tice was familiar to Christians in the second century. "In all our travels and movements", says Tertullian (De cor. mil., iii), “in all our coming in and going out, in putting on our shoes, at the bath, at the table, in lighting our candles, in lying down, in sitting down, whatever employment occupieth us, we mark our foreheads with the sign of the cross". On the other hand this must soon have passed into a gesture of benediction, as many quotations from the Fathers in the fourth century would show. Thus St. Cyril of Jerusalem in his "Catecheses" (xiii, 36) remarks: “Let us then not be ashamed to confess the Crucified. Be the cross our seal, made with boldness by our fingers on our brow and in everything; over the bread we eat and the cups we drink, in our comings and in goings out; before our sleep, when we lie down and when we awake; when we are travelling, and when we are at rest". The course of development seems to have been the following. The cross was originally traced by Christians with the thumb or finger on their own foreheads. This practice is attested by numberless allusions in Patristic literature, and it was clearly associated in idea with certain references in Scripture, notably Ezech., ix, 4 (of the mark of the letter Tau); Ex., xvii, 9-14; and especially Apoc., vii, 3; ix, 4; xiv, 1. Hardly less early in date is the custom of marking a cross on objects already Tertullian speaks of the Christian woman "signing" her bed (cum lectulum tuum signas, “Ad uxor.", ii, 5) before retiring to rest -and we soon hear also of the sign of the cross being traced on the lips (Jerome, "Epitaph. Paule") and on the heart (Prudentius, "Cathem.", vi, 129). Not unnaturally if the object were more remote, the cross which was directed towards it had to be made in the air. Thus Epiphanius tells us (Adv. hær., xxx, 12) of a certain holy man Josephus, who imparted to a vessel of water the power of overthrowing magical incantations by "making over the vessel with his finger the seal of the cross" pronouncing the while a form of prayer. Again half a century later Sozomen, the church historian (VII, xxvi), describes how Bishop Donatus when attacked by a dragon "made the sign of the cross with his finger in the air and spat upon the monster". All this obviously leads up to the suggestion of a larger cross made over the whole body, and perhaps the earliest example which can be quoted comes to us from a Georgian source, possibly of the fourth or fifth century. In the life of St. Nino, a woman saint, honoured as the Apostle of Georgia, we are told in these terms of a miracle worked by her: "St. Nino began to pray and entreat God for a long time. Then she took her (wooden) cross and with it touched the Queen's head, her feet and her shoulders, making the sign of the cross and straightway she was cured" (Studia Biblica, V, 32).

It appears on the whole probable that the general introduction of our present larger cross (from brow to breast and from shoulder to shoulder) was an indirect result of the Monophysite controversy. The use of the thumb alone or the single forefinger, which so long as only a small cross was traced upon the forehead was almost inevitable, seems to have given way for symbolic reasons to the use of two fingers (the forefinger and middle finger, or thumb and forefinger) as typifying the two natures and two wills in Jesus Christ. But if two fingers were to be employed, the large cross, in which forehead, breast, etc. were merely touched, suggested itself as the only natural gesture. Indeed some large movement of the sort was required to make it perceptible that a man was using two fingers rather than one. At a somewhat later date, throughout the greater part of the East, three fingers, or rather the thumb and two fingers were displayed, while the ring and little finger were folded back upon the palm. These two were held to symbolize the two natures or wills in Christ, while the extended three denoted the three Persons of the Blessed Trinity. At the same

