St Thomas Aquinas

Today is the novus ordo feast of St Thomas Aquinas, and John Dillon has again provided a selection of depictions of St Thomas for the Medieval Religion discussion group, which I am reproducing here.


Thomas Aquinas (d. 1274) was a nephew of one of the kingdom of Sicily's great nobles, Tommaso d'Aquino, count of Acerra and grand justiciar of the realm.  His father, Landolfo d'Aquino (the count's younger brother), was the lord of Roccasecca, the castle where Thomas was born.  Educated first at Montecassino and then at the University of Naples, Thomas shocked his family by becoming a Dominican novice rather than pursuing a traditional career in the landed church.  Unhappy at this turn of events, his father had him kidnapped and then held at another castle until he should come to his senses.  After almost two years Thomas managed to escape with the aid of his sister Theodora and then entered upon the life's work that would make him famous.  For that, one may read Ralph McInerny's account of Thomas in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aquinas/
Thomas was canonized in 1323.

A few views of what's left of the castle at Roccasecca (FR) in southern Lazio:
http://tinyurl.com/28dpo8
http://tinyurl.com/jen93b6 [click on the images for much higher resolution]
http://flytodiscover.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/DAquinoCastle1.jpg
http://tinyurl.com/jphgexq


Some period-pertinent images of St. Thomas Aquinas:

a) as depicted (author portrait; at left, Pope Urban IV) in a late thirteenth- or early fourteenth-century copy of his Catena aurea (Dijon, Bibliothèque municipale, ms. 72, fol. 2r):

http://www.enluminures.culture.fr/Wave/savimage/enlumine/irht6/IRHT_093909-p.jpg

b) as depicted (predella; sixth figure from right) by Simone Martini in his early fourteenth-century polyptych of Santa Caterina in the Museo nazionale di San Matteo, Pisa (1319):

 

http://tinyurl.com/obxqgz2

c) as depicted (at upper right, above Sts. Dominic of Caleruega and Francis of Assisi) in an earlier fourteenth-century copy of Dante's Commedia (London, BL, Egerton MS 943, fol. 146r):
http://www.bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts/ILLUMINBig.ASP?size=big&IllID=10474

d) as depicted (at centre, between St. Peter and St. Paul) by the Master of the Piani d'Invrea Cross in an earlier fourteenth-century triptych (1330s) in Albi's cathédrale Sainte-Cécile:

 

http://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/BN-KS540_nyscen_J_20151012154441.jpg

e) as depicted (at left) by Bernardo Daddi in an earlier fourteenth-century panel painting (1338; "The Temptation of St. Thomas Aquinas") in the Gemäldegalerie, Berlin:

 

http://tinyurl.com/zdlszlu

f) as depicted by Lippo Memmi in an an earlier fourteenth-century panel painting (c. 1340; "The Triumph of St. Thomas Aquinas"; formerly attributed to Francesco Traini) in Pisa's chiesa di Santa Caterina d'Alessandria:
http://www.turismo.pisa.it/export/sites/default/.content/images/031_Trionfo_S_Tommaso.jpg

 

http://www.wga.hu/art/t/traini/aquinas.jpg

g) as depicted in a mid-fourteenth-century copy of southeastern English origin of an anonymous abridgement of his Vita by William of Tocco (c. 1350; London, BL, Harley MS 916, fol. 1r):
http://www.bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts/ILLUMINBig.ASP?size=big&IllID=15759

h) as depicted in the lower panel of the mid-fourteenth-century window (1350s; from designs by Nardo di Cione) in the cappella Strozzi di Mantova in Florence's basilica di Santa Maria Novella:
http://tinyurl.com/hd5eueo
Detail view (better colour, too):
http://tinyurl.com/grmqztb

i) as depicted (teaching) in the later fourteenth-century Breviary of Charles V (c. 1364-1370; Paris, BnF, ms. Latin 1052, fol. 348v):
http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b84525491/f706.item.zoom

j) as depicted by Andrea Bonaiuti (Andrea da Firenze) in a later fourteenth-century fresco (ca. 1365-1368; "The Triumph of St. Thomas Aquinas") in the former chapter room, now the cappella Spagnuola, of Florence's basilica di Santa Maria Novella:

 

http://www.wga.hu/art/a/andrea/firenze/spanish/3west.jpg

Detail view (Thomas Aquinas):

