In the summer of A.D. 680 Rome was again gripped in the toils of an
appalling plague that had spread over the greater part of Italy. Paul
the Deacon[141] says that eclipses of both sun and moon in May were
followed by pestilence in the months of July, August, and September.
Describing its ravages at Ticinum (Pavia) Paul says that ‘the number
of the dead was so great that parents were often carried to burial on
the same biers as their children, and brothers along with sisters....
And then many saw with their own eyes a good and a bad angel passing
through the city by night. And whenever at the bidding of the good
angel, the bad one, who seemed to carry a lance in his hand, struck
so many times with his lance on the door of each house, as many of
that household would die on the following day. Then it was revealed to
some one that the plague would not cease until an altar was set up to
Sebastian, saint and martyr, at the church of S. Pietro in Vincoli.
This was done, and as soon as the altar was set up, the relics of the
martyr-saint Sebastian were brought from Rome, and forthwith the plague
ceased.’
Paul the Deacon, beyond all doubt, was referring to the church of S.
Pietro in Vincoli at Pavia, but the Romans of later date claimed the
legend for their own church of the same name, in which it has been
embodied in a fresco of the fifteenth century, ascribed to Pollajuolo
(1429-98). In the background, at the summit of a flight of stairs,
presumably suggested by those of Ara Coeli, a citizen is telling to
Pope Agatho, who is seated among his cardinals, his dream that the
pestilence will not cease till the body of S. Sebastian is brought into
the city. On the right the good angel indicates the condemned houses
to the bad angel in the guise of the Evil One, who strikes on the door
with his lance. On the left a procession, carrying a banner on which
the Madonna is depicted with robe spread out in protecting attitude,
is bringing in the relics. The foreground is strewn with corpses of
the dead. In the sky, bow in hand, hovers the angel that spreads the
pestilence. To the left is a group of the Almighty and angels, now
almost obliterated.
It is not generally recognized that the well-known picture ‘La Peste à
Rome’, by Delaunay (A.D. 1828-91), now in the Musée du Luxembourg at
Paris, was directly inspired by this fresco. The scene is laid in a
street of Rome, which is strewn with bodies of dead and dying, among
which the good and evil angels are busy at their task. The figure
of a youth huddled up in a brown shawl on a doorstep is a living
picture of misery. In the background a procession bearing a cross is
descending a flight of stairs, and a fire to purify the atmosphere is
burning in the open street. An effigy of Aesculapius and a colossal
equestrian statue of Constantine are introduced in the manner of the
Renaissance. The chief merit of the picture lies in the excellence of
its draughtsmanship.
In this same church at Rome is a mosaic effigy of Sebastian, believed
to have been executed in A.D. 683. In spite, however, of the name of
Sebastian, that it carries in gold mosaic letters, it is difficult to
believe that it is anything but a figure of St. Peter, transformed
perhaps in the presence of this epidemic to that of Sebastian. It
represents faithfully the traditional lineaments of the apostle, an old
man with white hair and beard, dressed in the true Byzantine style.
Kugler considers that the careful shadowing of the drapery, executed
with more than usual pains, indicates that the effigy was intended
to be exposed to the close gaze of the pious. The figure on its blue
mosaic background is stiff and inanimate, even beyond other similar
archaic effigies. Beside it, on a marble tablet, is an inscription in
Latin, reproducing almost to a word the story told by Paul the Deacon.
Tradition has it that Pope Agatho (A.D. 678-82) on this occasion caused
the bones of the saint to be collected in the cemetery of Calixtus, and
brought to the church of S. Pietro in Vincoli, there to be enshrined
beneath an altar. In the ninth century the body seems to have been
removed for safety to the Vatican, and again transferred to the church
of S. Sebastiano, where it now is, by Honorius III in A.D. 1216. This
church, however, was completely rebuilt in A.D. 1611.
[Illustration: PLATE VI LA PESTE À ROME. BY DELAUNAY
Photograph by Giraudon, Paris (Face Page 96)]
From the time of this pestilence in A.D. 680, Sebastian was universally
recognized as the patron saint of pestilence. Gradually he comes to be
identified more particularly with true plague, but never in the same
exclusive fashion as his brother saint, St. Roch. His comprehensive
patronage of pestilence indicates not only how rife were other epidemic
diseases besides true plague, but how little they were differentiated
in the public mind.
