[Footnote 1:  Didron, “Iconographie Chretienne;” and in the mosaic of the Last Judgment, executed by Byzantine artists, in the cathedral at Torcello.]

[Footnote 2:  A celebrated illuminated MS. (date about 1159 to 1175), preserved in the Library at Strasburg.]

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In the centre group of Michael Angelo’s “Last Judgment,” we have the same leading motif, but treated in a very different feeling.  Christ stands before us in figure and mien like a half-naked athlete; his left hand rejects, his right hand threatens, and his whole attitude is as utterly devoid of dignity as of grace.  I have often wondered as I have looked at this grand and celebrated work, what could be Michael Angelo’s idea of Christ.  He who was so good, so religious, so pure-minded, and so high-minded, was deficient in humility and sympathy; if his morals escaped, his imagination was corrupted by the profane and pagan influences of his time.  His conception of Christ is here most unchristian, and his conception of the Virgin is not much better.  She is grand in form, but the expression is too passive.  She looks down and seems to shrink; but the significance of the attitude,—­the hand pressed to the maternal bosom,—­given to her by the old painters, is lost.

In a “Last Judgment” by Rubens, painted for the Jesuits of Brussels (Brussels; Musee), the Virgin extends her robe over the world, as if to shield mankind from the wrath of her Son; pointing, at the same time, significantly to her bosom, whence He derived his earthly life.  The daring bad taste, and the dramatic power of this representation, are characteristic alike of the painter, the time, and the community for which the picture was painted.

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More beautiful and more acceptable to our feelings are those graceful representations of the Virgin as dispenser of mercy on earth; as protectress and patroness either of all Christendom, or of some particular locality, country, or community.  In such pictures she stands with outstretched arms, crowned with a diadem, or in some instances simply veiled, her ample robe, extended on each side, is held up by angels, while under its protecting folds are gathered worshippers and votaries of all ranks and ages—­men, women, children,—­kings, nobles, ecclesiastics,—­the poor, the lame, the sick.  Or if the picture be less universal in its significance, dedicated perhaps by some religious order or charitable brotherhood, we see beneath her robe an assemblage of monks and nuns, or a troop of young orphans or redeemed prisoners.  Such a representation is styled a Misericordia.

In a picture by Fra Filippo Lippi (Berlin Gal.), the Madonna of Mercy extends her protecting mantle over thirty-five kneeling figures, the faces like portraits, none elevated or beautiful, but the whole picture as an example of the subject most striking.