creations; and he caused new works to be executed, some of them on scriptural subjects, such as Christ as the Good Shepherd, and Daniel in the Lions' Den. In the reign of Julian the Apostate the heathen temples were restored and new statues of the gods were erected; but after him the christians, in their zeal against everything pagan, destroyed the heathen temples and melted the bronze statues in order to cast church vessels out of them. It was not until Theodoric, in the year 493, possessed himself of supreme power in Italy that bounds were set to this rage for destruction. He did his utmost to preserve what remained of ancient art, and even punished with death the theft and destruction of statues. Paganism, however, died out, as it was fit it should, in order to give place to christianity, which soon absorbed all the artistic genius the western world possessed, and enlisted its sympathies in the illustration of christian subjects. During the lapse of time called by common consent the “the dark ages,” painting, sculpture, music, and architecture were patronized almost exclusively by the church.

The first great object to which reviving art was applied was the rendering of the christian places of public worship fit arenas for the instruction and improvement of the people by attracting and interesting them through the means of representations of scenes, events, and personages with whose names and history they were familiar, and which were deeply rooted in their affections. Mosaics of scripture personages and groups were one of the earliest forms of this reviving art. The history of the early christians shows that they had a strong aversion to all images and pictures which attempted the delineation of the Eternal and of angelic beings. This was probably owing to the habitual practice of such attempts by the pagan tyrants who had persecuted them. But this feeling rapidly subsided in the second and third centuries, and it was then considered no sin to represent the Redeemer under the form of the good shepherd, or to symbolize his miraculous birth, his passion, death, resurrection, and ascension.

The paintings in the catacombs afford the earliest examples of christian art, and show that the artists who executed them were imbued with pagan notions in their mode of treating their subjects. Thus they clothed the virgin in chlamys and tunic, and the magi and shepherds in Phrygian caps and dresses.* They had not yet learned to divest themselves of old associations, and hence they frequently reproduced the features of Apollo, or of the Olympian Jove, or of the old Greek philosophers in their ideal portraitures of the Redeemer and the apostles. From the remains of some of the catacomb paintings of the second or third century, which are still visible, it can be perceived that these artists stained the roughcoated walls with light and lively tinted water-colors, and then hastily defined their animated figures with dashing lines, leaving the spectator to imagine the details and inodelling of the form. A careful analysis of the technical process in use at Rome in the third and fourth centuries may be obtained from these wall paintings. On a light ground a general warm, yellow-red tone was thrown over the whole of the flesh parts of the figure. The shadows were worked in with a deeper and thicker tint of the same warm color in broad masses and without detail. The outline was rapidly drawn in black, as were

mentary fresco painting may still be seen in the catacombs, especially in the vaults commonly called Stanza dei Pesci and Stanza delle Pecorelle.t

Among the earliest subjects treated by christian artists were the Redeemer as the Good Shepherd carrying the Lamb, Moses striking the Rock, Jonah being swallowed by the Whale, and the Virgin and Child receiving the Offerings of the Magi. With regard to the last of these subjects, there is considerable discrepancy between some of the authorities as to the antiquity of these representations of the madonna. Messrs. Crowe and Cavaleaselle assert that among the very earliest of the catacomb pictures there is one, in the catacomb of St. * Crokee, History of Painting, vol. i., p. 2.

Calixtus, which represents in profile the virgin sitting on a throne, holding the infant saviour, and receiving the offerings of the magi, who stand before her in Phrygian caps and dresses; in the medallion centre of the roof sits the Good Shepherd with two lambs on each side of him. There are two other similar paintings according to the same authority, one in the catacomb of St. Agnes, the other in that of Sts. Marcellinus and Peter. * Mrs. Jameson, however, sayst that it is to the fourth century we must refer the most ancient art representations of the virgin ; that the earliest figures extant are those on the christian sarcophagi, and that neither in the early sculptures nor in the mosaics of St. Maria Maggiore do we find any figure of the virgin standing alone; she forms part of a group of the nativity or of the magi. The testimony of St. Augustine, which she quotes, is decidedly against her; for, though he says that in his time there existed no authentic portrait of the virgin, it may be properly inferred from this that there were paintings which professed to be portraits of her, but they were not considered of any authority; at all events, their authenticity was disputed. Still the one fact stands that there were christians who were painters by profession.