The story of the life of Sebastian[142] is well authenticated in its
main incidents. Born in the middle of the third century A.D., he was
a native of Narbonne in Gaul. His noble birth secured for him early
in life the command of a company of Praetorian Guards, so that he
was constantly about the person of the Emperor. Though secretly a
Christian and using his position to secure the conversion of others
to Christianity, he remained intensely loyal to the temporal interest
of the Emperor. Among his friends were two young soldiers, Marcus and
Marcellinus, like him of noble birth. They were convicted of embracing
Christianity, and after enduring torture bravely were led out to die.
On the way their aged parents, their wives and children, and their
friends, implored them to relent, and they were about to recant, when
Sebastian rushed forward and exhorted them not to renounce their
Redeemer. So inspiring was his appeal, that the whole assembly, guards,
judges, and all, were converted and baptized, and for a while Marcus
and Marcellinus were saved. This scene is depicted in a spirited canvas
by Veronese in the plague church of S. Sebastiano at Venice. Their
respite was but short, for in a few months they were put to death with
many others of the Christian community, and Sebastian himself was
condemned to die. The Emperor Diocletian (A.D. 284-305), by reason
of his personal attachment, sent for him and exhorted him to abjure
his heresy, but Sebastian meekly and courageously refused. Diocletian
then ordered that he should be bound to a stake and shot to death with
arrows, and that an inscription should be placed on the stake for all
to see, saying that he was put to death only for being a Christian. A
vast number of pictures, beside the masterpiece of Sodoma,[143] depict
this scene. Pierced with arrows, Sebastian was left for dead, but at
midnight Irene, the widow of one of his martyred friends, came to take
away his body for burial, but found him still alive, the arrows having
pierced no vital part. She and her attendants carried him to her house
and tended him, till he was completely healed. After this they urged
him to leave Rome, but Sebastian went boldly to the palace gate, and as
the Emperor passed out, pleaded for those Christians who were condemned
to suffer for their faith, and reproached Diocletian for his cruelty.
The Emperor in fierce anger ordered his guards to seize Sebastian and
carry him to the circus, there to beat him to death with clubs. To
conceal his dead body from his friends it was thrown into the Cloaca
Maxima, but a Christian woman, Lucina, received tidings in a vision of
where the body lay, and recovering it had it secretly buried in the
catacombs. The church of S. Sebastiano at Rome is now built over these
catacombs.
[Illustration: PLATE VII (Face Page 99)
SEBASTIAN AS PROTECTOR AGAINST PESTILENCE
By Benozzo Gozzoli. Photograph by Brogi, Florence]
Though Sebastian was martyred in A.D. 288, it was not till the plague
of A.D. 683 that his cult as a protector from pestilence was firmly
established.
The association of Sebastian with pestilence was in the first instance
purely fortuitous. Devout men in seasons of pestilence were wont to
acclaim their own peculiar patron saint a very present help in time of
trouble: an altar, a church, a votive picture, a procession, these,
now one, now another, were the price of the promised dispensation. But
that Sebastian came to be the patron saint of plague and pestilence
was due to the association of arrows with his effigy and with the
story of his attempted martyrdom. From remote antiquity we have seen
that arrows have been emblematic of plague. It was Apollo among the
Greeks that scattered pestilence with his bow, and who was invoked also
by sacrifice and hymns of praise to avert it. In Christian hagiology
and Christian art Sebastian is the counterpart of the pagan Apollo.
Whatever the variations of detail, Sebastian is practically always
represented, either transfixed with arrows or carrying an arrow in his
hand. Having regard to his story, it is a mistake to show the arrows
piercing a vital part, such as the heart, the brain, or even the neck,
as is often done. And for artistic effect it is well that they should
not be so numerous as to suggest a well-filled pin-cushion: albeit the
_Golden Legend_ has it that ‘the archers shot at him till he was as
full of arrows as an urchin is full of pricks’.
