Note 582 — CANTO XXI.

The Sacred Countenance: An image in cedar wood, of Byzantine workmanship, still preserved and venerated in the cathedral of Lucca. According to the legend, it was carved from memory by Nicodemus, and after being a long time lost was found again in the eighth century by an Italian bishop travelling in Palestine. He brought it to the coast at Joppa, where it was received by a vessel without sail or oar, which, with its sacred freight, floated westwards and was next seen at the port of Luna. All efforts to approach the bark were vain, till the Bishop of Lucca descended to the seashore, and to him the vessel resigned itself and suffered him to take the image into his keeping. ‘Believe what you like of all this,’ says Benvenuto; ‘it is no article of faith.’—The sinner has come to the surface, bent as if in an attitude of prayer, when he is met by this taunt.