two large courts stands a church of
moderate size, each of which has a porch with thin marble columns before
the door; the interior walls of the porches are covered with paintings
of saints and also of the Last Judgment, which, indeed, is constantly
seen in the porch of every church. In these pictures, which are often of
immense size, the artists evidently took much more pains to represent
the uncouthness of the devils than the beauty of the angels, who, in
all these ancient frescos, are a very hard-favoured set. The chief devil
is very big; he is the hero of the scene, and is always marvellously
hideous, with a great mouth and long teeth, with which he is usually
gnawing two or three sinners, who, to judge from the expression of his
face, must be very nauseous articles of food. He stands up to his middle
in a red pool which is intended for fire, and wherein numerous little
sinners are disporting themselves like fish in all sorts of attitudes,
but without looking at all alarmed or unhappy. On one side of the
picture an angel is weighing a few in a pair of scales, and others are
capering about in company with some smaller devils, who evidently lead a
merry life of it. The souls of the blessed are seated in a row on a long
hard bench very high up in the picture; these are all old men with
beards; some are covered with hair, others richly clothed, anchorites
and princes being the only persons elevated to the bench. They have good
stout glories round their heads, which in rich churches are gilt, and in
the poorer ones are painted yellow, and look like large straw hats.
These personages are severe and grim of countenance, and look by no
means comfortable or at home; they each hold a large book, and give you
the idea that except for the honour of the thing they would be much
happier in company with the wicked little sinners and merry imps in the
crimson lake below. This picture of the Last Judgment is as much
conventional as the portraits of the saints; it is almost always the
same, and a correct representation of a part of it is to be seen in the
last print of the rare volume of the Monte Santo di Dio, which contains
the three earliest engravings known: it would almost appear that the
print must have been copied from one of these ancient Greek frescos. It
is difficult to conceive how any one, even in the dark ages, can have
been simple enough to look upon these quaint and absurd paintings with
feelings of religious awe; but so