Such is the effect of an interesting fresco by Benozzo Gozzoli (_c._
A.D. 1420-97) in the Chiesa della Collegiata at San Gimignano,
dedicated to Sebastian in A.D. 1465 in a time of plague. At the head of
the picture, Christ, with the marks of wounds in His hands, communes
with the Virgin and a group of saints. Sebastian is standing on a
pedestal, his whole body studded with arrows, while archers on either
side of him are rapidly increasing the number. This Collegiata fresco
has been closely followed in an Italian _Pestblätter_, reproduced in
the Heitz-Schreiber portfolio of _Pestblätter_ (q.v.).
Another votive fresco in the church of S. Agostino at San Gimignano,
also by Benozzo Gozzoli, commemorating the disastrous plague of A.D.
1464, shows Sebastian turning aside with his cloak the broken arrows
of pestilence. In the uppermost part of the fresco the Almighty is
launching forth His shafts, and attendant angels are aiding in the
task. Between them and Sebastian Christ and the Virgin kneel in an
attitude of prayer. Sebastian stands in the centre of the foreground
on a low stone pedestal, on which are inscribed the words, ‘Sancte
Sebastiane, Intercede Pro Devoto Populo Tuo.’ His body is fully draped,
and the broken arrows lie behind him, removed by the hands of angels,
two of whom hold a crown of martyrdom above his head.
[Illustration: PLATE VIII (Face Page 100)
SODOMA’S SEBASTIAN PLAGUE BANNER (REVERSE)
SS. Roch and Sigismund, and Brethren of Compagnia di S. Sebastiano
Photograph by Alinari, Rome]
These older representations of Sebastian by Benozzo Gozzoli, and others
by Albrecht Dürer and the early German school, showing Sebastian as
an elderly bearded man, offer but little attractiveness. By far the
most beautiful pictures are those of Perugino, Sodoma, and Francia,
who use his nude and youthful figure, as the Greeks used Apollo, as a
model for the exhibition of elegance of form and accuracy of anatomical
design. As one of the few nude forms permitted to Christian art, it
is readily understood why Sebastian figures in such a multitude of
pictures. The finest example of this type is the peerless masterpiece
of Sodoma (1477-1549), now in the Uffizi Gallery at Florence, one
of the most beautiful creations of Renaissance art. It was formerly
a banner, painted in A.D. 1528 for the Sienese Compagnia di San
Sebastiano in Camollia, and was carried in procession when Siena
was afflicted with pestilence. It was kept in the church of the
Confraternity at Siena, until it was removed to Florence in A.D.
1786. The undraped body of the saint is modelled on the lines of the
youthful Apollo. He is bound to a tree in the foreground of a wild
Italian landscape. His neck, side, and one thigh are transfixed with
arrows. The upturned face wears an expression of ecstasy, in spite of
suffering, as an angel descends to place the crown of martyrdom on his
brow. Symonds has said of this picture:
‘Gifted with an exquisite feeling for the beauty of
the human body, Sodoma excelled himself when he was
contented with a single figure. His St. Sebastian,
notwithstanding its wan and faded colouring, is still
the very best that has been painted. Suffering,
refined and spiritual, without contortion or spasm,
could not be presented with more pathos in a form of
more surpassing loveliness. This is a truly demonic
picture in the fascination it exercises and the memory
it leaves upon the mind. Part of its unanalysable
charm may be due to the bold thought of combining the
beauty of a Greek Hylas with the Christian sentiment of
martyrdom. Only the Renaissance could have produced a
hybrid so successful, because so deeply felt.’
On the reverse of the banner is the Madonna with the Child in her
arms, enthroned on clouds, above a kneeling group of SS. Roch and
Sigismund and members of the Compagnia di S. Sebastiano, wearing their
characteristic garments. The work is much inferior to that of the
face of the banner, and is said to be in part the work of Beccafumi
(1486-1551).
Another superb, but little known picture, by Perugino (A.D. 1446-1524)
in the Musée at Grenoble, shows the same type of nude figure of
Sebastian bound to a tree. Face and figure alike are the very
embodiment of youthfulness and grace, verging almost on effeminacy. In
this picture S. Apolline stands beside Sebastian.