 

http://www.wga.hu/art/a/andrea/firenze/spanish/3west1.jpg

k) as depicted twice in a later fourteenth-century book of prayers of southern French origin (c. 1378-1383; Avignon, Bibliothèque-Médiathèque Municipale Ceccano, ms. 6733):
1) preaching [ or teaching -Clever Boy ] (fol. 6r):

 

http://tinyurl.com/yl7d5sm

2) praying (fol. 6v):

 

http://tinyurl.com/yjwkbyd

l) as depicted (his vision of the two angels who protected his chastity) in an early fifteenth-century copy of the Legenda aurea in its French-language version by Jean de Vignay (Paris, BnF, ms. Français 242, fol. 323r):
http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b8426005j/f663.item.zoom

m) as depicted (inspired while at prayer) by Sassetta (Stefano di Giovanni) in an earlier fifteenth-century panel painting (1423) in the Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest (photographs courtesy of Genevra Kornbluth):

 

 

http://www.kornbluthphoto.com/images/MFAB_5.jpg

Detail view (Thomas and the dove of the Holy Spirit):

 

http://www.kornbluthphoto.com/images/MFAB_7.jpg

n) as depicted in the earlier fifteenth-century Hours of Catherine of Cleves (c. 1440; New York, The Morgan Library and Museum, Morgan MS M.917, p. 367):
http://www.themorgan.org/collection/hours-of-catherine-of-cleves/112

o) as depicted (at far right, upper register of saints) by Beato Angelico in a mid-fifteenth-century fresco (c. 1441-1442) in the chapter room of the convento (now Museo nazionale) di San Marco in Florence:

 

http://tinyurl.com/jmynvnu

Detail view:

 

http://tinyurl.com/zq9wpqd

p) as depicted (at right, flanking the BVM and Christ Child; at left, St. Dominic of Caleruega) by Beato Angelico in a mid-fifteenth-century fresco (c. 1445) transferred to canvas in the State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg:

 

http://www.wga.hu/art/a/angelico/14/0fresco.jpg

q) as depicted (upper register at centre, accompanied by a mitred St. Albertus Magnus; at left, Beatrice and Dante) by Giovanni di Paolo in a mid-fifteenth-century copy of Dante's Commedia (c. 1450; London, BL, Yates Thompson MS 36, fol. 147r):
http://tinyurl.com/ol3yphu

r) as depicted in grisaille by Jean le Tavernier in the mid-fifteenth-century Hours of Philip of Burgundy (c. 1451-1460; Den Haag, KB, ms. 76 F 2, fol. 269v):
http://manuscripts.kb.nl/zoom/BYVANCKB%3Amimi_76f2%3A269v_min

s) as depicted (praying before engaging in a disputation) in a later fifteenth-century Flemish miniature in a French-language version of the Legenda aurea (c. 1470; Mâcon, Médiathèque municipale, ms. 3, fol. 215v):
http://www.enluminures.culture.fr/Wave/savimage/enlumine/irht6/IRHT_095386-p.jpg

t) as depicted by Benozzo Gozzoli in a later fifteenth-century panel painting (1471; "The Triumph of St. Thomas Aquinas") in the Musée du Louvre, Paris:

 

http://www.wga.hu/art/g/gozzoli/5various/8aquinas.jpg

Detail view (Thomas between Aristotle and Plato):
http://tinyurl.com/h83n3bk

u) as depicted (second from left; at far left, St. Bernard of Clairvaux) by Francesco di Giorgio Martini in a later fifteenth-century panel painting of the Nativity (1475) in the Pinacoteca nazionale di Siena:
http://tinyurl.com/jht8mxm
Detail view (Bernard and Thomas):

 

http://tinyurl.com/h6vahv5

v) as depicted by Carlo Crivelli in a panel of his later fifteenth-century Demidoff Altarpiece (1476) in the National Gallery, London:

 

 

Image: Wikipedia 

 

http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/carlo-crivelli-saint-thomas-aquinas


w) as depicted by Sandro Botticelli (attrib.) in a late fifteenth-century panel painting (c. 1481-1482) in the Abegg-Stiftung, Riggisberg (canton Bern):

