Canossa

a mountain castle of the Apennine region, one-third of the way from Bologna to Genoa. It is about twelve miles southwest of the railroad station of Reggio. In 1077 it was the temporary residence of Pope Gregory VII. He required Emperor Henry IV of Germany with whom he had a serious quarrel to come to Canossa for absolution. Henry, it is said, made supplication at the gate for three days, bareheaded and barefooted, before the pope consented even to see him. To go to Canossa is, therefore, a proverbial expression for abject surrender, humiliation. The following extracts are taken from Gregory's account of Henry's penance at Canossa:

Bishop Gregory, servant of the servants of God, to all the Archbishops, Bishops, Dukes, Counts, and other princes of the realm of the Germans, defenders of the Christian faith, greeting and apostolic benediction:

Inasmuch as for the love of justice ye have assumed common cause and danger with us in the stress of this Christian warfare, we have be-thought us to relate to you, beloved, in sincere affection, how the king, humbled to penance, has obtained the pardon of absolution, and how the whole matter has progressed since his entry into Italy up to the present day. . . .

When, after many delays and after much consultation, we had, through all the envoys who passed between us, severely reprimanded him for his offenses, he at length came of his own accord, accompanied by a few followers, with no hostility or arrogance in his bearing, to the town of Canossa, where we were tarrying. And there, laying aside all the trappings of royalty, he stood in wretchedness, barefooted and clad in woolen, for three days before the gate of the castle, and implored with profuse weeping the aid and consolation of the apostolic mercy, until he had moved all who saw or heard of it to such pity and depth of compassion that they interceded for him with many prayers and tears and wondered at the unaccustomed hardness of our heart; some even protested that we were displaying not the seriousness of the apostolic displeasure but the cruelty of tyrannical ferocity.

At last, overcome by his persistent remorse and by the earnest entreaties of those with us, we loosed the chain of anathema and received him into the favor of our fellowship and into the lap of the holy mother Church.

Canova (1757-1822), a celebrated Venetian sculptor. He is one of the most noted artists of modern times. His favorite material was Carrara marble. His subjects were both classical and modern. A list of fifty titles would be required to do justice to his work. Some of the classical subjects selected for his mallet and chisel were Theseus, Cupid, Psyche, Herculs, Venus, Hector, Ajax, and Apollo. He executed several effigies, or tombs, of wondrous white marble, having great skill in making cold marble lie in soft, fleecy folds, as the drapery of a recumbent figure. A statue of the king of Naples, a bust of Napoleon, and a colossal statue of our own Washington in a sitting attitude are some of his more modern achievements. In 1816 Canova induced the French to restore the art treasures of Rome, which had been carried off by Napoleon. His name was enrolled by the pope in the Golden Book as one who "deserved well of the city of Rome." See Sculpture