Exceptionally, and more particularly in the older pictures, the
youthful Sebastian is depicted clothed in the costume of the period,
with or without an arrow in his hand. In the Brera at Milan is a
folding altar-piece of five panels by Nicolò da Foligno (A.D. 1430-92),
in which he is represented as a youth in kilted tunic and hose. He is
similarly clad in another picture in the Vatican, ‘The Coronation of
the Virgin and Saints,’ also by Nicolò da Foligno, and in a few others
as well.
Sebastian is very frequently represented in plague pictures along with
other saints: his most frequent companion by far is St. Roch. In the
sacristy of S. Maria della Salute at Venice, itself a plague church,
is Titian’s well-known picture commemorating the great plague of A.D.
1512, in which St. Sebastian, St. Roch, and the physician-saints Cosmo
and Damian stand before the throne of St. Mark, across whose majestic
figure the shadow of a cloud has fallen. These groups of saints are not
infrequently represented mediating with the Madonna.
Travelling through Italy from town to town one becomes aware that the
land of pestilence has been roughly partitioned into separate dominions
under the tutelage of varying presiding saints. In Milan it is Carlo
Borromeo: in Venice, S. Rocco: in Rome, the Madonna: in Central Italy,
in Siena, and in Florence, S. Sebastiano. In Florence he was the patron
saint of the Compagnia della Misericordia, the institution that has for
seven centuries been so closely interwoven with the daily life of the
city, and has left no small mark on the products of Florentine art.
Christian sculpture has also seized the opportunity of the nude figure
for a model. Well-known statues are those by Matteo Civitali (_c._
1470) at Lucca, and by Puget (1622-94) in the church of Carignano at
Genoa. A colossal recumbent figure of the saint by Bernini (1598-1680)
lies beneath the high altar of the church of S. Sebastian on the Via
Appia at Rome.
In Switzerland especially, but also in southern Germany and
south-eastern France, wooden statues of Sebastian are commonly met
with, mostly belonging to the three centuries following the Black
Death. Several may be seen in the Historical Museum at Basle, more or
less archaic in character, and a very fine example in the Cluny Museum
at Paris. The same museum also possesses a pair of quaint coloured
high reliefs in wood of St. Sebastian and St. Roch respectively.
These wooden effigies are naturally most common in districts where
wood-carving has been extensively pursued.
[Illustration: PLATE IX (Face Page 102)
SS. MARK, SEBASTIAN, ROCH, COSMAS AND DAMIAN. BY TITIAN
Photograph by Naya, Venice]
It must not be supposed that the cult of Sebastian was widespread from
the first, or that the record of its growth is continuous and unbroken
from its inauguration in this Roman plague of A.D. 683. Circumstance
chanced to be arrayed against its continuity. The seventh century
was not a notable period of plague in Europe, and that was now the
dominating epidemic. There was famine and pestilence in Ireland,[144]
but its nature is not known, and the kings of Erin faced their Irish
question in the spirit of Cromwell. In a season of famine they summoned
the leading clergy and laity to a council to consider the situation.
No one, in the circumstances, will dispute the propriety of their
injunction to clergy and laity to observe a fast. But the further
injunction that they should employ their hours of abstinence in praying
that some sickness might carry off the surplus of the lower orders,
as the excess of population was the cause of the famine, is more
debatable. (‘Petebant ut nimia multitudo vulgi per infirmitatem aliquam
tolleretur, quia numerositas populi erat occasio famis.’) At the
instance of St. Gerald, who contended that the Almighty could relieve
the situation more suitably and quite as easily by multiplying the
fruits of the earth, it was proposed to recommend this course to His
adoption, at any rate as a preliminary measure. But clergy and laity,
headed by the holy St. Fechin, were in no mood for such half-hearted
measures as promised no finality, and St. Gerald’s suggestion was set
aside. Pestilence followed in due course, and the Divine working was
made manifest in that it claimed St. Fechin and the two kings of Erin
among its innumerable victims.
