{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_70433/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_70433","id":"gutenberg_70433","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/70433","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Art","Category: History - Religious","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Flowers -- Symbolic aspects"],"text":"Transcriber\u2019s Note: Italic text is enclosed in _underscores_. Boldface\ntext is enclosed in =equals signs.= Small-caps text is shown in\nall-caps.\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration:\n\n      _Lorenzo da Sanseverino_            _Photo Hanfst\u00e4ngl_\n\nTHE VIRGIN IN A STRAWBERRY-DECORATED MANTLE\n\nBelow are the Gourd and Apple, symbols of Resurrection and Death\n\n(National Gallery)\n\n  _Frontispiece_]\n]\n\n\n\n\n                                  THE\n                          FLORAL SYMBOLISM OF\n                           THE GREAT MASTERS\n\n                                   BY\n                             ELIZABETH HAIG\n\n                             [Illustration]\n\n                                LONDON:\n                KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, TR\u00dcBNER & CO., LTD.\n                BROADWAY HOUSE, 68\u201374 CARTER LANE, E.C.\n                                  1913\n\n[Illustration: _The Divine Heart (19th Century--German)_]\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE\n\n\nThis little book has been written for the pleasure of those amateurs\nwho are more interested in the idea which inspires a picture than\nin the picture\u2019s workmanship. Naturally, the more accomplished the\nartist, the more clearly and attractively is he able to set forth his\nmeaning; but with art criticism this book has nothing to do, and the\nattributions are, for the most part, simply those of the official\ncatalogues of the respective galleries.\n\nTo explain completely even so small a branch of Christian symbolism as\nthat of flowers, an exhaustive knowledge is required of the development\nof Christian theology, and of the varying force with which different\ndoctrines appealed at different times to the public mind. But still,\nthese notes may be of some interest to those who care to trace in the\nwork sanctioned by the Church and reverenced by the people the history\nof Western idealism, and who are sometimes puzzled by the conventions\nemployed by the Masters to illustrate the Divine Mysteries.\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n\n   CHAP.                                                            PAGE\n      I.  EMBLEMS AND SYMBOLS                                          9\n\n     II.  THE FLOWER SYMBOLISTS                                       23\n\n    III.  THE LILY                                                    41\n\n     IV.  THE IRIS                                                    62\n\n      V.  THE ROSE                                                    71\n\n     VI.  THE CARNATION                                               83\n\n    VII.  GARLANDS OF ROSES                                           88\n\n   VIII.  THE COLUMBINE                                              104\n\n     IX.  THE OLIVE                                                  112\n\n      X.  THORNS                                                     126\n\n     XI.  THE PALM                                                   134\n\n    XII.  THE ACANTHUS                                               146\n\n   XIII.  THE FLEUR-DE-LYS                                           148\n\n    XIV.  THE LILY OF THE ANNUNCIATION                               162\n\n     XV.  THE LILY OF THE ANGEL GABRIEL                              177\n\n    XVI.  THE FLOWERS OF THE DIVINITY                                191\n\n   XVII.  THE FLOWERS OF THE VIRGIN                                  197\n\n  XVIII.  THE LILY OF THE SAINTS                                     219\n\n    XIX.  THE VINE                                                   235\n\n     XX.  THE FRUIT OF THE TREE OF KNOWLEDGE                         240\n\n    XXI.  THE GOURD                                                  257\n\n   XXII.  THE POMEGRANATE                                            261\n\n  XXIII.  THE STRAWBERRY                                             268\n\n   XXIV.  FRUIT IN GARLANDS                                          272\n\n          PARADISE. GIOVANNI DI PAOLO                                277\n\n          THE QUEEN OF HEAVEN. H. VAN EYCK                           279\n\n          THE ADORATION OF THE SHEPHERDS. H. VAN DER GOES            281\n\n          LA PURISSIMA. MURILLO                                      283\n\n          THE GIRLHOOD OF MARY, VIRGIN. D. G. ROSSETTI               285\n\n          LIST OF AUTHORITIES                                        287\n\n          INDEX OF ARTISTS                                           289\n\n          INDEX OF FLOWERS                                           291\n\n\n\n\nLIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS\n\n\n   PLATE                                                            PAGE\n      I. THE VIRGIN IN A STRAWBERRY-DECORATED MANTLE (_Lorenzo\n            da San Severino_)                             _Frontispiece_\n\n     II. THE BADGE OF THE ORDER OF THE LILY OF NAVARRE                41\n\n    III. THE FLOWERS OF HEAVEN (_Mosaic of the 13th Century_)         41\n\n     IV. THE \u2018ENCLOSED GARDEN\u2019 OF THE VIRGIN (_Stefano da Zevio_)    100\n\n      V. GABRIEL, CROWNED WITH OLIVE, BRINGS THE MESSAGE OF\n            RECONCILIATION (_Martin Sch\u00f6ngauer_)                     123\n\n     VI. THE CROWN OF THORNS (_Zurburan_)                            128\n\n    VII. THE ACANTHUS OF PARADISE (_Mosaic of the 13th Century_)     146\n\n   VIII. THE ROSE OF DIVINE LOVE RISING FROM A PRECIOUS VESSEL\n            (_Pinturicchio_)                                         169\n\n     IX. THE ROYAL LILY SPRINGING FROM A HUMBLE VASE (_Pesello_)     169\n\n      X. THE COLUMBINE OF THE SEVEN GIFTS (_J\u00f6rg Breu_)              188\n\n     XI. SAINT BARBARA WITH THE ROYAL LILY (_The Master of\n            Fl\u00e9malle_)                                               188\n\n    XII. THE FRUIT OF DAMNATION EXCHANGED FOR THE FRUIT OF\n            REDEMPTION (_Hugo van der Goes_)                         245\n\n   XIII. THE FRUIT OF HEAVEN RELINQUISHED FOR THE APPLE OF\n            EDEN (_Memling_)                                         245\n\n    XIV. ADAM AND EVE DELIVERED FROM HELL (_Martin Sch\u00f6ngauer_)      248\n\n     XV. THE CHILD WITH THE POMEGRANATE SURROUNDED BY ANGELS\n            WITH LILIES AND ROSE-GARLANDS (_Botticelli_)             262\n\n    XVI. PARADISE (_Giovanni di Paolo_)                              278\n\n   XVII. THE QUEEN OF HEAVEN (_Hubert van Eyck_)                     280\n\n  XVIII. THE ADORATION OF THE SHEPHERDS (_Hugo van der Goes_)        282\n\n    XIX. THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION (_Murillo_)                       284\n\n     XX. THE GIRLHOOD OF MARY, VIRGIN (_Dante Gabriel Rossetti_)     286\n\n\n\n\nTHE FLORAL SYMBOLISM OF THE GREAT MASTERS\n\n\n\n\nI\n\nEMBLEMS AND SYMBOLS[1]\n\n\nSince the earliest days of Christianity the Church has made use of\nemblems. The Early Church used them partly protectively to conceal\ntheir faith from the pagans, and partly because it lacked artists\ncapable of worthily depicting the Godhead in human form. Even when the\ndays of persecution had passed, the Church, restrained by reverential\ntradition, by poverty perhaps, and perhaps by the Eastern fear of the\n\u2018graven image,\u2019 continued to represent Christ as the True Vine and the\nApostles as sheep or as doves.\n\nBut at the beginning of the fourth century the Emperor Constantine\nestablished Christianity as the religion of the state. New, and often\nmagnificent, churches were built in each town and the Emperor placed in\nthe hands of the ecclesiastics a large portion of the royal revenues.\n\nIn these grand new basilicas the simple decoration of the Catacombs\nand tiny ancient chapels was not sufficient. The ample walls offered\na splendid field for the mosaicist and Byzantine taste demanded\nelaborate pictorial effects. Representations of the Redeemer appeared\nsurrounded by the Apostles, the prophets and the four-and-twenty\nelders of Revelation. Saints and martyrs were introduced, and later\nwe find imperial personages, Justinian surrounded by his guards and\nTheodora followed by the ladies of her court. It became necessary to\ndistinguish the figures one from another and therefore symbolism was\nlargely introduced. The Deity was placed within the _mandorla_, symbol\nof perfect blessedness. The prophets were awarded broken wheels to\ndenote their imperfect revelation, and the apostles books, to signify\ntheir fuller knowledge. Haloes were carefully differentiated. Virgin\nsaints carried palms or laurel crowns, and martyrs had the instruments\nof their martyrdom placed beside them. Some figures carried scrolls\non which were inscribed texts which gave the clue to their identity,\nothers simply had their names written above their heads, but both these\nlatter devices were useless to the ignorant.\n\nAt the Renaissance, when art had a fuller life and wider aims, it\nwas not sufficient to thus merely label the persons represented. The\ntraditions of Byzantine art once broken, the painter was free to set\nupon the panel all the beauty that his mind could conceive and that his\nhand could execute. He had no longer to paint a Christ or a Madonna\ncorrect to a formula, but none the less he was bound to depict figures\nwhich should be instantly recognizable as God incarnate and the meek\nMother of Christ. So from his freedom sprang the problem which has\noccupied the religious painter ever since, the painting of a soul\u2019s\nquality, the making visible to the world of the beauty of holiness.\n\nDuring the great century of art, achievement came. Raphael, Leonardo,\nMichael Angelo, Perugino required and used no symbol to express the\nmajesty of Christ or the purity of the Virgin Mother. They had that\npower to make visible the intangible which, in art, is genius. But\namong the earlier artists of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries,\nhe who was unable to show by the announcing angel\u2019s attitude and\nmien that his message was one of peace and goodwill, placed a branch\nof olive in his hand, and he who despaired of adequately depicting\nthe immaculate purity of the Virgin, emphasized his point by setting\na pot of spotless lilies by her side. So was the intention of the\nleast-accomplished of artists made clear, even to the unlettered.\n\nAfter the first effervescence of the Renaissance had died down, the\nlaws of sacred art became once more fixed, though never again (except\nin Spain beneath the Inquisition) with the strictness of the Byzantine\nschool. Art as a teacher of religion required to be as conservative\nas the Catholic Church with which it was allied, and the symbolism of\nthe fourteenth century has remained with few additions or modifications\nto our own day. When devotional pictures multiplied, emblems passed\ninto what may be termed the heraldry of the Church. Though also used in\ndecoration, their primary use upon altar vessels and Church furniture\nwas to distinguish the object as sacred, or as the property of the\nChurch, in the same way as the royal arms or a private crest indicated\nthe ownership of secular things. They appeared on the banners used in\nprocessions of the Church and on the badges and insignia of religious\norders, but were very seldom used in pictorial art. Indeed, it is in\nthe early Flemish school alone that pictures similar to the van Eycks\u2019\n\u2018Adoration of the Mystic Lamb\u2019[2] or to their \u2018Fountain of Life\u2019[3] are\nfound, where angels, prophets, saints and patriarchs bow down before\nthe emblem, not the figure, of the Saviour.\n\nDuring the first twelve centuries of Christianity the emblems and\nsymbols of the Church were drawn from many sources; those that were\nintroduced at the Renaissance were fruits and flowers. The Christ-Child\nholds the apple, symbol of the Fall, or a pomegranate showing the\nseeds, symbol of the Church. The lily typifies the spotless purity\nof the Virgin. Saint Dorothea is crowned with roses; Saint Joseph\nholds the flowering rod. There were, of course, other symbols used.\nAllegorical figures held the sword of justice or the scales of\njudgment; the mandorla, the halo, the orb of sovereignty and the\nbook of knowledge survived from the Byzantine school; but those\nsymbols which first appeared or came into fashion, as it were, at the\nRenaissance were fruits and flowers.\n\nIt was not strange that it should be so. The new interest in the\nliterature of ancient Greece and Rome had revived the old classical\nlove of nature, of running brooks and leafy forests, and of all the\nfresh unspoiled things which shoot up clean and fragrant from the\nearth. Saint Francis with his \u2018jesters of the Lord\u2019 had gone singing\nthrough the vineyards praising God for the light of the sun, for the\nbirds, for the grass. His song was taken up by the troubadours, who\nalso sang of the fair things of the fields, though their _leit motif_\nwas earthly, rather than heavenly, love.\n\nThe minnesingers of Germany sang of roses, spring-tide, love and\nchivalry, and three of the sweetest-throated, Walther von der\nVogelweide, Godfried von Strassburg and Conrad von W\u00fcrtzburg, each\nbefore he died, composed a song in honour of the Virgin.\n\nIn Provence the Lady Cl\u00e9mence Isaure instituted the _Jeux Floraux_, and\nfor those who excelled in song there were three awards, a violet, an\neglantine and a marigold, all wrought in gold. Later a silver lily was\nadded as the prize for the best sonnet celebrating the perfections of\nthe Virgin. The rules of this Mayday tournament of song proclaimed that\n\u2018these games are for the amusement of the people, for the honour of God\nas the giver of good gifts of trees and flowers, and to praise Him,\nbecause nature, which had been dead, now lives again.\u2019\n\nThe world was now beginning to see the value of these \u2018good gifts.\u2019\nChaucer could find no higher emblem for the Virgin than a flower:\n\n    \u2018And thou that art the floure of Virgins all;\u2019\n\nwhile Dante, who, more than any other single writer, has influenced\nsacred art, uses the same imagery:\n\n   \u2018Here is the Rose\n    Wherein the Word Divine was made incarnate,\n    And here the lilies, by whose order known\n    The way of life was followed.\u2019\n\nThe Churchmen of the day caught the spirit of the Humanists, and there\nsprang up a school of symbolists who concerned themselves largely with\nplants, fruits and flowers. The writings of the early symbolists,\nOrigen, Saint Melitus, Bishop of Sardes, Saint Jerome, Saint Ambrose,\nWalafrid Strabo and Raban Maur, Archbishop of Mayence, were re-studied\nand their allusions to the plant world noted. Durandus, Bishop of\nMende, whose _Rationale_, published in 1295, is still considered the\nsupreme authority on the spiritual significance of Church architecture\nand Church ornament, held flowers in general to be the emblems of\ngoodness. \u2018They represent, like the trees, those good works which\nhave the virtues for roots.\u2019 Growing things, he considered, could very\nbeautifully supplement the ritual of the Church, and he recommends that\n\u2018on Palm Sunday the people should deck themselves with flowers, olive\nbranches and palms, the flowers to signify the virtues of the Holy\nOne, the olive branches His office as peace-bringer and the palms His\nvictory over Satan.\u2019\n\nThere were those symbolists who, like Durandus of Mende and the\nCardinal Petrus of Capua, valued the symbol entirely as a means of\ninterpreting the doctrines of the Church. Their definition was that of\nHugues de Saint-Victor: \u2018The symbol is the allegorical representation\nof a Christian principle under a material form\u2019; and they simply\nsearched for those objects which best suited their purpose. Then\nthere were those symbolists who, like Saint Hildegarde, Abbess of\nRupertsburg, mixed their symbolism strangely with herbalism and magic.\nA plant of healing virtues was a good plant, attributed to the Virgin\nor a saint, and typifying their virtues, and a harmful plant was evil,\nbeneath the patronage of the Devil, typifying and inducing envy,\nhatred, or perhaps malice.\n\nLastly there were the mystic symbolists, and it is they who have had\nmost influence on pictorial art. There were those who, like Saint\nBernard of Clairvaux, could discern through the darkened glass of Old\nTestament metaphor the divine facts of New Testament revelation, and\nthose who, like Saint Mectilda of Germany, were favoured by Heaven\nwith clear and detailed visions, in which Christ Himself deigned to\nexplain the complicated symbolism of His surroundings, His embroidered\nrobes and jewelled ornaments. And there were those mystics who were not\nin holy orders, who did not claim direct communication with Heaven,\nyet who have, nevertheless, by giving shape and colour to the vague\nindications of Holy Writ as to the future state, and by materializing,\nas it were, the illusive inner vision of things invisible, profoundly\ninfluenced the religious sentiment, if not the theology, of the world.\nChief among them is the poet Dante, the friend of Giotto and the\nspiritual father of both the poets and the artists of the Italian\nRenaissance. In Germany his place was taken by Conrad von W\u00fcrtzburg, a\npoet of infinitely less genius but who equally influenced his native\nart, at least as far as devotional representations of the Virgin Mary\nwere concerned. He was a minnesinger who consecrated the last effort of\na long life to praising the virtues of her whom he terms \u2018The Empress\nof Heaven.\u2019 About the year 1286 he wrote \u2018The Golden Forge,\u2019 which he\ndescribes as:\n\n   \u2018A golden song\n    Forged in the smithy of my heart\n    And beautifully inlaid\n    With the jewelled thoughts of my heart.\u2019\n\nIt is an eulogy of the Virgin, close-packed with allegory, simile and\nmetaphor, which are borrowed for the greater part from the Fathers of\nthe Church, but some few are of his own finding.\n\nHis work was never to be compared with that of the great Italian, but\nit very strongly influenced the hymnology and the pictorial expression\nof the cult of the Virgin in both the Netherlands and Germany.\n\nIn England there was no great symbolist among the early poets.\nThey were plain tales of love and war that Chaucer told in \u2018English\nundefyled.\u2019 But the Church in England produced some beautiful mystical\nhymns, notably the one to the Virgin, written, perhaps, about 1350,\nwhich begins:\n\n   \u2018Of a rose, a lovely rose,\n    Of a rose is al myn song.\u2019\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nReligious pictures are of two types: the historical, which aims at\ndepicting a sacred scene exactly as it did occur; and the devotional,\nwhich presents a divine or holy figure in the attitude and with the\nsurroundings best calculated to inflame the devotion of the worshipper.\n\nTo the first category belongs Rubens\u2019 \u2018Descent from the Cross.\u2019[4] The\ndead Figure, the sustained effort of the men who detach it from the\nCross, the grief-stricken women, are all depicted with perfect realism\nand strict attention to historical detail. It merely depicts the scene\nas it might have occurred, and no attempt is made to guide or suggest\nthe emotions of the beholder.\n\nTo the second category belong many of the early Crucifixions. The\nfigure of the Saviour is emaciated to a painful degree. On each side\nof the Cross hover angels catching in a chalice the holy blood as it\nfalls. At the summit a nesting pelican tears its breast; at the foot\na skull is placed within a niche. Here a distinct emotional appeal\nis made--to man\u2019s pity, for the sufferings of the Christ; to his\ngratitude, since the preciousness of the holy blood is so emphasized.\nThe pelican in its piety is the symbol of Christ\u2019s devotion to His\nChurch, and the skull invites meditation upon the eternal death from\nwhich He saved us.\n\nIn pictures of the devotional type the spiritual cause or effect of the\nincident illustrated is usually indicated by symbols. The reason why\nthe Godhead sits as a child upon His Mother\u2019s knee is indicated by the\napple which He holds in His hand. As the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge\nof Good and Evil it is the symbol of Adam\u2019s fault, which, through His\nincarnation, Christ repaired--and, thereby, to instructed Christians,\nit foretells the tragedy of the Crucifixion. So, in an Annunciation,\nthe lily in the angel Gabriel\u2019s hand indicates the quality by which\nMary found favour in God\u2019s sight, and it foreshadows also the sinless\nbirth of the Saviour.\n\nIt should be clearly understood to which figure in a composition the\nsymbols used refer. When a personage of mortal birth, prophet, apostle,\nmartyr or saint, holds a symbol or attribute, it almost invariably\nrefers to his own history. Archangels usually hold their own attribute,\nbut the symbols or emblems which angels carry, or which are used\ndecoratively, placed against the sky or laid upon the ground, are\nalways to be referred to the principal figure in the scene represented.\nThe sword and lily in a \u2018Last Judgment\u2019 represent the omnipotence and\nintegrity of the Judge; the rose and lily in an \u2018Assumption\u2019 the love\nand the purity of the Madonna; the palm in a martyrdom the triumph of\nthe martyr.\n\n\n\n\nII\n\nTHE FLOWER SYMBOLISTS\n\n\nChristian symbolists divided the plant world into three divisions--the\ngood, the bad, and those which, from want of definite characteristics,\nwere not worthy of notice. In their judgment they were guided by\nseveral principles.\n\nIn the first place, and this was the most important method, they\nsearched the Scriptures for their warrant as to the good or evil\ntendencies of any plant or flower. Those with whom the Divinity had\nidentified Himself took precedence of all others. Christ had said,\n\u2018I am the True Vine,\u2019 and the vine, since the earliest days of\nChristianity, has had the place of highest honour in the decoration\nof Christian churches as the emblem of Christ Himself. When the\ndifficulties were removed which prevented the Early Church from\nrepresenting Christ under His own form, the emblem was less seen, but\nit has always remained a sacred plant, and designs based upon its form\nstill frequently decorate the altar and the sacred vessels.\n\nAlso those plants introduced as metaphors in the Song of Solomon,\n\u2018the flower of the field,\u2019 \u2018the lily of the valleys,\u2019 \u2018the lily among\nthorns,\u2019 \u2018the orchard of pomegranates,\u2019 myrrh and camphire, spikenard,\nsaffron and cinnamon, trees of frankincense and \u2018the chief spices,\u2019\nwhich refer to the \u2018Beloved\u2019 and the \u2018Spouse,\u2019 are all considered holy\nplants, and by the Roman Catholic Church are assigned to the Virgin\nMary.\n\nIn the beautiful twenty-fourth chapter of Ecclesiasticus, too,\nChristian symbolists have recognized the Virgin Mary beneath the figure\nof Wisdom, and hold as sanctified those growing things to which she is\nlikened.\n\n\u2018I was exalted like a palm tree in Engeddi, and as a rose plant in\nJericho, as a fair olive tree in a pleasant field, and grew up as a\nplane tree by the water.\n\n\u2018As the turpentine tree I stretched out my branches, and my branches\nare the branches of honour and grace.\n\n\u2018As the vine brought I forth pleasant savour, and my flowers are the\nfruit of honour and riches.\u2019\n\nIn the second place, those flowers and plants which are beneficial to\nman, as the wheat and the olive, were decided to be good, and those\nthat were hurtful to man, as the tare and the thistle, were evil. Here\nherbalism and magic step very close to symbolism, for healing plants,\nor those which were useful as a charm against the devil, were good;\nthose which were poisonous, or used for evil purpose, such as raising a\nspirit, were bad. Thus the nettle, which, when used with due ceremony,\ndissipates fear, becomes a symbol of courage, and myrrh, which is\nan antidote to love-philtres and drives away voluptuous thoughts,\nis held to be a plant of chastity. Of this particular species of\nsymbolism Albertus Magnus,[5] Master of Saint Thomas Aquinas, and Saint\nHildegarde,[6] Abbess of Rupertsburg, were the principal exponents.\n\nAlso a plant\u2019s habit of growth was taken as an indication of its\ncharacter. The cedar, with unbending head and grandly-spreading\nbranches, was considered, both by Saint Melitus and Petrus of Capua,\nto typify pride, while the violet, wearing the colour of mourning, and\nkeeping timidly beneath its leaves, they chose as a symbol of humility.\n\nSome symbols were of pagan origin, for the palm of victory and the\nolive branch of peace were borrowed from the Romans, who had themselves\ninherited them from older civilizations. Their significance was not\nchanged but simply limited and sanctified; the victory, for Christians,\nwas the victory over sin, and the peace, the peace of God.\n\nThese various methods of determining the value of different plants as\nsymbols did not always accord. M. Huysman, in _La Cath\u00e9drale_, a very\ncomplete study in Christian symbolism, instances the sycamore: \u2018Saint\nMelitus proclaims that the sycamore stands for cupidity.... Raban Maur\nand _L\u2019anonyme de Clairvaux_ qualify it as the unbelieving Jew; Petrus\nof Capua compares it to the Cross, Saint Eucher to wisdom.\u2019\n\nEven the sifting of the text of Scripture did not always lead to\nidentical conclusions. \u2018I am the rose of Sharon\u2019 (or \u2018the flower of\nthe field\u2019) \u2018and the lily of the valleys,\u2019 sings the lover of the\nCanticles, who prefigures, according to Origen, Jesus Christ. But Saint\nBernard of Clairvaux found that the words veiled the personality of the\nVirgin Mary, and other writers consider that they refer to the Church\nof God upon earth.\n\nThere were, in fact, two schools of symbolists though they did not\ndiffer greatly. There were those who wrote before the eleventh century\nand whose influence is traced in the mosaics of Rome, Ravenna and\nthe Baptistery of Florence, and those later ones whose authority was\naccepted by the painters of the Italian Renaissance and through them\nspread throughout the Christian world. Durandus, standing midway\nbetween the two schools of symbolism, held chiefly to the more ancient,\nthough he also recognized the newer, usage.\n\nBut after the twelfth century the painters of Siena alone kept to the\nancient meaning of the symbols; Florence and the later schools broke\naway entirely.\n\nAs far as flower-symbols were concerned the chief difference was in the\nuse of the lily, which from being the flower indicative of heavenly\nbliss became the especial flower of the Virgin, typifying her purity.\nAlso the rose, the flower of martyrdom, became the symbol of divine\nlove, and the palm tree and the acanthus dropped out of devotional\nrepresentations altogether.\n\nIn the main, after the twelfth century, symbolists were agreed. There\nwere certain fruits and flowers about which there never had been any\ndoubt. The vine had been the emblem of Jesus Christ from the beginning\nof Christian theology. The white lily, as a symbol of chastity, came\nperhaps from the Hebrews, but all Christian writers were agreed as to\nits fitness as a symbol of purity and as an emblem or attribute of the\nVirgin Mary. The violet was the symbol of humility, and therefore, say\nPetrus of Capua and Saint Mectilda, the emblem of Christ when on earth.\nSaint Mectilda and Bishop Durandus, for the same reason, consider it\nthe emblem of confessors.\n\nThe rose was long in disgrace as the flower of Venus. But even saints\ncould not exclude it from their lives, and gradually it crept into\nChristian hagiology. Roses decorate some of the most poetical of the\nhistories in the _Legenda Aurea_, which was compiled by Jacobus de\nVoragine, Archbishop of Genoa, during the last half of the thirteenth\ncentury, and there are roses in plenty in the pictures of the fifteenth\ncentury. Their meaning, at first sight, is not so clearly defined as\nis that of some other flowers. Raban Maur and _L\u2019anonyme de Clairvaux_\nhad used them as the type of charity; Durandus had explained them, red\nand white, as emblems of martyrs and virgins. Walafrid Strabo also\nconsidered them the symbols of martyrdom, but in the Golden Legend and\nin the pictures of the Renaissance, when plucked and falling, or when\nsent from Heaven, they are symbols of divine love; when they are woven\ninto wreaths they symbolize heavenly joy.\n\nThe symbolism of the lesser flowers is not so clear, but the water\nlily and the saffron as well as the rose were held by Raban Maur to be\nsymbols of charity; verdure, according to Durandus, was the emblem of\nbeginners in the faith; the heath, hyssop, convolvulus and violet all\nrepresent humility; the lettuce temperance; the elder, zeal; and the\nthyme, activity. Of these, however, with the exception of the violet,\nChristian art has taken little note.