cious a treasure, nor that, having secured it, he should have valued it above all his previous acquisitions.

At the cardinal's death the Breviary became the property of Marino Grimani, Patriarch of Aquila, during his life, though he was powerless to alienate it from the republic of Venice, to which it was to descend at his death. But on the death of Cardinal Marino, which occurred suddenly at Orvieto in 1546, the precious manuscript was inadvertently sold with the other rich possessions of the prelate, and would have been lost had not Giovanni Grimani, who had succeeded him in the Patriarchate of Aquila, taken infinite pains to trace it and buy it back.

Having expended so much time, money, and labor in finding the book, the venerable prelate felt a natural desire to keep it during his lifetime, and obtained the required permission from the Senate. A few days before his death, in 1593, Giovanni Grimani, fearing the manuscript might again be lost, sent for his friend Marc Antonio Barbaro, and giving him the Breviary, prayed him to render it to the Doge before the assembled Senate.

He bequeathed to the republic, among other rich gifts, an ebony cab

A short time after, for its greater safety, it was deposited in the Treasury. But in 1797 Jacopo Morelli, librarian of San Marco, obtained, after three months' uninterrupted efforts, a decree from the government, by which the Breviary was transferred to the library to which it belonged, and where it still remains.

inet enriched with gems and cameos, and adorned with columns of alabaster and antique figures in bronze. In this cabinet the Breviary was placed, and deposited in the library of San Marco.

First, however, it was committed to the charge of Alessandro Vittoria, for the decoration of its exterior, and was returned by him sumptuously bound in crimson velvet, with heavy ornaments of silver gilt, having on one side a medallion bearing the head of Cardinal Grimani, and on the other one bearing that of his father, the Doge Antonio.

ST. MARTHA.

Dr.

Nothing is certainly known with regard to its origin, and conjecture drawn from internal evidence supplies the place of any accurate information on the subject. Waagen considers it an indisputable fact that it was executed for Mary of Burgundy, while the Italian Zanotto thinks all internal evidence points clearly to Pope Sixtus IV. as the original planner of the work. However that may be, both the distinguished personages to whom the ownership is attributed died before its completion, the Breviary having certainly been written in or after the year 1484.

The Breviary consists of 831 leaves of very fine white parchment, on which are written the Psalms, the Lessons, the Rubric, the Offices to the Virgin and the Saints, the Service for the Dead, etc. The margin of each one of these leaves is enriched by exquisite illuminations of every variety-arabesques of gold and silver and

various colors, amidst which are placed flowers and fruits of all kinds; every sort of creature that creeps on land, or flies in the air, or swims in the sea; shell-fish, insects, birds, and beasts; fairies, genii, and fabulous monsters; charming little landscapes; representations of men and costumes of various nations; scenes of life in town and country, in palace and cottage-all on a minute scale, and all painted in that delicate pointillé style so exquisite and so marvellous in its results. It is difficult not to linger over each one, so charming are they, and so well do they repay the closest examination. Here we are brought suddenly into the interior of a jeweller's shop, where a woman, seated, is weighing out gold; there a lovely young girl is leaning over a balcony; a gardener is plucking fruit from his tree; a pair of lovers are sailing on a lake on which swans are swimming; a hermit is praying in the wilderness to an image of the Virgin; an old peasant woman is hobbling painfully along on crutches; a road winds through a mountainous country. with a glimpse of sea in the distance, an old peasant woman is approaching, bearing on her head a wicker cage of chick

ens, under one arm

The Breviary opens with a representation of life in the month of January, giving the interior of a rich man's house. The master of the house is seated at the dinner table, under a light green canopy, his major-domo and his numerous servants in obsequious attendance upon his slightest wish. He wears a furred robe, and a cap edged with fur, with a jewel in front. His manners have evidently not kept pace with the sumptuousness of his appointments, for he is on the point of conveying a bit of the turkey on his plate to his mouth with his fingers. His table is furnished with gold plate, with goblets of gold and crystal, and everything about him indicates the lord of the manor or of the castle, accustomed to splendor and to command. An attendant in the foreground is cutting a piece of bread from a loaf to give to an eagerly expectant dog; another is playing with a falcon on his wrist. In the background a servant is bringing in another dish for his master's table.

April gives us a marriage procession, in which a man of mature age is taking home his young bride. They are followed by a suite of bridemaids and "best men," and are met on the way by a minstrel or jester in party-colored garments, who is entertaining them with a wedding song, given with many gestures and grimaces. The bride and her maidens wear the queer horned head-dresses fashionable in the fifteenth century. The trees are just tossing out their first feathery blossoms, and flowers dot the grass of the meadows through which the bridal procession passes. In the border a shepherd is leading forth his flock of sheep and goats to browse on the hills.

In September the heat of summer has reached its climax, and has ripened the purple and amber grapes, and the rich mellow light is shining over the vineyards belonging to some great lord, as the sturdy peasants and the white-capped paysannes are painfully stooping to gather the rich clusters. A charrette, loaded with its juicy freight, is slowly moving off, drawn by red and white oxen. But the same hot sun that has ripened the golden and purple fruit in the vineyards, has sent the

veins of the master, who, in accordance with the laws of the learned physicians of his time, feels it as much his duty to lose a little of the abounding tide in the month of September as it is to gather his rich harvest into his barns and store-houses. So we are given a charming glimpse of the interior of a pharmacy, whither he has come to give himself into the hands of his apothecary, who has bound up his arm, and is about to apply the lancet. Just outside the apothecary's door a girl is milking a goat, perhaps that the master's cure may be completed by the warm draught, as it is another of his doctor's maxims that goat's milk is wholesome in the month of September.

After the calendar come the offices of the Church. As it would be neither possible nor desirable to describe in detail all the miniatures, only a few will be selected which are especially worthy of mention.

In Advent a miniature attributed to Memling represents David seeing the Virgin and Child in a vision "coming as in the clouds of heaven." The king is dressed with great richness in a long robe of crimson velvet, heavily embroidered with gold, edged with ermine, and with a collar of the same fur, over which is a necklace of gold. He is kneeling and adoring the apparition, and, swinging his censer, he sends up a song of praise. Bathsheba, by his side, in a costume that Mary of Burgundy might have worn, lifts her lovely face with a rapt expression of devotion, and joins in the psalm of the king. One of her maidens stands behind her, with downcast eyes, and two men of the court, with faces full of character, stand near, but turned away from the heavenly vision. At the left two men-at-arms are gazing upward with stupid wonder.

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Among the pictures particularly worthy of note may be mentioned Memling's 'Queen of Sheba Presenting her Offerings to Solomon," full of grace and delicate beauty, "The Circumcision," "Joseph Receiving his Brethren," "The Angel Delivering St. Peter from Prison, The Trinity," and "The Immaculate Concep tion of the Virgin"-the last two exceedingly fine.

Many of these pictures are surrounded by borders, on which the artist has exhausted his ingenuity in portraying with a wonderful delicacy and skill flowers,

On a ground of rose-color or pale blue, lilies, wild roses, columbines, sweet-peas, pansies, daisies, honeysuckles, and many other blossoms are dropped about with a dainty grace, as if just broken from their stems and thrown carelessly down, or are fastened to the paper with pins carefully

hued butterflies are hovering, caterpillars and measuring-worms wind in and out among them, bright-plumaged birds are pecking at the flowers' hearts, or snails slowly drag themselves along.

For the full appreciation of these beauties it is necessary to have before the eyes the brilliancy and yet wonderful softness