igures are
life-size, the execution and colour very fine; the whole conception in
the grand but mannered style of the Guido school.

THE NATIVITY.

_Ital._ Il Presepio. Il Nascimento del Nostro Signore. _Fr._ La
Nativite. _Ger._ Die Geburt Christi. Dec. 25.

The birth of our Saviour is related with characteristic simplicity
and brevity in the Gospels; but in the early Christian traditions this
great event is preceded and accompanied by several circumstances
which have assumed a certain importance and interest in the artistic
representations.

According to an ancient legend, the Emperor Augustus Caesar repaired
to the sibyl Tiburtina, to inquire whether he should consent to allow
himself to be worshipped with divine honours, which the Senate had
decreed to him. The sibyl, after some days of meditation, took the
Emperor apart, and showed him an altar; and above the altar, in the
opening heavens, and in a glory of light, he beheld a beautiful Virgin
holding an Infant in her arms, and at the same time a voice was heard
saying, "This is the altar of the Son of the living God;" whereupon
Augustus caused an altar to be erected on the Capitoline Hill, with
this inscription, _Ara primogeniti Dei_; and on the same spot, in
later times, was built the church called the _Ara-Coeli_, well known,
with its flight of one hundred and twenty-four marble steps, to all
who have visited Rome.

Of the sibyls, generally, in their relation to sacred art, I have
already spoken.[1] This particular prophecy of the Tiburtine sibyl
to Augustus rests on some very antique traditions, pagan as well as
Christian. It is supposed to have suggested the "Pollio" of Virgil,
which suggested the "Messiah" of Pope. It is mentioned by writers of
the third and fourth centuries, and our own divines have not wholly
rejected it, for Bishop Taylor mentions the sibyl's prophecy among
"the great and glorious accidents happening about the birth of Jesus."
(Life of Jesus Christ, sec. 4.)

[Footnote 1: Introduction. The personal character and history of the
Sibyls will be treated in detail in the fourth series of Sacred and
Legendary Art.]

A very rude but curious bas-relief preserved in the church of the
Ara-Coeli is perhaps the oldest representation extant. The Church
legend assigns to it a fabulous antiquity; but it must be older than
the twelfth century, as it is alluded to by writers of that period.
Here the Emperor Augustus kneels before the Madonn