 

http://tinyurl.com/jmxxujr

x) as depicted by Matteo Felice in a late fifteenth-century copy of Neapolitan origin of his Expositio litteralis in Isaiam (between 1489 and 1492; Paris, BnF, ms. Latin 495, fol. 1r):
http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b84467918/f9.item.zoom

y) as depicted by Alessandro Agolanti in a panel of the late fifteenth-century glass window (1492; from designs by Domenico Ghirlandaio) in the cappella Tornabuoni in Florence's basilica di Santa Maria Novella:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/orestesmazieiro/8322106712

z) as depicted (left margin at top) in a hand-coloured woodcut in the Beloit College copy of Hartmann Schedel's late fifteenth-century Weltchronik (Nuremberg Chronicle; 1493) at fol. CCXVr:
https://www.beloit.edu/nuremberg/book/6th_age/right_page/118%20%28Folio%20CCXVr%29.pdf
 

St Albert the Great

Today would, had it not been a Sunday, have been the feast of St Albert the Great, and John Dillon has posted about him on the Medieval Religion discussion group as follows

The Swabian Albert of Lauingen (later Albert the Great; in Latin, Albertus Magnus) had been studying at Padua when in 1223 Bl. Jordan of Saxony accepted him into the Dominican Order. He completed his novitiate at Köln and then served as a lector in various houses in his order's German-speaking province. From 1243 to 1248 Albert studied and then taught at Paris. He returned to Köln in 1248 as head of his order's university there. In 1254 Albert was elected provincial of the aforementioned province. For the remainder of his life, though there were times when he was able to teach, he acted primarily as an ecclesiastical administrator. Consecrated bishop of Regensburg in 1260 at the behest of pope Alexander IV, he served unwillingly and returned to his order in 1262. As a papal legate in 1263 and 1264 he preached the Crusade in Germany and Bohemia. In 1274 he participated in the Second Council of Lyon.

Albert was a prolific author from early in his career until about ten years before his death in Köln in the year 1280. Like his student Thomas Aquinas, he wrote commentaries on the Bible in addition to a corpus of influential philosophical works that helped to define the medieval Christian reception of Aristotle. Albert was beatified in 1622 and canonized in 1931. His entry in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy begins here:http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/albert-great/

Albert's sarcophagus in Köln's Dominican church of Sankt Andreas:

 

http://tinyurl.com/yztf5ua

Some period-pertinent images of Albertus Magnus:

a) as depicted in the opening initial of a late thirteenth-century copy of his De mineralibus (Paris, BnF, ms. Latin 6514, fol. 1r):
http://tinyurl.com/yhpxef4

b) as depicted (mitred, sharing a book [the metaphoric Book of Nature?] with Aristotle) in the opening initial of a fourteenth-century copy of his De animalibus (c. 1334-1366; Paris, BnF, ms. Latin 16169, fol. 2r):
http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b85409542/f5.item.zoom
http://tinyurl.com/np8y4q2

c) as depicted by Tommaso da Modena in his mid-fourteenth-century portraits of Dominican worthies (1351/52) in the chapter room of the former Dominican convent (now a diocesan seminary) adjacent to the chiesa di San Nicolò at Treviso:

 

http://tinyurl.com/o59cc3o

d) as depicted by Hugo of Schleusingen in the Bartholomaeus Anglicus portion of a late fourteenth-century miscellany from Schmalkalden (1388; München, BSB, Clm 27029, fol. 88r):

 

http://tinyurl.com/p34uz9x

http://daten.digitale-sammlungen.de/bsb00103280/image_179
There is a larger grayscale view in S. Foster Damon, "A Portrait of Albertus Magnus", Speculum 5, no. 1 (Jan., 1930), pp. 102-103.

e) as depicted by Beato Angelico in the roundels of Dominican worthies beneath his earlier fifteenth-century fresco (early 1440s) of the Crucifixion and Saints in the chapter room of the convento (now Museo nazionale) di San Marco in Florence:

 

http://www.museobenozzogozzoli.it/filecomuni/38004_003.jpg

f) as depicted (upper register at far right, accompanying St. Thomas Aquinas; at left, Beatrice and Dante) by Giovanni di Paolo in a mid-fifteenth-century copy of the Divina Commedia (ca. 1450; London, BL, Yates Thompson 36, fol. 147r):

 

http://tinyurl.com/ol3yphu

g) as depicted by someone in the circle of Friedrich Walther in a mid- or later fifteenth-century panel painting in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York:

 

http://www.metmuseum.org/collection/the-collection-online/search/471924

h) as depicted (lower register, centre right) with other physicians in a later fifteenth-century (c. 1471) copy of Giovanni Cadamosto, Libro de componere herbe et fructi (Paris, BnF, ms. Italien 1108, fol. 7v):

