British School at Rome: Papers of the British School at Rome (9.1920)

160 The British School at Rome.
with the triple tiara, and labelled with the name he bore. Their accumulated
majesty brings the whole past history of the Church into the presence of its
living members. A bishop walking up the nave of Siena must feel as a Roman
felt among the waxen images of ancestors renowned in council or in war. Of
course these portraits are imaginary for the most part, but the artists have con-
trived to vary their features and expression with great skill.’1
It is admitted that these busts were all formed on four or five models
merely for decorative purposes ; and so slight is their artistic or historical
value that their removal was once under consideration. Yet if the sight
of them could so move the author of the History of the Renaissance in
Italy, it is obvious that an inquiry into the authenticity of other series
which are of greater authority might produce results of considerable
historical significance. For, though the fact does not appear to be
generally known, there are in Rome and other cities of Italy several
more or less complete series of likenesses of the Popes, which we will
examine in order.
Papal Por- In the library of the Archivium of St. Peter’s in Rome there is a
the^rcli-m small modern series of oil paintings of all those Popes who had at one
vium of time been Canons of St. Peter’s. This collection also is of no particular
St. Peter’s . . . .
’ value. The portraits of the more recent Pontiffs, authentic it is true,
but not striking works of art, may be seen elsewhere, and those of the
more remote ones are devoid of any great interest as they have no special
claim to consideration on historic or artistic grounds.2
(2) In s. Pier Of more importance is the series in the fine old church of S. Pier in
Grado, a few miles outside the city of Pisa. When the ancient basilica
(the name of which recalled the tradition of the landing of St. Peter
in the neighbourhood) was decorated in the thirteenth century, the
scheme included a set of medallions of the Popes. These, extending from
St. Peter, certainly to John XIV. (f 985), some ninety-six in all, were
placed in the frieze above the columns of the nave, and presented a
1 Sketches in Italy, p. 39, ed. Tauchnitz, 1882.
2 Similarly with regard to such small collections as the series of ten mosaic medallions
of Popes in the Church of St. Agnes outside-the-walls. If they have artistic worth they
have no historic interest. Much more of the latter have the frescoes in the gallery to the
right of the old Vatican library—-frescoes illustrating what Nicholas V., Sixtus IV., Paul V.,
Pius VI. and Pius VII. did for the Library and for Rome generally ; and much more of the
former the series of Popes in the Sixtine chapel. Cf. Steinmann, Die Sixtinische Kapelle,
p. 197. Nor is any historic value to be attached to the series in stucco of the early Popes
in the vestibule of St. Peter’s.