The Picture Gallery of the Vatican. 167 



their sides, generally tell some historical or mythological tale, and 

 repeat the principal personages of it three or four different times. 



The painting called " The Transfiguration" contains then, two 

 subjects ; namely, the one which it really professes to represent, that 

 is the Transfiguration of our Lord on Mount Tabor, in the presence 

 of the three disciples, Peter, James, and John , and also the child 

 brought by his father to the foot of the same mountain where the 

 other disciples were waiting, and who was cured by Jesus Christ 

 himself the day after his Transfiguration. The first, which occupies 

 the upper part of the picture, is intended to signify the declaration 

 which God the Father wishes to make of the divinity and the mission 

 of his Son. The other, which occupies the lower part, displays the 

 power of Christ over the infernal spirits, which he had already com- 

 municated to his disciples. The point of time represented in the 

 first scene of the subject is the instant immediately after the voice had 

 issued from the cloud, saying, " This is my beloved Son, hear ye 

 Him:" at which voice the apostles fell prostrate on the earth; and the 

 two prophets Moses and Elias, as if even they were overcome, are no 

 longer talking with Christ, but are turned in an attitude of adoration 

 towards the Saviour, who still appears entirely surrounded with glory. 

 Here we cannot but admire the poetical and judicious manner in 

 which'Raffaelle has arranged the figures in this work, and that sur- 

 prising invention of representing Jesus and the two prophets sus- 

 pended in the air. The one, as the Son of God, and the others, as 

 beings superior to other mortals : the latter raised but a small dis- 

 tance from the earth, and the former, as greater in majesty, so higher 

 in elevation, with His arms raised in the act of rendering thanks to 

 the Eternal Father for this new declaration in His favour. And in 

 order to avoid a certain monotony of action, which would have re- 

 sulted from representing the three apostles all prostrate on the earth, 

 according to the words of Scripture, Raffaelle, with the greatest judg- 

 ment has painted them in attitudes of wonder and surprise (as is 

 apparent also from the expression of their countenances), and has as- 

 signed to each one his proper position St. Peter, a little in profile, 

 and in the centre, as the chief of the apostles ; St. John, more 

 brought forward, as the beloved disciple of .Christ ; and St. James 

 behind St. Peter, humble and devout, and thrown into deeper-shade. 

 The two figures on the upper part of the mountain, kneeling under 

 some trees in the act of contemplating the vision, represent St. Lo- 

 renzo and St. Julian, whom the painter was obliged to introduce in 

 obedience to Cardinal Giulio de Medici, who was then Pope under 

 the title of Clement VII., and who had given the order for the pic- 

 ture. The Pontiff desired the introduction of saints who bore the 

 same name with his father Julian de Medici, and with his uncle Lo- 

 renzo surnamed the Magnificent, under whose guardianship he had 

 been educated. 



But painting, however good, will not excuse this anachronism, arid 

 so it is better to let the eye glance at once at the lower part of the 

 picture, which represents the possessed child brought by his father to 

 the disciples of Christ, to be cured by them. The time which Raffaelle 

 has selected for this second scene is exactly the moment when the 



