_Lat._ S. Bartholomeus. _Ital._ San Bartolomeo. _Fr._ St. Barthélemi.
Aug. 24.
As St. Bartholomew is nowhere mentioned in the canonical books, except
by name in enumerating the apostles, there has been large scope for
legendary story, but in works of art he is not a popular saint.
According to one tradition, he was the son of a husbandman; according
to another, he was the son of a prince Ptolomeus. After the ascension
of Christ he travelled into India, even to the confines of the
habitable world, carrying with him the Gospel of St. Matthew; returning
thence, he preached in Armenia and Cilicia; and coming to the city of
Albanopolis, he was condemned to death as a Christian: he was first
flayed and then crucified.
[Illustration: 80 St. Bartholomew (Giotto)]
In single figures and devotional pictures, St. Bartholomew sometimes
carries in one hand a book, the Gospel of St. Matthew; but his peculiar
attribute is a large knife, the instrument of his martyrdom. The
legends describe him as having a quantity of strong black hair and a
bushy grizzled beard; and this portrait being followed very literally
by the old German and Flemish painters, gives him, with his large
knife, the look of a butcher. In the Italian pictures, though of a
milder and more dignified appearance, he has frequently black hair; and
sometimes dark and resolute features; yet the same legend describes
him as of a cheerful countenance, wearing a purple robe and attended
by angels. Sometimes St. Bartholomew has his own skin hanging over
his arm, as among the saints in Michael Angelo’s Last Judgment, where
he is holding forth his skin in one hand, and grasping his knife in
the other: and in the statue by Marco Agrati in the Milan Cathedral,
famous for its anatomical precision and its boastful inscription, _Non
me Praxiteles sed Marcus pinxit Agratis_. I found in the church of
Nôtre Dame at Paris a picture of St. Bartholomew healing the Princess
of Armenia. With this exception, I know not any historical subject
where this apostle is the principal figure, except his revolting and
cruel martyrdom. In the early Greek representation on the gates of San
Paolo, he is affixed to a cross, or rather to a post, with a small
transverse bar at top, to which his hands are fastened above his head;
an executioner, with a knife in his hand, stoops at his feet. This is
very different from the representations in the modern schools. The
best, that is to say, the least disgusting, representation I have
met with, is a small picture by Agostino Caracci, in the Sutherland
Gallery, which once belonged to King Charles I.: it is easy to see
that the painter had the antique Marsyas in his mind. That dark
ferocious spirit, Ribera, found in it a theme congenial with his own
temperament;[218] he has not only painted it several times with a
horrible truth and power, but etched it elaborately with his own hand:
a small picture, copied from the etching, is at Hampton Court.