks, too, are due to the Father Provincial
and the Father Guardian of the Franciscan House
at Lucca for leave to search in their Archives, and
particularly to P. Tommaso Tommasi for assist
ance in going through sixteen enormous Choir-
books whose weight alone formed no insignificant
part of the labour. I had hoped to find therein a
miniature of the Conception akin to the San
Francesco altar-piece, and so perhaps have estab
lished the painter's name, but I met with one of
many disappointments. All these, my friends, are
Franciscans. I pass to the secular clergy, from
whom I have likewise received much aid.
Monsignor Pietro Guidi, Secretary to the Car
dinal Archbishop of Lucca, has been unwearied
in his researches for me, Monsignor Parenti,
the Archiepiscopal Chancellor, Don Ferdinando
1 "S. M. del Fiore sui Colli di Fiesole," Florence, 1907.

THANKS TO SECULAR PRIESTS 161
Simonetti, the Vice-Chancellor, have been un
wearied in the patience with which they bore over-
frequent irruptions into the Chancery, and in the
help they always so cheerfully gave me : they, too,
have my grateful thanks. Never can I sufficiently
thank the priests of San Frediano, Don Samuele
Pacini, the Priore, Don Michele Niccolai, the
Sacristan, Don St. Omer and all the Chaplains,
patient listeners all of them, and ready helpers
ever. And in these thanks I include the Rever-
endo Economo of the R. Collegio, Don Giovanni
Battista Matteucci, without whose invaluable help,
and encouragement I could never have solved
the mystery of the walled-up Stanza dell' Opera.
Great, too, is the debt that I owe to Fr. Walter
Sylvester of St. Mary's, Bayswater, for labour
and research in the British Museum, which exile
prevented me doing for myself.
I have to thank Count Pierangelo Guinigi
Magrini, patron of the Chapel of the Assumption,
for giving me every assistance in his power, Count
Rodolfo Bernardini, for leave to turn over the
family archives, and Count Cesare Sardi, an expert
in Lucca history and genealogy, for genealogical
researches initiated on my behalf.
M

162 FRANCIA'S MASTERPIECE
Of the Avvocato Eugenio Bindi, Curator of the
Notarial Archives, it were difficult to say enough :
he will believe in the sincerity of my gratitude,
though he may characteristically deny the weight
of my obligation. And what can I say when I come
to the Archivio di Stato and the R. Biblioteca?
To thee, Adolfo Lippi, kind, gentle, patient, cour
teous friend, who didst so unweariedly ransack for
me the voluminous records of an ancient State, to
thee, and to thy assistant, Mario Bongi, whose
illustrious father it was my privilege to know in
the years gone by, to both of you hearty thanks and
cordial good wishes. Cavaliere Eugenio Boselli,
model of helpful librarians, we are old friends now,
are we not? and you know something of my grati
tude: receive once more my thanks, and convey
once more the expression of my gratitude, the
sense of my admiration, to all your able lieutenants
(quick wits and willing hands !), Gabriele Briganti,
Manfredi Azeglio, Alessandro Tosoni, and Luigi
Matteucci. Many indeed have been those who have con
tributed to this book, but I must not omit to thank
Dr. Giulio Lippi, the Operaro of San Frediano,

TO ALL MY THANKS 163
Senior Assessor of the Commune of Lucca, who
made me free of the Opera's Archivio, the Av
vocato Manfredo Puccinelli and the Avvocato
Stefano Hermite for valuable historico-juridical
opinions, and Professor Placido Campetti, Direc
tor of the Pinacoteca, Cavaliere Medarse Cappel-
letti, Inspector of Public Monuments, and the
Cavaliere Francesco Bandettini, architect of the
restorations of San Francesco, soon to be reclaimed
from a military store to its right uses, for varied
assistance and helpful advice ; nor do I forget thee,
Alfredo Caselli, in whose historic shop in the Via
Fillungo, a veritable intellectual centre, I have
made many prized acquaintances, and gleaned
much precious information.
To all then who have helped me, Ecclesiastics,
Authorities, Librarians, Archivists, Jurisconsults,
Professors, Patricians, and People, to all these,
deeply moved at such goodness to a stranger in
the land, I give whole-hearted thanks, and send
cordial, friendly, affectionate greetings. To-day,
reluctantly, I bid you all farewell! but, please God,
for a brief space only. For with the rich treasures
that lie hid in your favoured corner of the Earth,

1 64 FRANCIA'S MASTERPIECE
with the willing helpers that await me for a
renewal of these labours, I should indeed be
bewitched did I not speedily return to the study of
the noble history and fine art, and to the enjoy
ment of the best qualities of human nature, which
have taken root and flourish and abound exceed
ingly in the elect and forever delectable city of
Lucca!

i65

POSTSCRIPTUM
Succinctly to sum up the result of these re
searches: Francia's altar-piece in San Frediano
represents the Immaculate Conception : two Saints
and two inspired writers bear witness to the fact,
a fifth, who was both, has a vision of the miracle,
and he, emerging at length from the shadows of
time and in the very year of his Sixth Centenary,
proves to be the Ven. John Duns Scotus, Doctor
Subtilis. The scenes in the predella are miracles
worked by the Invocation of Mary Immaculate.
The missing lunette has been recovered. The
main picture was by request of the donor, taken
from one about thirty years older in the Church
of San Francesco at Lucca: the exemplar is
probably the oldest existing representation of the
Immaculate Conception. The altar-piece was
ordered for the Chapel of the Conception in the
Church of San Frediano, some time after May,
151 1, by Dame Magdalen Stiatta, of the family

1 66 FRANCIA'S MASTERPIECE
of Trenta, the founder of the Chapel. The Chapel
of the Conception formed the western half of what
to-day is known as the Chapel of the Assumption.
Francia's altar-piece is hung upon its north wall.
The old Altar of the Assumption is now in the
Parish Church of Saint Michael at Antraccoli,
near Lucca. The patronage of the Chapel of the
Conception, and the Chapel furniture, lapsed to
the Church in the last quarter of the seventeenth
century through failure of the lines of descent
indicated in the Will of the founder. The walled-
up space between the Chapel of the Annunciation
and the Chapel of the Assumption, formed the
entrance into the Church from the Monastery.
This is an archaeological discovery of considerable
importance, but has little or nothing to do with
the argument of my book.
A proper explanation of this picture also brings
out the greater sublimity, the more spiritual quality,
of early representations of the Immaculate Con
ception, as compared with the Spanish present
ment which has become the norm. My hope, as
I have said, is that this little book may only prove
an introduction to a much-needed work on the

A FUTURE BOOK 167
subject, and I should be deeply grateful to any of
my readers who would call my attention to out-of-
the-way pictures of the kind, or to early repre
sentations of the Conception in drawings, wood
cuts or miniatures.

Avete et Valete

CHISWICK PRESS: CHARLES WHITTINGHAM AND CO.
TOOKS COURT, CHANCERY LANE, LONDON.

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