We
are chiefly led to this conclusion by the chariot in which Beatrice
drives, and which in the miraculous forest of the vision would have
been unnecessary or rather out of place. It is possible, on the other
hand, that Dante looked on the chariot as a symbol of victory and
triumph, and that his poem rather served to give rise to these
processions, the form of which was borrowed from the triumph of the
Roman Emperors. However this may be, poetry and theology continued to
make free use of the symbol. Savonarola in his 'Triumph of the Cross'
represents Christ on a Chariot of Victory, above his head the shining
sphere of the Trinity, in his left hand the Cross, in his right the Old
and New Testaments; below him the Virgin Mary; on both sides the
Martyrs and Doctors of the Church with open books; behind him all the
multitude of the saved; and in the distance the countless host of his
enemies--emperors, princes, philosophers, heretics--all vanquished,
their idols broken, and their books burned. A great picture of Titian,
which is known only as a woodcut, has a good deal in common with this
description. The ninth and tenth of Sabellico's thirteen Elegies on the
Mother of God contain a minute account of her triumph, richly adorned
with allegories, and especially interesting from that matter-of-fact
air which also characterizes the realistic painting of the fifteenth
century.
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