\n\nThere are certain flowers which appear repeatedly in pictures which\nrepresent the garden of Heaven; they grow in the \u2018Enclosed Garden\u2019\nof the Madonna, and surround the Infant Christ when He is laid upon\nthe ground to receive adoration. They are the rose and the lily, and\nalso the violet, the pink and the strawberry, the last with fruit and\nflowers together. The symbolists are unanimous in ascribing humility\nto the violet; the pink or carnation, which is usually introduced when\nthere are no roses, is, like the rose, the flower of divine love; the\nstrawberry with fruit and flower represents the good works of the\nrighteous, or the fruits of the spirit.\n\nTo these are sometimes added the clover and the columbine. According\nto the legend, Saint Patrick was the first to use the trefoil as an\nillustration of the Trinity in Unity, and the shamrock or clover is\nthe emblem of the Holy Trinity. The little doves which make up the\nflower of the columbine wonderfully resemble the little doves which in\nearly art, particularly in the French miniatures of the thirteenth and\nfourteenth centuries, represent the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit. It\nis true that in the columbine the little doves number five, not seven,\nbut the Flemish artists, always extremely careful in their symbolism,\nrectified this by painting the plant with seven blooms upon it. It\nshould only be used as the attribute of God the Son.\n\nTowards the end of the fifteenth century a tiny niche was made for\nthe daisy in Christian iconography. It is found almost exclusively\nin \u2018Adorations,\u2019 where it replaces the _lilium candidum_. It was\nfelt that, suitable as the tall austere lily might be to express the\nVirgin\u2019s purity or the celibacy of the monastic saints, the little\nwide-eyed daisy was a prettier, sweeter symbol of the perfect innocence\nof the Divine Child.\n\nThe jasmine is not strictly a holy flower and has been neglected by\nthe writers on symbolism, but it appears repeatedly in religious art.\nIts star-shaped blossom seems to be the symbol of divine hope or of\nheavenly felicity, and it is found with roses and lilies beside the\nMadonna. It forms the crowns of angels, of saints, and of the Madonna\nherself. When it is the attribute of the Infant Christ it recalls the\nHeaven from which He came.\n\nThe English and Flemish miniaturists add to these the pansy, which is\nthe old herb Trinity,[7] bearing the same meaning as the clover.\n\nIn the Netherlands and Germany the lily of the valley was also used,\nwith meek purity as its significance.\n\nAll these flowers, on account of some accident of shape, colour or\nhabit of growth, were considered holy flowers, while others, such as\nthe buttercup, the narcissus, the forget-me-not, were rejected as\nmeaningless. Fruit in general represents good works, or the fruits of\nthe Spirit, faith, hope and peace, and is accounted good; the vine is\nthe emblem of Christ Himself, but the fruit, usually taken to be the\napple, which grew on the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, is an\naccursed thing.\n\nThere are flowers, too, which are the flowers of evil. The poppy\nis the emblem of sloth and also dedicated to Venus; the tulip is\nbeloved of necromancers; the black hellebore and the mandrake are\nused by witches in their spells, though, strangely enough, Conrad von\nW\u00fcrtzburg compares the Virgin Mary to the \u2018healing mandrake root.\u2019 Also\nthe nettle is the symbol of envy, the hellebore of scandal, and the\ncyclamen of voluptuousness, for, according to Theophrastus, it was used\nin the composition of love philtres.\n\nAs to thorns and briars, Saint Thomas Aquinas and Saint Anselm are\nagreed that thorn branches signify the minor sins, and briars (or\nthistles) those major ones \u2018_qu\u00e6 pungunt conscientiam propriam_,\u2019 etc.\n\nAbove all the buckthorn is blamed, for of its branches, says Rohault de\nFleury, was formed the Crown of Thorns.\n\nIn art, however, the flowers of evil scarcely appear. The rose is still\nsometimes the flower of Venus and symbolizes the pomps and vanities of\nthe world, and there are the thorns of sin and death. Some of the early\nFlemish and German artists painted certain bitter herbs, notably the\ndandelion, in scenes from the Passion, but Christian iconography has\nconcerned itself chiefly with those plants and flowers which, with the\napproval of theologians, represent the attributes of the Divinity, of\nthe Virgin Mary and of angels, saints and prophets.\n\nIt may be noticed that while the sacred flowers are not unfrequently\nintroduced into profane scenes, the non-sacred flowers, for instance\nthe daffodils and foxgloves of the hunting scenes on old Flemish\ntapestry, are never introduced as symbols, and rarely as details, in\ndevotional subjects.\n\nThe same symbolism holds good within the whole Western Church, and\nthose Reformed Churches which have rejected painted and carved images\nhave preserved a good many of the older symbols in the details of\nchurch decoration. The most important symbols of Christianity,\nthe Lamb, the Dove, the Cross, the Glory, the Halo, remain always\nunchanged. It is the lesser, and more especially the flower symbols,\nwhich vary in different countries and different schools of painting.\nItaly being the headquarters of the Church, and also the centre from\nwhich pictorial art spread over Europe, most symbols are of Latin\norigin; but they were modified and often amplified by inherited\ntradition, climate and the general trend of the national religious\nsentiment. So in Italian art, after its re-birth, we find a love of\nsimple lines, of refined types, of flowers, and a striving at first\nunconscious, then definite, after classical ideals, while the Northern\nnations, less happy in their traditions, never quite conquered their\nlove of barbaric splendour; a rose wrought in pure gold was to them\nmore truly a symbol of divine love than a fresh rose of the field.\n\nThe most important factor in the modification of flower symbolism was\nclimate. As the primary use of a symbol was to instruct the unlearned,\nthe symbol which was to interpret the hidden mystery must be a familiar\nobject. A rare or exotic plant would rather have complicated than\nsimplified the teaching. So we find the pomegranate and the olive in\nItalian pictures, but not in those of the Netherlands; the columbine\nand the lily of the valley in German, but not in Spanish art.\n\nBut it was not climate alone that determined the use or disuse of any\nparticular plant as a symbol. If the fleur-de-lys, founded upon the\niris form, had not been borne by the House of Burgundy, which protected\nthe early Flemish school, it is possible that the iris might not have\nappeared in the early Flemish pictures as a flower of the Virgin,\nand certainly had there not been a continual interchange of Flemish\nmerchandise, which included painted panels, for Spanish gold, the\niris would not have taken its place as the characteristic flower of a\nSpanish \u2018Immaculate Conception.\u2019\n\nAlso, had there not been ceaseless warfare and everlasting hatred\nbetween Florence and Siena, it is possible that Siena would have\nadopted the lily as an attribute of Mary in an Annunciation instead\nof using invariably the olive branch. But the lily was the badge of\nFlorence and the cities were desperately jealous of each other, both in\npainting and in politics, and this seems to be the real reason of the\nconservatism of Sienese art.\n\nOn the whole the symbolism of the Netherlands is the most careful\nand just, and each flower was painted also with such exquisite\nminuteness that there is no possibility of mistaking the variety.\nItalian symbolism was always apt to be superficial, and after the\nfifteenth century often became confused with decoration. Also the\nItalians painted flowers carelessly, and the lesser kinds, those in the\nforeground of an Adoration, for instance, are frequently impossible to\nidentify. In Germany symbolism is at times extravagant and far-fetched\nthough always interesting. In Spain it is poor and almost entirely\nborrowed. A modern writer[8] observes of Spanish art that it is\nmaterial, brutal, Roman, having, from its geographical position,\nescaped the idealism of Greek or the mysticism of Celtic influences;\nand the same cause may also explain the prosaicness of its symbolism.\n\nThe English love of flowers, very noticeable in early verse, found\npictorial expression chiefly in the work of the miniaturists and in the\n\u2018flower work\u2019 details of architecture. The miniatures executed by monks\nusually pay attention to the symbolical value of each blossom, but the\ncarved stone flowers common in both French and English Gothic churches\nwere more often simply those which the fancy of the architect or the\nstone-cutter dictated and only represent vaguely \u2018good works springing\nfrom the root of virtues.\u2019\n\nThe happiest blooming time of these symbolical flowers was the\nfifteenth century. In the fourteenth century artists, still timid of\ninnovations, had limited themselves to the lily and the rose. But with\nincreasing skill they made a wider choice, though always under the\neye and with the assistance of those learned in such matters, for the\nmajority of sacred pictures were commissioned directly by the Church or\nwere ordered as a gift to be presented to some religious community.\n\nThere were occasionally independent spirits who, in some favourite\nblossom, so far unnoticed, found beauty and symbolic fitness. Thus Sano\ndi Pietro of Siena constantly paints the bright blue cornflower (which\nin Italy shares its name of _fiordaliso_ with the iris, the lily and\nthe heraldic fleur-de-lys) upon the heads of both angels and saints,\nmeaning, perhaps, by the blue stars, to indicate that these beings\nwere denizens of the heavenly spaces. However, as a rule, artists\nwere conservative and glad to use the recognized symbols as a means of\nemphasizing and elucidating the sacred subject which they depicted.\n\nBut even before the end of the fifteenth century flowers began\nto be used for their own sake and not for their hidden meaning.\nLeonardo da Vinci and Albert D\u00fcrer painted just what flower or weed\nthey chose, simply for its form or colour. In the sixteenth century\nflowers were often used merely as decoration, and later, with the\nexception of the rose, the lily, the olive branch and the palm, they\nlost all meaning. Carlo Maratta in the seventeenth century painted a\nfigure of the Virgin[9] encircled by a heavy wreath of every sort of\nflower--daffodils, gentians, anemones, tulips, edelweiss, roses and\nlilies, all mixed together.\n\nIn England, about the middle of the nineteenth century, there was a\nrevival of interest in mystical and symbolical art. The Preraphaelite\nBrotherhood was formed in 1848, whose object was to bring back to\nmodern art the sincerity and earnestness of those painters who had\npreceded Raphael. The originator of the movement, Dante Gabriel\nRossetti, adopted in his early work not only the simplicity of type and\nthe exceedingly careful finish of the primitives, but borrowed also\ntheir system of symbolism. His followers, however, and in particular\nHolman Hunt, broke away from the old traditions of religious art,\npainting allegorical subjects suggested by Christ\u2019s parables and\nsayings rather than the scenes of His birth and Passion on which the\ndogmas of the Church were founded, and with the traditional subjects\nthey left aside also the traditional symbols.\n\nThe greatest of modern English mystical painters, George Frederick\nWatts, uses flowers as details, and apparently as symbols. But their\nexact meanings are obscure and apparently not those attributed to them\nby the great masters of past centuries.\n\n[Illustration: THE BADGE OF THE ORDER OF THE LILY OF NAVARRE]\n\n[Illustration:\n\n                                                         _Photo Alinari_\n\nTHE FLOWERS OF HEAVEN\n\nMosaic of the 13th century\n\n(Baptistry, Florence)]\n\n\n\n\nIII\n\nTHE LILY\n\n\nGioacchino di Fiore, the mystical theologian who founded the community\nof \u2018The Flower,\u2019 and who is held by some to be the spiritual father\nof Saint Francis, writing in the last decade of the twelfth century,\ndivided the life of humanity into three periods. In the first, during\nthe reign of the Father, men lived under the rule of the law; in the\nsecond, reigned over by the Son, men live beneath the rule of grace; in\nthe third the Spirit shall reign and men shall live in the plenitude\nof love. The first saw the shining of the stars; the second sees the\nwhitening of the dawn; the third will behold the glory of the day. The\nfirst produced nettles; the second gives roses; the third will be the\nage of lilies.\n\nThus as daylight to dawn or starlight, and as love to grace and fear,\nwere lilies to every other flower or weed, and since the twelfth\ncentury, in Christian art, lilies have had precedence of every other\ngrowing thing.\n\nThe earliest use of the lily by the artists of the Christian Church was\nto indicate the delights of Paradise. Raban Maur, Archbishop of Mayence\nin 847, writes of lilies as the symbols of celestial beatitude, and\nthat is apparently what they represent in the mosaics of Rome, Ravenna\nand the Baptistery of Florence, where they spring from the ground in\nthe scenes which represent Heaven.\n\nBut by the tenth century the Church had commenced to adopt the\npre-Christian employment of the lily as the symbol of purity, and the\nrose gradually took the lily\u2019s place as the flower of heavenly bliss.\n\nThe lily of sacred art is the _lilium candidum_, sometimes called the\nMadonna lily, or the lily of Saint Catharine. It is said to be a native\nof the Levant, but appears to have spread with Roman civilization\nthroughout Europe. The suggestion of abstract purity is arresting and\ndirect. The stalk is straight and upright, the leaves narrow, plain,\nalmost austere. At the top of the long stalk the flowers cluster, each\nchalice-shaped, and sending to the sky a perfume which is singularly\nsweet and piercing. Their form is simple but noble, and they are above\nall remarkable for the immaculate and luminous whiteness of their firm\npetals.\n\nAfter the twelfth century the lily is always used as the symbol of\npurity in its perfection, and is most usually associated with the\nVirgin Mary and with saints of the monastic orders. More rarely it is\nused as an attribute of the Persons of the Holy Trinity. In a large\npicture[10] representing the Trinity in Glory, by an unknown Neapolitan\npainter of the seventeenth century, God the Father holds a stalk of\nlilies in his left hand, above which hovers the mystic Dove. Since\nChristian iconography gives no attributes to God the Father except the\norb and crown of omnipotence, the lily must be taken as the attribute\nof the Holy Ghost; and in a rare subject, The Adoration of the Holy\nGhost,[11] ascribed by Behrenson to the _Amico di Sandro_, the two\nangels with swinging censers and lovely floating draperies, who adore\nthe hovering Dove, carry each a lily. The Dove in conjunction with\nthe lily is also found upon the great central doors of Saint Peter\nin Rome. They are of bronze, and were executed between 1439 and 1445\nby Antonio Filarete. There are two panels with elaborate borders and\nmuch interesting detail. On one is Saint Peter with the keys and on\nthe other Saint Paul. Saint Paul is of the traditional type, bald and\nbearded, and holds in his right hand a drawn sword. By his side is a\nlarge vase of lilies, and on the highest flower, its beak touching the\nsword\u2019s hilt, is the Dove, encircled by a halo. The lilies and the Dove\nare introduced apparently to correct the impression of violence given\nby the uplifted sword, the instrument of the Apostle\u2019s martyrdom, and\ntogether representing the Holy Spirit, they recall Saint Paul\u2019s own\nphrase, \u2018the sword of the Spirit.\u2019\n\nAs an attribute of God the Son, lilies are used in those pictures known\nas Adorations, where the divine Child is laid upon the ground and the\nMother kneels before Him in worship; and in those pictures where she\nholds Him, no longer a very young infant, on a ledge or pedestal before\nher. In these pictures all the symbolism refers to the Child, and if He\nlie among roses and lilies they signify respectively divine love and\nperfect sinlessness. If angels hold vases of lilies on either side,\nthese lilies recall that He was born of a Virgin.\n\nThe first Adorations were painted by the Florentine masters of the\nfifteenth century. In an early example by Filippo Lippi[12] the flowers\nare small and the species scarcely to be determined. Neri di Bicci[13]\npainted roses and lilies, and Luca della Robbia[14] has placed the\nChild beneath a freely-growing clump of tall lilies. The Virgin kneels\nbefore Him, while heavenly hands hold above her head a crown ornamented\nwith the royal fleur-de-lys. Botticelli[15] appears to have been the\nfirst to have substituted the daisy for the lily, and to the daisy he\nadded the violet of humility, and the strawberry, which symbolized the\nfruits of the spirit. These flowers were constantly repeated in this\nconnection, a comparatively late example of their use being in the\nAdoration of Perugino, now in Munich.\n\nThese same flowers are found in the North, but as Northern artists\npreferred incidents definitely recounted by the Scriptures to more\nimaginative devotional subjects, they were transferred to Nativities or\nAdorations by the Shepherds.\n\nIn Siena during the fourteenth century, and in the school of Giotto,\nthe lily, usually a single lily-cup, is sometimes placed in the hands\nof the Infant Christ. Here it is not the symbol of purity, but in\naccordance with the older symbolism it is the flower of Paradise.\nSiena was extremely conservative, and for its artists the Holy Child\nwas still the royal Child of the Byzantine school, richly clothed,\nHis right hand raised in blessing or holding the orb of sovereignty.\nSometimes He holds a scroll, announcing His high mission, with the\nwords \u2018Ego sum lux mundi\u2019 or \u2018Ego sum via veritas et vita.\u2019 More\nstress is laid upon His divinity than upon His humanity, and there\nis absolutely nothing to hint at or forecast His passion. He appears\nsimply as the bringer of peace and blessing, and in His hand is still\nthe flower of Paradise, the same lily which grows beside His throne in\nthe mosaics.\n\nGradually, however, a fruit replaced the flower in the Christ-Child\u2019s\nhand. At first the fruit, following an artistic tradition as old as the\nfourth century, was also a promise of heavenly bliss, it was a fruit\nfrom the heavenly gardens; but it was soon identified as the fruit of\nthe tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, since He, as the Second Adam,\nhad come to repair the fault of the first.\n\nMeanwhile in Florence, during the fifteenth century, the lily, already\nthe flower of the virgin saints, was attributed more especially to the\nVirgin Mary as the symbol of spotless purity, and it became accepted\nthroughout Christendom with this significance.\n\nTherefore, on the rare occasions after the fourteenth century when the\nlily is placed in the hand of the Infant Christ it is the symbol of\npurity, of His perfect sinlessness. In the Enthroned Madonna of Luca\nSignorelli[16] He holds a large stalk of _lilium candidum_. In the\ngreat majority of representations of the Madonna with the Child in\nher arms only the symbol in the Child\u2019s own hand refers to Him; other\nsymbols refer to Mary. But in this picture, to the jewelled cross of\nthe Baptist is attached a scroll with the legend, \u2018_Ecce Agnus Dei_,\u2019\nand all the symbols are the attributes of the Saviour. Besides the\nlily, which denotes perfect sinlessness, there are two transparent\nvases in which are jasmine, violets and roses. The jasmine\u2019s starry\nblooms recall the Heaven which He has left, the violet is a symbol of\nHis humility, and the rose of His divine love. In the wreath behind\nthe throne is jasmine again, with pendant trails of white convolvulus,\nwhich is also an emblem of humility.[17]\n\nOccasionally the Infant Christ is represented offering a branch of\nlilies to a Saint,[18] and then the lily represents the gift of\nchastity, which He bestows.\n\nIt is only in modern times that Christ, grown to manhood, has been\nrepresented with a lily in His hand. An instance is the fresco\nillustrating the parable of the Wise and the Foolish Virgins, painted\nin 1864, by Lord Leighton, P.R.A., for Lindhurst Church. The virgins\nstand on either side of the Celestial Bridegroom, who holds in His\nleft hand the lily which emphasizes the mystical character of the\ndivine nuptials.\n\nIt may be noticed in this connection that modern, and more particularly\nProtestant, ecclesiastical art takes its subjects largely from the\nparables of Christ, a usage unknown to the Roman Catholic Church during\nthe period when the great masters of art were in her service.\n\nNorthern medi\u00e6val art, that is, the art of the Flemish and German\nschools, introduced the lily into representations of the Last Judgment,\nplacing the sword and stalk of lilies, ray-wise, behind the head of\nthe judging Christ. In the very early representations of this subject\nChrist is depicted with a two-edged sword issuing from His mouth, in\nillustration of the text of the Revelation of Saint John:\n\n\u2018And out of his mouth went a sharp two-edged sword.\u2019\n\nAnd again:\n\n\u2018Which sword proceeded out of his mouth.\u2019\n\nBut pictorially it was ugly and theologically it was harsh, suggesting\nwrath rather than mercy as the determining impulse at the final doom.\nThen men remembered the promise to the righteous:\n\n\u2018The wilderness and the solitary places shall be glad for them; and the\ndesert shall rejoice and blossom as the rose.\u2019[19]\n\nAnd in a copy of the _Biblia Pauperum_[20] of the fifteenth century\nwe find a branch of roses so placed as to balance the sword, both set\ndiagonally like rays, one on each side of the head of Christ. The rose\nwas placed on Christ\u2019s right hand above the forgiven souls, and clearly\ntypified divine love and mercy; the sword on the left was above the\ndamned, and typified divine condemnation.\n\nBut almost immediately the rose was replaced by the lily. The lily\nwas, in the fifteenth century, the one distinctly sacred flower. Its\nlance-like habit of growth made it a most symmetrical pendant to the\nsword, and possibly, too, the Church of the North, stern both in\nreligious sentiment and in its pictorial expression, preferred the\nlily, which typified the integrity of the judging God, to the rose,\nsymbol of His mercy.\n\nThe Netherlands adopted the symbol. It appears in Memling\u2019s most\nimpressive Last Judgment,[21] and in the Last Judgment of Lucas van\nLeyden.[22] The same device was used by Albert D\u00fcrer[23] and many of\nthe less known German masters; but Rubens, in his magnificent picture\nnow in Munich, has replaced the lily by a sceptre.\n\nThe lily, used in this connection, is not found in Italian art, for\nthough the Netherlands, Germany and England adopted the symbolism of\nItaly, Italy, though admiring greatly the technical excellence of the\nFlemish, rarely assimilated the Northern conventions for the expression\nof the intangible.\n\nBut the lily is usually reserved for virgin saints and martyrs, and\nmore particularly for her whom Chaucer names\n\n                        \u2018Floure of Virgins all\u2019\n\n--that is, the Virgin Mary.\n\nThe Venerable Bede, writing in the early part of the eighth century,\ndeclares \u2018the great white lily\u2019 to be a fit emblem of the resurrection\nof the Virgin; the pure white petals signifying her body; the golden\nanthers her soul within, shining with celestial light.\n\nAccording to Petrus Cantius, cantor of the Cathedral School of Paris\nin the early part of the thirteenth century, the lily represented the\ndaughter of Joachim herself, by reason of its whiteness, its aroma,\ndelectable above all others, its curative virtues, and finally because\nit springs from uncultivated soil as the Virgin was the issue of Jewish\nparents.\n\nAs to its curative virtues, it may be added that an anonymous English\nmonk, writing in the thirteenth century, prescribes the lily as a\nsovereign remedy for burns; and for the reason that \u2018it is a figure of\nthe Madonna, who also cures burns, that is, the vices or burns of the\nsoul.\u2019[24]\n\nBut though theologians occasionally used the lily as a symbol of\nvirginity, before the eleventh century we do not find it associated\nwith the Mother of Christ pictorially, either as her emblem or her\nattribute. There are no lilies in the Catacombs, and those in the\nearly mosaics are decorative, or symbols of the joy of Heaven. The\nminiaturists occasionally used the flower as the attribute of virgin\nmartyrs, but not in representations of the Virgin.\n\nIt was by a Spanish king that the lily was first definitely, and in a\nmanner pictorially, associated with the Mother of Christ--as her own\nflower. In the eleventh century Spaniards and Moors were each fighting\nfor their faith, and the Moslems instituted military orders called\n_r\u00e1bitos_, the members of which were vowed to perpetual warfare against\nthe \u2018infidel.\u2019\n\nThe Christian knights were not to be outdone, and in 1043 Garcias\nof Navarre founded an order of chivalry vowed to the service of the\nVirgin, which he named \u2018the Order of the Lily of Navarre.\u2019\n\nEdmondson[25] writes: \u2018The Order of \u201cOur Lady of the Lily,\u201d or \u201cof\nNavarre,\u201d was instituted in the city of Nagera by Garcias, the sixth\nKing of Navarre, in the year 1043, on the occasion of a miraculous\nimage of the Virgin Mary issuing forth of a lily, and holding the\nInfant Jesus in her arms, being then discovered in that city. This\norder was composed of thirty knights, chosen out of the principal\nancient families in Navarre, Biscay and old Castile. Each of these\nknights wore on his breast a lily embroidered in silver, and, on all\nfestivals and holy days, he wore about his neck a collar composed of\na double chain of gold interlaced with Gothic capital letters M; and\npendent thereunto an oval medal, whereon was enamelled, on a white\nground, a lily of gold springing out of a mount, supporting a Gothic\ncapital letter M, ducally crowned.\u2019[26]\n\nThus the lily became the gage of the Virgin borne by her knights. She\nwas now gradually moving from the subordinate though glorious station\nas Mother of the Incarnate Word to a position of her own as Queen of\nHeaven. Saint Ferdinand, possibly unwilling to confront the Moslem with\nthe Christ whom they themselves revered as a prophet, bore upon his\nsaddle-bow the ivory _Virgen de las Batallas_,[27] and perhaps what\nspecially endeared her to the people of Spain was the knowledge that in\nthe fealty they paid her the infidel could have neither part nor lot.\nThe chosen knight of the Immaculate Virgin was, of course, _Santiago_,\nSaint James, the patron saint of Spain, but every Spanish cavalier\nacknowledged himself the servitor of the Lady of the Lily.\n\nRather more than fifty years after the founding of the Order of the\nLily of Navarre the poet-saint, Bernard of Clairvaux, was preaching\nhis famous series of Homilies on the Song of Solomon. The sermons were\neighty in number, each based on the text of the Canticles, and each\ncelebrating the perfections of the Virgin. Differing from Origen, he\nfound the Virgin Mary, not the Christ, to be the speaker of the words:\n\u2018I am the rose of Sharon and the lily of the valleys.\u2019 Differing again\nfrom the Church father, he further identified \u2018the lily among thorns,\u2019\nshe who is addressed as \u2018my sister, my spouse,\u2019 with the Virgin and not\nwith the Church of God upon Earth.\n\nSaint Bernard was the most popular preacher of his time; his sermons\nbecame known throughout the Christian world, and to his influence may\nbe traced the high position which the Mother of Christ now holds in\nthe Roman Catholic Church. But, so far, the lily had not appeared in\npictorial art in connection with the Virgin.\n\nIn the twelfth century, however, we find ecclesiastical seals which\nbear the figure of the Virgin holding by the left hand (or right, as\nit would appear on the impress) the Child, and in her right a branch\nof lilies. Two of these seals, that of the Dean and Chapter of Lincoln\nand that of Thornholm Priory in Lincolnshire, are now in the British\nMuseum. It seems to have been the fashion in the eleventh, twelfth and\nthirteenth centuries to engrave the owner\u2019s figure on a seal with a\nflower in the hand. On the seal of Capet Henri I he is shown with a\nsceptre in one hand and a fleur-de-lys in the other, and the figures\non the seals of the Queens of France have a flower in either hand.\nTherefore it was only natural, when cutting the Virgin\u2019s figure on a\nseal, that the craftsman should give her a flower too, and the Virgin\u2019s\nown flower, the lily.