 

http://tinyurl.com/yfhnrpx

i) as depicted in a later fifteenth-century panel painting (c. 1476) variously attributed to Joos van Gent (Justus of Ghent, etc., etc.) or to Pedro Berruguete in the Galleria nazionale delle Marche in the ducal palace at Urbino:

 

http://tinyurl.com/oszttl4

On display (lower register, second from right) on the south wall of Federico da Montefeltro's studiolo:
http://www.gutenberg-e.org/kirkbride/detail/us_3_south_wall_men.html

j) as depicted (roundel in the right margin) by Gioacchino di Giovanni in a later fifteenth-century copy of Neapolitan origin of his De laudibus beate Mariae Virginis (1476; Valencia, Universitat de València, Biblioteca Històrica, BH ms. 399, fol. 1r):
http://tinyurl.com/qzt8z5h

k) as depicted by Nardo Rapicano in a later fifteenth-century copy of Neapolitan origin of his  De mirabili scientia Dei (c. 1484; Valencia, Universitat de València, Biblioteca Històrica, BH ms. 390, fol. 7r):
http://tinyurl.com/q9j6h39

l) as portrayed by Vincenzo Onofri in a late fifteenth-century bust (c. 1493) in the Museo civico medievale in Bologna:

 

http://tinyurl.com/q3ufjl7

m) as depicted (left margin) in a hand-coloured woodcut in the Beloit College copy of Hartmann Schedel's late fifteenth-centuryWeltchronik (Nuremberg Chronicle; 1493) at fol. CCXIIIIr:
http://www.beloit.edu/nuremberg/book/6th_age/right_page/117%20%28Folio%20CCXIIIIr%29.pdf

n) as depicted (at left; at right, Bl. John Duns Scotus) by Amico Aspertini in an earlier sixteenth-century panel painting (1521) in the Pinacoteca civica in Como:

 

http://tinyurl.com/pjkvvvs

St Dominic - images and reflections

To mark St Dominic's feast Gordon Plumb has posted a photograph of the saint on the Medieval Religion discussion group. It comes from the surviving stained glass in Long Melford church in Suffolk, and can be viewed at :

https://www.flickr.com/photos/22274117@N08/2226559836

In the panel St Dominic is shown wearing blue because the black of the Dominican habit would be counter-productive in stained glass, and is usually replaced therefore with blue glass.

By following the links underneath the figure readers can access the whole of  Gordon Plumb's archive of photographs of the glass in Holy Trinity Long Melford. Though only some of the glazing survived the activities of enthusiastic reformers what does survive, both devotional and the remarkable portraits of fifteenth century donors is of very high quality and an indication of what once filled the windows not only at Long Melford but across East Anglia.

Even in a county rich in late medieval churches Long Melford is exceptional in its quality and contents, and its liturgical life before the disruptive changes of the sixteenth century is cited by Eamon Duffy in The Stripping of the Altars.

St Dominic

This painting preserves the tradition of his auburn hair, and that as he grew older he retained a complete tonsure.

Image; dominicains.ca





St Dominic
His hair may be depicted less accurately, but he has his distinctive emblems of the star and the lily, indicating his purity of life.

Image: parish.rcdow.org.uk

Stephanie Mann also has a post on Supremacy and Survival about St Dominic and the history of the Order of Preachers in the British Isles, and with a link at the conclusion to another related post. These can be viewed at  Happy Feast of St. Dominic

 

St Dominic.

Image: CatholicCulture.org

Godspeed the Dominicans

Yesterday evening after Mass at Blackfriars here in Oxford I was talking to one of the young Dominicans who is setting out today on their coast-to-coast fund raising walk in aid of the Order's appeal fund, and about which I wrote last month in Sponsoring the Dominicans. This is then an opportunity to wish them Godspeed on their journey and remind readers of this worthwhile appeal.

Sponsoring the Dominicans

As the congregation left Blackfriars on Saturday evening we were encouraged to sponsor five Dominicans, two of them from the novices studying at Blackfriars in Oxford, who plan to walk a 190 mile Wainwright route across northern England from coast to coast in late July and early August to help raise money for the Dominican's priests training fund. Due to the increase in vocations to the Order - a very good thing in itself - there is now in consequence the need to raise £1 million over the next seven years to train these young men.

There is more about the sponsored walk at www.friarswalk@wordpress.com , and there is an article about it in the latest issue of the Catholic Herald which can be read at Order asks for £1m to fund rise in vocations

This is a good cause and one well worth supporting. 