time these fingers were so held as to indicate the common abbreviation IX C ( ̓Ιησοῦς Χριστὸς Σωτήρ), the forefinger representing the Ì, the middle finger crossed with the thumb standing for the X and the bent middle finger serving to suggest the C. In Armenia, however, the sign of the cross made with two fingers is still retained to the present day. Much of this symbolism passed to the West, though at a later date. On the whole it seems probable that the ultimate prevalence of the larger cross is due to an instruction of Leo IV in the middle of the ninth century. "Sign the chalice and the host", he wrote, "with a right cross and not with circles or with a varying of the fingers, but with two fingers stretched out and the thumb hidden within them, by which the Trinity is symbolized. Take heed to make this sign rightly, for otherwise you can bless nothing" (see Georgi," Liturg. rom. pont.", III, 37). Although this, of course, primarily applies to the position of the hand in blessing with the sign of the cross; it seems to have been adapted popularly to the making of the sign of the cross upon oneself. Aelfric (about 1000) probably had it in mind when he tells his hearers in one of his sermons: "A man may wave about wonderfully with his hands without creating any blessing unless he make the sign of the cross. But if he do the fiend will soon be frightened on account of the victorious token. With three fingers one must bless himself for the Holy Trinity" (Thorpe, "The Homilies of the Anglo-Saxon Church", I, 462). Fifty years earlier than this AngloSaxon Christians were exhorted to "bless all their bodies seven times with Christ's rood token" (Blickling Hom., 47), which seems to assume this large cross. Bede in his letter to Bishop Egbert advises him to remind his flock "with what frequent diligence to employ upon themselves the sign of our Lord's cross", though here we can draw no inferences as to the kind of cross made. On the other hand when we meet in the so-called "Prayer Book of King Henry” (eleventh century) a direction in the morning prayers to mark with the holy Cross "the four sides of the body", there is good reason to suppose that the large sign with which we are now familiar is meant.

At this period the manner of making it in the West seems to have been identical with that followed at present in the East, i. e. only three fingers were used, and the hand travelled from the right shoulder to the left. The point, it must be confessed, is not entirely clear and Thalhofer (Liturgik, I, 633) inclines to the opinion that in the passages of Belethus (xxxix), Sicardus (III, iv), Innocent III (De myst. alt., II, xlvi), and Durandus (V, ii, 13), which are usually appealed to in proof of this, these authors have in mind the small cross made upon the forehead or external objects, in which the hand moves naturally from right to left, and not the big cross made from shoulder to shoulder. Still a rubric in a manuscript copy of the York Missal clearly requires the priest when signing himself with the paten to touch the left shoulder after the right. Moreover it is at least clear from many pictures and sculptures that in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries the Greek practice of extending only three fingers was adhered to by many Latin Christians. Thus the compiler of the Ancren Riwle (about 1200) directs his nuns at "Deus in adjutorium" to make a little cross first with the thumb and then "a large cross from above the forehead down to the breast with three fingers". However there can be little doubt that long before the close of the Middle Ages the large sign of the cross was more commonly made in the West with the open hand and that the bar of the cross was traced from left to right. In the "Myroure of our Ladye" (p. 80) the Bridgettine Nuns of Sion have a mystical reason given to them for the practice: "And then ye bless you with the sygne of the holy crosse, to chase away the fiend with all his deceytes. For, as Chrysostome sayth, wherever the

fiends see the signe of the crosse, they flye away, dreading it as a staffe that they are beaten withall. And in thys blessinge ye beginne with youre hande at the hedde downwarde, and then to the lefte side and byleve that our Lord Jesu Christe came down from the head, that is from the Father into erthe by his holy Incarnation, and from the erthe into the left syde, that is hell, by his bitter Passion, and from thence into his Father's righte syde by his glorious Ascension".

The manual act of tracing the cross with the hand or the thumb has at all periods been quite commonly, though not indispensably, accompanied by a form of words. The formula, however, has varied greatly. In the earlier ages we have evidence for such invocation as "The sign of Christ", "The seal of the living God", "In the name of Jesus"; etc. Later we meet "In the name of Jesus of Nazareth", "In the name of the Holy Trinity", "In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost", "Our help is in the name of the Lord", "O God come to my assistance". Members of the Orthodox Greek Church when blessing themselves with three fingers, as above explained, commonly use the invocation: "Holy God, Holy Strong One, Holy Immortal One, Have mercy on us which words, as is well known, have been retained in their Greek form by the Western Church in the Office for Good Friday.

