FOUR
1G3
FOUR
could be more sweetly rustic than his "Sainte Mar-
guerite". In this Fouquet immediately foreshadows orot. His "Mount of Olives" and his "Nativity" are two of the most beautiful nocturnal scenes ever painted. The Alps in his "Grandes Chroniques" are perhaps the earliest example of mountain landscape.
Fouquet's influence has been considerable. He had numerous pupils, the best-known of whom are his two sons (one of them has a "Calvary" in the church of Loches) and Jean t'olombe, the brother of the sculp- tor, while the greatest was Jehan Bourdichon, who m 1507 painted the famous "Hours" of Anne of Brit- tany. But none of these artists comes near to the master in merit. Fouquet remains the sole tj'pe of a French Renaissance which died out with his pupils. After 1500 Italy took a decided lead over the rest of Europe, and France was unable to contest her pres- tige. For more than two centuries she lost even the memory of her first original master. It is only in modern times that he has been drawn from obscurity and restored to his rank among the most charming men of genius of the early Renaissance.
CuRMER, (Euvres de Jean Foiiguet (Paris, 1S6.5) (chromos); BoucHOT, Jean Fouquet io Gazette des Beaux-Arts (1890), II, 273; Leprieur, Jean Fouquet in Revue de V Art (18971, I. 2.5; Lafenestre, Jean Fouquet in Revue da Deux Mondes (1.5 Jan., 1902): FriedlXnder, Die Votiftafel des Elienne Chevalier von Fouquet in Jahrhucher of the Museum of Berlin (1897), 206; Gruver, Lfs Quaronte Fouquet (of Chantilly), (Paris, 19001; Michel, Les Miniatures de Fouquet h Chantilly in Gazelle des Beaux-Arts (1897). I. 214; Dorrieu, L' Exposition des Primilifs franfais in Revue de VArl (1904), I, 82; Fry in Burlinfiton Maoa- zine (19041, I, 279; Bouchot, Delisle, etc.. Exposition des Primilifs iran^ais au Louvre (Paris, 1904); Durrieu, Le Livre des Antiquites Judatques (Paris, 1908).
Louis Gillet.
Four Crowned Martyrs. — The old guide-books to the tombs of the Roman martyrs make mention, in connexion with the catacomb of Sts. Peter and Marcel- linus on the Via Labieana, of the Four Crowned Mar- tyrs {Quatuor Coronati), at who.se grave the pilgrims were wont to worship (De Rossi, Roma sotterranea, I, 178-79). One of these itineraries, the "Epitome libri de locis sanctorum martyrum", adds the names of the four martyrs — in reality five — : "IV Coronati, id est Claudius, Nicostratus, Simpronianus, Castorius, Simplicius". These are the names of five martjTs, sculptors in the quarries of Pannonia (now a part of Austria-Hungary, south-west of the Danube), who gave up their lives for their Faith in the reign of Dio- cletian. The .\cts of these martyrs, written by a rev- enue officer named Porphyrins probably in the fourth century, relates of the five sculptors that, although they raised no objections to executing such profane images as Victoria, Cupid, and the Chariot of the Sun, they refused to make a statue of jEsculapius for a heathen temple. For this they were condemned to death as Christians. They were put into leaden caskets and drowned in the River Save. This happened towards the end of 305. The foregoing account of the martyr- dom of the five sculptors of Pannonia is substantially authentic; but later on a legend sprang up at Rome concerning the Quatuor Coronati, according to which four Christian soldiers {cornicularli) suffered martyr- dom at Rome during the reign of Diocletian, two years after the death of the five sculptors. Their offence consisted in refusing to offer sacrifice to the image of yEsculapius. The bodies of the martjTS were interred by St. Sebastian and Pope Melchiades at the third milestone on the Via Labieana, in a sandpit where rested the remains of others who had perished for the Faith. Since the names of the four martyred soldiers could not be authentically established. Pope Melchi- ades commanded that, the date of their death (8 No- vember) being the same as that of the Pannonian sculptors, their anniversary should be celebrated on that day, under the names of Sts. Claudius, Nicostra- tus, Symphorianus, Castor, and Simplicius. This re- port has no historic foundation. It is merely a tenta-
tive explanation of the name Quatuor Coronal!, a name
given to a group of really authenticated martyrs who
were buried and venerated in the catacomb of Sts.
