Note 118 — SAINT CECILIA. HER INFLUENCE ON LITERATURE AND THE ARTS.

So in Raphael's famous picture, the pearl of the gallery at Bologna; while its exacted symbolism and heavenly sentiment tempt us to class it among the masterpieces of the mystic school, it must be confessed that St. Magdalen has a very earthly look. We know, alas, how this noble form has been profaned by some artists; the victim, even after her penitence, of the sensual tastes of the Renaissance, she remained a courtesan in the eyes of Titian and Correggio; and the pagans of the sixteenth century have turned our saint into a nymph lying in a grotto, or standing veiled only by the masses of her long hair.