“The Virgin and Child with Saints Jerome and Dominic”, Filippino Lippi, c.1485, National Gallery London (room 60).
For many years we had an oil painting of St Dominic in our London Priory. It was very dark, but then we had it cleaned. As the layers of dust and varnish were removed, a knife at the saint’s waist became visible and I realised that it must be a copy of the St Dominic in Lippi’s painting (see above) because as far as I know Lippi’s is the only image of St Dominic with a knife. Behind St Dominic there is a building by the roadside with people entering and leaving. You can just see a statue of a friar or monk on top and a bell surmounted by a cross. This painting was made as an altarpiece for the Church of San Pancrazio in Florence, which was where the Dominican friars first stayed when they came to Florence in 1216. They were lodged in a what was a kind of hospital which belonged to the Church of San Pancrazio. The building was associated with St Dominic because it was known that he had given the habit to a friar there. After a few years, the friars were given the Church of Santa Maria Novella and this included an infirmary within its cloisters. The friars continued the established practice of herbal medicine. If you look more carefully St Dominic’s “knife” you will see that. in fact it is a set of three knife-like instruments attached to his belt by a brass chain. Most probably these are the instruments of a herbalist or apothecary. This Saturday, we celebrate the Translation of Our Holy Father St Dominic. St Dominic had asked to be buried under the floor which the brethren crossed as they went to pray. Some decades later they decided to expand the church and give St Dominic a more elaborate tomb. When they opened his coffin there was a beautiful smell, a sign for them of his sanctity. It seems to me that so many of his sons and daughters have recreated the odour of Dominic’s holiness what they have said and done. These friars in Florence did this by learning the art of herbal medicine. This was why St Dominic is shown with their instruments. By the way, when our copy of Lippi’s St Dominic was cleaned, we were a wee bit disappointed, because it was still very dark and brown. The copyist had faithfully painted what she saw in the 1930’s, but Lippi’s now beautiful painting was not cleaned until 1959. St Dominic pray for us!
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The Catholic Chaplaincy is also a parish of the Archdiocese of St Andrews and Edinburgh (the Parish of St Albert the Great) and all Catholic students and staff are automatically members of this parish.
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