\n\nThe conservatism of churchmen and the traditions of Byzantine art\nstill kept lilies at the threshold of the Church till the Renaissance\ncame. It came like the spring, uncertainly at first, with puffs and\ngusts and relapses, but every day the atmosphere grew more genial,\nmore life-giving, till at last every branch of human thought was alive\nand growing. The old early Christian fear of beauty as a devil\u2019s lure\nwas dying fast, and as scholars and artists studied with new interest\nthe legacies of ancient Greece and Rome, the old pagan joy of perfect\nform in art as in literature revived once more. A representation of\nthe climax of the Christian tragedy could only be an awful thing, but\nchildhood and womanhood had the right to beauty. The old Byzantine\npanels of the Child-Christ and His Mother were little more than a\nformula; the lines and colour were not beautiful, though understood\nto represent a thing of beauty. Now artists and people required that\nshe who, on the word of Scripture, was \u2018the fairest among women,\u2019[28]\nshould be adequately presented, and the Church gave consent. But it was\nunderstood that the loveliness of the Virgin should be strictly the\nbeauty of holiness, for Saint Ambrose had affirmed[29] that, in the\nMother of God, corporeal beauty had been, as it were, the reflection\nof the beauty of the soul, and the early artists, hampered by lack\nof technical skill and confused by monkish ideals of asceticism, too\noften rendered their Madonnas emaciated and bloodless, even languid and\nfretful in expression, mistaking the outward signs of a subdued flesh\nfor those of a perfected spirit.\n\nIt was at this time that Saint Dominic came to Italy with his fiery\nzeal, his devotion to the Virgin and his Spanish traditions of the\nflower of Our Lady. For him, the quality which raised her so far above\nall other women was her spotlessness; she was \u2018_sin pecado_,\u2019 \u2018_Maria\nPurissima_.\u2019 Her other phases, as Mother of the Sorrowful, Refuge\nof Sinners, or Consoler of the Afflicted, were to him of secondary\nimportance.\n\nAlready through the preaching of Saint Francis Italian intellect had\nbeen rendered capable of appreciating the beauty of simplicity. Each\nartist knew that the true beauty of the Queen of Heaven was not to be\nexpressed by jewels or wonderfully-wrought raiment, and as the words\nof Saint Dominic passed from mouth to mouth, the people of Italy came\nto understand that the most precious virtue of Christ\u2019s Mother was her\npurity, symbolized very fitly by the lily. The symbol, beautiful in\nitself, and so suggestive of the quality it represented, impressed the\nimagination clearly, and presently there was a bloom of pictured lilies.\n\nThe mosaicist Cavallini,[30] Duccio di Buoninsegna,[31] Giotto,[32]\nSimone Martini,[33] and Orcagna[34] led the way, and the Christian\nartists of the world have followed. The earliest lilies flowered in\nRome; but Siena, Umbria, Florence, Venice, and later the Netherlands\nand Germany, all soon had their votaries of the mystic flower. The\nFrench ivory workers of the fourteenth century, influenced doubtless\nby the tradition of the seal-cutters, frequently placed flowers in the\nhand of the Madonna. These little ivory statuettes are usually very\nsweet in type and often exquisite in workmanship. The Child is held\non the left arm, and the right hand holds a large single lily cup, a\npear-like fruit, or, more generally, a natural stalk of lilies with\nleaves and flowers. Always when placed beside the Virgin, or in her\nhand, the lily is the symbol of her purity, and a lily standing alone,\nas does the beautiful stem in _pietra-dura_ work, which decorates the\nlittle oratory of \u2018Our Lady of the Annunciation\u2019 in the Church of\nthe Santissima Annunziata of Florence, is the emblem of the Madonna\nherself, the \u2018Lilium inter Spinas.\u2019\n\nModern Biblical commentators are agreed that the \u2018lily of the valleys\u2019\nof the Song of Solomon is not the white lily of Europe but the scarlet\nanemone. The _lilium candidum_ appears never to have grown in Syria. In\nthe late spring and early summer, however, the anemones grow thickly\nin every grassy patch around Jerusalem and throughout Palestine. That\nthe flower mentioned is red seems indicated by the comparison between\nit and the lips of the \u2018Beloved,\u2019 and the anemone, which responds so\nreadily to the sun, throwing back its scarlet petals and baring its\nheart to the warmth, might well stand for the passionate lover of the\nCanticles.\n\nBut the fathers of the Church held the flower to be a _lilium_, and for\nthe Church and for sacred art it was and remains the _lilium candidum_.\n\n[Illustration: _From French MS. of 14th Century_]\n\n\n\n\nIV\n\nTHE IRIS\n\n\nThe only rival to the _lilium candidum_ as the lily of the Virgin\nis the iris. Strictly speaking, it is not a lily at all, for the\n_Iridacea_ and the _Liliacea_ are distinct botanical orders. But in\nGermany it is known as the sword-lily, from its sword-shaped leaves; in\nFrance it has always been identified with the \u2018fleur-de-lys\u2019; in Spain\nit is a \u2018lirio\u2019--a lily--and Shakespeare writes:\n\n   \u2018... And lilies of all kinds\n    The Flower-de-luce being one.\u2019\n\nIts first appearance as a religious symbol is in the work of the early\nFlemish masters, where it both accompanies and replaces the white lily\nas the flower of the Virgin. Roger van der Weyden[35] paints both\nflowers in a vase before the Virgin, and the iris alone in another\npicture[36] of Mary with the Holy Child. In his \u2018Annunciation\u2019[37] the\nvase holds only white lilies. There is iris growing among the roses in\nJan van Eyck\u2019s \u2018Virgin of the Fountain,\u2019[38] but in his Annunciations\nthere is only the white lily. Memling, however, places an iris half\nhidden below the lilies in one Annunciation,[39] while in a \u2018Madonna\nwith the Child\u2019[40] there is also a single iris, though in this case\nthe iris rises above the lilies.\n\nThe Master of Fl\u00e9malle in his fine \u2018Saint Barbara\u2019[41] places an iris\nin a vase beside the saint, where the white lily of a virgin martyr\nmight have been expected.\n\nThe symbolism of the iris and the lily at first sight appears to be\nidentical, and the substitution of the iris for the _lilium_ seems\nto be the result of some confusion between \u2018lys\u2019 and \u2018fleur-de-lys,\u2019\naccentuated by the likeness between the iris and the lilies of the\nFrench royal standard with which the people of the Netherlands were\nfamiliar, since they were emblazoned on the shield of the Dukes of\nBurgundy.\n\nIn the mosaics of Ravenna, where the lily is used to indicate the\ndelights of Heaven, it is drawn in silhouette, showing three petals,\nand very closely resembles the \u2018fleur-de-lys\u2019 of heraldry. The same\nconvention born of the extreme difficulty of giving modelled form in\nutter whiteness, particularly in a medium unfitted to express fine\ngradations of shade, is found in woven work, tooled leather, and\nembroidery, and the common likeness of the imperfectly-rendered _lilium\ncandidum_ and the iris to the sacred lily of the French and English\nroyal standards, is sufficient to account for any indecision as to\nwhich was precisely the Virgin\u2019s lily. It is conceivable, too, that\nthe artists of the Netherlands, when they painted a Madonna for their\nchurches, set her in the midst of the iris which grew so thickly round\ntheir doors rather than limit her patronage to the white lily, which\nwas still exotic and confined to some few convent gardens. For the iris\nmade their Lady more entirely their own--and so she would appeal more\nstrongly to the emotions of the simple.\n\nBut in the Netherlands, in the fifteenth century, symbolism was usually\nvery precise, and there does seem to be a slight difference in the\nuse of the two lilies. The _lilium candidum_ is used exclusively\nas the symbol of virginal purity, more particularly in relation to\nthe fact that the Virgin Mary was a mother, but the iris, the royal\nlily, appears to be the emblem or attribute of the incarnate Godhead.\nThough Saint Bernard of Clairvaux had attributed the metaphor, \u2018I am\n... the lily of the valleys,\u2019 to the Virgin, Origen, the older and,\nin the North, weightier authority, held Christ to be the lily. In\nthe \u2018Adoration of the Shepherds\u2019[42] of Hugo van der Goes, where the\nsymbolism all refers to the Child, there is no white lily, but the\norange lily and the purple and white iris. In the Annunciation of\nMemling, the single iris below the lilies may be the emblem of the\nPrince of David\u2019s house who was to be born of virginal innocence--and\nit may have the same meaning where it rises above the lilies in the\npicture where the royal Child sits upon His mother\u2019s knee. It may also\nindicate royal birth in the \u2018Saint Barbara\u2019 of the Prado. She was\nthe daughter of a King, but in this painting has no crown or other\nattribute of royalty. It is noticeable, too, that had there been a\nwhite lily in the vase it would have been difficult to distinguish\nthis Saint Barbara from a figure of the Virgin.\n\nThe idea of royalty in connection with the iris received support from\nthe constant recurrence of the \u2018fleur-de-lys,\u2019 accepted as an iris\n(though some contend that the form, as a symbol of royalty, came\noriginally from Egypt and was founded on the lotus), on royal crowns\nand sceptres. Memling and his school used such crowns as the symbol of\ndivine majesty, placing them upon the heads of God the Father,[43] of\nGod the Son,[44] and also on the head of the Virgin Mary.[45]\n\nDante also appears to use the \u2018fleur-de-lys\u2019 or \u2018fiordaliso\u2019 as a\nsymbol of honour:\n\n                      \u2018... Beneath the sky\n    So beautiful, came four-and-twenty elders (signori)\n    By two and two, with flower-de-luces crown\u2019d.\u2019[46]\n\nSome commentators, taking the four-and-twenty personages as the\nfour-and-twenty canonical books of the Old Testament, consider the\ncrowns of flowers to be symbolical of the purity of the doctrine found\nwithin the books, holding a \u2018fiordaliso\u2019 to equal the white lily as a\nsymbol, but it is possible that the poet meant the formal fleur-de-lys\nupon a golden crown or the fresh iris blooms which would also form a\ncrown of honour.\n\nThe iris is sometimes used symbolically in Italy, and there is in the\nChurch of S. Spirito in Florence an \u2018Annunciation\u2019 now usually ascribed\nto Pesello. Between Mary and the angel stands a vase from which spring\nthree purple iris. This vase, on either side of which the figures\nbend, is not merely a variation of the vase of white lilies indicating\nthe virginity of Mary which is seen in so many early Annunciations,\nbut it is the same symbol developed and enriched, till it represents\nthe dogma of the immaculate birth of Christ. The vase, in many cases\ntransparent, typifies Mary, and the upspringing flower is the emblem of\nthe incarnate Godhead.[47]\n\nGhirlandaio places the iris, violet and daisy, each growing up strongly\nand freshly from the bare ground of the stableyard, in his \u2018Adoration\nof the Shepherds,\u2019[48] and in a picture of the sixteenth century by\nPalmezzano of Forl\u00ec,[49] the Child, seated on His Mother\u2019s knee, holds\na stem of iris as a sceptre; but, on the whole, the iris was little\npainted in Italy.\n\nIn art which is purely German the iris is very rarely used, though\nAlbert D\u00fcrer painted a \u2018Madonna of the Sword-lily,\u2019[50] but in Spain\nit holds an important place. Spanish art is poor in symbolism,\nthough it recognized early and prized highly the white lilies of\nthe Annunciation. Except, perhaps, for the flame-tipped dart of\ndivine love, there seems to be no symbol of truly Spanish origin,\nand those used by Spanish artists were mostly taken from the art of\nthe Netherlands. Flemish art was profoundly admired in Spain, and\nthe Spanish were well acquainted with it, for there was naturally\nmuch intercourse between the two countries in the days before the\nNetherlands established their independence. Also Jan van Eyck visited\nPortugal and Spain in the train of his patron, Philip the Good of\nBurgundy, and from the Hispano-Mauresque types in some of the later\nwork of the Master of Fl\u00e9malle there is reason to think that he, too,\nhad been in the peninsula.\n\nThe symbol of the Flemish painters which particularly appealed to the\nSpanish was the iris, which grew small and wild upon their own hills,\nand with a freer, heavier growth in the palace gardens, whose admirable\nwater-works had been planned and executed by the despised Moors. They\nadopted the iris as the royal lily of the Virgin, the attribute of the\nQueen of Heaven, as the _lilium candidum_ was the attribute of the Maid\nof Nazareth. The iris, therefore, was deemed particularly suitable as\na detail in that most favourite Spanish devotional representation of\nthe Virgin, an \u2018Immaculate Conception.\u2019 The Virgin, represented as the\nwoman \u2018clothed with the sun and the moon beneath her feet,\u2019 is usually\nattended by child angels who carry roses, lilies, palm and olive. The\npurple iris is generally added, and sometimes the white lily is omitted\nand the iris only given. The Spaniards, therefore, attached the same\nidea of royalty to the iris as did the Flemings, but transferred the\nattributes from the royal Son to the crowned Mother, for in Spain it is\nnot found as the attribute or the emblem of the Infant Christ.\n\nLater, the whole Catholic Church seems to have accepted both the iris\nand the lily, and the mosaic altar-frontals of St Peter\u2019s in Rome bear\na design in which the rose, the lily and the iris are united.\n\n\n\n\nV\n\nTHE ROSE\n\n\nRoses, among the Romans, were the symbol of victory, of triumphant\nlove, of the pride and pomp of life, and were by long association as\npagan as the lily is sacred. The Madonna lily (_lilium candidum_) was\nthe flower of the Virgin and of the virgin saints; the rose was the\nflower of Venus.\n\n   \u2018And on hire hed, full semmly for to see\n    A rose gerlond fressh and wel smelling.\u2019[51]\n\nIn the \u2018Triumph of Venus,\u2019 by Cosimo Tura,[52] the goddess, who is in\ntruth a modest-looking lady, fully draped and firmly girdled, wears\na crown of roses, red and white. Beneath her cockle-shell is another\npicture,[53] the sea is \u2018sucking in one by one the falling roses, each\nsevere in outline, plucked off short at the stalk, but embrowned a\nlittle as Botticelli\u2019s roses always are.\u2019[54]\n\nBut the Church grudged Venus the flower. Roses, said Wilfred Strabo,\nwere the flower of martyrdom. \u2018_Ros\u00e6 martyres, rubore sanguinis_,\u2019\nwrote Saint Melitus, Bishop of Sardes, in the second century, and\nSaint Bernard of Clairvaux found the rose to be a fitting symbol of\nthe Passion of our Lord. But though the rose was red to the colour of\nblood, and fenced around with cruellest thorns, it had been so long\nassociated with the joys of life that the world refused to recognize\nit as the flower of death. Only as the sign of the triumphant entry of\nthe departed soul to Heaven was the symbol acceptable. Roses sprang\nfrom the blood of those who fell for their faith at Roncevaux (as\nindeed they sprang from the spilt blood of Adonis), but they were also\nthe sign of victory over the pagan, and when the Virgin Mary was laid\nwithin her tomb it was in rejoicing that \u2018straightway there surrounded\nher flowers of roses which are the blessed company of martyrs.\u2019[55]\n\nBut the Church, always wise in matters \u00e6sthetic, did not insist upon\nthe tragic significance of the rose. It was allowed to be still the\nsymbol of love, but of divine love, and it is as the symbol of the love\nof God that it now decorates our churches in carvings of wood or stone,\nin the silver work of church ornaments and on embroidered vestments and\naltar frontals.\n\nThe rose has never been especially associated with the person of\nChrist. Origen, who held that the text which we render, \u2018I am the rose\nof Sharon,\u2019 was a self-description of our Lord, read the verse, \u2018I am\nthe flower of the field,\u2019 so giving the Church no clear image. When in\nart an emblem was required to represent our Lord, the ancient catacomb\ndevices of the lamb and the vine were employed. Any reference to Him\nunder the metaphor of a flower was rare and usually vague, as the\ncharming \u2018gold flower\u2019 of the Blickling Homilies. \u2018Then the Queen of\nall the maidens gave birth to the true Creator and Consoler of mankind,\nwhen the gold-flower came unto this world and received a human body\nfrom S. Mary, the spotless Virgin.\u2019\n\nOr again as a fruit rising from the mystical rose:\n\n   \u2018Now spring up flouris fra the rute\n    Revert you upward naturally\n    In honour of the blissit frute\n    That raiss up fro the rose Mary.\u2019[56]\n\nThere are some medi\u00e6val Latin hymns for the Nativity in which Christ is\nreferred to as the rose springing from the lily. The simile, however,\nwas by no means applied to Him exclusively, for in a Visitation hymn\nof the same period He is alluded to as the lily hidden in the rose.\nBut though the rose is not often the emblem of Jesus Christ, both in\nliterature and art it is used as the symbol of His love.\n\nSaint Mectilda, in the discourse on the three perfumes of divine love,\ntells us that \u2018the first of these perfumes is the rose-water distilled\nin the still of charity from the most beautiful of all roses, the heart\nof our Lord,\u2019[57] and repeatedly in ecclesiastical art, roses falling\nor fallen from Heaven, signify divine love. The lovely angels in\nSignorelli\u2019s \u2018Paradise\u2019[58] carry roses in their looped draperies and\nscatter them down upon the redeemed souls beneath, and in Botticelli\u2019s\n\u2018Coronation of the Virgin\u2019[59] the air is also full of roses, symbols\nof the love of God. And symbols of divine love are also the falling\nroses in that vision of Saint Francis which was so often painted by\nSpanish artists and called by them \u2018La Portincula.\u2019[60] The saint,\nkneeling in his cell one winter\u2019s night, was much troubled by the\nmemory of a fair woman. To overcome the temptation he went out and\nthrew himself among the briars of the wilderness. He was rewarded by a\nvision of the Saviour, seated in glory, with the Virgin by His side,\nand as a token that his penitences were accepted the thorns bloomed\nwith roses. In most renderings of the legend the mystical roses fall in\na shower around him, and in Murillo\u2019s fine picture[61] the _putti_ are\nenergetically pelting the saint with blossoms. It was a subject painted\n_con amore_ by the Spaniards, for--Assumptions apart--the traditions\nof art in Spain were distinctly gloomy and they seized where they could\nan excuse for colour. Even Zurburan succumbed to the roses.[62]\n\nThe roses which strew the floor of Heaven in a famous diptych[63] by\nan unknown English painter are also symbols of divine love. The panels\nshow Richard II, who is presented to the Virgin by Saint John the\nBaptist, Saint Edmund and Saint Edward the Confessor. The roses round\nthe Virgin\u2019s feet are pink and yellow, and heavier, handsomer flowers\nthan those which are found in Italian pictures of the same period. For\nthe rest, this Heaven is especially remarkable for the politeness of\nthe blue-winged, blue-robed angels, who each, in compliment to their\nroyal visitor, wear his badge--a white hart couchant, collared and\nchained or--upon the shoulder.\n\nRed roses, said Saint Bernard, were symbolical of the Passion of our\nLord, but neither in Church observances nor in art have they been\ngenerally adopted with that meaning. There is, however, a picture of\nthe Christ-Child in Cadiz. He holds the crown of thorns, and at His\nfeet are the globe and the apple. All around, filling the background,\nare blood-red roses, symbol of the Passion which was to come.\n\nThis forecast of pain in the Spanish renderings of the Saviour\u2019s\ninfancy is even more marked in a picture by Zurburan,[64] where in play\nHe plaits a crown of rose thorns, the flowers lying beside Him and at\nHis feet.\n\nDivine love and divine passion, intermingled, may be what the roses\nindicate in many \u2018Adorations\u2019 of great beauty where the scene is laid\nin a rose-garden. In the \u2018Adoration\u2019 of Neri di Bicci[65] the Holy\nChild lies surrounded by lilies and red and pale roses. The lilies\nsignify His sinlessness and the roses apparently His love and passion.\nThe little Saint John stands behind with a scroll on which is inscribed\n\u2018_ECCE AGNUS DEI_.\u2019\n\nThere is a lovely picture[66] now ascribed to Botticini, where\nangels playfully sprinkle rose petals over the Infant Christ in a\nrose-trellised garden. \u2018They worship here always alone, though there\nis no gate to the garden; the angels have relinquished high Heaven for\nthese delights; for the scent of these roses which they pluck, and the\nChild has relinquished Heaven for these roses, and the thorns which\nhe shall gather from them ... the season of their thorns is never\nover, and whilst it is the time of roses in this picture, there is the\nforecast of their thorns in it.\u2019[67]\n\nIn the _Speculum Human\u00e6 Salvationis_, a MS. of the fourteenth\ncentury,[68] the Holy Dove is depicted upon a rose. From the bosom of a\nseated figure, which represents David or Jesse, a rose tree issues. At\nthe summit of the tree there is a five-petalled rose, in the centre of\nwhich, as in a nest, sits a dove, which represents the Holy Ghost.\n\nThe design is founded upon the text of Isaiah which has been\nparaphrased by Pope:\n\n   \u2018From Jesse\u2019s root behold a branch arise,\n    Whose sacred flower with fragrance fills the skies;\n    Th\u2019 \u00e6therial Spirit o\u2019er its leaves shall move\n    And on its top descends the sacred Dove.\u2019\n\nThe rose represents Christ, the perfect flower of the human race,\nsprung from the root of Jesse, and the dove descends upon it as the\nHoly Ghost descended upon our Lord at His baptism in Jordan.\n\nSaint Bernard, differing from Origen, identified the Virgin Mary with\nthe flower of the field and also with the abstraction described as\n\u2018Wisdom\u2019 in Ecclesiasticus, \u2018exalted like a palm tree in Engeddi and as\na rose plant in Jericho.\u2019\n\n                    \u2018_Rosa Mystica, ora pro nobis!_\u2019\n\nprays the Church.\n\n                    \u2018Here is the Rose\n    Wherein the Word Divine was made Incarnate,\u2019\n\nwrote Dante.\n\nAn English hymn composed about the year 1300 has the lines:\n\n   \u2018Lavedy (Lady), flower of alle thing\n      _Rosa sine spina_\n    Thu bere Jhesu, hevene king\n      _Gratia devina_.\u2019\n\nAnd nearly two centuries later William Dunbar wrote:\n\n   \u2018Hevins distil your balmy showris:\n    For now is risen the bricht day-stir\n    Fro the rose Mary, flour of flowris.\u2019\n\nTherefore, in the decoration of churches dedicated to the Madonna,\nthe rose frequently occurs. It does not supersede the lily, which\nwas the flower especially consecrated to her, but it is found beside\nit. The Church of S. Maria Maggiore in Rome is ornamented along the\naisles, above the side chapels, with a series of panels, gold on white,\nwhich show the floral emblems of the Virgin. The rose, the lily, the\nolive, the laurel and the vine alternate down the whole length of the\nchurch. The beautiful little chapel behind the shrine of the Santissima\nAnnunziata, in the Church of the Annunziata in Florence, was decorated\nin the seventeenth century with inlaid and raised _pietra-dura_ work.\nEach of the five onyx panels which form the walls has upon it an emblem\nof the Virgin--the sun, the moon, the _Stella maris_, the lily, and,\nmost lovely of them all, the branch of roses below the words \u2018Rosa\nMystica.\u2019 This rose is red, and, strangely enough, the red rose, rather\nthan the white, was chosen to represent the Virgin. Wrote Guido Orlandi\nin 1292:\n\n   \u2018If thou hadst said, my friend, of Mary,\n    Loving and full of grace;\n    Thou art a red rose planted in the garden;\n    Thou wouldst have written fittingly.\u2019\n\nIn the _Sarum Book of Hours_, by Philippe Pigouchet,[69] published in\n1501, the huge rose held by the Virgin definitely illustrates her title\nof \u2018Rosa Mystica,\u2019 but those pictures of the early Florentine school,\nin which she holds a small red or white rose, show her as the \u2018_Madonna\ndel Fiore_,\u2019 for as \u2018Our Lady of the Flower\u2019 she had been installed\npatroness of the city of Florence. It would have seemed natural, since\nthe lily was upon the shield of Florence, to have placed a lily, her\nown flower, in the Madonna\u2019s hand. But the city of Florence had passed\nthrough troubled times just before the revival of her art, and the\nsilver lily on her shield had been replaced by one of crimson.\n\n          \u2018Had through dissension been with vermeil dyed.\u2019[70]\n\nRather than paint her with the crimson lily, Florentine artists gave\nher the rose, and she holds a white leafless rose in the dainty little\npicture by Fra Angelico which is now in the Vatican.[71]\n\nThere was an odd fancy about the beginning of the eighteenth century\nto represent the Virgin Mary as _La Divina Pastora_ feeding her sheep\nwith roses. The original picture with this title was by Alfonso\nda Tobar.[72] He found imitators both in Spain and France, and in\nSouthern Spain the popularity of the subject still persists. There is\na plastic group, nearly life-size, in the Church of S. Catalina in\nCadiz. The Virgin is dressed _\u00e0 la Watteau_ with a beribboned crook\nand a rose-wreathed hat. She feeds with roses and lilies the sheep and\nlambs gambolling round her knees; an almond tree flowers above, and\nthe Christ-Child, dressed as a small shepherd boy, stands in front.\nIt is all pink and white, gay and dainty, in a corner of the austere\nwhitewashed convent chapel which has Murillo\u2019s beautiful \u2018Marriage of\nSaint Catharine\u2019 above the altar. A similar group, but more dignified\nin type and less frivolous in detail, is in the Church of the Holy\nTrinity at Cordova. They are strange artificial flowers of that gloomy\ngrowth, Spanish Art.\n\n\n\n\nVI\n\nTHE CARNATION\n\n\nIn early German devotional poems the _nelken_, the pink, carnation or\ngillyflower, is occasionally used as the simile of the Virgin. Conrad\nvon W\u00fcrtzburg writes:\n\n                \u2018Thou art a fragrant gillyflower sprig.\u2019\n\nBut it has been given no definite and individual status as a symbol.\n\nVery frequently, however, in ecclesiastical art, more particularly\nthat of Venice and Northern Italy, it is found where the rose might be\nexpected. It is placed with the lily in a vase beside the Virgin, with\nthe violet before the Infant Christ, and with the wild strawberries\namong the grass of Paradise.\n\nIn Germany the carnation is seen falling from above with heavenly\nroses, and occasionally, even, in spite of the written legend, it\nreplaces the roses in Saint Dorothea\u2019s wreath.\n\nIt would appear, therefore, that the symbolism of the carnation is\nidentical with that of the rose, and when, for any reason, the artist\ndid not care to paint the rose, he substituted the carnation.\n\nEach year thousands of carnation blossoms are brought to the Lateran\nChurch in Rome on the feast-day of Saint John, and the people bring\ncarnations, not roses, because by midsummer\u2019s day the blooming time of\nRoman roses is almost past. A scarcity of roses would seem one reason\nat least in the Venetian pictures of the fifteenth century why the\ncarnation replaces the rose. Earth, even sufficient to grow a rose\nbush, was scarce in the sea-washed city, but carnations then, as now,\nmust have grown in pots on every balcony. So the Venetians painted\ntheir own familiar flower rather than draw the rose, as Carpaccio did\nhis camels, from descriptions furnished by observant travellers.\n\nIn the Netherlands and Germany artists probably preferred the\ncarnation to the rose. It is more precise in shape, neater in its\nhabit of growth, richer in colour than the rose, and therefore\nmore in the spirit of Northern art, which liked to express definite\nand closely-reasoned symbolism with distinct bright colours and\nsharply-realized form. In the South, the artists, more concerned with\nthe depicting of the soul than with the outer shell of things, more\npoetical and also more vague and less accurate in their symbolism, were\nbetter pleased with the more elusive charms of the loosely-petalled\nrose.\n\nIn an \u2018Adoration\u2019 by Botticelli[73] the Holy Child lies among violets,\ndaisies and wild strawberries, and the background is filled with\nfreely-growing roses, drawn apparently from memory, not life. The roses\nsignify the divine love which impelled the Saviour of the world to be\nborn as a human Child. In the same subject by Hugo van der Goes[74]\nthree carefully-painted carnations are placed in a crystal vase, and\nare symbols of the divine love of the Holy Trinity by which God the\nSon became incarnate, the crystal vase in Northern art typifying the\nImmaculate Conception.\n\nBut in the Sienese and Florentine schools also the carnation is\nsometimes found, and very rarely in the same picture as the rose.[75]\nTherefore it would seem conclusive that when the painter of the Church\ndid not care to use the rose because, probably, of its association\nwith Venus and scenes profane, he was free, if he chose, to use the\ncarnation as its substitute.\n\nStrangely enough, the most famous carnations in the history of art,\nthose two which have given the name of \u2018The Master with the Carnations\u2019\nto the anonymous Swiss painter of the fifteenth century, seem to have\nno symbolical significance. The picture[76] shows Saint John the\nBaptist preaching to King Herod from the text: \u2018It is not lawful for\nthee to have thy brother\u2019s wife.