St. Martin's relationship with Emporer Valentinian and his empress was not friendly.
The emporer was a "fierce and hauty" man. His wife "prevented him from showing to the Bishop the respect that was his due."
Hence Martin tried to visit the emporer with certain requests he found the gates of the palace closed to him.
After he fasted seven days Martin was instructed by an angel to go again to the palace where "all would be well".
So Martin went to the palace: the gates were open: no one stoped him, and at last he came into the presence of the emporer.
That one saw him coming from afar and nashing his teeth demanded why he had been allowed to enter.
He did not deign to rise before the Bishop until Martin fixed his satre and his throne burst into flames
and that part of the emporers body which had rested upon the throne started to burn.
Thus the haugthy prince... in spite of himself stood up before Martin. The Bishop's requests were immediately granted.
The artist who created this artwork for St. Martin's signed it BAMorano.
Click on the image at right for an image of greater detail. Note that the image with greater detail
was scanned at 300 dots per inch of resolution which is much greater than the 75 dots per inch resolution
of the pictured image.
The pictured image is approximately 85-100KB in size, whereas the image with greater detail is approximately 2-3MB
in size (as a compressed file).