The Dominican Spirituality of preaching

The Anglican parish church of St Giles here in Oxford has an establishe dtradition of offering a series of talks each Thursday lunchtime during the University term which look at religious themes and usually draw upon the academic community in the city to give these addresses, so they are usually of a high standard.  The other year they gave term over to considering with monks from Belmont abbey the Benedictine tradition and this term they are looking at the Dominicans with lectures by members of the Oxford Blackfriars community.

St Dominic

As depicted in the Perugia Altarpiece of 1437 or 1438 by Fra Angelico

Image:Wikipedia

Last week the first talk in the series was an illustrated one given by Dr Nicholas Gendle on Fra Angelico, but unfortunately I had to miss that.

Yesterday the speaker was Fr Simon Gaine O.P., Regent of Studies at Blackfriars in Oxford. As one would expect it was a clear, cogent and insightful talk on the Dominican spirituality of preaching. He defined spirituality as one of the ways by which the individual make stheir way to God, and that for Dominicans, the Order of Preachers, preaching was at the centre of this process.

When the Order was established, about 1216 this was novelty - preaching was seen as the responsibility of Bishops, and not of the parochial clergy. It had been about 1203 when travelling with his Bishop, Diego, through southern France on a diplomatic mission to Scandinavia, that Dominic, a canon of Osma, encountered the Albigensians with their Cathar beliefs. Realising the need to proclaim a view of the world as essentially good and created by God, a God who had become Incarnate, Dominic began to seek to convert them. Hi sown prayer is recorded as involving his own material nature, bowing, kneeling, genuflection and prostration.

In his mission Dominic saw the need to assert the Truth against error , not to stir up debate in itself but to discover it and set people free from falsehood.

This search for Truth was linked to compassion - it is after all an action of mercy to share the Truth. Dominic's own compassion can be seen in his sale of his books as astudent to provide food for the hungry during afamine and in his wish at one point to sell himself into slavery to redeem other Christians captured by Muslim slavers.

The Order was conciously founded for others, not to establish a safe place for its members to live and pray as with enclosed orders, but to be useful for others. In a dream St Dominic saw other monastics crossing a river on boats whilst the Dominican had to swim across turbulent waters dragging a boat with others in it.

By now Dominic was aware not only of  the heretics in southern France nut also ofpeoples such as the Tartars who had not heard of Christ. By about 1215 he and his recruits had a house in Toulouse, but from 1216 they were recognised as an Order by the Papacy and the founder had a vision when in Rome of St Peter and St Paul which made clear the need for a universal mission for his community, and taht this required mobility. In the light of the regulations enacyed by Lateran IV the community adopted the Rule of St Augustine for Canons - something Dominic himself was - and as it was the shortest of the Rules, they were able to add on to it their own constitutions.

Preaching was not just to be homiletics but also study and debate in the quest for Truth. Engaging in debate with the Cathars St Dominic and his opponants on one occasion could find no means of agreement but resorted to a trial of their books by fire - and Dominic's books leapt out of the flames:

St Dominic and the testing of books by fire with the Albigensians

Pedro Berruguete (1450-1504) circa 1495

Note in the upper centre the orthodox book flying up out of the fire

Image: Wikimedia.commons

Fr Gaine added that he had seen depictions of this story captioned as St Dominic burning heretical books rather than the actual story of resolving by extraordinary means a scholarly debate.

The tradition of debating to ascertain the Truth attracted Dominicans to the universities of medieval Europe - Bologna, Paris and in 1221, just at the time of Dominic's death, to Oxford. In these scholastic debates points were refined to determine the genuine differences of opinion and to seek agreement. In later centuries the Dominicans developed a tradition of public debate between members to elucidate points of doctrine.

At the time of the oundation of the Order the call to an Apostolic life of poverty was strong and this was adopted by St Dominic - the Albigensian perfecti attracted followers by their own austere lifestyle an dthis had to be matched by their opponants. A group of Cistercian abbots who preached against th heresy found they made no impact in that they were seen as too remote and who having onc epreached rode away. Dominic and his followers engaged with individuals and travelled on foot. From the perfecti

Dominic took over the distinctive black cappa, which gave the order its appellation of Blackfriars. However  the issue of a mendicant lifestyle did not pose the problems for the Dominicans that it was to do for the Franciscans and their concern for absolute poverty. St Dominic had no problem with the friars owning their own priory, but insisted there should be no rental income, and in 1217 they renounced receiving tithe payments, and further consolidated their position in 1219. This system had to be adapted after the Black Death, but they still essentially subsist on offerings.