\u2019 The King is in his chair of state\nand the ladies of his court are seated upon cushions on the tesselated\npavement before the pulpit. Directly below the pulpit lie the two\npinks; one is white and one red. Possibly, since roses, according to\nSaint Melitus,[77] Walafrid Strabo[78] and Saint Mectilda,[79] are\nthe symbols of martyrdom, the carnation may foreshadow the approaching\ndeath of the preacher, but they are more probably simply a detail to\ngive verisimilitude to the composition, as is the dog that worries a\nbone in the \u2018Dance of Salome\u2019 by the same master.\n\n\n\n\nVII\n\nGARLANDS OF ROSES\n\n\n\u2018Let us crown ourselves with rose-buds,\u2019[80] cried the revellers in the\nBook of Wisdom, and at Roman feasts host and guests alike wore roses on\ntheir hair or in garlands round their necks.\n\nSo in the heavenly mansions, where life is a perpetual feast, unfading\nroses crown the elect. Wreaths of roses are the symbol of heavenly joy\nand are worn alike by angels and by the human souls who have entered\nbliss.\n\nAn early Christian prisoner dreamt that he was already in Heaven:\n\n\u2018Towards us ran one of the twin children who, three days before,\nhad been decapitated with their mother. A wreath of vermilion roses\nencircled his neck and in his right hand he held a green and fresh\npalm.\u2019[81]\n\nBeneath Byzantine influence the rosy wreaths turned to crowns of\njewels, and in the period between Constantine and Justinian crowns\nwere considered strictly necessary for the guests at the heavenly\nfeasts. But when the King of Heaven Himself was present all reverently\nuncrowned, and it is with their crowns in their hands that the twelve\napostles stand, and the four-and-twenty elders in the mosaics of Rome\nand Ravenna. In the Neapolitan mosaics in the Chapel of Santa Restituta\neight figures, apparently of martyrs, hold large crowns resembling\na victor\u2019s wreath, and the graceful virgin saints on the wall of S.\nApollinare Nuova each carries her wreath.\n\nThe tall, grand angels of the mosaics have neither wreaths nor\ngarlands. They have gained no crown because no strife has ever troubled\ntheir serenity. They stand tall and straight, haloed, with spear-like\nwands in their hands.\n\nAfter the twelfth century, however, the apostles and martyrs no longer\ncarry the crown of victory, but it is the angels who wear wreaths,\nusually wreaths of roses, which are the symbol of heavenly joy. And,\nalas! what a lowering in type there was from the grand, dignified\nbeings who guard the throne of Mary, on the wall of S. Apollinare\nNuova, to the childish, peeping, rose-crowned little attendants which\ncrowd behind her chair in pictures of the Sienese, Umbrian and early\nFlorentine schools. The archangels still keep some dignity, but the\nsweet little doll-like creatures, rose-crowned and golden-winged, of\nFra Angelico seem an inadequate representation of the hosts of Heaven.\n\nBut a magnificent strong-limbed angel of the Byzantine type would have\novershadowed the slight, transparent-fleshed Madonna whose physique\nshowed traces of the asceticism which went towards the making of a\nsaint. So the angels, denied grand and vigorous frames, were decked\nwith dainty robes and crowns of roses. Paul Bourget writes:\n\n  \u2018Ce double et contradictoire Id\u00e9al, celui d\u2019une extase monastique\n  conquise dans le martyre des sens et celui d\u2019une beaut\u00e9 qui parle\n  au sens, semble avoir co-exist\u00e9 dans le P\u00e9rugin et dans les\n  peintres qui l\u2019ont pr\u00e9c\u00e9d\u00e9 ou accompagn\u00e9, particuli\u00e8rement dans\n  Benedetto Bonfigli, dans Eusebio da San Giorgio, dans Giannicola\n  Manni et quelques autres dont la Pinacoth\u00e8que de P\u00e9rouse enferme\n  les \u0153uvres. Ce r\u00eave complexe a son symbole dans les anges de\n  Bonfigli, couronn\u00e9s de roses, comme les impies dont parle\n  l\u2019Ecriture \u201cCouronnons-nous de roses avant qu\u2019elles ne soient\n  fl\u00e9tries,\u201d comme les convives aussi des banquets paiens \u201cRespirons\n  les roses tant qu\u2019elles ressemblent \u00e0 tes joues. Embrassons tes\n  joues tant qu\u2019elles ressemblent \u00e0 tes roses.\u201d Mais ces pauvres\n  anges aux cheveux fleuris tiennent dans leurs mains les instruments\n  de la Passion du Sauveur, et une piti\u00e9 douloureuse noie de rouge\n  leurs douces prunelles o\u00f9 roulent de grosses larmes.\u2019[82]\n\nBut blissful souls as well as angels wear roses. In the Paradise of\nSimone Martini,[83] Saint Peter with his key has opened the gate of\nHeaven and two angels standing by crown with roses each soul as it\nenters.\n\nAnd more particularly those souls are crowned who in their earthly\nlife could rejoice in their faith even when overwhelmed with troubles.\nSymbol of holy joy is the crown of roses which Saint Cecilia wears. Her\nlegend, like other legends of the Early Church, is both more poetic and\nmore allegorical than those which originated in later times.\n\nSaint Cecilia lived in virginity with her husband Valerian, who,\nthrough love of her, became a Christian and was baptized.\n\n\u2018And returning home he found Cecilia in her chamber conversing with a\nglittering angel ... and he held in his hand two crowns of roses and\nlilies, and he gave one of them to Cecilia and the other to Valerian.\n\n\u2018And on the morrow, when Tibertius came to salute his sister-in-law\nCecilia, he perceived an excellent odour of lilies and roses, and asked\nher, wondering, whence she had untimely roses in the winter season.\u2019\n(That is, whence came her holy joy during the season of persecution.)\n\u2018And Valerian answered that God had sent them crowns of roses and\nlilies but that he could not see them till his eyes were opened and his\nbody purified\u2019 (by baptism).\n\nThen follows the account of the conversion of Tibertius and the deaths\nof all three martyrs.\n\nThe \u2018Second Nonne\u2019 told the legend of the saint very prettily to the\nCanterbury pilgrims:\n\n   \u2018Thou with thy gerlond wrought of rose and lilie\n    Thee, mene I, maid and martir Seint Cecilie.\u2019\n\nAnd her story appears to have been popular, though strangely enough she\nhas never ranked in popularity with Saint Margaret, Saint Catharine\nof Alexandria, or Saint Barbara, notwithstanding that her story is\ncertainly better authenticated than theirs, the historical details of\nher martyrdom having been proved beyond dispute. But she is essentially\na Roman saint, her body lying in Trastevere on practically the spot\nwhere she suffered martyrdom under Marcus Aurelius, and with the\nstrange jealousy of Italian cities she was almost ignored by Siena,\nFlorence and Venice till Raphael, Roman in all his sympathies, painted\nthe fine picture now in Bologna. In this picture, where she appears as\nthe patroness of Music, she has no roses, but Luini[84] dresses her\nhead charmingly with white roses and anemones.\n\nMore fortunate than Saint Cecilia, Saint Dorothea is beloved in almost\nall Christian countries, for coming from Cappadocia there could be\nneither vauntings nor heart-burnings on her account in the Christian\ncities of Europe. She too wears the roses of her legend.\n\n\u2018Send me then some roses from the Paradise of your Christ,\u2019 scoffed\nthe noble youth, Theophilus, as she passed to execution. At the moment\nof death an angel appeared with three roses and three apples. \u2018Take\nthem to Theophilus,\u2019 said the saint, and Theophilus, believing, died a\nmartyr.[85]\n\nSaint Dorothea is usually painted with both apples and roses, symbols\nof the good works of a Christian life and of the holy joy even in the\nhour of death, which, reported to Theophilus, astonished and finally\nconverted him. She is very popular both in the Low Countries and in\nGermany. There is a charming triptych at Palermo, the best picture\nSicily possesses, attributed usually to Mabuse. On one wing Saint\nDorothea is depicted seated on the ground with her lap full of red and\nwhite roses, a quaint, compact little figure, not a slender Italian\nmaiden, supported by angelic visions, already half in Heaven, but of\nthe sturdy Flemish type, who, having with clear brain calculated the\ncost, sets herself with stoicism to endure the pain which would be\nrewarded by the martyr\u2019s crown of unfading roses.\n\nCuriously enough, the Virgin\u2019s crown is usually of gold and precious\nstones, though in one of Velasquez\u2019s rare religious pictures, \u2018The\nCoronation of the Virgin,\u2019[86] God the Father places upon her head a\nwreath of red and white rose blooms. In the best period of Italian art\nthe Virgin wears no crown except at a \u2018Coronation,\u2019 when most often it\nis of gold. In Germany the crowns are large and heavily jewelled, and\nin the Netherlands a jewelled fillet was very generally placed upon her\nhair. A notable and beautiful exception to these fillet-like coronets\nis the magnificent symbolical crown of jewels and fresh flowers which\nshe wears as Queen of Heaven in Hubert van Eyck\u2019s \u2018Adoration of the\nLamb.\u2019[87] It was only in late art, that is, after the sixteenth\ncentury, that representations of Mary with the Child in her arms, as\nQueen of Heaven, or as \u2018La Purissima,\u2019 became common. Previously she\nhad been painted as a human mother with the sorrows of her motherhood\nstill upon her. As the mother, the greatest of whose seven sorrows has\nnot yet come, she would not yet carry the rose crown which symbolized\njoy, even though it were heavenly joy, and by the time religious\nsentiment demanded representations of Christ\u2019s mother, risen to glory,\nall sorrow past, the Church had decided to depict her as the woman\n\u2018clothed with the sun and upon her head a crown of twelve stars.\u2019\n\nAkin to the wreaths of roses worn by angels and saints are the hedges\nand rose-trellises of Paradise.\n\nDante pictures Heaven as one great and marvellous rose-bloom:\n\n   \u2018How wide the leaves\n    Extended to the utmost, of this rose;[88]\n    ...... which in bright expansiveness\n    Lays forth its gradual blooming, redolent\n    Of praises to the never wintering sun.\u2019[89]\n\nBut the artists of the Church have usually depicted Heaven not as\na rose but as a rose-garden; and as a second and more perfect Eden\nrather than as the Holy City, the stupendous piece of jeweller\u2019s work\ndescribed in the Revelation of Saint John. A few Flemish and German\nartists have attempted to realize the jasper wall, the \u2018pure gold like\nunto clear glass,\u2019 and the \u2018foundations garnished with all manner of\nprecious stones,\u2019 but for the majority of artists on both sides of the\nAlps Heaven was a paradise, a garden. The prophet Esdras describes it\nin detail:\n\n\u2018Twelve trees laden with divers fruits,\n\n\u2018And as many fountains flowing with milk and honey, and seven mighty\nmountains, whereupon there grow roses and lilies.\u2019[90]\n\nThe Byzantine _Guide to Painting_[91] directs that Paradise be depicted\nas \u2018surrounded by a wall of crystal and pure gold, adorned with trees\nfilled with bright birds,\u2019 so combining both visions of the home of the\nblessed.\n\nBut Western art usually paints Heaven simply as a garden with twelve or\nsix fruit trees, little fertile mounts, and grass thick with flowers,\namong which lilies and roses predominate.\n\nThe celestial meadow of Hubert van Eyck[92] has grouped trees as in\na park and bushes covered with roses, and there are roses on bushes\nand trellises, crowns of roses and roses woven into swinging garlands\nin that most alluring of all painted paradises set by Benozzo Gozzoli\nupon the walls of the Palazzo Riccardi.[93] \u2018Roses and pomegranates,\ntheir leaves drawn to the last rib and vein, twine themselves in fair\nand perfect order about delicate trellises; broad stone-pines and tall\ncypresses overshadow them; bright birds hover here and there in the\nserene sky; and groups of angels glide and float through the glades of\nan entangled forest.\u2019[94]\n\nIt is a paradise after the own heart of a Medici, in which no monotony,\nno boredom need be apprehended, full of gay and witty folk and the most\ngorgeous angels that were ever seen.\n\nThe roses of Paradise must not be confused with the rose hedge\nor trellis so often placed behind the Virgin by the early German\nschools. These hedges indicate the \u2018Hortus Conclusus\u2019 and identify\nthe Virgin with the bride of the Canticles by recalling the verse, \u2018A\ngarden enclosed is my sister, my spouse.\u2019 This enclosure is sometimes\nfenced merely by a row of flowers, sometimes by a fortress-wall, and\nis often an elaborate garden. An early instance by a master of the\nMiddle Rhine,[95] dating from about 1420, gives eighteen recognizable\nspecies of flowers and ten varieties of birds. The Madonna sits reading\nbeneath a tree. One saint gathers cherries and another draws water\nfrom a fountain. Saint George, Saint Michael and a young man chat\nbeneath a tree, and a pretty young saint with flowers in her hair\nteaches the little Christ to play the psaltery. Other gardens contain\nno flowers but the various objects used as similes of the Virgin--the\nTower of Ivory, the Closed Door, the Sealed Fountain, etc. Very often\nthere is merely a trellis with roses climbing up it, and the flowers\nwhich express the virtues of Mary, the lily, violet and strawberry,\ngrow at her feet. The thorns on the roses are carefully drawn, even\naccentuated, illustrating the verse, \u2018As a lily among thorns, so is my\nlove among the daughters;\u2019[96] but in spite of the thorns the general\nsignificance of these roses also is joy and delight.\n\nIn the Netherlands, where theologians occupied themselves less with\nthis second chapter of the Song of Solomon, Madonnas set _en plein air_\nare scarcely found. The van Eycks and Memling inaugurated the fashion\nof arranging their devotional groups in chapel-like niches, or in\nthe aisle of some large church. Any garden there is seen in glimpses\nbetween pillars or through windows, and has no mystical meaning.\n\n[Illustration:\n\n      _Stefano da Zevio_      _Photo Anderson_\n\nTHE \u2018ENCLOSED GARDEN\u2019 OF THE VIRGIN\n\n(Royal Museum, Verona)]\n\nIn the work of Botticelli and his school we again see enclosed gardens\nof roses, but these are rather gardens of adoration, for in the centre\nthe Virgin kneels before the divine Infant. As in all Adorations the\nsymbolism refers to the Child, and these roses symbolize the Divine\nLove which sent Him to this earth, and are not the attributes of Mary\nor an indication of the joy in Heaven. A true _hortus conclusus_\nof Italian origin is that of Stefano da Zevio or da Verona.[97]\nThe Virgin, with the Child upon her knee, sits upon the ground in a\ncarefully walled in garden, of which the only other human occupant is\nSaint Catharine, who strings a crown of roses. The garden is full of\nbirds and bird-like angels, and in one corner is the \u2018sealed fountain\u2019\nof the Canticles.\n\nAs a general rule, roses massed together, in garlands, in baskets, or\nthickly growing, are the symbols of heavenly joys, and single roses\nare the symbols of divine love. But there is one single rose which is\nalso the symbol of joy--it is the golden rose which is the gift of the\nPopes. Durandus writes: \u2018So also on the Sunday, L\u0153tare Jerusalem, the\nRoman Pontiff beareth a mitre, beautified with the orfrey, on account\nof the joy which the golden rose signifieth, but on account of the time\nbeing one of sadness, he weareth black vestments.[98]\n\n\u2018St Leon is seen upon the _ch\u00e2sse_ of Charlemagne[99] with the golden\nrose in his right hand. The golden rose being the image of Heaven,\naccording to the Liturgy, it became, in the hands of the Pope, the\nequivalent of a benediction. One remarks that, in the epoch of which\nwe speak, the very poetical rite of the golden rose, most ancient in\nthe Church, had just acquired a new celebrity. The sending of the\nsymbolical flower had replaced, in the Roman court, that of the keys\nof confession, and Innocent III had just consecrated a discourse to\nexplain its mysterious signification.\u2019[100]\n\nThe sending of the golden rose was a very old custom, dating at least\nfrom the time of Gregory the Great. The rose was solemnly blessed\nby the Pope on the fourth Sunday in Lent and sent by him to some\nsovereign, church or community. Urban V first made the ceremony annual\nabout 1366.\n\nThis rose, symbol of the Church\u2019s blessing, was often a thing of beauty\nand fine workmanship. Stefano del Cambio describes that one which was\nsent in his time to Florence.\n\n\u2018On Easter Sunday morning, the 2nd of April 1419, Pope Martin V,\nafter having performed Mass, gave the golden rose to our magnificent\nSignoria, in remembrance of the honours paid him by the Florentine\npeople.... Our Signoria then returned to their palace with all the\ncourt of Cardinals and Prelates and the afore-said rose bush, which\nwas a golden branch with leaves of fine gold. On it were nine roses,\nand a little bud on top of the nine, which contained spices, myrrh and\nbalsam.\u2019[101]\n\nSometimes the \u2018rose\u2019 was a whole rose bush about two feet high and\ncovered with leaves and flowers. Two such bushes, one thornless, the\ngift of Pope Alexander VII, and the other, with long sharp thorns,\nthough curved harmlessly downward, presented by Pius II, are still\ntreasured by grateful Siena.\n\n\n\n\nVIII\n\nTHE COLUMBINE\n\n\nWe read in Isaiah: \u2018And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of\nJesse, and a Branch shall grow out of his roots; and the Spirit of the\nLord shall rest upon him, the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the\nSpirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of\nthe Lord.\u2019[102]\n\n\u2018These words were addressed to the Messiah. The Divine Child was\ntherefore clothed with the Spirit of God, whose faculties are seven in\nnumber, for He possesses as His peculiar gifts, wisdom, understanding,\ncounsel, strength, knowledge, piety and fear.\n\n\u2018This subject has frequently been portrayed by Christian artists. A\ntree springs from the bowels, the breast or the mouth of Jesse. The\nsymbolic trunk spreads to the left and right, throwing forth branches\nbearing the Kings of Judah, the ancestors of Christ; at the top,\nseated on a throne, or the chalice of a gigantic flower, is the Son of\nGod. Surrounding the Saviour, and forming as it were an oval aureole,\nseven doves are ranged one above the other, three on the left, three\non the right, and one at the top.... These doves, which are of snowy\nwhiteness, like the Holy Ghost, and adorned like him with a cruciform\nnimbus, are simply living manifestations of the seven gifts of the\nSpirit. The Holy Ghost is drawn under the form of a dove; each of\nthe seven energies distinguishing Him is also figured under the same\ntype.\u2019[103]\n\nThese little doves surrounding the figure of Christ, as a man or as\nan infant, occur very frequently in the French miniatures of the\nthirteenth and fourteenth centuries, and are found upon the windows in\nthe cathedrals of S. Denis, Chartres, Amiens and Beauvais, and in many\nother French churches.\n\nIt was an essentially French development of Christian symbolism,\nand it is in Flemish art, which drew its inspiration from the French\nRenaissance, that we first find, not the little white doves, but\nthe columbine flower. The columbine grows wild in most countries of\nEurope and is usually dark blue in colour. Each of its five petals is\nso shaped that it is really very like a little long-necked dove. The\nlittle doves are only five in number, but the Flemish painters take\neach flower, not each petal, as the symbol, and give seven blooms upon\neach plant. There are six, and the edge of the seventh is just showing,\nin the mystical crown worn by Hubert van Eyck\u2019s \u2018Queen of Heaven.\u2019[104]\n\nStrictly speaking, however, Mary has no right to these symbols of\nthe gifts of the Spirit, for it was to the expected Messiah that the\ndivine gifts were promised. The columbine is more correctly used by\nHugo van der Goes, who in his \u2018Adoration of the Shepherds\u2019[105] places\na columbine, with seven flowers upon it, in a vase before the Infant\nSaviour.\n\nThe seven gifts of the Spirit are according to Isaiah:\n\n                        SAPIENTIA\n                        INTELLECTUS\n                        CONSILIUM\n                        FORTITUDO\n                        SCIENTIA\n                        PIETAS\n                        TIMOR.\n\nAnd according to the Apocalypse:\n\n                        VIRTUS\n                        DIVINITAS (in the Vulgate)\n                        SAPIENTIA\n                        FORTITUDO\n                        HONOR\n                        GLORIA\n                        BENEDICIO.\n\nBut, at the Renaissance, Faith, Hope and Charity were taken as the\ntheological virtues, and to them were added the four moral virtues\nexalted in pagan times above all others, namely, Prudence, Justice,\nTemperance and Strength.[106]\n\nIn a picture by J\u00f6rg Breu of the Virgin with the Child and two\nsaints,[107] a vase of columbine, the only flowers introduced, is\nplaced in the foreground just below the Child, who stands on His\nMother\u2019s knee.\n\nBeside the vase is a sort of casket, out of which seven little cupid\nangels take seven scrolls. On the respective scrolls are inscribed:\nFIDES, SPES, CHARITAS, JUSTICIA, PRUDENCIA, FORTES. The seventh is\nblank, reserved, perhaps, for TEMPERANCE. A crowned saint, seated\nbeside the Virgin, holds upon her knee a scroll on which is written\n\u2018AVE REGINA,\u2019 and above the Virgin\u2019s head hover two _putti_ with a\nheavy crown. It is therefore to the Mother, rather than to the Child,\nthat devotion is directed, and the seven Gifts are to be taken as her\nattribute.\n\nIn 1475 the \u2018Adoration of the Shepherds\u2019 by Hugo van der Goes was\nbrought to Florence by Tommaso Portinari, for the Chapel of the\nHospital of Santa Maria Nuova. Its technique excited the greatest\ninterest among the artists of Italy, and the vase of columbine in the\nforeground may have first drawn their attention to this symbol. Cosimo\nRosselli, perhaps the last of the Florentine symbolists, painted it\namong the daisies, strawberries and jasmine-shaped flower in the\n\u2018Madonna with the Child and SS. Peter and James,\u2019[108] commissioned\nin 1492. After the fifteenth century it is fairly frequent in Italian\nart. Two of the most charming of the Madonna pictures now in the Brera,\n\u2018The Virgin and Child with the Lamb,\u2019 by Sodoma, and \u2018The Virgin of the\nRose-hedge,\u2019 by Luini, both introduce the columbine. But the Italian\nartists use it vaguely, as the flower of the dove, the flower in\nsome degree sacred to the Holy Ghost, and lost sight of the original\nconnection with the seven Gifts of the Spirit. Luini, who is careless\nwith his symbolism, though painting flowers exquisitely, uses the\ncolumbine also as an accessory in the famous portrait known as \u2018La\nColombina,\u2019[109] but here, of course, it is simply a graceful flower in\nthe hand of a fine woman.\n\nIt is most unusual to find any flower used symbolically in scenes\nrepresenting the Passion of our Lord. Should plants or shrubs be there,\nit is merely as an indication that the place of Crucifixion was beyond\nthe walls, and that the place of burial was a garden. They have no\nspecial meanings as symbols. An exception is the \u2018Entombment\u2019[110] of\nHans Sch\u00fcchlin of Ulm. From a rock in the foreground springs a plant\nof columbine with three drooping flowers. On a smaller plant at the\nside are four more blossoms, making up the mystic seven. There are only\nthese columbines and a little short grass. On the step of the tomb lies\nthe crown of thorns which has fallen from the head of the dead Saviour\nas the disciples lower His body to the grave.\n\nThe seven blooms of the columbine appear again in the Thomas-altar[111]\nby the master of the Bartholomew-altar, who painted during the first\ntwenty years of the sixteenth century. It is a disagreeable picture,\nthe types poor and the action of the doubting Thomas, as he thrusts\nhis hand into the Saviour\u2019s wound, distinctly brutal. But all round\nthe feet of the risen Saviour lie flowers scattered on the broad stone\nstep. There are again the seven heads of the columbine, snapped off\nshort and showing scarcely any stalk; there are the violets of humility\nand the daisy, often seen with the violet as the symbol of perfect\ninnocence in Adorations of the Infant Christ, but rare when He is\nrepresented as a grown man. There is also the strawberry flower but not\nthe fruit.\n\nAfter the sixteenth century the columbine seems to have dropped from\nChristian symbolism, and in modern religious art it has no place.\n\n\n\n\nIX\n\nTHE OLIVE\n\n\n   \u2018Strew thrice nine olive boughs\n    On either hand; and offer up thy prayer,\u2019[112]\n\ncounselled the Greeks when conscious that the deities were offended.\n\nThe olive was the gift of Pallas. The tale ran that in the reign of\nCecrops both Poseidon and Athena contended for the possession of\nAthens. The gods resolved that whichever of them produced the gift\nmost useful to mortals should have possession of the land. Poseidon\nstruck the ground with his trident and straightway a horse appeared.\nBut Athena planted the olive and the gods thereupon decreed that the\nolive was more useful to man than the horse, and gave the city to the\ngoddess, from whom it was called Athen\u00e6.[113]\n\nBut the symbolism of the olive, founded upon its healing qualities and\nits oil\u2019s well-known property of calming roughened water, was not only\nGrecian: it was wide-spread, and the Romans used it politically as well\nas religiously. Their heralds carried olive on an embassy of peace, and\nthe custom lingered in Italy through the Middle Ages; Dante describing\nhow the multitude \u2018Flock round the herald sent with olive branch.\u2019\n\nIn Christian art the olive also invariably represents peace or\nreconciliation, and it is first found in the Catacombs, where there\nis a curious painting of the mystic fish which swims towards the\nCross with a sprig of olive in its mouth. The fish, by the well-known\nanagram, represents Christ, who, through the Cross, brings peace on\nearth.\n\nA dove with an olive twig in its beak is also found upon early\nChristian tombs. And then, as Tertullian says, \u2018it is a symbol of peace\neven older than Christianity itself\u2019[114]--the herald of the peace of\nGod from the very beginning. Sometimes the word itself, \u2018Pax,\u2019[115] is\nadded, thereby marking the sense beyond all possibility of dispute;\nviz., that it is meant to assert of the soul of the deceased that it\nhas departed in the peace of God and of his Church.[116]\n\nTertullian refers, of course, to the dove sent forth by Noah which\nreturned across the waters, and \u2018Lo! in her mouth was an olive leaf\nplucked off,\u2019 sign that the wrath of God was appeased. The dove,\nbearing the twig of olive, executed in coloured marbles, occurs\nrepeatedly in the decoration of Saint Peter\u2019s. Here the dove represents\nthe Church bearing the Gospel message of peace to the world. The same\nemblem is found in the decoration of St John Lateran, and Pope Innocent\nX. incorporated it with his coat of arms.\n\nThe olive naturally appears as an attribute in allegorical figures\nof Peace. One of the earliest and most famous of these figures is in\nAmbrogio Lorenzetti\u2019s great fresco entitled \u2018Good Government.\u2019[117] The\ngolden-haired Peace, who wears a white robe, is crowned with olive, and\ncarries an olive branch in her hand. She has a beauty of her own, but\ncompared with the more virile figures in the composition, Fortitude,\nPrudence, Temperance and Justice, she is a little heavy and inert, a\nlittle wanting in interest, as the citizens perhaps would have found\ntheir daily life were they condemned to days of peace.\n\nIn small, fierce Siena the olive was a very favourite symbol and found\nmore frequently than any other. One of the most curious characteristics\nof religious art is the inexactitude with which it reflects a people\u2019s\nmood, for the ideal upon the wall above the altar is often just\nprecisely that to which they do not strive. When the Medici were in\npower and Florentine social life was at its worldliest, simplicity and\npurity, almost austerity, were demanded of the artist, and the lily\nwas the favourite symbol. Murillo painted Madonnas to the Church\u2019s\norder, sweet and forgiving, kind to indulgence, almost voluptuous, at a\nmoment when not only the devotions of Jews and heretics but the private\nlife of every citizen of Seville was under stern control. And in\nSeville, with inquisitorial fires blazing, the Virgin had as attribute\nthe rose of love and charity. So the turbulent Sienese, who, when no\nenemy knocked at the gates, fought with one another, loved a still and\npeaceful art. It was conservative, for they cared for no novelty, no\nvariety of subject, pose or action. And their favourite symbol was the\nolive branch of peace. The angel Gabriel almost invariably carries\nolive,[118] Saint John the Evangelist[119] and Saint Ansano,[120] their\nown saint, both hold branches of it, and it crowns the blonde curls of\nmany a little angel.