5. Paul is baptized: he is standing, or rather sitting, in a font,
which is a large vase, and not much larger in proportion than a
punch-bowl.
6. St. Paul disputes with the Jews. His attitude is vehement and
expressive: three Jewish doctors stand before him as if confounded and
put to silence by his eloquent reasoning.
7. St. Paul escapes from Damascus; the basket, in which he is lowered
down from a parapet, is about the size of a hand-basket.
8. St. Paul delivers a scroll to Timothy and Silas; he consigns to
their direction the deacons that were ordained by the apostles and
elders. (Acts xvi. 4.)
9. St. Paul and St. Peter meet at Rome, and embrace with brotherly
affection. I believe this subject to represent the reconciliation of
the two apostles after the dispute at Antioch. The inscription is, _Hic
Paulus venit Romam et pacem fecit cum Petro_. (In the Christian Museum
in the Vatican there is a most beautiful small Greek picture in which
Peter and Paul are embracing; it may represent the reconciliation or
the parting: the heads, though minute, are extremely characteristic.)
10. The decollation of St. Paul at the Aqua Salvias; one fountain only
is introduced.
This is the earliest instance I can quote of the dramatic treatment
of the life and actions of St. Paul in a series of subjects. The
Greek type of the head of St. Paul is retained throughout, strongly
individualised, and he appears as a man of about thirty-five or forty.
In the later schools of art, which afford some celebrated examples
of the life of St. Paul treated as a series, the Greek type has been
abandoned.
The series by Raphael, executed for the tapestries of the Sistine
Chapel in the Vatican, consists of five large and seven small
compositions.
1. The conversion of Saul, already described: the cartoon is lost. 2.
Elymas the sorcerer struck blind: wonderful for dramatic power. 3.
St. Paul and Barnabas at Lystra. 4. Paul preaches at Athens. Of these
three magnificent compositions we have the cartoons at Hampton Court.
5. St. Paul in prison at Philippi. The earthquake through which he was
liberated is here represented allegorically as a Titan in the lower
corner of the picture, with shoulders and arms heaving up the earth.
This, which strikes us as rather pagan in conception, has, however,
a parallel in the earliest Christian Art, where, in the baptism of
Christ, the Jordan is sometimes represented by a classical river-god,
sedge-crowned, and leaning on his urn.
The seven small subjects, which in the set of tapestries run underneath
as borders to the large compositions, are thus arranged:—
1. ‘As for Saul, he made havoc of the church, entering into every
house, and haling men and women committed them to prison.’ (Acts viii.
3.) At one end of a long narrow composition Saul is seated in the dress
of a Roman warrior, and attended by a lictor; they bring before him a
Christian youth; farther on are seen soldiers ‘haling men and women’
by the hair; others flee in terror. This was erroneously supposed to
represent the massacre at Prato, in 1512, by the adherents of the
Medici, and is so inscribed in the set of engravings by Bartoli and
Landon.
2. John and Mark taking leave of the brethren at Perga in Pamphylia.
(Acts xiii. 3.)
3. Paul, teaching in the synagogue at Antioch, confounds the Jews.
(Acts xviii. 3.)
4. Paul at Corinth engaged in tent-making with his host. This is an
uncommon subject, but I remember another instance in a curious old
German print, where, in the lower part of the composition, the apostle
is teaching or preaching; and above there is a kind of gallery or
balcony, in which he is seen working at a loom: ‘You yourselves know
that these hands have ministered to my necessities, labouring night and
day, because we would not be chargeable unto you.’ (Acts xviii. 6.)