It is unnecessary to insist upon the effects of grace and power attributed by the Church at all times to the use of the holy sign of the cross. From the earliest period it has been employed in all exorcisms and conjurations as a weapon against the spirits of darkness, and it takes its place not less consistently in the ritual of the sacraments and in every form of blessing and consecration. A famous difficulty is that suggested by the making of the sign of the cross repeatedly over the Host and Chalice after the words of institution have been spoken in the Mass. The true explanation is probably to be found in the fact that at the time these crosses were introduced (they vary too much in the early copies of the Canon to be of primitive institution), the clergy and faithful did not clearly ask themselves at what precise moment the transubstantiation of the elements was effected. They were satisfied to believe that it was the result of the whole of the consecratory prayer which we call the Canon, without determining the exact words which were operative; just as we are now content to know that the Precious Blood is consecrated by the whole form spoken over the chalice, without pausing to reflect whether all the words are necessary. Hence the signs of the cross continue till the end of the Canon and they may be regarded as mentally referred back to a consecration which is still conceived of as incomplete. The process is the reverse of that by which in the Greek Church at the "Great Entrance" the highest marks of honour are paid to the simple elements of bread and wine in anticipation of the consecration which they are to receive shortly afterwards.

THALHOFER, Liturgik, I (Freiburg, 1883), 629-43; WARREN in Dict. Christ. Antiq. s. v.; Church Quart. Rev., XXXV (1893), 315-41; BERESFORD-COOKE, The Sign of the Cross in the Western Liturgies (London, 1907); GRETSER, De Cruce Christi (Ingolstadt, 1598); STEVENS, The Cross in the Life and Literature of the AngloSaxons (New York, 1904).

HERBERT THURSTON.

Signorelli, LUCA, Italian painter, b. at Cortona, about 1441; d. there in 1523. He was a son of Egidio Signorelli, and his mother was a sister of the great-grandfather of Vasari, from whom we obtain almost all the important facts of his career. A pupil of Piero aella Francesca, he was largely influenced in his early days by Pollaiuolo, by whom it seems possible that he may have been instructed. His early youth was probably spent in Florence, and his style of painting is essentially Florentine. In 1479 we hear of him in residence at Cortona, taking high office in

the government of the town, and held in great consideration. In 1488, he was elected a burgher of Città di Castello, and three years later he was one of the judges of the designs for the façade of the cathedral at Florence. In 1497, he commenced his first great work at Monte Oliveto near Siena, where he painted eight frescoes; from thence he went to Orvieto, where he remained for five years, devoting himself to painting his magnificent frescoes of the Last Judgment, which are perhaps his most characteristic works. There he also painted his own portrait, with a few bold, clever strokes revealing a great deal of character. In 1508 he went as delegate from Cortona to Florence, and the same year passed on to Rome, where he executed work for Julius II in the Vatican, now unfortunately no longer in existence,

THE PAINTER HIMSELF WITH NICOLÒ FRANCESCHI

Duomo, Orvieto

Painting by Luca Signorelli on a Tile preserved in the Opera del having been swept away to make room for the paintings of Raphael and his scholars. Again in 1512 he left Cortona as a representative, bearing an address of congratulation, and went again to Rome, but obtained no new commissions, as other men had taken his place. He returned to Cortona, and there lived to the age of eighty-two, working almost up to the day of his death; he received the honour of a public funeral. Few men left a greater mark upon the art of the period than Signorelli. He is spoken of by Berenson as the "grandest illustrator of modern times", although "by no means the pleasantest". In another place the same critic speaks of his mastery over the nude and action, the depth of refinement of his emotions, and the splendour of his conception, remarking on the extreme power that Signorelli possessed of creating emotion and triumphing when representing movement. Art critics regard his "Pan" at Berlin as being one of the most wonderful works of the Renaissance and one of the most fascinating works of art that has come down to us in modern times; while his frescoes at Orvieto can only be described as magnificent, austere and strange no doubt, but marked by almost perfect genius, with full knowledge of the sense of form, and an aweinspiring majesty. Signorelli stands out as a master of anatomy and almost the only person who could render complicated movement and crowded action, and in this special department he has rarely been equalled and never excelled. He cannot be properly appreciated without a journey to Cortona, and a visit to Orvieto. His works are scattered through all the little townships of Umbria, and can especially be studied in Loretto, Arezzo, Volterra, Foiano, Arcevia, Monte Oliveto, and Borgo San Sepolcro, while other pictures by him are in the galleries of