\n\nIn representations of the first and third persons of the Holy Trinity\nthe olive branch is very rare. Upon some ancient crucifixes, however,\nwhere a hand holding a wreath represents the Eternal Father, the\nwreath, though usually of laurel, in some instances is formed of\nolive. In the Crucifix of the tenth century, known as the Crucifix of\nLothair,[121] the wreath is distinctly of olive, but since it encircles\nthe Holy Dove the olive is perhaps equally the attribute of the Holy\nGhost. In the Crucifix upon the Manual of Prayer of Charles the\nBald,[122] the wreath is of laurel and there is no dove.\n\nMabillon speaks of a group of the Trinity in human form, sculptured\nby order of Abelard at the Paraclete. In it the Father wore a closed\ncrown, the Son a crown of thorns, and the Holy Ghost a crown of olive.\nThe group has long since disappeared, and there seems no other instance\nof the Holy Ghost in human form being represented with the olive. A\ndove bearing an olive twig could not be an emblem of the Holy Ghost\nunless the bird\u2019s head were encircled with a halo.\n\nBut Christian art uses the ancient symbol of peace repeatedly when\nillustrating Christ\u2019s life upon earth. First we find the angel Gabriel\nbringing to the Virgin a branch of olive as token that his message is\nof peace. Sometimes he is also crowned with olive. He comes crowned\nwith peace, and the branch in his hand foreshadows the reconciliation\nbetween God and man which is to come by the Child whose advent he\nannounces.\n\nThe olive branch took precedence of the lily as the symbol carried by\nthe announcing angel. Originated probably by Simone Martini, one of its\nearliest instances is in his Annunciation now in the Uffizi. In the\nFlorentine school the simple stick carried by the herald angel evolved,\nas we have seen, through the fleur-de-lys to the stem of lilies. In\nSiena it was the meaning of the wand, rather than the wand itself,\nwhich was developed. The wand simply marked that Gabriel was a herald;\nthat it was a message of peace and goodwill which he brought was shown\nby the grey-green leaves of the olive. As a symbol it was by no means\nof Simone Martini\u2019s own finding, for it was a very usual political\nsymbol of the day, but he seems to have been the first to have placed\nit in the angel Gabriel\u2019s hand, and the school of painting in Siena\nwhole-heartedly and faithfully adopted his device. The general trend\nof Sienese symbolism was to direct devotion to the incarnate Godhead\nrather than to Mary of Nazareth, and it is of Him, as the bringer of\npeace on earth, that the branch of olive tells, as elsewhere the white\nlily proclaims the virginity of the coming motherhood.\n\nThen again, on that night when the angels sang of peace on earth and\ngoodwill towards men--\n\n                      ... \u2018the meek-eyed Peace,\n    She crown\u2019d with Olive green, came softly sliding\n    Down through the turning sphear.\u2019[123]\n\nIn one of the most na\u00efve and fascinating of all Botticelli\u2019s\npictures[124] the angels crowned with olive hold up branches of it\nagainst the golden sky. Other angels, half distraught with joy, run\nwith waving olive-sprays to greet the astonished shepherds.\n\nThe same subject is much more soberly treated by Sano di Pietro.[125]\nOne angel, flying through the twilight, brings a twig of olive to the\nshepherd who is sleeping on the hillside.\n\nThere are many symbolical fruits placed in the hand of the Infant\nChrist. Botticelli paints a pomegranate, Mabuse a quince, Memling an\napple, Il Moretto a pear, and each represents the individual artist\u2019s\nconviction as to what really was the unnamed fruit of the Tree of the\nKnowledge of Good and Evil which grew in the midst of Eden. The placing\nof the olive, symbol of reconciliation, where it might be confused\nwith the fatal fruit which made that reconciliation so imperative was\ncarefully avoided, and we rarely find the olive branch in the hand\nof the Child when seated on His mother\u2019s knee. And there was still\nanother reason. He had Himself said: \u2018I come not to bring peace upon\nearth, but the sword,\u2019 therefore the earlier and more literal artists\nrefused Him the symbol of peace, even as divine peace. There are,\nhowever, instances of the Christ-Child with the olive branch, of which\nthe most important is the \u2018Holy Family\u2019 by Mantegna.[126] The Christ,\na beautiful and dignified childish figure of three or four years old,\nstands on a sort of pedestal with the little Saint John. He holds a\nbranch of olive in His right hand, upright like a sceptre, and in the\nother is the crystal orb which symbolizes sovereignty. Saint Joseph\nstands behind and the Virgin lays a rosebud at her Son\u2019s feet.\n\nThe Bringer of Divine Peace was an aspect of the incarnate Son of God\non which Mantegna laid emphasis. In the \u2018Holy Family,\u2019 now in Dresden,\npainted about the same period, the little Saint John holds a branch of\nolive (from which two tiny side-sprays grow naturally in the form of a\ncross) as an attribute of the Holy Child.\n\nThe olive branches of the \u2018Entry into Jerusalem,\u2019 like the olives of\nGethsemane, were only accidentally allegorical. The villagers of the\nMount of Olives cut down branches (presumably olive branches) \u2018and\nstrewed them in the way.\u2019 With palm branches they would salute any\npopular leader, and it is scarcely to be believed that they definitely\nselected the olive and palm with the full understanding of the\nsymbolism which the Christian Church attaches to them.\n\n\u2018The olive branches signify his office as peace-bringer and the palms\nhis victory over Satan.\u2019[127]\n\nThere is in the Catacombs a figure of the Virgin Mary praying between\ntwo olive trees. Her name is inscribed above her head. She is standing\nwith raised hands in the early attitude of prayer, and these olive\ntrees apparently symbolize \u2018the peace of God which passeth all\nunderstanding.\u2019 But after the twelfth century the Church had identified\nthe personality of the Virgin with the figure of Wisdom eulogized in\nEcclesiasticus, and the olives which are sometimes found beside her\nrefer to the verse which compares her to\n\n             \u2018A fair olive tree in a pleasant field.\u2019[128]\n\nBotticelli painted a beautiful \u2018Madonna of the Olives\u2019 for the Church\nof S. Spirito. Vasari writes of it: \u2018In S. Spirito in Florence he\nhas painted a picture for the Chapel of the Bardi which is carefully\nexecuted and well finished, where there are some olives and palms\npainted with great love.\u2019[129] In another picture by Botticelli[130]\nangels hold above the Virgin\u2019s head a lightly-framed crown of gold\nwhich is decorated with fresh sprays of lily, palm and olive.\n\nThe most popular of modern Italian representations of the Virgin and\nChild is very justly that painted by Niccol\u00f2 Barabino[131] and entitled\n\u2018_Quasi Oliva Speciosa in Campis_.\u2019 Large branches of olive, painted\nalso \u2018with great love,\u2019 are placed about the feet of the sweet-faced\nMother, who peeps through her heavy white veil, and they almost hide\nthe fruit of temptation which lies on the ground beneath.\n\n[Illustration:\n\n  _Martin Sch\u00f6ngauer_\n\nGABRIEL CROWNED WITH OLIVE BRINGS THE MESSAGE OF RECONCILIATION\n\n(Print Room, Alte Pinakothek, Munich)]\n\nOne of the _putti_ which fly round the feet of the Madonna in a Spanish\n\u2018Immaculate Conception\u2019 usually carries a branch of olive, and that,\ntoo, bears the same meaning. As an olive tree in a pleasant field she\nbrings peace and consolation to mankind. She is the \u2018Mater Consolatrix.\u2019\n\nSodoma painted a stately figure of Saint Victor,[132] with sword and\npalm, and the little rose-crowned child-angel who supports his shield\nholds above it a branch of olive, symbol of the peace which to a\nChristian warrior should be the end of victory.\n\nThe same idea dominates the \u2018Judith\u2019[133] of Botticelli. The slayer\nof her country\u2019s enemy returns thoughtfully home, satisfied but not\nexultant. In her right hand is her sword, carried low; upright, in her\nleft, a branch of olive. Though her deed was bloody, she had brought\npeace to the land.\n\nFlemish art neglects the olive, and except in the drawings of Martin\nSch\u00f6ngauer,[134] whose grave gentle Gabriels wear olive crowns, it is\nseldom seen in Germany. The reason is easy to guess. The olive tree\nnot growing in the North, the painters would be at a loss to find a\nbranch from which to draw, and the people, unacquainted with the leaf,\nwould scarcely recognize its hidden message of peace. In France it is\nseen less rarely. On the sculptured portal of the Cathedral of Amiens\nthere is a curious rendering of the parable of the Wise and the Foolish\nVirgins. A withered olive tree, without fruit or leaves, grows by the\nside of the foolish maidens, and a healthy olive tree, laden with fruit\nand ready with abundance of oil, is beside those maidens who were wise.\n\nBut on the whole the olive is an Italian, and more particularly a\nSienese, symbol, though Botticelli also loved the silvery leaves. In\nhis magnificent \u2018Pallas taming the Centaur,\u2019[135] painted for Lorenzo\nde\u2019 Medici, to commemorate his diplomatic victory over the King of\nNaples and the League in 1480, olive encircles the head of the lovely\ngoddess and is wreathed about her dress. The surface meaning of the\npicture is that, by the arts of peace taught them by the beneficent\ngoddess, men were enabled to overcome the savagery of nature, typified\nby the centaur. But it also shows, allegorically, how the wise\nstatesmanship of Lorenzo (with whose badge, rings interlaced, the gown\nof Pallas is \u2018sem\u00e9\u2019) guided the war-loving League, here figured as the\ncentaur, into the ways of Peace.\n\n\n\n\nX\n\nTHORNS\n\n\nThorns and thorn branches signify in general grief and tribulation,\nthe word tribulation itself being derived from a Latin root signifying\nthistles or briars. But, according to Saint Thomas Aquinas, thorn\nbushes signify the minor sins, and growing briars or brambles those\ngreater ones, \u2018qu\u00e6 pungunt conscientiam propriam,\u2019 etc.\n\nHe is supported in his opinion by Saint Anselm, and both saints explain\nin this sense the words of Saint Paul, who wrote to the Hebrews:\n\n\u2018That which beareth thorns and briars is rejected and is nigh unto\ncursing, whose end is to be burned.\u2019\n\nThe crown of thorns with which jesting soldiers crowned the Christ\nwas in itself an emblem, or at least a parody, of an emperor\u2019s festal\nrose-crown. According to _The History of the Crown of Thorns of the\nHoly One_,[136] the first crown with which Jesus Christ was crowned was\nmade of white-thorn and was removed before the Crucifixion and replaced\nby a second _de juncis marinis_.\n\nBut in the great majority of scenes from the Passion the crown is\nmerely formed of large thorns without any attempt to realize any\nparticular natural growth. In Germany, where Entombments and Piet\u00e0s\nwere more often painted than in other countries, the crown is\nfrequently green, in allusion, it is suggested, to the words: \u2018If these\nthings be done in the green wood, what shall be done in the dry?\u2019\n\nIn these pictures the crown of thorns, if not still upon the Saviour\u2019s\nhead, is usually placed very prominently in the foreground, marking to\nsome extent the divinity of the dead Christ, for, since life had fled,\nthere could be no halo.\n\nIn Northern art the crown of thorns remains always unchanged, the\nsymbol of Christ\u2019s sufferings, but in at least one Italian Piet\u00e0,[137]\nthe dry prickles round the dead Christ\u2019s brow have bloomed with\ndelicate white briar-roses--an exquisite figure of Love\u2019s triumph over\nPain.\n\nSometimes, in pathetic forecast, the Child Christ has the crown of\nthorns hung on His tiny wrist[138] or plays with it as with a toy, and\nin a very charming picture,[139] with less poignant and more pleasing\nsymbolism, a waiting child-angel stands by with a wreath of the blue\nsea-holly.\n\nIn Spain the Christian faith was stern. Faith and suffering were more\nclosely allied than faith and joy. They had no \u2018jesters of the Lord,\u2019\nand their saints glorified God by self-inflicted pain rather than\nby acts of mercy. So their Christ in childhood was not a smiling,\nunconscious _bambino_, but a sad-faced child who wounds Himself with\nthe rose-twigs which He twists into a crown. The rose-thorn tears His\nflesh but the roses lie beside Him and round His feet, for His griefs\nand sufferings were the outcome of His divine love. Both Zurburan[140]\nand Alonzo Cano[141] painted fine pictures on this theme.\n\n[Illustration:\n\n      _Zurburan_          _Photo Anderson_\n\nTHE CROWN OF THORNS\n\n(Museo Provinciale, Seville)]\n\nThere is a \u2018Coronation of the Virgin\u2019 by Hans Burgkmair,[142] painted\nin 1507, where beneath a cross-surmounted imperial crown Christ wears\nthe Crown of Thorns. In several of the French fifteenth-century\nminiatures of the Trinity in Glory, God the Son still wears the Crown\nof Thorns, but this combination of the two crowns is rare. It was,\nhowever, in reverent remembrance of the thorn-crowned King of the Jews\nthat the Crusader, Godfrey de Bouillon, twisted a thorn-branch round\nhis coronet when he was crowned King of Jerusalem. His bronze statue,\nwearing this double crown, stands with those of the other Christian\nkings guarding the tomb of Maximilian in Innsbruck Cathedral.\n\nAmong modern symbolists, Holman Hunt has used thorns with finest\neffect. In his \u2018Light of the World\u2019 the Saviour wears again the double\ncrown, the thorns which symbolize His sufferings intertwisted with the\ngolden crown of His divinity. He stands with the lantern, which is\nthe light of His Gospel, before the closed door of the human heart, a\ndoor all overgrown and blocked by the weeds and briars which are the\nsymbols of sin and things evil. There is the poisonous hemlock, the ivy\nwhich kills the tree that it embraces, thorns denoting the lesser sins,\nand the brambles which are the emblems of the greater ones. According\nto Raban Maur the bramble is also an emblem of the riches which destroy\nthe soul.\n\nIn several modern pictures of \u2018The Good Shepherd\u2019 Christ is depicted\nas rescuing a lamb caught by its wool in the briars of the wilderness.\nThe lamb, of course, is the emblem of an erring soul, and the briars\nrepresent those sins which hold it back from answering the Shepherd\u2019s\ncall.\n\nIn connection with the saints, the Crown of Thorns is not used\nsymbolically, except when placed upon the head of Saint Catharine of\nSiena,[143] to indicate her austerities. According to the legend,\nChrist in a vision offered her a crown of roses or a crown of thorns\nand she chose the thorns. When it is carried by Saint Louis of France\nit is to recall the fact that it was he who brought to France, as her\nmost precious relic, the Holy Crown itself.\n\nThe tonsure was originally instituted to keep fresh in the memory the\nSaviour\u2019s Crown of Thorns. And in the \u2018Paradise\u2019 of Fra Angelico[144]\nthe monks are crowned with roses. Thus the emblem reverted to the\noriginal symbol. The Crown of Thorns was the parody of the rose-crown,\nsymbol of rejoicing; the tonsure the reverent imitation of the thorny\nwreath, and angels at the entrance of Paradise change the tonsure for a\nwreath of roses.\n\nIn early German art the Virgin is often found seated in a garden of\nwhich each flower has its significance. Behind and around her there\nis usually a sort of trellis or bower covered with roses. The roses\nhave very pronounced thorns, and the thorns are accentuated to recall\nthat Mary is the lily and the bride of the Canticles, the \u2018Lily among\nthorns.\u2019 In an Assumption of Seghers[145] one of the attendant _putti_\nflies towards her with a single lily enclosed in branches covered with\nlong-spiked thorns.\n\nOn the other hand, when the rose is the direct emblem, not the\nattribute of the Madonna, it has no thorns, for then it illustrates\nher title, \u2018_rosa sine spina_.\u2019\n\nThe Roman Breviary likens the Virgin to the burning thorn bush in\nwhich Jehovah revealed Himself to Moses and the simile was cited\nby Bishop Proclus in a Mary-sermon preached in the fifth century.\nThough enwrapped in the all-consuming flame of divine love, she yet\nremains unharmed. It is only in German art that this simile has been\npictorially translated. German artists were familiar with the idea\nthrough Conrad von W\u00fcrtzburg\u2019s apostrophe to the Virgin:\n\n   \u2018In the thorn bush on the bare field\n    Moses, the hero of God\n    Saw in a glow of bright fire\n    The birth of our Saviour foreshadowed.\n    In the blast of the flame\n    It remained unaltered\n    As if neither leaf nor twig\n    Perceived the death-giving blaze.\n    In this we may recognize\n    The full magnificence of thy maidenhood.\u2019[146]\n\nAnd we find this burning Thorn Bush with the Ivory Tower, the Sealed\nFountain, the Fleece of Gideon and other emblems of the Virgin, in\nthe fifteenth-century renderings of the _Hortus Inclusus_ and in the\nbackground of the essentially German allegory of the Incarnation, known\nas the \u2018Hunting of the Unicorn.\u2019 There are some fine embroideries and\ntapestries of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries in the Bavarian\nNational Museum,[147] in which the burning thorn bush, with the other\nsymbols of the Virgin\u2019s purity, are worked with most careful detail.\n\nThe burning bush, not particularly a thorn bush, but the \u2018bush\u2019 of our\nAuthorized Version, is now the chosen emblem of the Church of Scotland.\n\nThere were neither thorns nor thistles in Eden. It was not till the day\nwhen Adam fell that God laid a curse upon the ground: \u2018Thorns also and\nthistles shall it bring forth to thee.\u2019 Therefore thorns and thistles\nare in general the symbols of sin and death. A little German woodcut\nexpresses eternal death with gruesome completeness: a skull, with the\napple of damnation between its bare jaws, has round its brow a wreath\nof twisted thorns.\n\n\n\n\nXI\n\nTHE PALM\n\n\nThe Romans took palms for their symbol of Victory. There is a\nsarcophagus in the Vatican on which is carved a Roman conqueror with\ncaptive barbarians kneeling before him, and the winged Victory who\ncrowns him with laurel holds a palm in her left hand.\n\nSimon Maccabees, after he had taken the Tower of Jerusalem, entered it\n\u2018with thanksgiving, and branches of palm trees and with harps.\u2019[148]\nAnd the seers of Scripture saw palms in heaven: \u2018A great multitude,\nwhich no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds and people, and\ntongues, stood before the throne and before the Lamb clothed with white\nrobes, and palms in their hands.\u2019[149] \u2018These be they that have put off\nthe mortal clothing and put on the immortal, and have confessed the\nname of God; now are they crowned and receive palms.\u2019[150]\n\nPalms were therefore the meed of martyrdom, the symbol of the martyrs\u2019\nvictory over death.\n\n   \u2018... The angel said\n    God liketh thy request,\n    And bothe with the palme of martirdome,\n    Ye shallen come unto His blissful rest.\u2019[151]\n\nDuring the first three centuries of Christianity Christian art\nconcerned itself almost exclusively with the events recounted in the\nOld and New Testaments and the Apocryphal Gospels. \u2018But during the\nfourth century artists began to represent the acts of the martyrs, at\nthe bidding of Saint Basil, who called to his aid illustrious painters\nof athletic combats, to paint with resplendent colours the martyr\nBarlaam, the crowned athlete, whom he found himself unable adequately\nto describe.... A fresco came to light in 1887, under the Church of SS.\nGiovanni e Paolo on the Celian Hill, which shows three Christians being\nput to death beneath the rule of Julian the Apostate, kneeling with\neyes bound and hands tied behind their backs. This may be considered as\nthe first representation of a martyrdom....\u2019[152]\n\nSixtus III (432\u2013440), as is shown by the inscription which is read\nabove the principal door of Santa Maria Maggiore, had had the\ninstruments of their martyrdom painted only beneath the feet of the\nmartyrs.\n\n   \u2018Ecce tui testes uteri sibi proemia portant\n    Sub pedibusque jacet passio cuique sua.\n    Ferrum, flamma, ferae, fluvius, s\u00e6vumque venenum\n    Tot tamen has mortes una corona manet.\u2019[153]\n\nThus in the fourth century there were representations of martyrdoms,\nand in the fifth century single figures of the martyrs more or less\nidealized, but they apparently carried the crown of victory, \u2018the\ncrown of their high calling,\u2019 not the palm. But though the crown was\ngenerally used, the palm of the primitive Christian Church was not\nforgotten, for, as Cassiodorus, writing at the beginning of the sixth\ncentury, points out, it was palms which, in the eyes of the people,\nindicated those strong athletes who were victorious, and advocates\ntheir use as a religious symbol.\n\nPalms at this period seem to have been used as an emblem of the public\ngames themselves. On the consular diptyches, the double tablets of\nivory which a consul had carved to commemorate his entry into office,\nit was customary to put palms beneath the figure of the consul, among\nthe bags of money and other objects that were supposed to represent the\nbenefits which would accrue to the populace beneath his rule.\n\nIt was probably this secular use of the palm which excluded it from\nthe symbolism of the Church during the early centuries, for it is palm\ntrees not palm branches which are found in the early mosaics, notably\nthose of S. Apollinare Nuova in Ravenna, where palm trees alternate\nwith the figures round the frieze, and palm trees, according to St\nAmbrose, were not the symbol of victory but the emblem of the righteous\nman, \u2018for its roots are upon the earth but its head is lifted towards\nthe heavens.\u2019\n\nBut by the thirteenth century the public games had dropped from Italian\nsocial life, and religious art reverted once more to the palm branch\nof the catacombs as the symbol of a martyr\u2019s triumph over death.\nDurandus, writing about the year 1286, unites the different renderings\nof the palm\u2019s significance. He says: \u2018Martyrs are painted with the\ninstruments of their torture and sometimes with palms, which signify\nvictory, according to that saying:\n\n\u2018\u201cThe righteous shall flourish like a palm tree; as a palm tree\nflourishes, so his memory shall be preserved.\u201d\u2019[154]\n\nAfter the Renaissance martyrs were very generally depicted with palms,\neither in place of, or in addition to, the instruments of their\nmartyrdom. They varied in size and shape, from the tiny closed palm\nno longer than a human hand, used by Cimabue,[155] to the magnificent\npedestal of palm branches on which Carpaccio has set his \u2018Saint Ursula\nin Glory.\u2019[156] Saint Christopher, the giant saint, in consideration\nof his size, was always allowed a whole palm tree as his staff, but a\nwhole palm tree, or the tiniest scrap of its foliage, carried exactly\nthe same meaning.\n\nThe palm is also given occasionally to several saints who have not\nsuffered a violent death, but have been conspicuous for their victory\nover pain and temptation; for instance, Saint Francis, Saint Catharine\nof Siena and Saint Clare.\n\nEven in the Catacombs two palms are sometimes placed crossways, not on\nthe tombs of martyrs only, but on other Christian tombs, to signify the\nvictory of the cross. For life as a declared Christian in the early\ndays of the faith was sufficiently difficult and perilous, even if it\ndid not end in death at the hands of the executioner. In the same way\nthe pilgrim who had overcome difficulties and encountered possible\ndeath on a journey of piety to the holy sepulchre was permitted to\ntake the name of palmer when he \u2018brings home his staff enwreathed with\npalm.\u2019[157]\n\nMeanwhile palms never fell into disuse as a secular symbol. When they\nappear on the seals and coins of emperors and kings they indicate\nentirely worldly power and authority, and it is not in recognition\nof sainthood that the winged genius presents Henri IV with palm and\nwreath of laurel in the fine allegorical picture of his \u2018Entry into\nParis after the Battle of Ivry.\u2019[158]\n\nIn a hymn of Saint Augustine, Jesus Christ is designated the \u2018Palma\nbellatorum,\u2019 but, perhaps by reason of its pagan origin, and also\nbecause it has never been exclusively a religious symbol, Christ as\nthe conqueror of sin and death is seldom depicted with the palm of\nvictory. In a few devotional Crucifixions palms are placed crossways\nabove the Saviour\u2019s head, and very rarely it is seen in the hand of the\nnewly-risen Christ. He almost invariably carries instead the banner\nof the Resurrection with a scarlet cross upon a white ground. In one\nof the rare representations[159] where He holds a palm He holds also\nthe banner in His other hand, and it is striking how the adding of the\nlesser symbol to the greater, an error the early masters carefully\navoided, detracts from the dignity of the figure.\n\nIn the four canonical gospels, palms as a symbol are only mentioned\nonce, the occasion being the entry of Jesus Christ \u2018riding lowly upon\nan ass\u2019 into Jerusalem before the feast of the Passover.\n\n\u2018They ... took branches of palm trees and went forth to meet Him, and\ncried Hosanna!\u2019\n\nIt was a respect paid to a reigning sovereign and would support the\naccusation of the Jews that He sought to make Himself a king.\n\nThe entry into Jerusalem is not an incident in the life of Christ which\nis used for devotional contemplation, though it occurred usually in\nthe series of scenes from the life of Christ which were frequent in\npre-Renaissance art, executed in carved wood, ivory and marble; and in\nthe hands of the villagers of the Mount of Olives the palms signified,\nof course, simply triumph, for they had not yet gained the full\nChristian meaning of victory through the Cross.\n\nIn representations of the entry of Christ into Jerusalem, the palms\nare merely a historical detail, but it is a true symbol, in defiance\nof the probable fact, when the Saviour Himself is represented carrying\nthe palm, as in the _Biblia Pauperum_ of 1440.[160] It is then purely a\nsymbol of His triumph over sin and death.\n\nIn this same edition of the _Biblia Pauperum_ the palm is also,\nstrangely enough, placed in the hand of Christ in the Ecce Homo; the\n\u2018reed in His right hand\u2019 set there in mockery, changed to the victor\u2019s\npalm.\n\nOccasionally the palm is given to the angel Gabriel when he comes\nfrom Heaven to announce the Saviour\u2019s approaching birth. \u2018Ave\u2019 is his\nsalutation to the Virgin, and in Roman fashion, as in salutation to a\nqueen, he kneels with a lifted palm.\n\nSpinello Aretino paints Gabriel with the palm. In his Annunciation at\nArezzo[161] the angel is first seen above, flying with the palm from\nbefore God\u2019s throne. Below he kneels, the palm in his hand, before the\nVirgin. Ambrogio Lorenzetti[162] and others follow the same tradition,\nbut the palm was soon superseded in Siena by the olive and elsewhere by\nthe lily, which was adopted by painters of all nations as the flower of\nthe Annunciation.\n\nThe _Legenda Aurea_ of Jacobus de Voragine gives an account of the\ndeath and burial of the Virgin. The legend is said to be an invention\nof the Gnostics, and there is reason to believe of Lencius in the\nsecond century.[163]\n\nShortly before the Virgin\u2019s death the angel Gabriel again appeared to\nher, and \u2018he gave her a branch of palm from Paradise which he commanded\nshould be borne before her bier.\u2019\n\nThis branch of palm was clearly the symbol of victory over sin,\nsince she had passed a full lifetime in perfect sinlessness and her\nsurpassing sorrows had entitled her to the reward of martyrdom.\n\nThe Legend continues:\n\n\u2018And the palm shone which he had left behind with great clearness;\nit was green like a natural branch and its leaves shimmered like the\nmorning star.\u2019 The palm, therefore, is distinguished from the palms\nof the martyrs by being encircled with stars. A Sienese artist paints\nseven,[164] the sacred number, corresponding with the Virgin\u2019s sorrows;\nother artists give twelve, foreshadowing that there should be upon her\nhead \u2018a crown of twelve stars.\u2019\n\nUsually, in Italian pictures of the death or \u2018Dormition\u2019 of the Virgin,\nan angel, or Saint John the Evangelist, appears at her bedside\ncarrying the palm. Northern art was almost entirely uninfluenced by the\ndetails given by Jacobus de Voragine of the Virgin\u2019s death and burial,\nand though in Germany \u2018The Death of the Virgin\u2019 is a very favourite\nsubject, the palm is never introduced. Saint John frequently, however,\nholds a lighted taper, and some form of the starry palm tradition may\nhave drifted northwards, for the master of the Sterzing Altar[165]\npaints a cluster of star-shaped flowers in the hand of Saint John, who\nbends over the inanimate form of the Virgin.\n\nHer body was carried by divine command to the valley of Jehoshaphat,\n\u2018and John bare the palm branch in front of it.\u2019\n\nThis scene, too, belongs to Italian art, and usually makes a beautiful\nprocessional group. Saint John, with the privilege of a son, walks\nbefore the bier. Duccio di Buoninsegna[166] paints him with the closed\nnarrow palm of a martyr. In the charming little long-shaped picture by\nFra Angelico[167] the palm has its fan-shaped leaves spread wide and\nit shines as if it were of gold.