These beginnings of christian art were necessarily rude, for they were made under the most unfavorable auspices. Any public display of religious faith or emotion was apt to bring down upon its professors the fires of persecution. Moreover, amid the general decay of public morality, spirit, and genius, there were but few elements out of which could arise a high order of art cultivators. The picture drawn by Gibbon, of the degeneracy of the Roman world under the Antonines, is sufficient to warn us not to look for more than the beginnings of art in those days. Heathen genius declined along with heathen literature, and christian art did not assume a lofty character until a christian literature had been formed.

The writings of the early fathers of the church greatly contributed to this result ; but the adoption of christianity as the religion of the state by Constantine the Great having put an end to persecution, caused the erection of large and handsome churches, and gave an immense impulse to christian ecclesiastical architecture. The earliest christians, as is well known,' met for worship in caves and solitary places at night, and in the day time by stealth ; and the first converts were, for the most part, from the poorest and most illiterate classes; hence no desire for refinement was to be expected from them. They could not have used temples or churches had they wished to do so, because the popular fury would have destroyed them. And even long after christianity had “friends in the household of Cæsar” the tenure of imperial favor was too insecure to enable them to run the risk of building handsome edifices for religious purposes.

At length the edict of Milan, issued by Constantine the Great, A.D. 313, restored peace to the church and secured its revenues. The christians not only recovered the lands and houses of which they had been stripped by the persecuting laws of Diocletian, but they acquired a perfect title to all the possessions which they had hitherto enjoyed by the connivance of the magistrate.* And as Constantine granted to his subjects free permission to bequeath their fortunes to the church, and set the example himself, a tide of wealth began to flow into the hands of the clergy. The liberality of Constantine excited that of all classes of christians, and the desire sprang up to have christian temples which should rival in splendor those of antiquity. The cities of Antioch, Alexandria, Jerusalem, Constantinople, Smyrna, Rome, and Milan erected some of the most splendid which that age was capable of constructing. These churches were generally of an oblong shape, though some had a dome, and some were

tiles, perhaps of gilt brass, and the walls, columns, and pave

Gibbon, Decline and Fall, chap. xx.

ment were incrusted with variegated marbles. The most precious ornaments of gold and silver, silk and gems, were profusely dedicated to the service of the altar, while gifts of land and houses, gardens and farms, added to the wealth and the influence of these establishments.

It is to this era that we may look for the rise-properly so called—of art in Italy. And it is to the christian church that we owe those architectural achievements, those successful experiments in painting, sculpture, engraving, mosaic works, the plastic arts, and music, which paved the way for the crowning triumphs of art in the sixteenth century. Perhaps a still greater debt of gratitude is due to the church for having preserved to modern times the Christian and the Jewish scriptures, together with much of the literature of antiquity which the monks occupied themselves with transcribing. - The proof that Europe is indebted to the religious communities for the preservation of the arts during the dark ages," says Mrs. Merrifield, * “ rests on the fact that the most ancient examples of christian art consist of the remains of moral pictures in churches, of illuminations in sacred books, and of vessels for the use of the church and the altar; and on the absence of all similar decorations on buildings and utensils devoted to secular uses during the same period; to which may be added that many of the early treatises on painting were the works of ecclesiastics, as well as the paintings themselves. A similar remark may be made with regard to architecture, many of the earliest professors of which were monks."

They were the legislators and the physicians of the early middle ages; they practised agriculture on a large scale ; they possessed almost exclusively all the learning of those times, and they were almost the only persons skilled in the arts of sculpture, painting, and architecture. They built bridges, embanked rivers, made and repaired roads, and were engineers as well as architects. It could scarcely be other

Original Treatises, Introduction, p. 20.