In spite of the retrocession of plague from Europe after the seventh
century, Syria,[145] the Euphrates valley, and Irak were still
devastated at frequent intervals by recurring epidemics. From this
persistent source it spread as far as Constantinople in A.D. 697 and
794, in the latter case almost completely depopulating Constantinople
according to Nicephoras Byzantinus. Constantinople was in such intimate
relation, commercial and political, with Syria and Central Asia that
transference of plague was wellnigh inevitable. After this there was a
long lull in Europe, and to a less extent in Syria, until the eleventh
century. It is often confidently stated that the Crusades brought
plague back to Europe, but it must not be forgotten that there was a
severe epidemic of plague on that continent in A.D. 1094, before the
Crusades commenced. Doubtless they served to maintain the continuity
of infection. The pestilence that decimated the army of Louis IX and
carried off him and his son was by no means certainly bubonic plague.
The surviving accounts suggest rather cholera or dysentery. Again, in
A.D. 1167, the army of Frederick Barbarossa, while encamped before
Rome, was swept away by a pestilence, that seems to have been bubonic
plague, which penetrated into the city also and worked great havoc.
Thomas à Becket, writing to Pope Alexander III after the retreat of
Frederick, congratulates him on the Lord having destroyed Sennacherib’s
army. Again, in A.D. 1230, a destructive inundation of the Tiber
was followed by plague, that led the Romans to recall the banished
pope, Gregory IX. In A.D. 1244 plague was in Florence, and led to
the institution of the Compagnia della Misericordia. Its foundations
were laid in the fines paid by wool-porters for the use of foul and
blasphemous language at their meeting-house. One of them, the good old
Piero di Luca Borsi, induced them, when the total had reached a large
sum, to spend it in the provision of six litters, one for each ward of
the city, and to select two of their members weekly for each litter, to
carry sick persons to the hospitals or dead bodies to the mortuaries.
In A.D. 1294 plague was again widespread and severe in Europe, and a
succession of scattered epidemics, of which the most severe were those
of A.D. 1320 and 1333 respectively in southern France and Spain, led up
to the virulent pandemic of A.D. 1348 and after, commonly known as the
Black Death.
Out of the desolate wilderness of the Black Death arose the figure of
St. Roch,[146] patron saint of the plague-stricken and intercessor
against the plague. Born at Montpellier, the son of noble parents,
probably about A.D. 1295, he seemed designed for a life of sanctity by
the birthmark of a small red cross on his breast. So Mahomet before him
had borne in the imprint of a mole between his shoulders the token of
his divine mission. From boyhood he was attracted by the active virtues
of the Redeemer, and aspired to follow that example rather than to
devote himself to the life of the cloister. The death of his parents,
before he was twenty years old, left him with great riches, which he
distributed forthwith among the poor and hospitals. His lands he left
in the management of his brother, and set out on foot, as a pilgrim,
for Rome. On his way he found plague raging at Aquapendente. There he
gave himself to the service of the sick in the hospital, and such was
his skill and sympathy that his ministrations were regarded as more
than human. The sick seemed to be healed by his mere prayers, or by the
sign of the Cross as he stood over them, so that when the plague soon
ceased, they in their enthusiasm attributed it to his intercession. So
Roch himself became inspired with the belief in a divine Providence
specially guiding his ministry. Hearing that plague was devastating
the province of Romagna, he hastened thither and devoted himself to
the sick in the cities of Casena and Rimini. Thence he went to Rome,
where plague was raging fiercely (_c._ 1306), and for three years
tended the sick, devoting himself to those most destitute of help. His
constant prayer to God was that he might be a martyr in his task, but
for long he passed unscathed through daily peril. Visiting city after
city, wherever plague was rife, he succumbed at last to the infection
at Piacenza, while nursing the sick in the hospital. Along with a
burning inward fever, a horrible ulcer broke out on his left thigh. The
pain was so intolerable that he shrieked aloud. Fearing to disturb the
inmates of the hospital, he crawled into the street, but the officers
would not let him remain there for fear of spreading infection. With
the aid of his pilgrim’s staff he dragged himself to a solitary spot
outside the gates of Piacenza, and there laid himself down to die. But
still a kind Providence watched over him. His little dog, that had
attended him faithfully in all his pilgrimage, went daily into the city
and brought back a loaf of bread, none knew whence. An angel came, too,
and dressed his sore and tended him, till he was well. Others say that
it was the dog of a countryman, one Gothard, that brought food to him.