In the thirteenth century the Order attracted such luminaries as St Albert the Great and St Thomas Aquinas, whose Summa Theologica was intended as a guide  for the central task of preaching. This saw all knowledge as a unity, an indication of that Truth which the Order exists to serve.

This was a really very fine talk by Fr Gaine, and one which I hope served to introduce the Dominican tradition and ideal to members of other Christian traditions.

 

The Last Gospel in the Dominican Rite

Given that the forthcoming Latin Mass Society Oxford Pilgrimage on October 19th will have a celebration at Blackfriars of the traditional Dominican Mass a post yesterday on the New Liturgical Movement is of interest. It is by Fr Augustine Thompson O.P., and can be read at The Last Gospel in the Dominican Rite, and relates the history of this part of the Order's liturgy.

The clothing of a Dominican

Today a young man I have got to know whilst he was studying in Oxford, Sean Baylon, will be clothed as a Dominican and begin his novitiate at Blackfriars in Cambridge, which is now their house for initial formation. I wish him well and commend him, and all of the Order of Preachers, to my readers' prayers.

The Dominicans appear very successful in recruiting highly intelligent and sensible young men to the order. After the initial year in Cambridge they come to study at Blackfriars in Oxford, so one becomes acquainted with them over the ensuing years. They are a great resource for the wider Church as well as men who will doubtless continue to sustain the Dominican inheritance and tradition.

The website of the Order gives some idea of their vitality and can be accessed at Godzdogz.

St Dominic - image and inspiration

My Bavarian friend Dominic Wanner from CBL International has been celebrating his namenstag today, and earlier this evening had a small dinner party in Oriel for some of his family who are in Oxford, and also invited me, both as a friend and as someone who could talk about St Dominic.There are two on-line lives of him here.   I  posted about St Dominic last year in  St Dominic and St Philip  and in St Dominic in art and faith .

As I thought about it the notion came to me that one can think of St Dominic as a man on a number of frontiers. Like all Christians he stood on the frontier of the temporal and the spiritual, and of this life and of  the life of eternity. In addition he came from what had been formed as a frontier region in northern castle, although by his time the actual frontier with Islam lay south of Toledo.Through his home region runs the Camino that took pilgrims, then as perhaps never before or since, to the finis terrae of Santiago in Galicia, and along which ran so many rich and vacultural contacts. The Pyrennes were another frontier, leading to the frontier zone between Catholicism and Catharism which was to form St Dominic's mission in the years after 1200 and to lead to the foundation of the Dominican Order. As an intellectual who chose to preach to the general public he stood, as does his Order, on that frontier or interface of communicating faithfully and with complete orthodoxy the Christian Gospel.

As a saint he is reminiscent of that other great missionising Spanish-born founder of an intellectual Order, St Ignatius Loyola, and in his recollected cheerfulness and tranquility of St Philip Neri, as I argue in the post I link to above.

A description by a contemporary gives a good description of his appearance:

Dominic was of middling height and slender build. His face was beautiful and slightly rudduy, and his hair and beard were reddish. He had beautiful eyes. A kind of radiance shone from his forehead and between his eyebrows, which drew everyone to venerate and love him. He always appeared cheerful and happy, except when he was moved by compassion for any trouble which was afflicting his neighbour. He had long beautiful hands, and a powerful, beautiful, resonant voice. He was not bald anywhere, but had a complete ring of hair round his tonsure, fglecked with a little grey

The reference to the radiance of his forehead between his eyebrows may link to the story of his godmother seeing a star on his forehead whn he was an infant.

The tradition of his having reddish hair is continued in these paintings from the mid-fifteenth century by Fra Angelico

 

Image: dominicansdunlaoghair

St Dominic

Fra Angelico 1437 Perugia altarpice

Image: Wikipedia Commons

In later centuries the tradition was lost as inthis painting by the seventeenth century artist  Claudio Coello , where St Dominic has become architypically Spanish in appearance:

 

St Dominic

Claudio Coello, c.1685

Prado Museum

 Image: Wikipedia Commons

Thanks to the modern technologies of computer photo-shopping some modern Dominicans have produced this image of their founder, the patron saint of astronomers, to express the continuing Dominican mission in the age of the computer and the internet:

:

The Way of Salvation - details

Following on from my previous post I have found a view of part of Andrea di Firenze's The Way of Salvation which shows some of the figures of the ecclesiastical and temporal hierarchy in more detail, including the figure of the Knight of the Garter, who is very prominent in the centre foreground. Ages ago I read a piece which tried to identify him, but have not got it to hand.

