No. X.

NOTES FROM KUGLER'S HAND-BOOK.

NOTE ON THE SUBJECTS OF THE PAINTINGS IN THE CAPPELLA SISTINA.

THE paintings of the Sistine Chapel have been often described, particularly with reference to their style a few observations are here added on the connexion of the subjects. In the general plan Michael Angelo appears to have followed the ordinary series of Biblical types and antitypes familiar in his time, and indeed for centuries previously, by means of illuminated compendiums of the Old and New Testaments. The spirit of these cycles of Scripture subjects was the same from first to last: an ulterior meaning was always contemplated; everything was typical. This was in accordance with the system of interpretation introduced by the earliest fathers of the church, confirmed and followed up by its four great doctors, and carried to absurd excess by some theologians of the middle ages. At first the incidents of the Old Testament were referred, as we have seen, only to the Redeemer; but in later times the Madonna was also typified in the heroines of the Jewish history. The cycles of subjects refer

ring to both are by some supposed to have existed in MS. illuminations so early as the ninth century (see Heinecken: Idée d'une Collection complète d'Estampes, p. 319).

The decoration of the Cappella Sistina was begun by various masters, under Sixtus IV., about 1474: how far the original plan was to have extended, and what its general arrangement would have been, it is useless to inquire; but, certainly, the additions made at various times by Michael Angelo, and first begun in 1508, however different in style, were contrived by him to correspond sufficiently well in general sequence with the earlier works. A similar connexion seems to have been intended by Raphael, in decorating the remaining portion of the walls of the chapel, under these frescoes, with the tapestries from the cartoons; the subjects of which, taken from the Acts of the Apostles, thus still followed in chronological order (see a subsequent note). We proceed briefly to describe the general arrangement of the series treated or contemplated by his great rival.

On the wall over and on each side of the entrance-door Michael Angelo had intended to paint the Fall of Lucifer, so as to correspond with the Last Judgment on the altar-wall opposite. The sketches and studies which he had prepared for this work were afterwards badly copied in fresco by one of his assistants, in the church of the Trinità de' Monti, at Rome (Vasari: Vita di M. Angelo).

This fresco has long ceased to exist; some of the drawings may, however, yet come to light.* The subject in question would have formed the beginning of the cycle; † that cycle is continued by the subjects, on and immediately under the ceiling, of the Creation, the Fall of Man, &c., the Prophets and Sibyls, the Genealogy of the Redeemer, and four types from Jewish history (see the next note). One of these-perhaps it may be considered the last of the series as to place --representing Moses and the Brazen Serpent, may have been intended as the immediate connecting link between the subjects on the ceiling and the histories of Moses and Christ, by the older masters, below.. Underneath these last again were the tapestries from Raphael's cartoons. These decorations, though moveable, were always arranged in the same order. The central subjects in the lower part of the altarwall were originally the Assumption and Coronation of the Virgin; the first a fresco by Perugino; the latter, under it, a tapestry from one of Raphael's

* It is possible that some may be in the hands of collectors, but may be erroneously considered to belong to the Last Judgment.

The order in which a contemplated series of designs was executed, was determined by various accidents, and had no necessary reference to their chronological sequence. Thus the subject of the Almighty dividing light from darkness, the first of the ceiling series, was the last executed.

Vasari calls the Jonah which precedes it, the last of the single figures.

cartoons, now lost.* Both, together with other works, were afterwards removed to make room for Michael Angelo's Last Judgment. Perino del Vaga ultimately made some fresh designs for tapestries to fill the narrow space which remained underneath that fresco, but these latter were never executed.

If we now compare this cycle with those frequently occurring in illuminated MSS., Italian and Transalpine, we shall find that the order of the subjects generally corresponds. It need not be objected that the designs in these MSS. (which, however, must not be judged by the very inferior inventions of the kind in the first attempts at woodengraving) were unworthy the attention of a great artist; it is merely intended to show that the same series of Scriptural types, which appears to have been at least tacitly authorized by the church in the middle ages, was adopted by Michael Angelo. The series here more particularly alluded to is known by the name of the "Speculum Humanæ Salvationis," a title quite applicable to the general scheme of the Sistine Chapel. MS. copies of the work exist in the British Museum, in the Royal Library at Paris, and elsewhere. In this compendium the first subject is the Fall of Lucifer; then follow the Creation of Eve, the Disobedience of Man, the Deluge, &c. : in connexion with the Nativity of the Virgin we find the Genealogical "Stem of Jesse ;" and in con

*See note, p. 395. Kugler's Handbook.

nexion with the Birth of Christ the Sibyl shows Augustus the vision of the Virgin and Child; Esther and Judith appear as types of the Madonna ; and David slaying Goliath prefigures Christ's Victory over Satan in the Temptation.* In some of the printed editions the subject of Jonah immediately precedes the Last Judgment; the same connexion is observed in the altar-wall of the Cappella Sistina, and although there was an interval of many years between the completion of the two frescoes, this seems to prove that the entire series was always contemplated. In MS. Gospels, and some editions of the Biblia Pauperum, the subjects of the New Testament are surmounted or surrounded by busts of the Prophets. While remarking these coincidences we may observe that the story of Heliodorus, so finely treated by Raphael and alluded to by Dante (Purg. c. 20.), occurs in the Speculum Salvationis in connexion with Christ's Entry into Jerusalem (the Expulsion of the Moneychangers).

In considering the whole cycle of the Cappella Sistina it will be seen that the Bible subjects by Michael Angelo are more abundant than the antitypes by the older Masters, who had occupied one wall with incidents from the life of Moses; but it would have been impossible to destroy these latter

The subject of the Brazen Serpent occurs in the Biblia Pauperum.