VASARI, Vite dei Pittori (Florence, 1878).

GEORGE CHARLES WILLIAMSON.

Sigüenza, DIOCESE OF (SEGUNTINA, SEGONTIÆ), in Spain, suffragan of Toledo, bounded on the north by Soria, on the east by Saragossa and Teruel, on the south by Cuenca, and on the west by Guadalajara and Segovia. It lies in the civil provinces of Guadalajara, Segovia, Soria, and Saragossa. Its episcopal city has a population of 5000. The site of the ancient Segoncia, now called Villavieja, is at half a league distant from the present Sigüenza; Livy speaks of the town in treating of the wars of Cato with the Celtiberians. The diocese is very ancient: the fictitious chronicles pretended that St. Sacerdos of Limoges had been its bishop; but, apart from these fables, we find Protogenes as Bishop of Sigüenza at the Third Council of Toledo, and again the same Protogenes at Gundemar's council in 610; Ilsidclus assisted at the fourth, fifth, and sixth councils; Wideric, at the seventh to the tenth; Egica, at the eleventh; Ela, at the twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth; Gunderic, at the fifteenth and sixteenth. The succession of bishops continued under the Arab domination: after St. Eulogius, in 851, we find there Sisemund, a man of great sagacity. But later on Sigüenza was so completely depopulated that it does not appear among the cities conquered by Alfonso VI when he subdued all this region. The first bishop of Sigüenza, after it had been repeopled, was Bernardo, a native of Agen, who had been "capiscol" (caput schola-schoolmaster) of Toledo; he rebuilt the church and consecrated it on the Feast of St. Stephen, 1123, and placed in it a chapter of canons regular. He died Bishop-elect of Santiago. On 14 March, 1140, Alfonso VII granted the bishop the lordship of Sigüenza, which his successors retained until the fourteenth century.

After the long episcopate of Bernardo, Pedro succeeded, and was succeeded by Cerebruno, who began the building of the new cathedral. Jocelin, an Englishman, was present with the king at the conquest of Cuenca; he was succeeded by Arderico, who was transferred to Palencia; Martín de Hinojosa, the holy Abbot of Huerta, abdicated the see in 1192, and was succeeded by Rodrigo.

Sigüenza took a large part in the civil wars of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. The fortresspalace of the bishops was captured in 1297 by the partisans of the Infantes de la Cerda, and in 1355 it was the prison of the unhappy Blanche of Bourbon, consort of Pedro the Cruel. In 1465 Diego López of Madrid, having usurped the mitre, fortified himself there. Pedro González de Mendoza, the Cardinal of Spain, held this diocese together with that of Toledo, and enriched his relations by providing establishments for them at Sigüenza. His successor, Cardinal Bernardino de Carvajal, was dispossessed, as a schismatic by Julius II, for his share in the Conciliabulum of Pisa. After that García de Loaisa, Fernando Valdés, Pedro Pacheco, and others held this wealthy see. The castle-palace, modified in various ways, suffered much from the storms of civil war, and was restored by Joaquin Fernandez Cortina, who was bishop from 1848, and the restoration was continued by Bishop Gómez Salazar (1876–79).