Image:mystudios.com

Here are two more details:

The first shows the figures to the left of the previous group, with members of various religious orders and a bishop:

The Dominicans preaching:

Images: arthistory390 on Flickr

Finally, here is a detail from the upper right of the painting:

Image:brightscecilia.com

The Way of Salvation

As we are in the week following the Feast of Christ the King (OF) and as we come to the beginning of Advent, with its eschatalogical themes, it seems appropriate to post this image of The Way of Salvation of circa 1365-1368.

It was painted by Andrea da Firenze or di Bonaiuto (circa 1346 - post May 16, 1379) in what is now the Cappella Spagnuolo in Florence's basilica of Santa Maria Novella. This is the Dominican church, and the painting would have been seen by Bishop Richard Fleming when he was in attendance on Pope Martin V who lived at Sta Maria Novella in 1418-20 - indeed Fleming was almost certainly consecrated as a bishop at the basilica or in the papal apartments which still survive there.

Image: Web Gallery of Art

A larger photograph of the painting can be viewed here.

As readers will see the figures at the lower base are reproduced in the mast head to this blog. Not only is there the Fleming connection, but the figures of Pope and Emperor, King, Cardinal, Bishops and religious seemed to me to encapsulate many of the themes the Clever Boy wants to write about. The Clever Boy is not that clever when it comes to technical matters, so the mast head, along with the fleur-de-lys at the side are the work of his computational Eminence grise - and apologies to him for not having acknowledged his work earlier on in the year.

The black and white dogs are, of course the domini canes, and the figure in a white hooded jupon is one of the earliest depictions of a Knight of the Garter - the garter can be seen below his left knee. Also present are St Bridget of Sweden and Queen Joanna I of Naples.

A wonderful picture, with plenty to look at and reflect upon. There is a lengthy interpretive online article here.

Garrigou-Lagrange conference

Today I attended the congference at Blackfriars on the work of Fr Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange (1877-1964). It was a well attended and well organised event with a series of interesting addresses.

The first speaker was Fr Richard Peddicord OP, who has published a life of Garrigou-Lagrange The Sacred Monster of Thomism . His paper considered Garrigou's critique of the work of Henri Bergson and Maurice Blondel. This was followed by a paper from Fr Aidan Nichols OP, who has also recently published a book on him an dhis influence on the Catholic Church, on Garrigou and Henry de Lubac on Divine Revelation, drawing out their common emphases in two very different works. After lunch we had a talk from Fr Henry Donneaud OP about Garrigou and Chenu's fundamentally different approaches to Thomism and the Nature of Theology and the ways they influenced one another in their writings.

This was followed by three responses from Prof John Sullivan of LIverpool Hope University, a specialist in the work of Blondel, Fr Thomas Crean OP and Fr Philip Endean SJ.

For someone not versed in Garrigou-Lagrange's work the day provided useful sign posts with which to study his very substantial range of work, and indeed a wish so to do. Several of his major works ahve been reprinted by TAN, and some texys are available online.

What would be interesting would be to have another such conference on Garrigou-Lagrange's work and teaching on spirituality, his mystical theology and call for contemplation by the faithful.

Traditional Dominican Liturgy

I have recently discovered through NLM Fr Augustine Thompson O.P.'s blog Dominican Liturgy. This is concerned with all aspects of the ancient Dominican rite, and a valuable resource for historians of the liturgy and the Church as well as for the Blackfriars themselves. It is well worth looking at and I have added it to my blogroll.

My own interest is increased in it by the fact that not only do we have an excellent Dominican house here in Oxford today but one of those little historical projects that I mean to do sometime is a new edition of the history of the medieval Dominican house in my hometown of Pontefract. Founded in 1256 it was closed in 1538, but a local historian produced in the late nineteenth century a study of the house that in its detail was unusual and poneering, basing his research on bequests and other sources. Over a century and a quarter later that could be supplemented by new research in the sources, archeological evidence from the site and by the wider scholarship on mendicant history. This is something I would like to do, and the work of Fr Thompson would be of great assistance.