the sagacity and enthusiasm
of the spectator.

'This work consists of two grand divisions,--Heaven and Earth--which are
united to one another by that mystical bond, the Sacrament of the
Eucharist. The personages whom the Church has most honoured for learning
and holiness, are ranged in picturesque and animated groups on either
side of the altar, on which the consecrated wafer is exposed. St
Augustine dictates his thoughts to one of his disciples; St Gregory, in
his pontifical robes, seems absorbed in contemplation of celestial
glory; St Ambrose, in a slightly different attitude, appears to be
chanting the Te Deum; while St Jerome, seated, rests his hands on a
large book, which he holds on his knees. Pietro Lombardo, Duns Scotus,
St Thomas Aquinas, Pope Anacletus, St Buenaventura, and Innocent III.,
are no less happily characterized; while, behind all these illustrious
men, whom the Church and succeeding generations have agreed to honour,
Raphael has ventured to introduce Dante with his laurel crown, and, with
still greater boldness, the monk Savonarola, publicly burnt ten years
before as a heretic.

'In the glory, which forms the upper part of the picture, the Three
Persons of the Trinity are represented, surrounded by patriarchs,
apostles, and saints: it may, in fact, be considered in some sort as a
_resume_ of all the favourite compositions produced during the last
hundred years by the Umbrian School. A great number of the types, and
particularly those of Christ and the Virgin, are to be found in the
earlier works of Raphael himself. The Umbrian artists, from having so
long exclusively employed themselves on mystical subjects, had certainly
attained to a marvellous perfection in the representation of celestial
beatitude, and of those ineffable things of which it has been said that
the heart of man cannot conceive them, far less, therefore, the pencil
of man portray; and Raphael, surpassing them in all, and even in this
instance, while surpassing himself, appears to have fixed the limits,
beyond which Christian art, properly so called, has never since been
able to advance.'[12]

Of Raphael's Madonnas, I should like to speak of three. The Madonna di
San Sisto: 'It represents the Virgin standing in a majestic attitude;
the infant Saviour _enthroned_ in her arms; and around her head a glory
of innumerable cherubs melting into light. Kneeling before her we see on
one side St Sixtus, on the other St Barbara, and beneath