\n\nIn the \u2018Immaculate Conception\u2019 of the Spanish school one of the\nattendant _putti_ usually carries a palm. This may be the palm of\nvictory over sin and death, or, following another authority, it may be\na symbol of the Immaculate Conception, since it bears fruit at the same\nmoment at which it flowers.[168]\n\nAccording to Dr Anselm Salzer, O.S.B., \u2018The palm, when referring to\nMary, is a figure of her victory over the world and its temptations, of\nher everlasting virtue, of her sovereignty in heaven, of the protection\nthat she offers to mankind, of her triumphant motherhood and of the\nbeauty of her soul.\u2019[169]\n\n\n\n\nXII\n\nTHE ACANTHUS\n\n\nOne plant, the acanthus, which was very much used by pre-Renaissance\nartists, seems to have dropped later from the flora of symbolism.\n\n[Illustration:\n\n                                                         _Photo Alinari_\n\nTHE ACANTHUS OF PARADISE\n\nMosaic of 13th century\n\n(S. Clemente, Rome)]\n\nParadise was embowered, according to Saint Paulino da Nola, in\n_floriferi caeleste nemus paradisi_, and curving branches of acanthus\nindicate Heaven in the mosaics of the Baptistery of Ravenna and in\nthe apse of St John Lateran. The Trees of Jesse and the Trees of Life\nin early art are also founded on the acanthus with various symbolical\ndetails niched in the branches. It surrounds the \u2018Coronation\u2019 and fills\nthe space above the heads of the saints in the large central mosaic\nof S. Maria Maggiore[170] and of the fine mosaic in S. Clemente.[171]\nVenturi writes of the latter:\n\n\u2018From the plant, whence rises the Cross, spring two green boughs which\nwreath over all the abside, enclosing with their spirals birds,\nflowers and saints to give the idea of the garden of felicity. In such\na way, in the _Dugento_, at the distance of so many centuries, the\nverses of St Paulino da Nola are illustrated once more.\u2019\n\nBut after the thirteenth century acanthus plants of vast proportions\nwere no longer used to symbolize the gardens of Heaven. Heaven became a\nnatural park-like place with fruit trees and flower-grown grass, except\nfor its inhabitants, differing little from any princely garden. The\nplant was still used as the motive of much decoration, ecclesiastical\nand secular, but it was no longer seen in connection with devotional\nsubjects as the representative plant of Heaven.\n\n\n\n\nXIII\n\nTHE FLEUR-DE-LYS\n\n\nAmong the symbolical flowers of art, the golden fleurs-de-lys of France\nhold a high position. They were the arms of the King of France, \u2018the\neldest son of the Church\u2019; they were borne by Saint Louis, the royal\nsaint, and are typical of Christian royalty. Till the reign of Henry\nVIII they appeared upon the royal banner of England. Their origin,\nhowever, in spite of latter-day legends, was non-Christian, nor are\nthey distinctively lilies. The learned M. de Beaumont, who has made a\nspecial study of the origins of the fleur-de-lys, or fleur-de-lis, as\nhe prefers to spell it, has thus summed up his researches:\n\n1. Armorial bearings did not commence in France till after the first\nCrusade.\n\n2. It was in imitation of the Arabs and Persians that chivalry,\ntourneys and coats of arms were adopted in Europe and France.\n\n3. This flower, which we name the fleur-de-lis, is the symbol of\nfecundity and royalty in ancient Egypt; it is also the sacred plant\nand tree of life, adopted with the same symbolical significance by the\nAssyrians and Persians, from whom it passed to Byzantium, to arrive at\nlast in the Teutonic countries bordering on the East. It came at the\nsame time to the Venetians, and the Lombards, the Spaniards and the\nFrench, and this significant form ornamented sceptres and crowns, the\nattributes of royalty.\n\n4. When the laws of heraldry were at last established in France, after\nthe Crusades, this symbol became the arms of the Kings of France, who\nentitled themselves _rois par excellence_. Later, the origin being\nforgotten and lost, the Celtic root of the word _li_ was ignored by\nthe heralds. They regarded this symbolical ornament as the _lilium_\nor garden lily, in itself a symbol of the Virgin, which for the most\nChristian Kings of France must have been a powerful motive for its\nadoption. Perhaps even a religious scruple may have been the cause\nof this transformation of the heathen into the Christian symbol. It\nwas not till then that the heraldic writers, the greater part of whom\nbelonged to the Church, forced themselves to recognize in the heraldic\nfleur-de-lys the form of the lilium, even though, in place of being\n_or_ upon _azur_ and having three petals, it ought in that case to have\nfive petals and appear in _argent_.[172]\n\nThe monkish heralds found a very elaborate symbolism in the royal\nshield of France. The lilies were of gold, not silver, because in\nheraldry gold signifies the four kingly virtues, nobility, goodwill,\ncharity and magnanimity.\n\nThey are three in number because this number is complete as is the Holy\nTrinity.... Also, the centre one signifies the Christian faith, that on\nthe right the clergy, that on the left the army. There was no end to\nthe hidden meanings.\n\n\u2018_Enfin_,\u2019 concludes Carlo Degrassalio of Carcassonne, \u2018_ces trois\nfleurs-de-lis d\u2019or sont sur un \u00e9cu d\u2019azur, parceque, de m\u00eame que Dieu,\nle roi des rois, la puissance des puissances, a en quelque sorte pour\n\u00e9cu le bleu firmament, resplendissant d\u2019astres d\u2019or; de m\u00eame le roi\nde France, fils a\u00een\u00e9 de l\u2019Eglise, porte pour la plus grande gloire du\nChrist, l\u2019\u00e9cu le plus noble, \u00e9cu sur lequel les lis d\u2019or brillent comme\nles astres sur un ciel serein._\u2019[173]\n\nTradition says that the first appearance of the fleur-de-lys upon this\nearth was at the baptism of King Clovis. King Clovis was married to\nClotilda, a Christian Princess of Burgundy, and her prayers having\nobtained the victory for France at a critical moment, he in gratitude\nbecame a Christian also. On the occasion of his baptism by Saint R\u00e9mi\nan angel presented him with three heavenly lilies.\n\nIn the Bedford Missal,[174] presented to Henry VI when he was crowned\nKing of France, the legend is illustrated in miniature. The angel is\nshown receiving the three lilies in Heaven. He descends to earth and\ncarries them to Saint R\u00e9mi, who reverently receives them in a napkin\nand gives them to Queen Clotilda. Lower down in the picture Clotilda\npresents the emblazoned shield bearing the three fleurs-de-lys to\nher husband. This legend might seem disproved by the decoration of\nfleurs-de-lys, which was already upon the great brazen bowl now in the\nLouvre, known as the Font of King Clovis, had not recent arch\u00e6ological\ninvestigation discovered the origin of the bowl to be neither Frankish\nnor Christian, and the fleurs-de-lys prove merely that the vessel was\ndesigned for royal use.\n\nThe confusion of the fleur-de-lys with the lily of Heaven and the\nflower of the Virgin gave it a semi-religious value, which excused\nits intrusion into the decoration of churches and church furniture.\nSometimes it was used entirely heraldically, as the indication of\nthe giver of a gift. It is used heraldically upon the silver shrine\nof Saint Simeon at Zara, the gift of Louis the Great and his wife,\nElizabeth, where the fleur-de-lys of the coat of arms is repeated\nthroughout the entire decoration. Heraldically, yet with some sense\nof the right placing of the flower which emblemizes purity, were the\nfleurs-de-lys embroidered with the word _amor_ upon the tiny shoes\nof the _Virgin de los Reyes_. The figure, which is still in Seville\nCathedral, was a gift from Saint Louis of France to his brother saint,\nFerdinand of Spain.\n\nThe flower is again heraldic upon the magnificent tomb of Robert the\nWise,[175] the patron of Giotto and Simone Martini, where it decorates\nthe background with fine effect, though it is perhaps too insistently\nrepeated on crowns, sceptres, brooches and the floriation of crosses;\nbut the constantly-recurring fleurs-de-lys in the architecture of\nthe Cistercian Brotherhood appear quite definitely as the flower of\nthe Virgin. She was the patron of the order, and their famous saint,\nBernard of Clairvaux--\u2018her own faithful Bernard\u2019--devoted his life\nto praising the \u2018lily of the valley.\u2019 Her impress is upon the stone\nof the Cistercian abbeys of England and of France, where repeatedly\nwe find the \u2018carved work of open lilies.\u2019 But the Cistercians had no\nmonopoly of the symbol. Almost naturally the stone work of French\nGothic architecture seems to bud and break into the formal flower.\nIn the great Church of Albi each upspringing slender shaft ends in a\n_fleur_, alternating with shields along the screen. In the rood-loft of\nSt Florentin, in the town of that name, fleurs-de-lys form the centre\nof elaborate tracery, and in the rood-loft of the Madeleine at Troyes a\nvery beautiful crowned fleur-de-lys fills the panels of the surmounting\nbalustrade.\n\nIn the panel[176] designed for the tomb of Edward VI by Torregiano, and\nnow forming part of the altar above Henry VII\u2019s tomb, the rose and the\nlily meet in a charming Renaissance decoration, and the link between\nthe heraldic and the symbolical seems to be supplied, for the personal\nbadges of the king, the Tudor rose and the fleur-de-lys, are woven\ntogether in flowing lines, till, losing heraldic stiffness and personal\napplication, they become the Rose of Love and the Lily of Purity, a fit\ndecoration for the altar of God.\n\nBut it was not in France and England only that the fleur-de-lys\nwas used as a symbol of royalty. In a Greek miniature of the tenth\ncentury[177] fleurs-de-lys are scattered over the mantle of King David,\nand Didron mentions that he saw a fleur-de-lys ornamentation of the\nthirteenth century in the Church of Hecatompyli. The miniature was, of\ncourse, painted before the lilies had appeared on the royal banner of\nFrance, and the decoration at Hecatompyli would be drawn from Eastern\nsources.\n\nThe most noble use of the fleur-de-lys is to express the majesty\nof God. Floriated crowns as a symbol of Divine majesty were common\nin French, Flemish and German art, but are seldom seen in Italy.\nMost usually it is God the Father only who is so distinguished. In\na French miniature of the end of the fourteenth century,[178] where\nthe three persons are represented under human form, God the Father\nwears the floriated crown, the other persons the cruciform halo. In a\nstained glass window, with the figure of God the Father holding the\nCrucifix,[179] He wears a tiara of five tiers, each decorated with the\nfleur-de-lys.\n\nMemling and his school, painting for the Court of Burgundy, held to\nthe French traditions, and God the Father in the \u2018Coronation\u2019 on the\nshrine of St Ursula, God the Son in the \u2018Christ surrounded by Angels\u2019\nin Antwerp, and the Virgin on the wings (outer) of the \u2018Last Judgment\u2019\nat Danzig, all wear crowns ornamented with fleurs-de-lys.\n\nIn German art there are fewer crowns bearing the fleur-de-lys, the\ncrowns of both the Deity and the Virgin having usually the arched\nimperial form. But very frequently towards the end of the fifteenth\ncentury the rays of light, which in Italian art make a cruciform\nbar across the halo of the Saviour, in Germany take the form of\nfleurs-de-lys. They are particularly noticeable in \u2018The Virgin and\nSaint Anne with the Child\u2019 of Hans Fries,[180] and in a rather more\nelaborate form in the work of Wolgemut.[181]\n\nThere are two saints who have always had the right to wear the royal\nlilies of France.\n\nThey are Saint Louis of France, in his lifetime Louis IX, and his\ngrand-nephew Louis, Bishop of Toulouse.\n\nKing Louis, the saintly soldier who brought to France the Crown of\nThorns and, to enshrine it, built the Sainte Chapelle, died in Crusade\nbefore the walls of Tunis in 1270. Twenty-seven years later he was\ncanonized, and Giotto painted his portrait in Santa Croce.\n\nMr Gardner comments on this fresco:\n\n\u2018St Louis the King (one whom Dante does not seem to have held in\nhonour), a splendid figure, calm and noble, in one hand the sceptre\nand in the other the Franciscan cord, his royal robe besprinkled with\nthe golden lily of France over the armour of the warrior of the Cross,\nhis face absorbed in celestial contemplation. He is the Christian\nrealization of the Platonic philosopher king; \u201cSt Louis,\u201d says Walter\nPater, \u201cprecisely because his whole being was full of heavenly vision,\nin self-banishment from it for a while, led and ruled the French people\nso magnanimously alike in peace and war.\u201d Opposite him is St Louis of\nToulouse, with the royal crown at his feet; below are St Elizabeth of\nHungary, with her lap full of flowers, and, opposite to her, St Clare,\nof whom Dante\u2019s Piccarda tells so sweetly in the _Paradiso_--that lady\non high whom, \u201cperfected life and lofty merit doth enheaven.\u201d\u2019[182]\nSaint Clare carries a lily.\n\nIn the Prado there is a Holy Trinity by C. Coello, where Saint Louis\nis placed opposite to Saint Elizabeth of Hungary, who holds a basket\nof roses, and this grouping of the two royal saints is often found. St\nElizabeth was canonized before St Louis was born, but they are well\nmatched in piety, both of noble birth, both dying in the flower of\ntheir age, and both devoted to their people\u2019s welfare. There is a very\ninteresting figure of Saint Louis, intellectual, earnest and strong, in\nthe _Mariage Mystique_[183] of Jean Perr\u00e9al.\n\nSaint Louis of Toulouse was the grandson of Charles of Anjou, who was\nsuzerain of Florence for ten years. Perugia chose him as her patron\nsaint, and in Florence he was patron of the Parte Guelfa. He is easily\nrecognized by his mitre and the fleurs-de-lys upon his cope. There is\na statue of him by Donatello at Santa Croce, and pictures elsewhere by\nBonfigli, Simone Martini, Moretto and Cosimo Rosselli.\n\nPerhaps the most sympathetic and individual portrait of him is that of\nBartolommeo Vivarini.[184] He carries book and crozier and his youthful\nface is very sweet and earnest, though it has the set lips of the true\nchurchman. The cope is bordered with a large design of fleurs-de-lys.\n\nBoth these saints wear the fleur-de-lys to mark that they are members\nof the Royal House of France. The purity which the lily symbolizes when\nregarded as the flower of the Virgin is a secondary significance. Now\nanother holy one has joined them, who also, though of lowly birth, bore\nthe golden lilies. But for her they were the true lilies of maidenhood,\ntheir form merely showing that the right to carry them on her banner\nwas the gift of a French king.\n\n\u2018With a wreath woven by no mortal hand shall she (Jeanne d\u2019Arc) at\nReims engarland happily the gardener of the Lily, named Charles,\nson of Charles,\u2019 prophesied Eng\u00e9linde, the Hungarian seer, and at\nthe fulfilment Charles was not ungrateful. Since a woman cannot\nheraldically bear arms, he granted to the brothers of the maid the\nright to wear two of the royal lilies on their shield. The blazon was\n_d\u2019azur \u00e0 la couronne royale d\u2019or soutenue d\u2019une \u00e9p\u00e9e d\u2019argent crois\u00e9e\net pommet\u00e9e d\u2019or en pal, cotoy\u00e9e de deux fleurs-de-lis d\u2019or_. They\nwere given at the same time (December 1429) the surname of _du lis_.\n\nThe sword has the blade ornamented with five fleurs-de-lys and is\napparently the famous one unearthed in the Church of St Catharine at\nFierbois, \u2018decked with five flower-de-luces on each side.\u2019[185] But\nin the least doubtful of the many contemporary portraits of the Maid\n(those in the collection of M. George Spetz) the fleurs-de-lys do not\nappear. When questioned at her trial as to any supernatural power held\nby her sword, she declared: \u2018It was a rusty sword in the earth, with\nfive crosses on it, and I knew it through my voices.\u2019[186]\n\nThe clergy of the Church of St Catharine, however, after finding the\nsword by Jeanne\u2019s directions, had had a scabbard made for it of crimson\nvelvet, embroidered with fleurs-de-lys in gold, and legend supported by\nheraldry seems to have substituted the fleurs-de-lys of the scabbard\nfor the five crosses of the blade.\n\nThe device upon the banner was dictated to her by her patron saints,\nMargaret and Catharine. It was of white linen, fringed with silk, and\nembroidered with a figure of the Saviour holding a globe in His hands,\nwhile an angel knelt on either side in adoration. _Jhesus Maria_ was\ninscribed at the foot. A repetition of this banner recopied from age to\nage is said to be preserved at Tours.\n\n\n\n\nXIV\n\nTHE LILY OF THE ANNUNCIATION\n\n\nThere is one incident in the life of the Virgin Mary which is\nparticularly associated with lilies. It is the Annunciation.\n\nThe Annunciation was not often depicted before the twelfth\ncentury, though there are instances of it on some early ivories,\non a sarcophagus at Ravenna of the fifth century, in the famous\nsixth-century Syrian MS. of the Laurentian Library,[187] and among the\nmosaics of Santa Maria Maggiore.[188] During the twelfth and thirteenth\ncenturies, while the veneration of the Virgin within the Catholic\nChurch steadily grew greater, the story of her life, as apart from\nthat of her Divine Son, appeared in sculpture and stained glass, but\nstill the Annunciation was a comparatively rare subject and simply\ntreated. Early in the fourteenth century, however, a whole flight of\nannouncing angels settled down over Italy, some drifting as far north\nas Holland. We find them kneeling, standing, just alighting, often with\nthe wind of swift movement still in their garments and almost always on\nthe left hand of the picture, with the Virgin in the place of honour\non the right. The Annunciation, the announcing of the near approach\nof \u2018the dayspring from on high,\u2019 which was to bring light and joy and\nfreedom to a world groping in the twilight of an imperfect revelation,\nwas an incident which particularly appealed to minds rejoicing in the\nintellectual liberation of the Renaissance. It appealed, too, to the\njoyous nature of the Florentines, who hated the sad and tragic aspects\nof life, loving fresh and spring-like things and rather elaborate\nsimplicity. Pictures of the Annunciation multiplied, particularly\nin Florence, which was just then evolving the school which was to\ninfluence so powerfully the Western world\u2019s pictorial conceptions of\nthe divine mysteries. And in the great majority of Annunciations we\nfind lilies, for in this incident of the Virgin\u2019s life above all others\nit was necessary to emphasize the purity which made the wonder of the\nangel\u2019s salutation.\n\nThe most characteristic treatment of the lily, as the lily of the\nAnnunciation, was to place it in a pot or vase. About the year 1291,\nCavallini, the mosaicist, was in Rome decorating the Church of S.\nMaria in Trastevere, and beneath the great centre mosaic of the apse\nhe placed a series of scenes from the life of the Virgin. In the\nAnnunciation the Virgin is seated on a marble throne, which has broad,\ntable-like arms. On one arm there is a dish, apparently of fruit,\nand on the other a vase filled with lilies. The vase may or may not\nhave been placed there definitely as a symbol, but as a detail--in\nvulgar English phraseology--it caught on. We find it on the famous\ncarved candlestick of Gaeta,[189] worked by an unknown contemporary of\nNiccola d\u2019Apulia. It appears on an embroidered book-cover of English\nwork[190] attributed to the end of the thirteenth century, and is\ncleverly squared out of the chequered background of a Netherlandish\nmusic-book[191] of 1330.\n\nThe vase of lilies soon became a more or less elaborate detail in\nnumerous illuminations, carvings and paintings. The earliest of the\nFlemish masters, Jan van Eyck,[192] Roger van der Weyden[193] and the\nMaster of Fl\u00e9malle,[194] make use of it. It was particularly popular in\nFlorence.\n\nThe Florentines loved the Annunciation as a subject and were charmed by\nthe easy, graceful symbolism of the lilies. They were also, doubtless,\ndeeply gratified, as citizens and as churchmen, to identify the lily,\ntheir city\u2019s badge, as the flower of the Virgin.\n\nIn Spain, even before there was any native school of painting, the vase\nof lilies passed from being a detail to be an almost essential factor\nin every representation of the Annunciation, and early in the fifteenth\ncentury we find it standing detached as the special and distinguishing\nattribute of the Virgin. In the insignia of the Order of the Lily of\nAragon, founded in 1410 by Ferdinand, Duke of Pegnafiel, the chain\nwas composed of alternate griffins and pots of three lilies, and Ford\nmentions that when the Regent Fernando recovered Antequera from the\nMoors he gave the city for arms the badge of his military order, which\nwas _La Terraza_, \u2018the vase,\u2019 the pot of lilies of the Virgin.[195]\n\nThe symbol of the vase had come to the Netherlands and Germany while\nthey were still pictorially inarticulate; but when they at length found\nmeans of expression, the Germans slowly, the Flemings in a splendid\nburst with the van Eycks, it was their earliest and their favourite\nsymbol. Memling places it also beside his enthroned Madonnas, and\nit is never omitted from an Annunciation except on the occasions,\ncomparatively rare in the North, when Gabriel holds a branch of lilies\nin his hand instead of the herald\u2019s wand. Then there is no vase, for\nthere is no necessity to repeat the symbol.\n\nBut in Italy itself the vase of lilies, though popular, was never\nconsidered essential. No vase decorates the loggias where sit the\nVirgins of Giotto,[196] Botticelli,[197] Melozzo da Forl\u00ec,[198] or\nLeonardo da Vinci,[199] though Giotto introduces it with identical\nsymbolism in the Visitation. Indeed many of the most typical painters\nof both the early and the high Renaissance, Taddeo di Bartolo,[200]\nSpinello Aretino,[201] Fra Angelico,[202] Lorenzo di Credi[203] and\nRaphael,[204] banish lilies entirely, both from the vase and from\nthe angel\u2019s hand. Ghirlandaio places a vase beside the Virgin\u2019s\nreading-desk, but alters its significance by filling it with roses,\ndaisies and jasmine, the flowers of love, innocence and divine\nhope.[205]\n\nOn the other hand, some of the Florentine artists who had a special\nfondness for the flower, notably Fra Filippo Lippi,[206] and the\nDella Robbias,[207] use both, so doubling the symbolism; but it was\nmore correct, where there was a vase of lilies, to show the angel\nwith folded hands or with a branch of olive, or, as in the beautiful\nAnnunciation of Jan van Eyck at St Petersburg, holding the herald\u2019s\nwand. In Jan van Eyck\u2019s Annunciation at Berlin, where Gabriel carries a\nmagnificent bunch of lilies, there is no vase.\n\nAccording to Northern tradition the true Annunciation lily should have\nno stamens, but this was a refinement of symbolism largely ignored by\nartists, who were discouraged probably by the insipid appearance of\nthe flower when deprived of its gold-dusted centre. In Italy it was\nentirely neglected, but some painters of the sixteenth century have\nplaced a tiny flame in the centre of each lily-cup; a burning flame,\naccording to Vasari,[208] signifying eternal love.\n\nThere seems to have been sometimes a doubt in the minds of the Northern\nartists as to which was really the Madonna\u2019s flower, the _lilium\ncandidum_ or the iris, which so closely resembled in form the golden\nlilies on the royal shields of France and England.\n\nMemling, who had painted the fleur-de-lys heraldically for the\nDuke of Burgundy,[209] seemed unable to decide, and in the vase of\nthe Annunciation,[210] as well as in the vase which stands beside\nthe enthroned Madonna,[211] he has placed an iris among the white\nlilies. Or possibly, with a deeper symbolism, taking the iris as the\nfleur-de-lys, the ancient symbol of royalty, which, with its three\nunited petals, recalls also the nature of the Holy Trinity, he\nhas striven to interpret florally the message of the angel, that God\nincarnate would spring from a lily-like virginity. It may not be\nwithout design that the iris in the Annunciation is overshadowed by\nthe lilies, while in the picture where the Holy Child sits upon His\nMother\u2019s lap, the iris in the vase (in this case marked with the sacred\nmonogram) has sprung upwards beyond the white lilies.\n\n[Illustration:\n\n      _Pinturicchio_          _Photo Alinari_\n\nTHE ROSE OF DIVINE LOVE RISING FROM A PRECIOUS VESSEL\n\n(Borgia Apartment, Vatican)]\n\n[Illustration:\n\n      _Pesello_           _Photo Alinari_\n\nTHE ROYAL LILY SPRINGING FROM A HUMBLE VASE\n\n(S. Spirito, Florence)]\n\nIn the Church of S. Spirito in Florence there is an altar-piece of the\nAnnunciation which was at one time attributed to Botticelli and is now\nusually ascribed to Pesello. The vase, placed midway between the two\nfigures, holds three purple irises. Perhaps the artist saw a symbol of\nthe Holy Trinity in the three royal lilies growing on one stalk (though\nthe Church held a belief in the incarnation of the Trinity in unity to\nbe heresy), in which case the colour, the purple of humility, would be\nappropriate.\n\nMore difficult to explain is the symbolism of the vase of lilies in the\nAnnunciation upon the cover of a psalter, in fine English needlework\nof the thirteenth century.[212] The book belonged to Anne, daughter of\nSir Simon Felbrigge, and if the date given, the end of the thirteenth\ncentury, is correct, it is a very early instance of the Virgin\u2019s vase\nof lilies. The figures have much dignity and sweep of line, but the\nlily, which is a fleur-de-lys in form, is red! Possibly in the garden\nof the country convent where embroidery was worked no liliums grew. The\nnun would therefore take the only lilies she knew, those of the royal\nstandard. For colour she would remember that they surpassed Solomon\nin his glory. But, even so, the red lily argues an insensitiveness to\nsymbolic values scarcely to be found among the Latins.\n\nThe original symbolism of the vase of lilies was simple. It signified\nthe purity of the Maid of Nazareth, she of whom it was prophesied \u2018A\nVirgin shall conceive and bear a Son.\u2019 She does not hold the flower in\nher hand as do the virgin martyrs who preserved their purity through\nstorm and stress, but it grows naturally beside her and merely typifies\nher girlhood. In the first half of the fifteenth century this seems\nto have been the invariable intention. But in the later half of that\ncentury the meaning was developed and amplified. Distinction was\nmade between the vase and the flower it contained. In France and in\nSpain, where religious iconography is found in architectural detail\nrather than in pictorial decoration, the favourite arrangement of the\nAnnunciation was to place the vase midway between the Virgin and the\nangel, a composition which from its equal balance was most decorative.\nThe Virgin with drooping head and falling veil, Gabriel with curved\nwings, both leaning forward towards the central vase of lilies, formed\nan ideal filling for a lunette or the spandrels of an arch, and the\nsimplicity of the group made it particularly suitable for sculpture,\nboth in wood and stone. It is the central motive of many of the great\ncarved and gilded reredos in Spain and of the simpler stone altars\nof France. The central vase of lilies had, however, a tendency to\nbecome ever larger, till, from being a detail, it became the important\ncentre-point, and in some French Annunciations of the sixteenth century\nthe uninstructed heathen would merely see two figures worshipping,\napparently, a large vase of flowers.\n\nIn two Italian pictures, that of doubtful origin already mentioned\nwhich is in S. Spirito, and the Annunciation of Pinturicchio in the\nVatican, where the large vase is placed exactly in the centre of the\ncomposition, the flowers within the vase are not white lilies; they\nare iris, the royal lily, in one case, and roses, the flower of divine\nlove, in the other. Therefore the flower-filled vase was no longer\nstrictly the symbol of the Virgin\u2019s purity. A change, hinted at when\nMemling placed the iris among the lilies, had come about, for the\nflower which was the attribute of Jesus Christ was now rising from the\nvase and distinction had been made between the vase and the flower\nwhich it contained. Christ is the mystic flower springing from a lowly\nvessel. He is the flower, Mary the vase. The royal purple lily or the\nrose of love are, therefore, as appropriate a filling for the vase as\nwas the lily, and there is no incongruity in any attitude of homage\ntowards the vase on the part of the Virgin. But since the compound\nemblem was the emblem of the Immaculate Conception, naturally it is\nmost often the lily of purity which fills the vase.\n\nIn the Annunciation of Albert D\u00fcrer\u2019s \u2018Smaller Passion\u2019[213] the lily\ngrowing in its humble earthen pot undeniably refers to the perfect\nsinlessness of the soul which was yet to be born, for the flowers are\nstill each tightly folded in its bud, while in the culminating scene\nof the series, where the Saviour sits in judgment, the lily, with each\ncalyx fully expanded, is shown with the sword of justice behind His\nhead.