A LEARNED DOMINICAN.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume II, Issue 73, 19 September 1874, Page 14

A LEARNED DOMINICAN.

.BATHEE vikcenzo Mjlbchese, whose appointment as Master of Theology I notified some time since, haa.jnst written a small work on St Thomas. This was intended to form one of a series of essays com" raemorative of the Asgelic Doctor's sixth centenary, but the circumstances of the present time in Italy interfered with the publication or this and other essays in one or more volumes, as was originally antici pated. The essay of Father Maichese has hitherto been published by itself. It treats of St Thomas with reference to art, and shows howIns influence gave birth to the revival of Christian art and poetry— the revival of the 13th and -the 14th centuries. The darkness of barbarism that covered Europe after the decline of the Roman Empire, and which had set in even before that event, was dissipated by the li<rht which radiated from the works of St. Thomas. A high idea and a noble purpose began to be -exhibited in architecture, in sculpture, in painting and in poetry. The idea of the beautiful became the guide of the earlier artists of the 14th century ; and the Gothic cathedrals, such asCologne, Strasburg, Basle, Fribourg, etc., which are still the admiration of the world, owe their design to the master of St. Thomas Albertus Magnus. The fathers of painting— Cimabue, Giotto, Oderigo de Gubbis Buffalinacco, and the artists of the Sianese scuool down to Lucca Signorelli and Michael Angelo— all owe their inspirations to St Thomas. Fra Angelico, the artist of the Dominican order, is the painter who has most keenly comprehended and most ably expressed the highest religious thought. Of his works it hag been said that the man who painted such angels must have seen them in heaven. To tlie same source sculpture owes its obligations, from Nicolo and' Giovanni, Pisani, down to Michael Angelo, Raphael in painting and Dante in poetry, hare conveyed in different modes the thoughtsengendered by the study of St. Thomas. Thus the arts make a. crown around the works of the Angelic Doctor. To tell how luminously all this is shown, how clearly explained, how ably traced it would be necessary to present before the reader the whole work' of Father Marchese. The style is admirable, and the amount of learning necessary to illustrate the theme varied and extensive. And this is one of the men banished from the Minerva to make place lor a government clerk, whose highest ' aim is to do' the least possible for his pay, and to smoke a cigar with the air of a lord. There are hundreds of such priests to-day, cast out of thair convents* in Home, and many of them suffering tho pangs of hunger, suffering the loss of their beloved libraries, and lodging in mean residences, poor and silont. — Correspondent ot c Boslod Pilot.' -