Part 2 (2/2)

Other virgin ood and as beautiful as St

Catherine, but none were so wise We know her in our picture by the book she holds Eager to acquire all the treasures of knowledge, she fixes her eyes on the page, absorbed in her occupation Already she has readwith quiet enjoyest the scholar or the bookwor lady reading her favorite poet As it is, however, we must believe that the book is some work by Plato or another of the ancient writers whom St Catherine could quote so readily We need not wonder that she does not knit her brow over any difficult passages What rasp is perfectly clear to her understanding

The beautiful hair coiled over her head is the only coronet the princess wears There is no sign of her royalty, and we may infer that the picture represents her in those early days of girlhood before the cares of govern shoulders As we study the position of the figure we see that the left ar a support for the hand holding the book The wheel is the emblem most frequently associated with St Catherine, as the reminder of the tortures inflicted by Maxentius The palers of the left hand is the symbol used alike for all the e in the book of Revelation which describes the saints standing before the throne ”with palms in their hands”[5]

[Footnote 5: Revelation vii 9]

It is pleasant to believe that Correggio took unusual pains with this picture of St Catherine The story of the lovely young princess seeination, and he has conceived an ideal figure for her character The exquisite oval of the face, the delicate features, and the beautiful hair make this one of the ht falls over the right shoulder, casting one side of the face in shadow The radation in the shadow cast by the book on the hand, show Correggio's mastery of chiaroscuro

III

THE MARRIAGE OF ST CATHERINE

At the ti of the Christian faith, but she had set for herself an ideal of life she was determined to carry out It was her firued that, as she was endoith certain qualities above all creatures, she ought to ifts to posterity The attributes they enumerated were, first, that she came of the most noble blood in the world; second, that she was the richest living heiress; third, that she was the wisest, and, fourth, thequeen replied that she wouldqualities ”He must be,” she said, ”so noble that all men shall do him worshi+p,” so rich that ”he pass all others in riches,” so full of beauty ”that angels have joy to behold him;” and finally, he ladly forgive all offences” ”If ye can find such an one,” she declared, ”I will be his ith all mine heart, if he will vouchsafe to have reed that there never was and never would be a man such as she described, and the matter was at an end To Catherine, however, there cae conviction that her ideal was not an impossible one All her e of the perfect husband she had conceived She continually ht on these things, an old her that he had had a vision, and had been sent with the room awaited her Catherine at once arose and followed the hermit into the desert Here it was revealed to her that the perfect man she had drearoo to her palace she wore a , as the perpetual token of this spiritual union

The story explains the subject of our picture The Christ-child, seated on hison St

Catherine's finger, while St Sebastian looks on as a wedding guest

The infant bridegrooht He holds the precious circlet between the thules out St Catherine's ring finger The bride's hand rests on the mother's open palm, held beneath as a support

[Illustration: THE MARRIAGE OF ST CATHERINE _The Louvre, Paris_]

All are watching the child's motions intently; the mother with quiet pleasure, St Sebastian with boyish curiosity, and St Catherine herself with sweet seriousness Any coe is set aside by the fact that the bridegroonificance, a true sacrament St Catherine's expression and ious service

The Christ-child is a robust little fellohose chief beauty is his curls He has the large head which usually shows an active temperament, and we fancy that he is somewhat ain in the picture called The Madonna of St Jerome

The mother, too, has a face which soon becoio's works The eyes are full, the nose is rather pro, and the chin small Even St Catherine is of the same type, except that her face is cast in a sed precisely like that of the Madonna, the braids bound about the head, preserving the pretty round contour Both wo their full throats St Catherine's left hand rests upon a wheel with spiked rim, which, as we have seen, is her usual emblem Another emblem is the sword, whose hilt projects from behind the wheel This was the instruiven in the picture to three sets of hands The skill hich they are painted is noted by critics as one of the 's poe to draw a hand His failure teaches him to realize that he must study the

”Flesh and bone and nerve that make The poorest coarsest hu for their sole sake”

Such io's study to enable him to produce the beautiful hands we see here

[Footnote 6: _Beside the Drawing Board_]

St Sebastian is a figure not to be overlooked We enii of the Par to who about his face make him look like some creature of the woods

We are rey The arrows in his hand suggest some sylvan sport, but in reality they are the e saint was bound by his eneroup stretches a bit of open country, and if we look closely we can discern here two groups of sures One represents the martyrdom of St Sebastian, and the other, the execution of St Catherine We ruesome subjects were not the choice of the painter It is probable that they were dictated by his patrons, and in obeying orders he ures as inconspicuous as possible

IV

CEILING DECORATION IN THE SALA DEL PERGOLATO