Not altogether unconnected and certainly deserving of a brief consideration are those cases of irradiation when the bodies or the garments, or perhaps the rooms of great saints and mystics became luminous, emitting rays of light, a fact which although certainly it did not originate the introduction of the nimbus or aureola into art may probably have influenced painting to a very large extent. It is a great mistake to say with Gerard Gietmann[62] that all such symbols are suggested by natural phenomena, scientifically accounted for in text books on physics. Although the nimbus was early in use in the monuments of Hellenic and Roman art this had little, if any, influence in the Middle Ages and in earlier Christian times. For as Durandus tells us, and correctly, it was to passages in the Scriptures that reference was made for authority to depict the halo as signifying holiness and dignity.[63] “Sic omnes sancti pinguntur coronati, quasi dicerunt. Filiae Hierusalem, uenite et uidete martyres cum coronis quibus coronauit eas Dominus. Et in Libro Sapientiae: Iusti accipient regnum decoris et diadema speciei de manu Domini. Corona autem huisusmodi depingitur in forma scuti rotundi, quia sancti Dei protectione diuina fruuntur unde cantant gratulabundi: Domine ut scuto bonae uoluntatis tuae coronasti nos” (For thus are all the Saints depicted, crowned, as if they were to say: “O daughters of Jerusalem, come ye and see the Martyrs with the crowns with which their Lord crowned them.”[64] And in the Book of Wisdom: “The Just shall receive a kingdom of glory and a crown of beauty at the hands of the Lord.”[65] Now a crown of this kind is depicted in the form of a round buckler, because they enjoy the heavenly protection of God, wherefore they sing in perfect happiness: “O Lord thou hast crowned us as with the shield of thy good-will.”) It may be remarked that Pope Gregory the Great (about 600) allowed himself to be painted with a square nimbus, and Johannes Diaconus[66] tells us that this was the sign for a living person and not a crown. Other examples of this ornamentation have come down to us from the following centuries and they show that even children were sometimes represented with this square nimbus.
It were impertinent to trace the development of the nimbus halo, glory, and aureola in art, but this cannot fail to have been affected by the irradiation of the mystics and ecstaticas.
