CATHEDRAL OF ST. BAVON.

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covery of her remains, and the grotto is often visited by devout pilgrims or curious strangers. The 15th of July, and several successive days, are devoted to magnificent and gorgeous festivals and processions in honour of this favourite saint. From far and near the town is crowded, and if our memory do not deceive us, a living representative is drawn through the city in a triumphal car, so lofty, that on this account the principal street has no arch facing the sea. These processions are real popular festivals, and are attended with circumstances indicative of extraordinary superstition, and, in the case of Messina at least, of great cruelty to the infant actors in them.

The public buildings of Palermo, particularly the churches, are built in a singularly fantastic and tasteless style; the ornaments are of various colours, which are staring and exaggerated. The cathedral, however, is a very interesting building, although a mixture of Saracenic, Norman, and Italian architecture. It contains the mausoleums of Henry VII., Roger, and Constantia. In the palace of the viceroy is the Norman chapel of Roger. Singularly worked columns support the bold arches; the walls have become grey in the course of centuries, and the lofty narrow windows, with their sharply pointed arches, but dimly light the gloomy spaces. The traveller should not neglect to visit the two Saracenic country houses, Cuba and Zisa, which names still record the two sultanas who lived there. The latter is in a much better state of preservation than the former, and the view from its flat roof, the admiration of all visitors. There are several agreeable promenades and rides about the city to the different villas of the nobility, one of which, the residence of Prince Palagonia, at La Bagaria, contains a strange collection of statues of monsters; many of them have, however, been removed by the good taste of the present prince. In wandering through the streets, the artist should not neglect to look into the nooks and courts, in which he will sometimes find many little picturesque subjects for his portfolio. In the summer, the inhabitants suffer much from the hot blast of the scirocco, against which they can only defend themselves by closing the doors and windows, and by casting water on the brick floors, to generate a cooler atmosphere in the room. Of the scirocco, as of a cold, the Italians have a proverb nasce, cresce, muore, on the first day it is born, on the second it grows, on the third it dies; we have, however, to our cost, known both the one and the other to last twice the time.

CATHEDRAL OF ST. BAVON, GHENT.

THE church of St. Bavon, notwithstanding it has suffered from the various fierce revolutions of which Ghent has been the scene, is still one of the most interesting

religious edifices in Europe. Few cathedrals are so richly ornamented; the choir is closed by copper gilt gates, and its chapels, twenty-four in number, are enriched with many fine pictures, and marble and metal decorations.

The church, which was formerly dedicated to St. John, was consecrated 841, by the Bishop of Tournay; it was rebuilt in the thirteenth century, but not entirely finished until the beginning of the sixteenth century. The roof of the great nave was destroyed by fire, June 1st, 1641, and a second time, September 11th, 1822. In 1540, it was consecrated to St. Bavon, when Charles V. transferred thither the college which bore the name of that saint. Pope Paul IV., at the request of Philip II., erected it into a cathedral in 1559. The tower is 272 feet high and of very elegant proportions. It terminates at present in a platform, from which the view extends to a distance of thirteen leagues. Our limits will only permit us to notice some of the most remarkable objects worthy the attention of the visitor. The pulpit in the nave is of wood, supported by statues, and decorated with bas-reliefs in marble, the work of Delvaux, a sculptor of Namur. They are of the size of life, representing Truth revealing the Scriptures to Time; and on either side, at the foot of the stair, is an angel in an attitude expressive of attention and admiration, the size of the principal figures, and also of white marble; the whole resting on a base of black marble. The canopy over the pulpit is supported by the trees of Life and Knowledge, and appropriately decorated.

We have already mentioned that the cathedral contains twenty-four chapels. Of these, the eleventh, called the Chapel of the Lamb, derives its name from the celebrated picture by the brothers Van Eyck, the inventors of oil painting. The subject is taken from the Apocalypse. "This composition," says M. Duplessy, to whom we are indebted for these details, "represents the celestial Lamb surrounded by angels and adored by all the saints of the Old and New Testament, arranged in four groups; on the right and kneeling are the patriarchs and prophets of the old law, on the left the apostles and confessors of the Gospel, among whom are the portraits of the two brothers, Hubert and John van Eyck; in the middle are virgins and other saints, bishops, and chiefs of monastic orders, bearing palms in their hands. In the background, no doubt intended to represent the towers of Jerusalem, are those of Maestricht, a town near Maeseyck, the country of Van Eyck. Over this picture are three other compositions; the middle one represents our Saviour in pontifical robes, sitting upon a throne. The subject of the picture on the left is the holy Virgin, as beautiful as one of Raphael's or Leonardo da Vinci's Madonnas; on the other side St. John the Baptist, whose figure forms a happy contrast with that of the holy Virgin. The picture of the Lamb, one of the most precious ever produced, is as remarkable by the merit of its composition and execution, as by its antiquity. Though it has been painted more than four hundred years, (for the Van Eycks

flourished at the end of the fourteenth century,) it seems as if it had but just left the painting-room. The freshness and brilliancy of the colours are such, that whilst we admire it, we are inclined to believe that the brothers, Van Eyck, have not left to posterity the entire secret of their wonderful invention, as time, which blackens other pictures, has had no effect upon those of these great masters.

According to the custom of the period, the Van Eycks had accompanied their picture by two shutters, consisting of eight leaves, on which different subjects were represented; and, among others, the portraits of Philip the Good and those of the two painters. One may imagine that such a collection of masterpieces, the just pride of the church of St. Bavon, must have given Philip II. a great desire to possess them but his gold and his power could obtain nothing from the chapter, which only granted the monarch permission to have them copied by any painter he should choose. Michel de Coxie, surnamed the Flemish Raphael, being entrusted with this difficult task, executed it admirably; and the copy, painted on wood, like the originals, was placed in the gallery of the Escurial: it was taken away during the occupation by the French, then it passed into the hands of a general officer, and became the property of a rich inhabitant of Brussels.

During the French Revolution, the precious original disappeared: it was fortunately preserved, and was found again, but with only two leaves of the shutters; the six others, which had fallen into the hands of people who did not know their value, had been sold for the trifling sum of six thousand francs: they now adorn the cabinet of the King of Prussia, who has paid 410,900 francs for them; we may therefore judge, by the enormous price paid for these accessory pictures, both of the loss endured by Belgium, and of the inestimable value of the picture of the Lamb.

We must add, to complete its history, that it had been ordered of the brothers Van Eyck, by Josse de Vyts* and his wife, who presented it to the canons of St. Bavon, and that the Van Eycks painted it at the house of one of the two brothers, situated near the Kauter, and on the site of which another house has been built, adorned in front with their portraits. The fame of this picture was not long before it spread over all Europe, and admirers came from all parts to see it. It is said that Albert Durer and John of Mauberge, after having long admired it, saluted it with respect, and asked permission to deposit a kiss upon it. It was formerly only shown to great personages, and exposed to the view of the people at great solemnities."

In the fourteenth chapel is the picture of St. Bavon received into the Abbey of

• Other authorities say that this famous picture was painted by order of Philip, Duke of Burgundy Count of Flanders. The Penny Encyclopædia says, that the clergy, since 1815, sold the six pannels now in possssion of the King of Prussia; a statement completely at variance with that of M. Duplesse, which we have adopted in the text, but which, it is to be supposed, the writer has not advanced with out sufficient authority.

VOL. II

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