"The church of St. Lorenzo, at Genoa, is celebrated for containing a
most sacred relic, the 'Sagro Catino,' a dish of one entire and perfect
_emerald_, said to be that on which our Saviour ate his last supper.
Such a dish in the house of a Jewish publican was a miracle in itself.
Mr. Eustace says, he looked for this dish, but found that the French,
'whose delight is brutal violence, as it is that of the lion or the
tiger,' had carried it away. And so indeed they did. But that was
nothing. The carrying off relics--the robbing of Peter to pay Paul, and
spoliating one church to enrich another--was an old trick of legitimate
conquerors in all ages; for this very '_dish_' had been carried away by
the royal crusaders, when they took _Cesarea_ in Palestine, under
_Guillaume Embriaco_, in the twelfth century. In the division of spoils,
this emerald fell to the share of the _Genoese Crusaders_, into whose
holy vocation some of their old trading propensities evidently entered;
and they deemed the vulgar value, the profane price, of this treasure,
so high, that on an emergency, they pledged it for nine thousand five
hundred livres. Redeemed and replaced, it was guarded by the _knights of
honor_ called _Clavigeri_; and only escaped once a year! Millions knelt
before it, and the penalty on the bold but zealous hand that touched it
with a diamond, was a thousand golden ducats."
The French seized this relic, as the crusaders had done in the twelfth
century; but instead of conveying it from the church of San Lorenzo to
the abbey of St. Denis (_selon les règles_), they most sacrilegiously
sent it to a _laboratory_. Instead of submitting it, with a traditional
story, to a _council of Trent_, they handed it over to the _institute of
Paris_; and chemists, geologists, and philosophers, were called on to
decide the fate of that relic which bishops, priests and deacons had
pronounced to be too sacred for human investigation, or even for human
touch. _The result of the scientific investigation was, that the emerald
dish was a piece of green glass!_
When England made the King of Sardinia a present of the dukedom of one
of the oldest republics in Europe, and restitutions were making "_de
part et d'autre_;" _Victor Emmanuel_ insisted upon having his emerald
dish; not for the purpose of putting it in a cabinet of curiosities, as
they had done at Paris, to serve as a curious monument of the remote
epoch in which the art of making colored glass was known--(of its great
antiquity there is no doubt)--but of restoring it to its shrine at San
Lorenzo--to its guard of knights servitors--to the homage, offerings,
and bigotry of the people! with a republished assurance that this is the
invaluable _emerald dish_, the '_Sagro Catino_,' which _Queen Sheba_
offered, with other gems, to King Solomon (who deposited it, where all
gems should be, in his church), and which afterwards was reserved for a
higher destiny than even that assigned to it in the gorgeous temple of
Jerusalem. The story of the analysis by the institute of Paris is hushed
up, and those who would revive it would be branded with the odium of
blasphemy and sedition; none now remember such things, but those who are
the determined enemies of social order, or as the Genoese Royal Journal
would call them, '_the radicals of the age_.'--_Italy, by Lady
Morning_.
"THE PAINTER OF FLORENCE."
There is an old painting in the church of the Holy Virgin at Florence,
representing the Virgin with the infant Jesus in her arms, trampling the
dragon under her feet, about which is the following curious legend, thus
humorously described by Southey, in the Annals of the Fine Arts:
There once was a Painter in Catholic days,
Like Job who eschewed all evil,
Still on his Madonnas the curious may gaze
With applause and amazement; but chiefly his praise
And delight was in painting the devil.
They were angels compared to the devils he drew,
Who besieged poor St. Anthony's cell,
Such burning hot eyes, such a _d----mnable_ hue,
You could even smell brimstone, their breath was so blue
He painted his devils so well.
And now had the artist a picture begun,
'Twas over the Virgin's church door;
She stood on the dragon embracing her son,
Many devils already the artist had done,
But this must outdo all before.
The old dragon's imps as they fled through the air,
At seeing it paused on the wing,
For he had a likeness so just to a hair,
That they came as Apollyon himself had been there,
To pay their respects to their king.
Every child on beholding it, shivered with dread,
And screamed, as he turned away quick;
Not an old woman saw it, but raising her head,
Dropp'd a bead, made a cross on her wrinkles, and said,
"God help me from ugly old Nick!"
What the Painter so earnestly thought on by day,
He sometimes would dream of by night;
But once he was started as sleeping he lay,
'Twas no fancy, no dream--he could plainly survey
That the devil himself was in sight.
"You rascally dauber," old Beelzebub cries,
"Take heed how you wrong me, again!
Though your caricatures for myself I despise,
Make me handsomer now in the multitude's eyes,
Or see if I threaten in vain."
Now the painter was bold and religious beside,
And on faith he had certain reliance,
So earnestly he all his countenance eyed,
And thanked him for sitting with Catholic pride,
And sturdily bid him defiance.
Betimes in the morning, the Painter arose,
He is ready as soon as 'tis light;
Every look, every line, every feature he knows,
'Twas fresh to his eye, to his labor he goes,
And he has the wicked old one quite.
Happy man, he is sure the resemblance can't fail,
The tip of his nose is red hot,
There's his grin and his fangs, his skin cover'd with scales
And that--the identical curl of the tail,
Not a mark--not a claw is forgot.
He looks and retouches again with delight;
'Tis a portrait complete to his mind!
He touches again, and again feeds his sight,
He looks around for applause, and he sees with affright,
The original standing behind.
"Fool! idiot!" old Beelzebub grinned as he spoke,
And stamp'd on the scaffold in ire;
The painter grew pale, for he knew it no joke,
'Twas a terrible height, and the scaffolding broke;
And the devil could wish it no higher.
"Help! help me, O Mary," he cried in alarm,
As the scaffold sank under his feet,
From the canvas the Virgin extended her arm,
She caught the good painter, she saved him from harm,
There were thousands who saw in the street.
The old dragon fled when the wonder he spied,
And curs'd his own fruitless endeavor:
While the Painter called after, his rage to deride,
Shook his palette and brushes in triumph, and cried,
"Now I'll paint thee more ugly than ever!"