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This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1901 Excerpt: ...of the Rebellion of Korah" has remained "unto the Jews a stumbling-block and unto the Greeks foolishness". This magnificent fresco, which always attracts our eye and excites our imagination, cannot be completely understood till we have, on the one hand, clearly grasped its significance as the Old Testament prototype of Perugino's "Delivery of the Keys to St. Peter" on the opposite wall, and, on the other hand, taken the trouble to search out the sources in the Old Testament from which the separate scenes, with their numerous figures, are derived. It is obvious that the subject of the delivery of the keys to St. Peter could not be omitted in his successor's court chapel; in fact, the whole cycle of New Testament pictures had to reach its climax in this solemn act, on which the historical position of the papacy is based. Perugino was fully aware, how honourable was the task entrusted to him; and it may be affirmed that he has quite surpassed himself in his grand and simple treatment of that sublime moment, in which Christ chose the noblest of His disciples to be the cornerstone of the church. What a clearness in the composition, what a monumental grandeur in the figures! How dignified, how noble is the Giver! What humilty, what faith are displayed by the receiver! No doubt, it was a mark of the Pope's special confidence, when he allotted this subject to the Umbrian master: but must not Botticelli, too, have given good proof of his ability, before Sixtus could permit him entirely to revolutionize the treatment of its Old Testament parallel? The threatening inscription on the Arch of Constantine: "Nemo sibi assumat honorem nisi vocatus a deo tanquam Aron1)," illustrates very clearly what is taking place at the altar, where the...