of St. Andrew. The design and colouring of this picture afford an honourable testimony that the art of painting was cultivated by the Italians of the sixth century; but the most abject ideas must be entertained of their taste and learning, since the epistles of Gregory, his sermons, and his dialogues, are the work of a man who was second in erudition to none of his contemporaries;[1] [A.D. 573] his birth and abilities had raised him to the office of præfect of the city, [A.D. 575] and he enjoyed the merit of renouncing the pomp and vanities of this world. His ample patrimony was dedicated to the foundation of seven monasteries,[2] one in Rome,[3] and six in Sicily; and it was the wish of Gregory that he might be unknown in this life and glorious only in the next. Yet his devotion, and it might be sincere, pursued the path which would have been chosen by a crafty and ambitious statesman. The talents of Gregory, and the splendour which accompanied his retreat, rendered him dear and useful to the church; and implicit obedience has been always inculcated as the first duty of a monk. As soon as he had received the character of deacon, Gregory was sent to [A.D. 579] reside at the Byzantine court, the nuncio or minister of the apostolic see; and he boldly assumed, in the name of St. Peter, a tone of independent dignity, which would have been criminal and dangerous in the most illustrious layman of the empire. [c. A.D. 585]He returned to Rome with a just increase of reputation, and, after a short exercise of the monastic virtues, he was dragged from the cloister to the papal throne, by the unanimous voice of the clergy, the senate, and the people. He alone resisted,
- ↑ Disciplinis vero liberalibus, hoc est grammaticâ, rhetoricâ, dialecticâ, ita a puero est institutus, ut, quamvis eo tempore florerent adhuc Romæ studia literarum, tamen nulli in urbe ipsâ secundus putaretur. Paul. Diacon. in Vit. S. Gregor. c. 2.
- ↑ The Benedictines (Vit. Greg. 1. i. p. 205-208) labour to reduce the monasteries of Gregory within the rule of their own order; but, as the question is confessed to be doubtful, it is clear that these powerful monks are in the wrong. See Butler's Lives of the Saints, vol. iii. p. 145, a work of merit: the sense and learning belong to the author-his prejudices are those of his profession.
- ↑ Monasterium Gregorianum in ejusdem Beati Gregorii ædibus ad clivum Scauri prope ecclesiam SS. Johannis et Pauli in honorem St. Andreæ (John in Vit. Greg. 1. i. c. 6, Greg. 1. vii. epist. 13). This house and monastery were situate on the side of the Cælian hill which fronts the Palatine; they are now occupied by the Camaldoli; San Gregorio triumphs, and St. Andrew has retired to a small chapel. Nardini, Roma Antica, 1. iii. c. 6, p. 100. Descrizzione di Roma, tom. i. p. 442-446.
Opera, tom. iv. p. 312-326), who observes that some mosaics of the popes of the viith century are still preserved in the old churches of Rome (p. 321-323). The same walls which represented Gregory's family are now decorated with the martyrdom of St. Andrew, the noble contest of Dominichino and Guido. [The life of Gregory by John, compiled towards the end of the ninth cent. for Pope John VIII., consists largely of extracts from Gregory's letters.]