\n\nNorthern symbolism, always deeper and more complicated than that of\nthe South, required that the vase which contained the lilies should\nbe transparent, thus indicating the perfect purity of the body which\nenshrined the soul of perfect innocence. \u2018In so far that the glass\nallows all surroundings to shine through without being itself harmed,\nit has become the symbol of the Immaculate Conception. Therefore in\npictures of the Annunciation a blossoming lily stalk in a transparent\nglass is placed at the feet of the Virgin.\u2019[214]\n\nThe same idea is traced in the thirteenth-century Christmas carol:\n\n   \u2018As the sunbeam through the glass\n    Passeth but not staineth,\n    So the Virgin as she was,\n    Virgin still remaineth.\u2019[215]\n\nAnd somewhat akin is the mirror which occasionally appears, held by an\nattendant _putto_ in a Spanish \u2018Immaculate Conception.\u2019\n\nThe transparent vase is not often seen in Italian Annunciations, for\nit was usual in Italy to place the stalk of lilies, a complete symbol\nin itself of virginity, in the angel\u2019s hand, and there was no need to\ndouble the symbolism; but the painters of the late fifteenth and early\nsixteenth centuries, in pictures of Mary with the Child or in a Holy\nFamily, use the crystal vase frequently as an attribute of the Infant\nSaviour, filling it with those flowers which express His virtues, the\nviolet of humility, the rose or carnation of divine love, the daisy of\ninnocence, or the jasmine of heavenly hope.[216]\n\nThe actual number of blooms upon the lily stalk has also its\nsignificance. Some think they should be three in number, two fully\nopened flowers and one in bud, forming what Rossetti terms the\n\u2018Tripoint.\u2019\n\n   \u2018I\u2019 the centre is the Tripoint: perfect each\n    Except the second of its points, to teach\n    That Christ is not yet born.\u2019\n\nSeveral of the masters of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries\npainted the two flowers with the bud or three fully-opened blooms, but\nmore often, arguing possibly that this lily was the emblem of God the\nSon when made Man, and not of the Holy Trinity, they painted simply\na natural lily plant with clustering buds and one or many blossoms,\ntaking the whole plant as the symbol.\n\nSometimes the vase holds three distinct stalks of lilies with a single\nbloom on each, an arrangement which was suggested, it is said, by the\nDominican legend of the doubting Master.\n\nA Master of the Dominicans, unable to believe in the stainlessness of\nthe Blessed Virgin, went to ask help of the saintly brother Egidius.\n\n\u2018O Master of the Preachers,\u2019 said Egidius, on meeting him, \u2018Virgo ante\npartum.\u2019 He struck the ground with his staff and from the spot there\nimmediately sprang a lily. \u2018O doubting Master,\u2019 he said again, \u2018Virgo\nin partu.\u2019 He struck the earth and again a lily sprang. He spoke a\nthird time, \u2018O my brother, Virgo post partum,\u2019 a third lily bloomed,\nand the Master of the Dominicans doubted no more.\n\nA detached vase holding three lily blooms occurs frequently as the\nmotive of an architectural decoration executed in low relief, one\nbeautiful example being above the door of the Badia Church of Florence.\nBut it is not confined to buildings of Dominican origin, and the\narrangement seems to owe its popularity more to its symmetry than to\nany supporting legend. In pictures, where greater freedom of treatment\nis desirable, the lilies are one, two, three or more--there is no rule.\n\n\n\n\nXV\n\nTHE LILY OF THE ANGEL GABRIEL\n\n\nIn the majority of the Annunciations which were painted during the\nfourteenth and fifteenth centuries the archangel Gabriel carries a\nlily. In the earliest representations of the subject he has simply\na herald\u2019s wand, which in later Byzantine art usually terminated in\na fleur-de-lys, the ancient symbol of royalty, or in a more or less\nelaborate cross. More rarely he carries a scroll on which are inscribed\nthe words of his message.\n\nIn the early Sienese school he still holds the herald\u2019s wand,[217] or\nbrings to the Virgin a branch of olive,[218] the symbol of peace and\ngoodwill. Once at least he holds a branch of laurel,[219] the meed of\nthose who excel, and sometimes the palm[220] of victory over sin.\n\nIn the famous Annunciation of Simone Martini,[221] Gabriel, who carries\na branch of olive, is also olive-crowned, and this seems to be the\nproper symbolism of the subject. The messenger of God, crowned with\npeace, brings the olive branch of reconciliation between God and man\nto the Virgin, beside whom stands a vase filled with the lilies which\nsymbolize her purity. The dove hovers above.\n\nIt has not been decided which artist was the first to place the\nstalk of lilies in the angel Gabriel\u2019s hand, and first had come the\nlovely symbol of the vase of lilies by the Virgin\u2019s side. But in the\nAnnunciation, which forms part of Simone Martini\u2019s polyptych in the\nMuseum of Antwerp, we find the herald\u2019s wand just turning to a lily.\nProfessor A. Venturi, in his magnificent _History of Italian Art_,\ndescribes it. The angel \u2018holds a lily with a long stem, which is all\nwhite. Thus the stick or sceptre of ivory, which we have already\nseen in Duccio\u2019s picture, has become partly stick, partly lily-stem.\nWith Duccio it is still the sceptre with three points, that Gabriel,\nmessenger of God, holds as sign of authority. But look how the three\npoints change themselves to lily-buds, and open the corolla, as the\narchangel extends the candid flower towards the Virgin, who was saluted\nby David and the Fathers as \u201cThe lily of the valleys.\u201d The poetry of\nChristian art thus overthrows medi\u00e6val materialism and lavishes flowers\non fair likenesses of Mary.\u2019\n\nIn this Annunciation we find the three types of lilies used in art--the\nlily growing freely and naturally in a vase beside the Virgin; the\nstiff lily, half conventionalized in the angel\u2019s hand; and the\nfleurs-de-lys, wholly conventional, which ornament the arms of the\nVirgin\u2019s seat.\n\nSimone Martini died in 1344, and by 1359, the date of its completion,\nevery Florentine artist must have seen the wonderful tabernacle raised\nby Orcagna in Or San Michele, and every artist in Italy must have heard\ndescriptions of the shrine.\n\n   \u2018Che passa di bellezza, s\u2019io ben recolo,\n    Tutti gli altri che son dentro del secolo.\u2019[222]\n\nOn a panel of the Tabernacle there is an Annunciation which was the\nmost beautiful representation of the subject so far given to the\nworld, and the kneeling angel with the sweeping wings carries in his\nleft hand a heavy stalk of _lilium candidum_.\n\nIt is interesting to trace the evolution of the straight smooth\nstick which the angel held in the earliest representations of the\nAnnunciation into the natural branch of lilies carried by the typical\nAnnouncing Angel of Christian art. First we find upon the wand the\nthree-pointed fleur-de-lys, which from the days of the Assyrians\nhad ornamented the royal sceptre. The heavenly herald bore a wand\nornamented with the royal symbol when he brought a message from the\nLord of the Universe to the Maiden of the House of David, who was to be\nthe Mother of His Son. Gradually the fleur-de-lys gained some likeness\nto the natural lily. The sceptre was made of ivory. It was white. Two\nleaves appeared wreathing the stick. Midway in the transformation are\nthe lilies carried by the lovely choir of seated angels in a picture\nby Guariento.[223] Each angel holds in his left hand an orb and in\nthe right a straight lily stem with leaves growing naturally up its\nwhole length. At the top is a single flower, which, seen in profile,\nhas the shape of the fleur-de-lys. Simone Martini indicates the\nblossom\u2019s cup-like form. With Orcagna we find the fully-realized stem\nof lilies. One unidentified master of the fourteenth century[224] went\neven further in botanical fidelity, and paints the bulb and pendent\nrootlets, though, strangely enough, he at the same time keeps to the\nold convention and places a scroll in the hand of both Madonna and\nangel.\n\nMeanwhile, in 1344, Ambrogio di Lorenzetti had painted an\nAnnunciation[225] in which the angel, crowned with olive, holds\nthe palm branch with which the ancient Romans were accustomed to\nsalute a conqueror. The symbol of the palm was used also by Spinello\nAretino,[226] a pupil of Giotto, and was supported by Dante, who\ndescribes the angel Gabriel as:\n\n   \u2018He that bore the palm\n    Down unto Mary, when the Son of God\n    Vouchsafed to clothe Him in terrestrial weeds.\u2019\n\nBut it did not come into general use in this connection, and chiefly\nfor the reason that the palm became consecrated to representations\nof the last scenes of the Virgin\u2019s life. The _Legenda Aurea_,\nwhen recounting how the angel Gabriel announced to the Virgin her\napproaching death, states: \u2018He (Gabriel) gave her a branch of palm from\nParadise, which he commanded should be borne before her bier.\u2019\n\nThe palm was, therefore, a necessary detail in this scene, and it was\nprobably to avoid confusion between these two separate appearances of\nthe angel to the Virgin that the palm has been reserved entirely for\nthe last Annunciation. The religious sentiment of the age forbade the\nportrayal of any sign of decrepitude in the Virgin even at the hour of\nher death, and except for the substitution of the palm for the lily\nand the reversal of the usual places of the figures, the Virgin being\nplaced on the left and the angel on the right, it would be difficult\nto distinguish the scene where the Virgin receives the news of her\napproaching death, from that in which her approaching motherhood is\nannounced to her.\n\nIt became the general rule, then, for Gabriel, as the angel of the\nAnnunciation of the Saviour\u2019s birth, to carry a lily. But the rule\nwas not invariable. The early Flemish artists, half painters, half\ncraftsmen, loved to depict the delicately-chiselled gold of jewelled\nsceptres topped by an elaborate fleur-de-lys or the cross-surmounted\norb which signified the sovereignty of Christ upon earth. These\nprecious sceptres accorded well with the opulent and prosaic comfort\nof the surroundings in which they set the sacred drama, and reflect\nthe spirit of the Northern mystics. The clear detailed visions of\nSaint Matilda, the inspired nun of Saxony, which occurred during the\nlast half of the thirteenth century, and whose imagery has distinctly\ninfluenced Northern religious art, fairly scintillate with mystical\ngems. Even the roses and the lilies, symbols, she tells us, of divine\nlove and innocence, which she saw in her glimpses of Heaven, were\nembroidered in gold and silver thread upon rich stuffs or cloth of gold.\n\nItalian art had different traditions. It began with the utter\nsimplicity of Giotto and Fra Angelico, though the Byzantine love of\nrich trappings still lingered in Siena. As Florentine art progressed\nit did indeed become more elaborate, till its inclination to\nmagnificence was severely checked by Savonarola, whose influence on\nart has usually been wrongly estimated. He was no blind iconoclast,\nthough without doubt objects of great artistic worth were burnt in his\nfamous holocaust of \u2018vanities,\u2019 which finished the Carnival of 1497.\nOn the contrary, as Senator Pasquale Villari points out, he was always\nsurrounded by the best artists of his century. Fra Bartolommeo, for\nfour years after his death, did not touch a brush, such was his grief.\nThe Della Robbias were devoted to him; two received the habit from\nhis hands. Lorenzo di Credi was his partisan; Cronaca \u2018would speak\nof nothing but the things of Savonarola.\u2019 Botticelli illustrated his\nworks, and Michael Angelo was a most constant listener to his preaching.\n\nHe spoke plainly to the painters from his pulpit. The beauty of the\nDivinity, of the Virgin and the Saints was the beauty of holiness, not\nof outward adornment of fine raiment, gold and jewels, and \u2018the beauty\nof man or woman in so far as it approaches to the primal beauty, so is\nit great and more perfect.\u2019[227]\n\nWe read of the Virgin that by her great beauty the men who saw her were\nastonished (stupefatti).\n\n... \u2018Do you believe that she went about in the manner in which you\npaint her? I say to you that she went dressed as a poor woman!\u2019[228]\n\nBut he who taught for choice beneath the damask rose in the centre\nof his cloister admitted roses and lilies where he denounced rubies\nand pearls. Flowers alone survived as emblems or as votive decoration\neven after the puritanical current towards the ideal set in motion\nby the great Dominican became merged in the over-sweeping wave of\nclassicism--and even those late artists who dispensed with every other\nconvention for the expression of the abstract, placed a lily in the\nangel Gabriel\u2019s hand.\n\nModern art has adopted the tradition and in the \u2018Ecce Ancilla Domini\u2019\nof Rossetti[229] the wingless angel carries a stalk of lilies. There\nis also a white lily embroidered upon the strip of material which is\nstretched upon an embroidery frame at the foot of Mary\u2019s bed.\n\nThe angel brings the lily to the Virgin in recognition of her perfect\npurity, the transcendent quality by which alone she found favour with\nGod. Through it tremendous honour came upon her, and by the marvellous\nnature of that honour she was eternally bound to her virginity.\n\u2018Mary Virgin, ever a Virgin.\u2019 In a very charming picture by Filippo\nLippi,[230] Mary, with bent head, and fully understanding the grave\nsignificance of the gift, reverently accepts the lily which the angel\nGabriel places in her hand.\n\nIn another Annunciation by Filippo Lippi,[231] a second angel, peeping\nthrough the entry behind Gabriel, also carries a lily, but it is a\nfancy which seems to have no particular significance and rather impairs\nthe dignity of the subject.\n\nSo constantly did painters and sculptors of the Annunciation place\na lily in the archangel Gabriel\u2019s hand that it gradually became his\nspecial attribute, which he wore, as a knight did his crest, to\ndistinguish him from other angels and archangels.\n\nIn the apocryphal Book of Tobit is the story of Tobias, who was\naccompanied by the angel Raphael on the famous journey which he took\nto recover his father\u2019s money, a journey in which he not only caught\nthe fish whose gall was to cure his father\u2019s blindness, but also found\na wife. It is the only subject from the Apocrypha which now decorates\nChristian churches, and owes this grace to the force with which\nthe story, despite its fantastic details, illustrates the constant\nwatchfulness of Heaven over those still on their earthly pilgrimage.\nIn the fifteenth century it was a favourite subject for a votive\npicture on behalf of one about to take a journey. The young man, rather\nhelpless in his youth and inexperience, protected by the strong, wise\nguardian angel, was a group painted with the greatest pleasure, and\nthe fascination of ideal, sexless beauty, of curved, sweeping wings,\ntempted to an amplification of the subject, and though the Book of\nTobit mentions one archangel only--\n\n                \u2018... The affable archangel\n    Raphael; the sociable spirit that deign\u2019d\n    To travel with Tobias, and secured\n    His marriage with the seven-times wedded maid--\u2019[232]\n\nthere suddenly sprang up in Florence a short-lived fashion for\ndepicting Tobias with three archangels.\n\nThere are two of these pictures in Florence;[233] others at\nVerona,[234] Turin[235] and Munich.[236] In each Michael is armed,\nRaphael grasps Tobias by the hand, and Gabriel carries a branch of\nlilies.\n\nBut the four figures in a row make an awkward composition, and\nstiffness is avoided at the expense of dignity. A mincing angel, too\nconscious of his pretty wings and daintily-held lily, is the Gabriel of\nthe best known of these pictures, attributed of late years to Botticini.\n\n[Illustration:\n\n  _J\u00f6rg Brue_\n\nTHE COLUMBINE OF THE SEVEN GIFTS\n\n(Berlin)]\n\n[Illustration:\n\n      _The Master of Fl\u00e9malle_          _Photo Hanfst\u00e4ngl_\n\nSAINT BARBARA WITH THE ROYAL LILY\n\n(Prado)]\n\nThe lily is, of course, here used non-symbolically, merely to\ndistinguish one archangel from another, and for the same reason that\nMichael is given the sword and frequently the scales for the weighing\nof souls, Raphael the traveller\u2019s staff and gourd, or, when with\nTobias, a small box. The angel Gabriel\u2019s primary function is to be\nthe herald of God, as it is Michael\u2019s to lead the hosts of Heaven,\nand Raphael\u2019s to guide the straying. Therefore Gabriel carries the\nherald\u2019s wand, now developed to a lily, Michael the sword, and Raphael\nthe staff.\n\nThus Gabriel, when in company with other archangels and angels,\ncarries the lily to establish his identity, but where, as in a\nCoronation[237] or an Enthroned Madonna, he stands with Saint Michael\nguarding the throne, he usually holds also a scroll with \u2018AVE MARIA\u2019\nupon it, showing that the main function of the lily is to proclaim the\nspotlessness of the Virgin.\n\nA rather charming treatment of the Annunciation lily, which originated\nin Germany, is to strew the lily heads upon the floor. They then have\nthe appearance of having fallen from Heaven in a shower, like those\nfalling roses, symbols of divine love, which were so often painted\nby the artists of Italy and Spain. \u2018The Master of the Sterzinger\nAltar\u2019[238] introduces seven of these lily blooms and buds, snapped\noff short, and with only an inch or two of stalk, into his fine\nAnnunciation painted in 1458, and, satisfied with these, he uses lilies\nneither in a vase nor in the angel\u2019s hand. Other artists of his day\nliked the fancy well, but wished to keep the mystic vase, so, to avoid\ndoubling the symbol, they turned the fallen flowers to roses, or roses\nand carnations, symbols of the divine favour which had fallen upon the\nmaid. It was a graceful exposition of the underlying meaning of the\nscene, symbolically right and delightful in pictorial effect.\n\n\n\n\nXVI\n\nTHE FLOWERS OF THE DIVINITY\n\n\nThe only growing thing which is used to represent the Trinity in Unity\nis the trefoil or shamrock. Saint Patrick is said to have plucked from\nthe ground a leaf of shamrock and by it illustrated to the heathen\nIrish the mystery of the Triune Godhead. Architectural details, and\nmore especially windows, based upon the trefoil\u2019s form, are common in\nGothic churches. In pictorial art it is rather unusual as an emblem,\nbut Michael Angelo, who so rarely used symbolical detail, paints the\ntriple-leaved plant and no other leaf or flower in the foreground of\nhis Holy Family.[239]\n\nBut though the trefoil is the only direct floral emblem of the Trinity,\ndistinct reference to it is often found in the triple grouping of\nthe flowers which are the attributes of the Saviour. For instance,\nthe three carnations of divine love in the crystal vase before the\nInfant Christ in Hugo van der Goes\u2019 \u2018Adoration of the Shepherds\u2019;[240]\nthe three lilies (one in bud) which the angel holds in Crivelli\u2019s\n\u2018Annunciation\u2019;[241] and the three irises in the Annunciation of\nPesello.[242]\n\nThere is no plant or flower used as the emblem of God the Father. From\ntime to time the Hebrew metaphor of the Burning Bush has been used\npictorially to indicate His presence; but as early as the fifth century\nthis image was appropriated to express the purity of the Virgin Mother,\nenveloped but not consumed by the divine love.\n\nIn the Catacombs and on many medi\u00e6val crucifixes the Person of God the\nFather is indicated by a hand issuing from the clouds and holding a\nwreath of laurel, palm or olive. But the wreath in this case is not the\nattribute of the Divine Father, but the attribute of him above whose\nhead the wreath is held. In the Catacombs it is the martyr\u2019s crown; on\nthe crucifix it is Christ\u2019s crown of victory over sin.\n\nAs already mentioned, the lily of purity and the olive branch of peace\nare occasionally used as the attributes of God the Holy Ghost. As His\ndirect emblem the dove only is employed, since Scripture states that\nHe descended in \u2018the form of a dove.\u2019 Sometimes in French manuscripts\nof the fourteenth century He is represented in human form, but such\nrepresentations are seldom found elsewhere.\n\nPoetry and art have enwreathed the entire life of Jesus Christ with\nflowers.\n\n\u2018The Annunciation was the festival of early spring. Christ, whose birth\nwas foretold by Gabriel, was a flower that blossomed from the stem\nof Jesse; His Mother, to whom the imagery of the Song of Solomon was\napplied, was a flower of the fields and a \u201clily of the valley.\u201d And the\nplace where the Annunciation occurred had a name, Nazareth, which in\nHebrew, according to an old but incorrect interpretation, means flower.\nSuch a meeting of associations was naturally not left unutilized by\nthe theological authors. It was often set forth in sermons how the\npromise of the birth of God as man was connected with the spring\u2019s\npromise of flowers and fruit. S. Bernard in particular worked out the\nflower symbolism of the Annunciation in poetic and ingenious conceits.\nThe flower, he said, had been willing, at the time of flowering, to\nbe born of a flower in a flower--_i.e._, Jesus permitted Himself to\nbe announced to Mary at Nazareth in the spring: \u201cFlos nasci voluit de\nflore, in flore, et floris tempore.\u201d\u2019[243]\n\nSo we find a stem of lilies or a vase of flowers as the symbol of His\nmiraculous birth, and on the morning of His nativity rejoicing angels\ncarried olive branches as they sang of peace on earth and goodwill\ntowards men. A helpless Infant, He lay upon the ground to receive the\nAdoration of His Mother and of angels, among roses of love and lilies\nof purity, or in grass thick with the daisies, violets and strawberries\nwhich told of His innocence, humility and righteousness.\n\nAs a boy, growing perhaps to a consciousness of His mission, in Spain\nHe is found with thorny roses, wounding Himself sometimes with the\nthorns of grief and suffering springing from His divine love itself.\n\nEarly devotional art left Christ\u2019s life with its miracles and parables\nand passed to His Passion. For the entry into Jerusalem there is\nthe palm of victory and the olive branch of peace. In the Ecce Homo\nHe wears the Crown of Thorns, and the reed as a sceptre is placed in\nHis hand. For the Crucifixion Signorelli painted below the Cross many\npleasant flowers, among which are noticeable the violet and daisy.\nBut the Northern schools reserved for this scene the bitter herbs and\nflowers, the willow, dandelion and thistle. These weeds, carefully\nchosen and painted with marvellous minuteness, fill the foreground in\nthe Crucifixion by an unnamed German master in the National Gallery.\n\nIn the last scenes of all of the divine tragedy there is no symbol but\nthe Crown of Thorns, and to the Resurrection no flower is specially\ndedicated. But in the Thomas Altar,[244] by the Master of the\nBartholomew Altar, the newly-risen Christ is shown, and round His feet,\nupon the marble step, are lying blossoms of violets and daisies and\nseven heads of the holy columbine.\n\nThe passion flower does not appear in art before the seventeenth\ncentury. It was unknown in Europe before the Spanish conquest of South\nAmerica, and it is said that when the Jesuits brought home reports of\nthe miraculous flower bearing the insignia of the Passion, which grew\nfrom tree to tree in the forests of the new land, their tale was first\nreceived as a pious invention. But the plant itself at length arrived,\nand early in the eighteenth century Francesco Trevisani painted a\ndelightful little picture[245] less noticed than it deserves to be.\nThe Virgin, who is very sweet and gentle, both in pose and expression,\nsits sewing beside a table on which is a vase of roses and lilies. The\nlittle Christ, who has apparently just run in from the garden, points\nout to His Mother, with a most childlike gesture, the little thorny\ncrown upon the passion flower which He holds in His hand. The picture,\nwhich is not unlike the work of Andrea del Sarto in miniature, is\nwonderfully attractive.\n\n\n\n\nXVII\n\nTHE FLOWERS OF THE VIRGIN\n\n\nThere were many flowers used by the early writers as similes of the\nVirgin.\n\n   \u2018Thou art the myrtle and the blooming rose of Paradise,\n    Thou art the fairness of heaven, and\n    The feast-day of our hearts,\u2019\n\nwrote Saint Petrus Damiani in the eleventh century.\n\nIn Saint Bernard we read:\n\n\u2018Mary is the violet of humility, the lily of chastity and the rose of\ncharity.\u2019\n\nConrad von W\u00fcrtzburg compares her to the balsam of purest perfume,\nthe fairest among flowers, the cedar of Lebanon, the cypress of Zion,\nfennel and mint, the white lily, the early flowering almond, the\nhealing mandrake, the musk-flower, the evergreen myrtle, the low nard,\nthe thornless rose in the dew of heaven, the noble frankincense and\nthe hidden violet, and further addresses her as\n\n   \u2018A living Paradise\n    Of grandly coloured flowers.\u2019[246]\n\nBut though poets, and particularly German poets, ranged widely through\nthe fields in their search for blossoms which by their beauty or by\ntheir healing virtues were fit to symbolize the Virgin, the early\nartists painted very few. In those mystical Enclosed Gardens which so\ncharmed the Germans of the fifteenth century, only a few plants appear.\nThe lily, which is often the lily of the valley, the rose, the violet,\nand the strawberry, are the most usual. Later the iris, the royal lily,\nwas added, and sometimes the seven-blossomed columbine. Occasionally\nin Italy the jasmine and the daisy are also found in the vase beside\nher, but all other flowers of the garden and field, the tulip, anemone,\nranunculus, primrose, daffodil, dahlia, etc., were rigidly excluded.\n\nIt will be noticed that, with the exception of the rose, all the\nflowers of the Virgin are white or blue, her own colours. An\nexception, which is unique, is the golden sunflower springing from her\nhalo on a twelfth-century window in the Church of St R\u00e9mi at Reims, and\neven that is not exclusively hers, since Saint John, on the other side,\nbears the same flower. White and blue are the two colours which are\nheld most sacred in the Christian Church. White, symbol of the Supreme\nBeing and of the Eternal Truth, is used in the ornaments for the feast\nof Our Lord and of the Virgin, for it announces loving-kindness,\nvirginity and charity.[247] Blue is the symbol of chastity, innocence\nand candour. Only one yellow flower is used symbolically, and that only\nin scenes from the Passion, by artists of the early Flemish and German\nschools. It is the dandelion, and its significance is, apparently,\nbitterness of grief.\n\nThe white lily, which symbolizes purity, is found chiefly in pictures\nof the Annunciation, but it has been introduced in many other scenes\nfrom the life of the Virgin. In the first exhibited painting by\nRossetti, entitled \u2018The Girlhood of Mary Virgin,\u2019[248] the Virgin, in\ngrey robes, is seated at a curiously-shaped frame embroidering a white\nlily upon a ground of red material. The flower she is copying grows\nin a vase beside her and an angel with rose-coloured wings waters it.\nSt Anne stands near, and in the background Joachim trims a trellised\nvine upon which the Holy Dove is perched. In the \u2018_Ecce Ancilla\nDomini_\u2019[249] of Rossetti, this same strip of embroidery, now finished,\nhangs beside the bed.\n\nThe older artists paint no lily in the early scenes of the Virgin\u2019s\nlife; it first appears at the Annunciation, where it was used so\nrepeatedly that it became in itself the symbol of the miraculous\nbirth of Our Lord. Giotto brings it forward in the \u2018Visitation.\u2019[250]\nElizabeth, hurrying from the house to meet the Virgin, passes beneath a\nportico on which blooms a large vase of lilies.\n\nThere are endless pictures representing the Virgin seated with the\nHoly Child, in which a vase of lilies is placed as a votive offering\nbefore her feet, or lilies are held by attendant angels. One of the\nearliest of these pictures is the \u2018Enthroned Madonna\u2019[251] of Giotto.\nTwo angels offer golden vases filled with lilies and roses. The angels\nhave searched Paradise for its most precious flowers and have chosen\nthose which symbolize purity and divine love. As the symbol of divine\nlove the roses are very appropriately mixed with the lilies in the\nvase which Ghirlandaio[252] places on the lowest step of the Madonna\u2019s\nthrone. He has also added the starry wild white campion which closely\nresembles jasmine, a flower never definitely accorded to the Queen of\nHeaven by the symbolists of the Church, but its clear starlike form\nbringing to mind both her title _Stella Maris_ and the starry crown\ndescribed by Saint John, painters frequently use it, and white flowers\nof the same shape, as her attribute.\n\nBut the appearance of the jasmine in the Madonna pictures may in part\nbe owing to some confusion between the jasmine and the myrtle, for the\nlatter was quite definitely one of the Virgin\u2019s flowers and is even\nused when addressing her in metaphor.\n\n   \u2018O myrtle tree of Paradise\n    So richly hung with fruit.