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 CORNELIUS

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CORNELIUS

him from Cornelius were known to Eusebius, who gives extracts from one of them (Hist. Eccl., VI, xliii), in which the pope details the faults in Nova- tian's election and conduct with considerable bitter- ness. We incidentally learn that in the Roman Church there were forty-six priests, seven deacons, seven subdeacons, forty-two acolytes, fifty-two os- tiarii, and over one thousand five hundred widows and persons in distress. From this Burnet estimated the number of Christians in Rome at fifty tliousand, so also Gibbon; but Benson and Harnack think this figure possibly too large. Pope Fabian had made seven regions; it appears that each had one deacon, one subdeacon and six acolytes. Of the letters of Cornelius to Cyprian two have come dowTi to us, together with nine from Cj^irian to the pope. Mgr. Mercati has sho«ii that iu the true text the letters of Cornelius are in the colloquial "\'ulgar Latin" of the day, and not in the more classical style affected by the ex-orator Cyprian and the learned pliilosopher >}ovatian. Cornelius sanctioned the milder measures proposed by St. Cyprian and accepted by his Car- thaginian council of 251 for the restoration to com- munion, after varying terms of penance, of those who had fallen during the Decian persecution (see Cyprian).

At the beginning of 253 a new persecution sud- denly broke out. Cornelius was exiled to Centum- celte (Ci\-ita Veccliia). There were no defections among the Roman Christians, all were confessors. The pope "led his bretliren in confession", writes (3yprian (Ep. be, ad Corn.), with a manifest reference to the confession of St. Peter. "With one heart and one voice the whole Roman Church confessed. Then was seen, dearest Brother, that faith which the blessed Apostle praised in you (Rom., i, 8); even then he foresaw m spirit your glorious fortitude and firm strength." In June Cornelius died a martyr, as St. Cyprian repeatedly calls liim. The Liberian cata- logue has ibi cum glorid dormicionem accepit, and tliis may mean that lie died of the rigours of his banishment, though later accounts say that he was beheaded. St. Jerome says that Cornelius and Cyp- rian suffered on the same day in different years, and his careless statement has been generally followed. The feast of St. Cyprian was in fact kept at Rome at the tomb of CorneUus, for the fourth century " Depositio Martirum" has " XVIII kl octob Cypriani Africfe Romse celebratur in Callisti". St. Cornelius was not buried in the chapel of the popes, but in an adjoining catacomb, perhaps that of a branch of the noble Comelii. His inscription is in Latin: Corne- lius* MARTYR* whereas those of Fabian and Lucius are in Greek (Northcote and Brownlow, "Roma sotteranea", I, vi). His feast is kept with that of St. Cyprian on 14 September, possibly the day of his translation from Centumcellae to the catacombs.

The two Latin letters will be found in all editions of Cyprian. A better text is in Mercati, D'alcuni nuovi sussuli per la critica del teslo di S. Cipriano (Rome. 1899). They will be found with the fragments in Coustant, Epp. Rom. Pontt. and in Routh, Reliquice Sacra. There is a spurious letter to St. Cyprian in the appendix to his works, another to Lupicinus of Vienne. and two more were forged by Pseudo-Isidore. A.\\ these will be found in the collections of councils and in Migne. The pseudo- Cyprianic Ad Novatianum is attributed to Cornelius by Nelke, Die Chronol. der Co}respondenz Cypriarui (Thorn, 1902); but it is by an unknown contemporary. On Cornelius .see Tii.lemont. Ill; AclaSS. 14 Sept.; Benson. Cyprian (London, 1897). The Acts of St. Cornelius are valueless. JoHN Chapman.

Cornelius, Peter, later when ennobled, von Cor- nelius, b. .it Dusseldorf, 23 September, 1783; d. at Berlin, G March, 1867. In 1811 he went to Rome, where he stayed until 1819. Returning home he be- came director of tlic Academy of Fine Arts at Dussel- dorf; while at Diisscldorf he also executed works on a large scale for tlic Crown-Prince of Bavaria, later Louis I. In 1825 Cornelius was appointed director of the Academy at Munich, and for a long time

Louis I of Bavaria was his liberal patron. After fif- teen years, however, misunderstandings and the envy of detractors obliged Cornelius to accept the position offered him by Frederick IV of Prussia as director of the Academy of Fine Arts at Berlin, which office he retained until his death. Cornelius early developed poetic imagination, great energy, courage for large undertakings, ami technical skill. He felt himself called to accomplish great tasks, and soon occupied himself with a large theme, the- illus- tration of Goethe's "Faust". The publication of the first six sheets furnished Cornelius with the means for his first visit to Rome. Here he joined the Italian colony of German artists, the so-called "Naz- arene painters ' ', and was power- fully stimulated both by working with them and by their enthusiasm for a new school gf German-Chris- tian art. This in- tercourse, how- ever, entailed no loss of his inde- pendence and na- tive force. He drew the remain- ing six pictures for "Faust", illus- trated the" Romeo

and Juliet" of Shakespeare, whose works just at tliLs period were becoming better known in Germany, and filled by the rising national spirit of his country made drawings for the old German epic, the "Niebel- ungenlied".

While at Rome his longing to express great con- ceptions in fresco-painting on a large scale had its first opportunity of fulfilment. The Prussian am- bassador, Bartholdy, gave a commission to the Ger- man painters for the decoration of his house on Monte Pincio with frescoes from the Old-Testament story of Joseph; through Bartholdy's influence the same painters received an order from the Marchess Massimi to paint frescoes from the works of Ariosto, Tasso, and Dante in his villa near the Lateran. Some of these frescoes liave a deservedly high repu- tation, as: " Jo.seph before Pharao", "Joseph and his Brethren", "Dante before Peter, James, and John", as well as other groups in the cartoons for scenes in Paradise. Three of the Dante cartoons were com- pleted, but one of them has since vanished. The superiority of Cornelius to the entire circle of his artist-friends, Overbeck included, became so clear to men like Niebuhr and Prince Louis of Bavaria that the two positions above-mentioned, at Dtisseldorf and Munich, were offered him. No longer hampered by material cares or artistic limitations, Cornelius I had now full opjjortunity and a fine field for the carrying out of his ideals. A commanding place in the artistic world of his own coimtry was time assured him, and the attainment of his hop( for the development of art on a heroic scale in Ger- many seemed near. The first ten years of his life in Dusseldorf and Munich as a professor and working! artist formed a period of great renown and success

As director Cornelius took up with vigour the re- I organization of the art academies of Municli andi' Dusseldorf, but his influence in the latter city w; not permanent. After he had made Munich his pei^j manent residence and most of his friends had fol- lowed him there, the academy at Diisscldorf, imdeii the direction of Schadow, pursued other aims, one oil the main differences being that the scheme of de-