Peter and Marcellinus, the real origin of which, how-
ever, is not known. They were classified with the
five mart jTs of Pannonia in a purely external relation-
ship. Numerous manuscripts on the legend as well as
the Roman Martyrology give the names of the Four
Crowned Martyrs, supposed to have been revealed at a
later date, as Secundus, Severianus, Carpoforus, and
yictorinus. But these four martyrs were not buried
in Rome, but in the catacomb of Albano; their feast
■was celeljrated on 7 August, under which date it is
cited in the Roman Calendar of Feasts of 354. These
martyrs of Albano have no connexion with the Roman
martyrs described above. Of the Four Crowned Mar-
tyrs we know only that they suffered death for the
Faith and the place where they were buried. They
evidently were held in great veneration at Rome, since
in the fourth or fifth centm-y a basilica was erected and
dedicated to them on the Cielian Hill, probably in the
neighbourhood of the spot where tradition located
their execution. This became one of the titular
churches of Rome, was restored several times, and
still stands. It is first mentioned among the signa-
tures of a Roman council in 595. PopeLeo IV or-
dered the relics removed, about 850, from the Via
Labieana to tlie church dedicated to their memory,
together with the relics of the five Pannonian martyrs,
which had been brought to Rome at some period now
unknown. Both groups of martyrs are commemor-
ated on 8 November.
MoMBRiTius, Sanctuarium, I, 162-65; Wattenbach in Sifz- ungsberichte der k, k. Akademie der Wiss. in Wien, X (1853), 118 sqq.; Idem in Bl'Dinger, Untersuchungen zur romischen Kaiser- gesch.. Ill (Leipzig, 1870), 324 sqq.; Idem, Ueber die Legends der hi. "Vier Gekrontcn" in Sitzungsberichte der k, preuss. Akad. der Wiss. zu Berlin: Phil.-hi.-it. /v7n.«e (1896), 1292-1302; Meyer. l',l„r <li,' /'„,,,,i'o ks. thiol, i,,r c„r,-mniorum in Forschun- gen :■> ■ '. ', \\ 111 l^:s :7'.l sqq.; (cf. Neufs
Arch, > \ , \ II, 126); Idem, t/efter
die]:- ' I., !i ISS61: De Rossi, /
santi (J ■ I ' ' /-' !'"'■ ' '; ■ '/ ■ .' in Hull, diarcheol.
crist. (ISTDj, 4.5-110; Petschemcj, /«- /. ,. ,' Wiirdigung
der Passio ss. Quatuor Coronatorum iri .' '//,- der k. k.
Akademie der Wiss. in Wien, XCVII i l"-ii ,(,! ,, ; .\llard, Histoire des persecutions (Paris, 1S92', I\ ' ;ii .i ; \', 24 sqq.; DuFouRCQ, Les Gesta martyrum romains (Paris, 1900). 1.53-60. J. P. KiRSCH.
Fourier, Peter. See Peter Fourier, S.-vint.
Four Masters, Annals of the, the most extensive of all the compilations of the ancient annals of Ireland. They commence, nominally at least, at .v. M. 2242 and are continued down to A. D. 1616. The entries which are bare and meagre during the earlier period grow less so as the "Annals" progress, and towards the end they become in parts almost like a history in their diffuseness. The principal compiler of these "An- nals" was Michael O'Clery, a native of Donegal, who had been by profession a trained antiquary and poet, but who afterwards joined the Franciscan Order, and went to their Irish house in Louvain. Thence he was sent back to Ireland by his famous compatriot, Father John Colgan, to collect the lives of Irish saints. Many of these fives which he copied upon that visit, out of the old vellum books of Ireland, are now in the Bur- gundian Library at Brussels. Afterwards, under the patronage of Fergal O'Gara, Lord of Moy Gara and Coolavin, in the County Sligo, he conceived the pious idea of collecting and redacting all the ancient vellum books of annals which he could find throughout Ire- land, and of combining them into one continuous whole. "I thought", says O'Clery, in his dedication to O'Gara, " that I couhl get the assistance of the chroniclers for whom I had most esteem, in writing a book of annals in which these matters might be put on record, for that should the WTiting of them be ne- glected at present, they would not again be found to be put on record even to the end of the world. All the best and most copious books of annals that I could
