_Il Moretto_ (Brescian: 1498-1555). _See 299._
Two saints who were not divided in the manner of their martyrdom,
and who are united therefore on the painter's canvas. Each holds the
martyr's palm. St. Catherine places her left hand on the hilt of a
sword--the instrument by which she was ultimately beheaded, whilst her
foot rests upon the wheel on which she was to have been torn to death,
had not an angel from heaven broken it. St. Hippolytus's death was not
unlike that which had been devised for St. Catherine. He is clad in
armour, for he was the soldier stationed as guard over St. Lawrence
(see 747), but he is represented as bareheaded, and with his face
upturned in reverence, for that "he was so moved by that illustrious
martyr's invincible courage and affectionate exhortations that he
became a Christian with all his family." Wherefore he was tied to the
tails of wild horses and torn to death. On the fragment of stone in
the foreground is an inscription in Latin, telling by what death the
two saints glorified God--"Membris dissolvi voluerunt ne vinculis
divellerentur aeternis:" they chose to be torn limb by limb rather
than by renouncing their faith to be thus torn hereafter by eternal
chains. The members of the body are the chains of the soul, and the
martyrs freed themselves from temporary fetters rather than submit to
the fetters of everlasting punishment.