ROSALIA
184
ROSARY
street, and iti that way, by a fortunate accident, came
under the attention of Lanfranco. and through him
got to know Falcone. Both of these artists were of
the greatest possible assistance to him. His progress,
however, was exceedingly slow, and the members of
his family took almost everything that he earned for
their own support; meantime he was laid up almost
periodically with a malignant fever, the seeds of which
had been sown in his journeys with the robbers.
In 1634, he came to Rome, but fell very ill, and had to return again to Naples more dead than alive. After a little while, however, he went back to Rome, and there gained a patron in Cardinal Brancaccio, who gave him various commissions both in the
.Saiaator Rosa
Self-portrait, Palazzo Saracini Chigi, Siena
Eternal City and in Viterbo. In some of these works he was assisted by a fellow-pupil named Mercuri. From this point he began to make progress, but presently discovered that he had a genius for com- posing witty poems, sparkling and epignunmatic, which gained for him a sudden reputation in Rome; this he turned to good account; then suddenly drop- ping his poetic work as quickly as he had taken it up, turned again to his favourite profession of painting. He worked very hard, and was a i)ainter of consider- able power, and of marked personality. His pictures as a rule are distinguished by gloom and mystery, rich colouring, magnificent shadows, and broad, free, easy work, nervous and emotional. There is a gen- eral air of melancholy over almost all his works, and they appear to have been turned out at top speed, but there is an impressiveness about his pictures which can never be mistaken. For a while they were regardful far too highly at a time when the Academic School was the only one in repute; they then passed under a cloud when the Primitives came into their own, but now ihfir genius is again asserting itself, and the landscapr-.s of Rosa with their marvellous draughts- manship and extraordinary, melancholy magnificence are bemg appreciated by persons able to under- stand the merits of a poetic interpretation. The last few years of the artist's life were passed be- tween Naples and Rome, with one temporary visit to Florence, where he remained three or four years. It was in Rome that he died; but the best part "of his life was passed in his native town, where he was held in high repute, and regarded as one of its glories. His works are to V)e found in almost all the galleries of Europe, notably in the Pitti, the National Clallerv f)f London, the Hermitage, the galleries of Dulwich and
Edinburgh, and in almost every important palace in
Rome. He was a skilful etcher, leaving behind him
some thirty-five or forty well-etched iilat(>s, and was
a very powerful draughtsman in black and sanguine.
Many of his pictures arc signed by his conjoined
initials arrangf^d in at least a dozen different ways,
and always skilfully combined.
Most of the information concerning him is obtained from Passeri, Vile di pitlori, scuUori 6 architetli che hanno lavorato in Roma (Rome, 1772).
George Charles Williamson.
Rosalia, Saint, hermitess, greatly venerated at Palermo and in the whole of Sicily of which she is patroness. Her feast is celebrated on 4 September. A special feast of the translation of her relics is kept in Sicily 15 June. There is no account of her before \'alerius Rossi (about 1590), though churches were flcdicated in her honour in 1237. Her Vita (Acta SS., 11 Sept., 278) which, according to the BoUandist J. Stilting, is compiled from local traditions, paintings, and inscriptions, says: She was the daughter of Sinibald, Lord of Quisquina and of Rosa, descended from the family of Charlemagne; in youthful days she left home and hid herself in a cave near Bivona and later in another of Monte Pellegrino near Palermo, in which she died and was buried. In 1624 her re- mains were discovered and brought to the Cathedral of Palermo. Urban VIII put her name into the Roman Martyrology. Whether before her retire- ment she belonged to a religious community, is not known. The Basilians, in their Martyrology, claim her as a member. She is often represented as a Basilian nun with a Greek cross in her hand. Many of her pictures may be found in the Acta SS.
DuNBAH, Lii-e.i of Saintly Women (London, 190.5); Baring- Gould, Lives uf the Saints (London, 1.S77); Stadler in Ileiligen- leiicon. FrANCIS MeRSHMAN.
Rosary, The. — I, In the Western Church. — "The Rosary", says the Roman Breviary, "is a certain form of prayer wherein we say fifteen decades or tens of Hail Marys with an Our Father between each ten, while at each of these fifteen decades we recall successively in pious meditation one of the m.vsteries of our Redemption." The same lesson for the Feast of the Holy Rosary informs us that when the Albigensian heresy was devastating the country of Toulouse, St. Dominic earnestly besought the help of Our Lady and was instructed by her, "so tradition asserts", to preach the Rosary among the peopl(! as an antidote to heresy and sin. From that time forward this maimer of prayer was "most wonderfully published abroad and developed \prom- idgari augerique acpit] by St. Dominic whom difTer- ent Supreme Pontiffs have in various passages of their apostoHc letters declared to be the institutor and author of the same devotion." That many popes have so spoken is undoubtedly true, and amongst the rest we have a .series of encyclicals, beginning in 1SS3, is.sucd by Pope Leo XIII, which, while commending this devotion to the faithful in the most earnest terms, assumes the institution of the Rosary by St. Dominic to be a fact historically established. Of the remarkable fruits of this devo- tion anfl of the extraordinary favours which have been granted to the world, as is piously believed, through this means, something \viU be said under the headings Rosary, Fe.^st of, and Rorary, Con- frater.mties of. We will confine ourselves here to the controverted question of its history, a matter which both in the middle of the eighteenth century and again in recent years hjis attracted much attention.
Let us begin with certain facts which will not be contested. It is tolerably obvious that whenever any prayer has to be repeated a large number of titnes recourse is likely to be had to some mechanical apparatus less troublesome than counting upon the fingers. In almost all countries, then, we meet with