The cathedral is a very massive Gothic edifice of ashlar stone. Its façade has three doors, with a railed court in front. At the sides rise two square towers, 164 feet high, with merlons topped with large balls; these towers are connected by a balustrade which crowns the façade, the work of Bishop Herrera in the eighteenth century. The interior is divided into three Gothic naves. The main choir begins in the transept with a Renaissance altar built by order of Bishop Mateo de Burgos. In the transept is the Chapel of St. Librada, patroness of the city, with a splendid

the expense of Bishop Fadrique de Portugal, who is buried there. What is now the Chapel of St. Catherine was dedicated to St. Thomas of Canterbury by the English Bishop Jocelin, who came with Queen Leonora. Cardinal Mendoza is interred in the main choir. Beyond the choir proper, which is situated in Señora la Mayor. Connected with the church is a the centre, there is the sumptuous altar of Nuestra beautiful Florid Gothic cloister, the work of Bernardino de Carvajal. The rich tabernacle, with its golden monstrance, was given by Cardinal Mendoza. The chapter house contains many excellent paintings. It is not known with any certainty at what period this end of the twelfth century. The image of Nuestra church was begun, though it appears to date from the Señora la Mayor, to whom the church is dedicated, dates from the end of the twelfth century; it was taken to the retro-choir in the fifteenth century, the Assumption being substituted for it on the high altar.

The Conciliar Seminary of San Bartolomé is due to

Bishop Bartolomé Santos de Risoba (1651). There is a smaller seminary, that of the Immaculate Conception, and a college. The College of San Antonio el Grande is a beautiful building. It was formerly a university, founded in 1476 by the wealthy Juan López de Medina, archdeacon of Almázán, but its prosperity was hindered by the foundation of the University of Alcalá; in 1770 it was reduced to a few chairs of philosophy and theology, and was suppressed in 1837. Worthy of mention are the ancient hermitage of Nuestra Señora, which, according to tradition, ladero, a small Gothic hermitage; the Churrigueresque had been originally the pro-cathedral; the Humilconvent of the Franciscans; the modern convent of the Ursulines, which was formerly the home of the choir boys; the hospital of the military barracks; and the Hieronymite college.

FLÓREZ, España Sagrada, VIII (3rd ed., Madrid); CUADRADO, Castilla la Nueva in España, sus monumentos y artes, II (Barcelona, 1886); DE LA FUENTE, Hist. de las universidades de 1910); RUDY, The Cathedrals of Northern Spain (Boston, 1906). España, II (Madrid, 1885); O'REILLY, Heroic Spain (New York, RAMÓN RUIZ AMADC.

UNIVERSITY OF SIGÜENZA.-The building of the College of San Antonio Portaceli of Sigüenza, Spain, which was later transformed into a university, was begun in 1476. Its founder was Don Juan López de Medina, archdeacon of Almazán, canon of Toledo, and vicar-general of Sigüenza. The Bull ratifying the foundation, approving the benefices, etc., was granted by Sixtus IV in 1483, and courses were opened in theology, canon law, and arts. By a Bull of Innocent VIII in 1489, the university was created, with powers to confer the degrees of bachelor, licentiate, and doctor; the college was thus transformed into a university. A Bull issued by Paul III extended the course in theology, and, during the rectorate of Maestro Velosillo, the chairs of physics were created, while a Bull of Julius II established the faculties of law and of medicine. Among the professors were Pedro Ciruelo, who enhanced the prestige of the university as a centre of learning; Don Francisco Delgado, Bishop of Lugo, who was rector, and under whom the university reached its period of greatest splendour; Don Fernando Velosillo, rector and professor, was sent by Philip II to the Council of Trent. There were also present at that council, as theologians, Don Antonio Torres, first Bishop of the Canary Islands, and Señor Torro, both professors of this university; Don Pedro Guerrero, Archbishop of Granada; the famous Cuesta; Tricio and Francisco Alvarez, Bishop of Sigüenza. It is thus evident that the influence of the University of Sigüenza in Church and State was considerable in the last years of the fifteenth century and the first years of the sixteenth; thereafter it fell into decay. It was suppressed in 1837.

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