452
NOTES AND QUERIES. [11 s. VIL JUNE 7, 1913.
abate in either of us if you decline it. Have this
strongly in your mind. Those ' Every-Day ' and
' Table ' Books will be a treasure a hundred years
hence, but they have failed to make Hone's for-
tune."-/^., p. 265.
THOMAS BAYNE.
ST. JOHN THE BAPTIST IN ART (11 S. vii.
410). In ancient representations of this
saint he is shown variously with or without
a nimbus, but always with bare feet. Per-
haps one of the loveliest pictures of him in
existence is Fra Angelico's painting in the
Perugia altarpiece. Therein he is seen side
by side with St. Catherine of Alexandria.
Both these figures have a slightly indicated
nimbus, and St. John's feet are bare. A
full-page photograph of the panel may be
found in Langton Douglas's ' Fra Angelico '
(1900), and in describing it the author
remarks :
" Amongst all the beautiful figures that Fra Angelico has left us, few are more so than this St. John the Baptist .... How firmly the legs of this young ascetic are planted upon the ground 1 Truly, in Fra Angelico's imagination, the feet of him that brought good tidings were beautiful upon the mountains. Possessed by the artist's presentation of him, we wonder little that ' there went out unto him all the land of Judaea.' "
In vol. i. of Mrs. Jameson's ' History of our Lord ' (1890) illustrations are given of a painting at Munich of this saint by Mem- ling, and of a drawing of the same subject by Bellini, now in the British Museum. Neither has a nimbus, and in both cases the feet, and legs from just above the knees, are bare. Both have shaggy hair of a kind much the same as is shown in Fra, Angelico's pic- ture. Mrs. Jameson also gives a drawing from the Brentano miniatures representing the nude infant Baptist on the lap of the Virgin Mary immediately after birth. This is a realistic and picturesque group of a dozen figures, the Blessed Virgin and the newborn child being the only ones whose presence is emphasized by nimbi.
Bugiardini's picture in the Bologna Gallery of ' The Baptist in the Wilderness ' shows a curly -headed youth, scantily clothed, with bare feet and legs, but with a nimbus. In a thirteenth-century representation of the baptism of our Lord also at Bologna St. John has bare feet, his head being sur- rounded by a large nimbus. He has a small nimbus (as well as bare feet) in Verrocchio's representation of the same subject in the Belle Arti at Florence.
In the Cathedral at Prato is Fra Filippo's picture of the Baptist as a boy taking leave of his parents. The shoeless little one and
his father and mother are shown with
mm oi.
With reference to modern representations of St. John the Baptist, possibly one of the best known in this country is the rather over- life-size statue in the saint's chapel east of Abbot Walyngforde's high altar screen at St. Alban's Abbey (Herts). It was the gift (in 1891) of Mr. Henry Hucks Gibbs, after- wards the first Lord Aldenham. The feet and head are bare, and there is no nimbus.
HABRY HEMS.
Fair Park, Exeter.
St. John the Baptist was freely repre- sented with a halo by Italian painters of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The fol- lowing are a few examples :
Fra Angelico. St. John the Baptist and St. Catherine of Alexandria, in the Pina- coteca Vannucci at Perugia ; see the illus- tration at p. 70 of Langton Douglas's ' Fra Angelico.'
Fra Lippo Lippi. St. John the Baptist and Saints, National Gallery, London.
Andrea Mantegna. Virgin and Child be- tween St. John the Baptist and St. Mary Magdalene, National Gallery.
Botticelli. Virgin and Child between St. John the Baptist and St. John the Evangelist, Berlin Museum ; see the illus- tration at p. 116 of Charles Diehl's 'Botti- celli,' Paris, n.d.
Pinturicchio. Jesus and John the Bap- tist as children, Istituto delle Belle Arti, Sienna.
Raphael. The Madonna del Cardellino, Palazzo degli Uffizi, Florence.
In the picture by Pinturicchio, John is wearing sandals. In the other instances he is barefooted. EDWARD BENSLY.
I think the saint is generally represented with a halo and bare feet. For instance, in the great mosaic of the Baptistery of S. Giovanni-in-Fonte at Ravenna the centre is occupied by the baptism of Christ, where St. John appears with bare feet and a halo. On the dexter panel of the Wilton House diptych, c. 1380, the saint is so represented : with his bare right arm he introduces the youthful Richard II. to Our Lady and the blessed Child ; his left arm carries a lamb, his attribute. : A. R. BAYLEY.
In mediaeval times St. John the Baptist was in pictorial art (I may say invariably) represented with an aureole or halo round the head, and generally standing face to face with the Infant Christ. He was also