On his recovery he turned his steps back to his native Montpellier,
but his sufferings had so changed him that even his own retainers
there did not recognize him. He was arrested as a spy, and condemned
by the judge, who chanced to be his own uncle, to be thrown into the
public prison. Roch, believing it to be God’s will, yielded to the
punishment without revealing his identity, and languished in a dungeon
for five years. One morning, when the jailer entered his cell, he found
it filled with a bright supernatural light, but his prisoner dead,
and by his side a writing that revealed his name and the words: ‘All
those that are stricken by the plague, and who pray for aid through
the merits and intercession of St. Roch, the servant of God, shall be
healed.’ His uncle, the judge, gave him an honourable burial, and the
whole city lamented his death.
St. Roch is believed to have died in A.D. 1327 in his thirty-second
year. At Montpellier he was venerated from the first, and this
veneration was quickened and extended by the great pandemic of A.D.
1348. But it was not till the fifteenth century that his cult became
widespread. This was the direct consequence of an outbreak of plague
at Constance in A.D. 1414, during that Council of prelates that
condemned Huss to the stake. They were about to disperse and fly from
danger, when a young German monk told them of the power of St. Roch.
On his advice the Council ordered an effigy of the Saint to be carried
in procession through the streets with prayers and litanies: and
immediately the plague was stayed. His festival has been celebrated for
centuries on the sixteenth day of August.
In A.D. 1485 the Venetians, who from their trade with the Levant,
were constantly subject to plague, carried off the body of St. Roch
from Montpellier by stealth, and the church of San Rocco was built to
receive it.
Such is the legend of St. Roch. He and Sebastian commonly figure
together in dedicatory plague pictures, as dual protectors against
plague. They seem to represent in art two attitudes to suffering,
St. Roch that of compassion, St. Sebastian that of courage and
resignation—two attitudes well expressed in four short lines of an
obscure Australian poet that deserve to be better known than they are:
Life is mostly froth and bubble:
Two things stand like stone:
Kindness in another’s trouble,
Courage in your own.
Coming into general knowledge about the time of the revival of art, the
legend of St. Roch and his figure were favourite and familiar subjects
in the Christian art of the West. The whole legend has been frequently
used as a theme for the decoration of churches dedicated to his name:
such a one may be seen in Siena, and another, though less complete, in
Venice. In the Scuola di S. Rocco his life-story is set out in a series
of twenty carved reliefs on the walnut panelling of the upper hall.
Sometimes several scenes from his life are blended in a single picture.
In the Brera, at Milan, is a picture of St. Roch with Madonna and
Child, by Ambrogio da Fossano, called ‘Borgognone’ (A.D. 1480-1523). In
the background are scenes from his life, among which his dog is shown
carrying a loaf in its mouth. The picture formerly belonged to the
Company of Charity of Milan.
St. Roch is generally represented as a man in the prime of life, with
a short pointed beard, delicate features, and a gentle expression of
countenance. As a rule he wears a pilgrim’s dress, with a cockle-shell
in his hat and a wallet at his side. In one hand he holds a long staff,
while with the other he lifts his robe to show the plague sore in his
groin or thigh. Very rarely he is figured as a youth in the dress of
the period, and is then nearly always introduced to balance a similar
Sebastian.
Numerous pictures deal with single episodes in his life—his tending
the plague-sick, his healing by an angel, his life and death in prison.
The best known are perhaps those by Tintoretto in the church of S.
Rocco at Venice. Many show him praying among the sick, as in the
picture by Domenichino of Bologna (A.D. 1584-1641) in the Palazzo Rosso
at Genoa. An angel with a drawn sword hovers over the scene, and St.
Roch holds out one arm, as though entreating the angel to put up his
sword into its sheath. Jacopo Bassano (A.D. 1510-92), in a picture in
the Brera, represents him among a number of plague victims, with hand
raised in attitude of benediction.
