It seems agreed that, as a work of art, there is only the St. Michael of Guido (in the Cappuccini at Rome) which can be compared with that of Raphael; the moment chosen is the same; the treatment nearly the same; the sentiment quite different.

Here the angel, standing, yet scarcely touching the ground, poised on his outspread wings, sets his left foot on the head of his adversary; in one hand he brandishes a sword, in the other he holds the end of a chain, with which he is about to bind down the demon in the bottomless pit. The attitude has been criticised, and justly; the grace is somewhat mannered, verging on the theatrical; but Forsyth is too severe when he talks of the "air of a dancing-master: " one thing, however, is certain, we do not think about attitude when we look at Raphael's St. Michael; in Guido's, it is the first thing that strikes us; but when we look farther, the head redeems all; it is singularly beautiful, and in the blending of the masculine and feminine graces, in the serene purity of the brow, and the flow of the golden hair, there is something divine: a slight, very slight expression of scorn is in the air of the head. The fiend is the worst part of the picture; it is not a fiend, but a degraded prosaic human ruffian; we laugh with incredulous contempt at the idea of an angel called down from heaven to overcome such a wretch. In Raphael the fiend is human, but the head has the god-like ugliness and malignity of a satyr : Guido's fiend is only stupid and base. It appears to me that there is just the same difference - the same kind of difference -between the angel of Raphael and the angel of Guido, as between the description in Tasso and the description in Milton; let any one compare them. In Tasso we are struck by the picturesque elegance of the description as a piece of art, the melody of the verse, the admirable choice of the expressions, as in Guido by the finished but somewhat artificial and studied grace. In Raphael and Milton we see only the vision

of a "shape divine."

One of the most beautiful figures of St. Michael I ever saw occurs in a Coronation of the Virgin by Moretto, and is touched by his peculiar sentiment of serious tenderness (Brescia).

In devotional pictures such figures of St. Michael are sometimes grouped poetically with other personages, as in a most beautiful picture by Innocenza da Imola (Brera, Milan), where

the archangel tramples on the demon; St. Paul standing on one side, and St. Benedict on the other, both of whom had striven with the fiend and had overcome him: the Madonna and the Child are seen in a glory above.1

And again in a picture by Mabuse, where St. Michael, as patron, sets his foot on the black grinning fiend, and looks down on a kneeling votary, while the votary, with his head turned away, appears to be worshipping, not the protecting angel, but the Madonna, to whom St. Michael presents him.2 Such votive pictures are not uncommon, and have a peculiar grace and significance. Here the archangel bears the victorious banner of the cross, he has conquered. In some instances he holds in his hand the head of the Dragon, and in all instances it is, or ought to be, the head of the Dragon which is transfixed, "Thou shalt bruise his head."

Those representations in which St. Michael is not conqueror, but combatant, in which the moment is one of transition, are less frequent; it is then an action, not an emblem, and the composition is historical rather than symbolical. It is the strife with Lucifer; "when Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon fought and his angels, and the great dragon was cast out." (Rev. xii. 7.) In churches and chapels dedicated to St. Michael, or to "the Holy Angels," this appropriate subject often occurs; as in a famous fresco by Spinello d'Arezzo, at Arezzo (a. D. 1400. Engraved in Lasinio's Early Florentine Masters). In the middle of the composition, Michael, armed with sword and shield, is seen combating the dragon with seven heads, as described in the Apocalypse. Above and around are many angels, also armed. At the top of the picture is seen an empty throne, the throne which Lucifer had "set in the north;" below is seen Lucifer, falling with his angels over the parapet of heaven. (Isaiah xiv. 13.) The painter tasked his skill to render the transformation of the spirits of light into spirits of darkness as fearful and as hideous as possible; and, being a man of a nervous temperament, the continual dwelling on these horrors began at length to trouble his brain. He fancied that Lucifer appeared

1 [No painting by Innocenza da Imola is mentioned in the Brera catalogue of 1892.]

2 [The reference is probably to the painting in the Munich Gallery now catalogued to Bernaert van Orley.]

St. Michael and the Dragon (Oggione)

to him in a dream, demanding by what authority he had portrayed him under an aspect so revolting? the painter awoke in horror, was seized with delirious fever, and so died.

In his combat with the dragon, Michael is sometimes represented alone, and sometimes as assisted by the two other archangels, Gabriel and Raphael: as in the fresco by Signorelli, at Orvieto, where one of the angels, whom we may suppose to