[Illustration: PLATE X (Face Page 108)
S. ROCH. BY AMBROGIO BORGOGNONE
Photograph by Anderson, Rome]
[Illustration: PLATE XI (Face Page 109)
AN INTERCESSORY PLAGUE PICTURE BY NIKLAUS MANUEL. S. ROCH TENDED BY AN
ANGEL]
A picture by the Swiss painter, Niklaus Manuel (A.D. 1484-1530), at
Basle, painted in tempera on linen, shows St. Roch with a little angel
tending his wound. It is typical of a large group of intercessory
plague pictures. At the summit of the picture is the Almighty in
glory in the heavens. Beneath Him is St. Anna with the Virgin Mary
and the Child Jesus: they are placed between the Almighty and the
plague-stricken to indicate that they are the appropriate medium of
intercession. They are flanked on the one side by St. Roch, and on the
other by St. James. St. Anna appears in many pictures of this period,
as Pope Alexander II in 1494 promoted her worship, by making her
feast-day one of the chief festivals of the Church. At the foot of the
picture is a rough delineation of the city attacked by plague: on the
right of it, a group representing probably the donors of the picture:
on the left, a group of sufferers, two of whom show plague marks on
their limbs. On the woman’s arm is a raised sore: on the man’s arm
black petechial blotches, on his body large circular spots, and an open
red ulcer on the inner side of his leg.
One of the most famous pictures of St. Roch is the altar-piece by
Rubens, at Alost, near Brussels. The upper part of the picture shows
the interior of a prison illuminated by a supernatural light. St.
Roch kneels looking up into the face of Christ, in radiant gratitude,
as he receives his commission as patron saint against the plague. An
angel holds a tablet on which is written, ‘Eris in peste patronus,’ in
allusion to the words revealed in his cell at his death.
Statues of St. Roch are hardly so frequently met with as those of
Sebastian: he was a less attractive model for sculptors. In the Musée
of Grenoble is a quaint archaic wooden figure of St. Roch of the early
fifteenth century, which stood formerly in the chapel of the Château of
Bressieux. It shows him in pilgrim guise, holding aside his garments to
show the bubo in his left groin. It is deeply incised, according to the
surgical practice of the period.
The plague mark of St. Roch is depicted in a variety of forms.
Sometimes it is simply a bubo in the groin, usually the left, or just
below it, to satisfy artistic decency. This form may be seen in a
picture by Crivelli (A.D. 1468-93) of ‘Four Saints’, in the Academy at
Venice, and in another of St. Roch and St. Sebastian, by Alfani, in the
Pinacotheca at Perugia.
Far more commonly the mark is a short longitudinal incision in the
upper part of either thigh, as in Sodoma’s plague banner (see Plate
VIII, p. 100).
Sometimes the incision is in the substance of a bubo. This may be seen
in a portrait of St. Roch over a side-altar in the church of S. Maria
dei Servi at Siena.
Not infrequently the incision is slanting or transverse and displays
a complete disregard for the femoral artery. A notable example is
Titian’s ‘St. Mark and Saints’ in the Salute at Venice (see Plate IX,
p. 102).
Sometimes the hose is slit over the incision in the flesh, as though
some bold and busy surgeon had been pressed for time. This may be seen
in Caroto’s picture of ‘Four Saints’ in the church of S. Fermo Maggiore
at Verona: also in a picture by Perugino, ‘Virgin and Saints,’ in
the cathedral at Perugia, and in another of St. Roch in the Palazzo
Borromeo at Milan.
A solitary example of St. Roch with a black pustule on the inner side
of his left thigh, surrounded by a pink zone of inflammation, may
be seen in the Brera. The picture is by Bernardino Borgognone (A.D.
1490-1524).
In some of the _Pestblätter_ a gash in the thigh is shown as well as a
small circle, which would seem to indicate the circular plague pustule.
[Illustration: PLATE XII (Face Page 110)
MADONNA AND CHILD, S. ANNA AND SAINTS BY G. FRANCESCO CAROTO
Photograph by Alinari, Rome]
FOOTNOTES:
[141] _De Gestis Langobardorum_, vi. 5.
[142] Caxton, _Golden Legend_; Jameson, _Sacred and Legendary Art_.
[143] See Frontispiece.
[144] Bascombe, _History of Epidemic Diseases_.
[145] Kremer, _Ueber die grossen Seuchen des Orients, nach arabischen
Quellen_.
[146] Caxton, _Golden Legend_; Jameson, _Sacred and Legendary Art_.