\u2019[253]\n\nDr Anselm Saltzer, O.S.B., writes: \u2018The Greeks and Romans held the\nmyrtle to be the symbol of beauty, youth and marriage, because of its\ndelightful perfume, its evergreen leaves, white blossoms and aromatic\nberries. In connection with Mary, the myrtle serves as a figure of her\npurity and other virtues as well as of her influence over the unruly\nimpulses of the human soul.\u2019[254]\n\nFrancesco Franciabigio[255] places a vase of single white roses at the\nVirgin\u2019s feet. Double roses, pink or red, are the symbol of divine\nlove, the love of Christ for His Church upon earth, and the white\nsingle roses might be the symbol of the passionless love of the \u2018_Mater\nConsolatrix_.\u2019\n\nThese flowers, placed in vases before the Virgin, are usually\nsignificant and appropriate, but they are really more votive than\nsymbolical. The Latins had brought to the shrine of Venus the myrtle\nand roses, the apples and poppies that were sacred to her, and painters\nof Central Italy in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, with the\nsame desire to present and sacrifice to their Lady the flowers which\nwere by association peculiarly hers, painted roses and lilies carefully\nand beautifully in the foreground of her pictures. It was their gift to\nthe Madonna, as the paper roses on so many modern altars and the wild\nflowers on the wayside shrines are also gifts.\n\nIn Northern Italy, particularly among those who studied in the school\nof Squarcione, fruit took the place of the votive flowers, and is laid\nbefore the Madonna and the Child, or hung in garlands across the upper\npart of the picture.\n\nThe painters of the Italian Renaissance, in spite of diligent classical\nstudy, were probably quite unconscious of this survival of paganism in\ntheir work. But the ancient traditions of the soil did crop up from\ntime to time, in the same way that traces of the Norse conception of\nHeaven as a magnificent big-game hunt appear occasionally beneath the\nsymbolism of Christian medi\u00e6val art in Germany.\n\nNorth of the Alps, where the pre-Christian sacrifices had usually run\nwith blood, there was no inherited love of floral offerings, and we\nseldom find these votive vases or wreaths.\n\nThe Madonna attributed to Mabuse in the Prado has a large vase of roses\nplaced directly below her, but as a rule in Northern art the flowers\nare introduced strictly as symbols to recall some aspect or function of\nthe Virgin or of her Divine Son.\n\nIn an \u2018Adoration\u2019 the surrounding angels bring their roses and their\nlilies in tribute to the sinless Child. As Saint Mectilda says:\n\n\u2018The lily figures His innocence and the rose His invincible\npatience.\u2019[256]\n\nWhere the Virgin is seated enthroned, surrounded by saints and angels,\neven though the Holy Child is upon her knee, all symbols except that\nwhich the Child holds in His hand refer again to her.\n\nIt is rare, however, that, when holding the Child, she carries her own\nattribute herself. Usually the symbols, flowers or fruit, are held by\nangels or laid beside her throne, but in the large \u2018Enthroned Madonna\u2019\nof Signorelli,[257] a painter who showed some originality in his use\nof symbols, Mary encircles the Child with her right arm and in her left\nhand holds a handsome stalk of lilies. That the flower refers to the\nwonder of her own purity in conjunction with her motherhood, and not to\nthe Child\u2019s sinlessness, is proved by the words on the scroll of the\nProphet Isaiah, who stands below gazing up at her with rapture:\n\n            \u2018Behold a Virgin shall conceive and bear a Son.\u2019\n\nVasari says of this work:[258] \u2018In his old age he painted a picture for\nthe brotherhood of San Girolamo in Arezzo, partly at the cost of Messer\nNiccol\u00f2 Gamurrini, doctor of laws, and auditor of the Ruota, whose\nportrait, taken from life, is in the picture; he is kneeling before the\nMadonna, to whose protection he is recommended by Saint Nicholas. In\nthe same work are figures of Saint Donatus and Saint Stephen, with that\nof Saint Jerome, undraped, beneath; there is likewise a figure of David\nsinging to a psaltery with two prophets who are seen, by the written\nscrolls which they hold in their hands, to be engaged in a conference\non the conception of the Virgin.\u2019\n\nIn another altar-piece by Signorelli[259] it is the Infant Christ who\ncarries the lily, the symbol of His own sinlessness. In this picture\nall the symbolism refers to the Holy Child, not to the Virgin, which is\nunusual in an \u2018Enthroned Madonna.\u2019 But the scroll upon the cross of the\nBaptist, with the words \u2018_Ecce Agnus Dei_,\u2019 directs the devotion of the\nworshipper to the Son.\n\nIn still another of Signorelli\u2019s compositions[260] the archangel\nMichael stands on one side of the Madonna\u2019s throne with his scales for\nthe weighing of souls, and Gabriel upon the other side with a large\nstalk of lilies. The latter carries the lilies, not merely as his own\nattribute, to denote that he is Gabriel, but also in greeting to the\nMadonna, for in his other hand he holds a scroll with the words, \u2018_Ave\nMaria, gratia plena_.\u2019\n\nThere is a Madonna and Child by Fra Angelico,[261] where the Virgin,\nwhose features are more strongly marked than is usual with the Master,\nholds in her right hand a vase in which are three roses and a stem of\nlilies. Her left arm is round the Child, whose little hand grasps a\nsingle lily cup. The composition is not pleasing, for the Mother is\nembarrassed and encumbered by the great vase; also the symbolism is not\nvery clear, but apparently the roses and the lily in the vase are the\nattributes of Mary, while the flower in His hand refers to the Holy\nChild.\n\nThere are very few flowers which are placed within the hand of the\nMadonna. In Italy she sometimes holds the _lilium candidum_ of the\nvirgin saints in her character of Queen of Virgins. In Germany\nand the Tyrol the large white lily is replaced by the native\nlily-of-the-valley; and in the \u2018Madonna with the Siskin\u2019[262] of Albert\nD\u00fcrer she accepts some sprays of the sweet-scented white bells from the\nhand of the tiny Saint John. In many pictures she holds a rose. Apart\nfrom symbolism, a flower was a fitting thing to grace a woman\u2019s hand,\nand the rose was considered the fairest of flowers.\n\n   \u2018As the rose is the flower of flowers,\n    So is Thy House the House of Houses,\u2019\n\nsays the ancient inscription within York Minster, and the rose was\n_the_ flower _par excellence_ in every European country.\n\nBut when Mary places the rose within the hand of the Infant Saviour,\nthen it becomes His attribute with the full significance of divine\nlove, and when she places a carnation between the little fingers,\ndivine love is again expressed.\n\nBut, as already noticed, in pictures of Florentine origin, the rose\nin the Virgin\u2019s hand has a special meaning, for it illustrates her\ntitle of \u2018_Madonna del Fiori_,\u2019 and the Cathedral of Florence was\ndedicated to \u2018Our Lady of the Flower.\u2019 Also in pictures painted for\nsome charitable institution the rose or roses of the Virgin have still\nanother meaning, for then, following the interpretation of Raban Maur,\nthey are the symbol of charity. One picture with such roses is that\npainted by Giambono for the _Congregazione di Carit\u00e0_ at Fano. That\nthese roses are in no way the attribute of the Child is shown by His\nattitude, for His back is turned to the hand which holds the flowers.\n\nOne of the most beautiful things in the beautiful city of Lucca is the\nlittle chapel of Santa Maria della Rosa. It was originally dedicated to\nSaint Paul and fell into disuse, but in the very earliest years of the\nfourteenth century a fresco was discovered beneath the creepers which\ncovered the walls. The fresco was even then considered to be extremely\nancient, and represented the Virgin with the Child and holding three\nroses in her hand. In 1309 the Bishop of Lucca conceded to the\n_Universit\u00e0 de\u2019 Mercanti_ the power to erect on the spot a church\ndedicated to the Virgin of the Rose and the Apostles Peter and Paul,\nand the present exquisite little building was commenced.\n\nThe outside is ornamented with lovely arabesques of roses in low relief\nexecuted in 1333, and upon one angle is a statue of the Virgin with a\nrose in her hand, possibly by Giovanni Pisano. In the sacristry are the\narms of the confraternity figuring Mary surrounded by an oval nimbus\nand supported by two bushes, which carry thirteen roses, and form a\ncrown from which rise patriarchs and prophets. The original fresco has\ndisappeared.\n\nVery rarely the Virgin holds a violet. The flower is used in Christian\nart almost exclusively to indicate the humility of the Son of God in\ntaking upon Himself our human form, and in the beautiful altar-piece\nby Stephen Lochnar[263] the Saviour stretches up His tiny hand to\ngrasp the violet held by Mary, so making it His individual attribute.\nThe panel is rich in colouring, but Mary is of the simple, placid\ntype of the early German school. She is gravely, deeply happy in her\nmotherhood, and not saddened, as in Italy, by painful forebodings. The\nChild reaches up His hand with a pretty gesture, accepting from her,\nwho had given Him His tender little body, also the violet, symbol of\nHis humility.\n\nIn a picture by Bruder Wilhelm[264] the Virgin holds a sweet-pea,\nbearing both the flower and ripened pods. The symbolism of the pea is\nobscure and is not to be traced in Christian iconography, though there\nis the legend of the _erbilia_, a species of pea which, springing first\nfrom the footsteps of Saint Columban, still grows upon the Tuscan\nmountains. Possibly the symbolism may lie in the simultaneous flowering\nand fruiting of the pea, for the palm was held by some writers to be an\nemblem of the Virgin, and for the reason that \u2018it flowered and fruited\nat one and the same time.\u2019[265]\n\nThere are three subjects, all connected with the Virgin\u2019s death, where\nlilies are once more found. They are her Ascension, the Giving of\nher Girdle to Saint Thomas, and her Coronation. In each of these the\nflower-filled tomb, from which she has just arisen, is introduced,\nusually as the base of the composition.\n\nBut the lilies in these pictures do not refer to the immaculate purity\nof the Virgin Mother, but represent the souls of \u2018angels, confessors\nand virgins.\u2019 The legends which the _Legenda Aurea_ contains were\ncollected by Jacobus de Voragine during the last half of the thirteenth\ncentury, while the lily was still the flower of virgin martyrs and\nwas not yet the Madonna\u2019s lily. He gives the following account of the\nburial of the Virgin:\n\n\u2018The Lord commanded the Apostles that they should carry the body into\nthe valley of Jehoshaphat and place it in a new tomb that had been dug\nthere, and watch three days beside it, till He should return.\n\n\u2018And straightway there surrounded her flowers of roses, which are the\nbless\u00e8d company of martyrs; and lilies of the valley, which are the\nbands of angels, confessors and virgins.\u2019\n\nBut the _Byzantine Guide to Painting_, in the paragraph entitled \u2018How\nto represent the Assumption of the Divine Mother,\u2019 directs that in the\nlower part of the picture there should be \u2018an open and empty tomb.\u2019\n\nThere was therefore divergence of opinion, and the Church apparently\nleft the artist free.\n\nJacobus de Voragine seems to have collected the many floating legends\nof the Virgin, and with that poetic judgment which was the peculiar\ngift of his generation, to have preserved those forms particularly\nmarked by sweetness or distinction of incident. But some even of his\nown countrymen apparently preferred the legend in its balder form, for\nthe astonished Apostles surround a bare and empty tomb. Beyond the\nAlps, where the _Legenda Aurea_ never had much influence, the tomb is\nalmost invariably empty, and indeed all three subjects are rare in the\nNorth, though the death of the Virgin is frequently represented.\n\nThe majority of Italian painters, however, gladly seized the pretty\ndetail, and the Virgin\u2019s tomb is usually flower-filled. But the\npainters of the high Renaissance did not keep strictly to the symbolism\nof the legend. There is a beautiful fresco by Sodoma,[266] in which the\nVirgin, dignified and lovely, ascends from a tomb brimming over with\nroses, and from among them springs one mystic lily.\n\nRaphael,[267] too, gives a single lily rising from among the roses,\nand both he and Sodoma seem to have adopted the later fashion of\nconsidering the lily as exclusively the Virgin Mary\u2019s flower, and\ninstead of serried lilies, representing bands of angels and virgin\nsaints, they paint one only flower, emblem of the Queen of Virgins\nrising to Heaven attended by the glowing souls of martyrs.\n\nBotticelli,[268] on the other hand, has left the roses and painted\nlilies only, lilies crowded together in such a mass of loveliness that\nthe mourners seem blinded even to the gorgeous bow of angels in the sky\nand to the greater wonder in the opening heavens high above.\n\nBenozzo Gozzoli[269] gives the flower-filled tomb, but neglects the\nsymbolism of the legend, for to the roses he adds daisies and jasmine.\nIt is simply a collection of the flowers sacred to the Virgin.\n\nGiulio Romano,[270] in the _Madonna di Monteluce_, paints neither roses\nnor lilies, merely small, indeterminate blossoms, mauve, blue and\nyellow.\n\nOn one panel,[271] of the fifteenth century, which represents \u2018The\nGiving of the Girdle to Saint Thomas,\u2019 cut roses and lilies lie upon\nthe top of the closed tomb, which seems a misapprehension of the\nlegend, but possibly the artist merely intended to paint the flowers\nusually used as attributes of the Virgin--the rose of love and the lily\nof purity--without any reference to the story as told in the Golden\nLegend.\n\nBut though the lilies of the Virgin\u2019s tomb represent angels and virgin\nsaints, in those pictures of her Coronation or Assumption, where no\ntomb is shown, the flower is the symbol of her own purity. Through her\nperfect purity she has attained the crown, therefore it is with stems\nof white lilies that the rose-crowned angels hail her Queen.\n\nFra Filippo Lippi[272] paints her kneeling to receive the crown from\nGod the Father:\n\n   \u2018Ringed by a bowery, flowery angel-brood\n    Lilies and vestments and white faces, sweet\n    As puff on puff of grated orris-root.\u2019[273]\n\nA child-angel holds a scroll with the words:\n\n                         \u2018_Is perfecit opus_,\u2019\n\nand the archangel Gabriel with a lily, painted in a small lunette above\nthe throne, recalls the first beginning of the work now perfected;\nwhile before the throne, and thick on either side, is a waving grove of\nlarge white lilies, each stalk held by an adoring angel.\n\nThe devotional figure of the Virgin known as the \u2018Immaculate\nConception\u2019 is usually presented as the woman with \u2018the moon under\nher feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars;\u2019 four or five\nattendant child-angels each carry a symbol of her virtues, and the\nlily is always prominent among them.\n\nThis particular aspect of the Virgin was especially popular in Spain,\nwhere Murillo was its finest exponent. The flowers of an Immaculate\nConception are the rose, lily, olive and palm, signifying love, purity,\npeace and victory. Sometimes the iris, the royal lily, is added;\nsometimes it replaces the _lilium candidum_. Jos\u00e9 Antolines[274] paints\nthe iris only.\n\nIn the chapter on \u2018Garlands of Roses\u2019 we remarked the thorns which in\nthe mystic Enclosed Gardens of Germany illustrate the verse:\n\n\u2018As a lily among thorns, so is my love among the daughters.\u2019\n\nWith the closing of the fifteenth century these thorn trellises\npassed from Northern art, but the application of the metaphor to the\nVirgin still persisted in Northern theology, and since the Immaculate\nConception had replaced the _Hortus Conclusus_ as a devotional subject,\nit is as an attribute of the Virgin, risen to glory, that we find the\nthorns, and in an Immaculate Conception by Seghers[275] a child-angel\nflutters at the Madonna\u2019s feet with a lily enclosed in branches of\nthorns.\n\nIn the 24th chapter of Ecclesiasticus there is a description of\nWisdom with her attributes in which the Roman Catholic Church has\nseen a prefiguring of the Virgin Mary. Some pictorial renderings of\nthe Immaculate Conception make special reference to this, notably the\nlarge altar-piece, of unknown authorship, but believed to date from the\nend of the fifteenth century, which was painted for the Church of S.\nFrancesco in Lucca.[276]\n\nIn the upper part of the picture Christ is seen seated, and holding out\nabove the kneeling Virgin the sceptre of His royal favour. Above the\nsceptre is a scroll with the words from the Book of Esther: \u2018Not for\nthee was this law made, but for all mankind.\u2019 She alone was immaculate.\nAround there is a wreath of angels. Below stand King David, King\nSolomon, Saint Augustine, Saint Anselm and Saint Anthony of Padua.\nBehind these figures stretches a charming garden. Against the horizon\nare the cypresses of Mount Zion, the cedar of Lebanon, the palm tree\nof Cades, and also a pomegranate laden with fruit. Midway there is a\nrose hedge thick with the roses of Jericho. A terrace runs across the\ngarden, and upon the parapet are two stone vases, one labelled _Mirra_\nand the other _Balsamum_.\n\nThese trees and plants are the trees and plants to which Wisdom, and\ntherefore Mary, is likened in Ecclesiasticus, with the pomegranate of\nthe Canticles.\n\n\u2018Quasi cedrus exaltata sum in Libano, et quasi cypressus in Monte Sion:\nquasi palma exaltata sum in Cades, et quasi plantatio rosae in Jericho:\n... Sicut cinnamomum et balsamum aromatizans odorem dedi: quasi myrrha\nelecta dedi suavitatem odoris.[277]\n\n\u2018Emissiones tuae paradisus malorum punicorum cum pomorum\nfructibus.\u2019[278]\n\n\n\n\nXVIII\n\nTHE LILY OF THE SAINTS\n\n\nThe ancient Hebrews took the lily as the symbol of chastity. The name\nof the chaste woman of the apocryphal story was Susannah, in Hebrew\nShusan, which signifies a lily. The derivation was not forgotten by\nGerman artists, for a lily is usually conspicuous in the elaborate\ngarden scenes in which they set this subject, though the Italians\nreserved the flower for the Madonna and the saints of the monastic\norders.\n\nOriginally the lily was given to all virgin saints, and it was\nconsidered their special attribute before the flower was particularly\nassociated with the Virgin Mary.\n\n   \u2018Jesus, corona virginum\n    Qui pergis inter lilia\n    Septis choreis virginum\n    Sponsus decorus gloria.\u2019\n\nIn the Catacombs there are no virgin martyrs depicted, and the few\nlilies found there represent merely the flora of Heaven with the\ngeneral significance of celestial bliss. In the early mosaics, too,\nboth in Ravenna and Rome, the lilies are decorative and the virgins\ncarry crowns of victory.\n\nBut as early as the ninth century the lily is used pictorially as the\nindication of virginity in the famous Beneditional of Saint Ethelwold\nof Winchester.[279] The Saxon queen, Saint Ethelreda (Saint Audry),\nwho leads the choir of virgin saints, wears the Benedictine habit, is\ncrowned, and holds in one hand the gospel and in the other a lily. She\nfounded Ely Cathedral and, at least after her second marriage, lived as\na nun. The miniature was executed in 980.\n\nIn the Church of S. Chiara in Naples there is a picture executed in\nmosaic of the early Christian martyr, Saint Reparata. The mosaic, which\nis of the thirteenth century, is attributed to Cavallini, and the saint\nhas a lily by her side.\n\nBut after the thirteenth century the lily is given almost exclusively\nto saints of the monastic orders, the higher distinction of the palm\nbeing awarded to the martyrs. \u2018For,\u2019 says Durandus, \u2018the Martyrdom\ntaketh precedence of the Virginity; because it is a sign of the more\nperfect love: according as the Truth saith, \u201cGreater love hath no man\nthan this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.\u2019\u201d\n\nOccasionally these early saints are given the lily in addition to the\npalm. Mantegna paints Saint Euphemia with a lily in the right hand and\na palm in the left.[280] But usually they have the palm alone. The\nlilies of Saint Cecilia allude to the celestial lilies of her legend.\n\n_\u00c0 propos_ of Saint Cecilia, Chaucer\u2019s very charming, if fanciful,\nderivation of her name may be recalled:\n\n   \u2018First wol I you the name of Sainte Cecilie\n    Expoune as men may in hire storie see:\n    It is to sayn in English, Hevens lilie,\n    For pure chasteness of virginitee,\n    Or for she whitnesse had of honestee,\n    And grene of conscience, and of good fame\n    The swote savour, lilie was her name.\u2019\n\nSince the lily was appropriated by the celibates of the Church another\nsymbol had to be found for the chastity of those still in the world,\nand for the virtue of the secular the unicorn was chosen. The medi\u00e6val\nlegend ran that the unicorn was of all created beasts the fiercest and\nmost difficult to capture. But should a maid be in his path he would\nlie down with his head upon her lap and then the hunter could take him\nwith great ease.\n\n\u2018The Triumph of Chastity\u2019 with the \u2018Triumph of Love\u2019 as a pendant\nwere rather favourite subjects in the fifteenth century in Italy,\nparticularly as a decoration of the elaborate bridal chests or\n_cassoni_, then in vogue. \u2018The Triumph of Chastity\u2019 of Liberale da\nVerona[281] is typical. The white-clothed figure of a young woman\nstands upon a car drawn by unicorns, while behind follows a rejoicing\ncrowd. She holds a cornucopia but no lily appears.\n\nOn the shutters in the Hall of Heliodorus, in the Vatican, there is a\nvery beautiful Renaissance design in which the lily and the unicorn are\nunited, but usually in Italy the lily was kept as an ecclesiastical and\nthe unicorn as a secular symbol.\n\nIn German art both lily and unicorn are held to be symbols of the\nVirgin\u2019s purity, and in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries there\nwere many tapestries and embroideries executed in the convents\nillustrating that strange allegorical version of the Annunciation known\nas \u2018The Hunting of the Unicorn.\u2019 But the unicorn is never associated\nwith the monastic saints, and indeed, in Northern art, monastic saints\nthemselves are rather rare.\n\nThe lily was, therefore, latterly the symbol of monastic celibacy.\nThere is a curious allegorical picture of Saint Francis by Sassetta.\nThe present owner, Mr B. Behrenson, describes it thus:\n\n\u2018Over the sea and the land, into the golden heavens, towers the\nfigure of the blessed Francis, his face transfigured with ecstasy,\nhis arms held out in his favourite attitude of the cross, his feet\nfirmly planted on a prostrate warrior in golden panoply. Cherubim and\nSeraphim, with fiery wings and deep crescent halos, form behind the\nsaint a nimbus framing a glory of gold and azure, as dazzling as the\nsky and as radiant as the sun. Overhead, on opalescent cloudlets,\nfloat Poverty in her patched dress, looking up with grateful devotion,\nObedience in her rose-red robe with a yoke about her neck and her hands\ncrossed on her breast, and Chastity in white, holding a lily.\u2019[282]\n\nAll three maidens are attractive, and Chastity the prettiest of the\nthree, unlike the immured \u2018Castitas\u2019 of Giotto,[283] whose guards, with\nsurely unnecessary vigour, drive off \u2018Amor\u2019 with pitch-forks.\n\nThe two men not in holy orders, who are permitted to carry the lily,\nare Saint John the Baptist and Saint Joseph. The former, even if he\ntook no formal vow of celibacy, is looked upon as the first of the\nChristian anchorites, and the lily of Saint Joseph is the symbol of the\nself-abnegation of his married life.\n\nThe history of the marriage of the Virgin Mary is found in the\napocryphal \u2018Gospel of the Birth of Mary,\u2019 translated by Saint Jerome\nand abridged in the _Catalogus Sanctorum_ of Peter de Natalibus.\n\n\u2018And when Mary was fourteen years of age the High Priest commanded\nthat the virgins brought up in the temple should return home and be\nwedded according to law. And all obeyed except Mary, who replied that\nshe might not, as her parents had dedicated her to the Lord and she\nherself had vowed her virginity to God. And the High Priest, being\nperplexed by Mary\u2019s vow (which ought to be kept) on the one hand, and\nthe introduction of a new custom in Israel on the other, summoned the\nelders together to consult upon the matter. And as they prayed, a voice\ncame from the sanctuary commanding that every man of the house of\nDavid, who was not wedded, should place his rod on the altar, and he\nwhose rod should bud, and the Holy Spirit descend upon it in the form\nof a dove, according to the prophecy of Isaiah, should be the spouse of\nMary.\n\n\u2018And there was among the rest a certain Joseph of the House of David,\nan old man and a widower, and who had sons and grandsons. And thinking\nit unseemly that an aged man should marry a tender virgin, when the\nothers presented their rods he withheld his own. And no miracle\nappearing, the High Priest inquired of the Lord, who answered that he\nonly to whom the Virgin was to be espoused had not presented his rod.\nSo Joseph was brought forward, and presented his rod, and straightway\nit budded, and the dove descended from heaven and settled upon it. And\nit was clear to all men that Mary was to be his wife.\u2019\n\nIn one of the earliest representations[284] which we have of the\n\u2018Marriage of the Virgin\u2019 Joseph holds a stalk of _lilium candidum_ with\na single flower at its summit, on which is poised the holy dove. Thus\nGiotto, always thoughtful and original in his symbolism, modified the\nlegendary flowering staff to the flower which should symbolize Saint\nJoseph\u2019s wedded life with the Virgin.\n\nBut the great majority of artists have followed the legend more\nclosely. Taddeo Gaddi[285] gives a bunch of leaves at the staff\u2019s\ntop, just such leaves as would sprout from a staff of ash. There is\nonly one tiny bud upon the bare stick above which the dove hovers in\nthe \u2018Marriage\u2019 attributed to Fiorenzo di Lorenzo,[286] and Gaudenzio\nFerrari[287] paints a scarcely-budded staff.\n\nSometimes in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the staff of\nSaint Joseph bears red or pink flowers resembling the oleander, and\nto-day the country people in Tuscany call the oleander _Il Mazzo di San\nGiuseppe_, that is, \u2018The Staff of Saint Joseph.\u2019\n\nNorthern art, uninfluenced by the _Legenda Aurea_, gives Saint Joseph\nno flowering staff. Lucas van Leyden[288] paints him as an entirely\nunidealized workman with tools upon his back but places the lily in his\nhand. And he has also a lily in the \u2018Holy Family\u2019 of Geertgen tot Sint\nJans,[289] though in the many representations of \u2018The Adoration of the\nMagi\u2019 in North Germany and the Netherlands he is undistinguished by any\nattribute.\n\nAfter the seventeenth century Saint Joseph began to have a status of\nhis own as patron of married virtue. Single figures of him appear\ncarrying a lily, not a staff, and in the ecclesiastical art of the\npresent day he carries sometimes the Child-Christ and sometimes a book,\nbut also invariably a lily. A large oleograph which hangs in the Church\nof the Angels at La Verna shows the Child-Christ crowning him with a\nwreath of lilies.\n\nOccasionally the lily is given to young girls who are neither saints\nnor martyrs. There is an engraving from a gold medal in the royal\nlibrary at Windsor of the Empress Leonora of Portugal. The portrait\nis half-length, standing, with long hair, beneath the arched imperial\ncrown, and she holds in her hand a lily stem with two flowers and three\nbuds. It is inscribed:\n\n                 \u2018Leonora Augusta Frederici Imp. Uxor.\u2019\n\nShe was the daughter of King Edward of Portugal and wife of Frederick\nof Austria, also great-grand-daughter of John of Gaunt. It is a pretty\nfigure, childish but dignified. The long hair, Mr Augustus Franks\npoints out,[290] is generally looked upon as the mark of a virgin\nbride, and it is explained by her coronation having taken place before\nthe consummation of the marriage. The lily also, like the flowing hair,\nproclaims her maidenhood.\n\nBut, as a rule, the _lilium candidum_ is strictly a flower of the\nchurch. Paul Veronese[291] painted a Juno with a white lily, but the\nflower has sharply turned-back petals resembling the turn-cap variety\nand gracefully curving stems.\n\nIt was not till the eighteenth century that Cipriani and Bartolozzi,\nboth members of the English Royal Academy, could design and engrave a\nheathen goddess, who, with one hand caressing a peacock, held in the\nother the traditional symbol of virginal innocence.\n\nLilies are proper to all virgin saints.\n\n   \u2018Liliis Sponsus recubat, rosisque;\n    Tu, tuo semper bene fida Sponso\n    Et rosas Martyr simil et dedisti\n              Lilia Virgo.\u2019\n\nBut some carry them as a special distinction.\n\nAmong them Saint Catharine of Siena comes first. She was still merely\none of the many children of a working tanner of Siena, her sanctity\nunrecognized, when she was sent a dream from Heaven. In her dream she\nsaw Saint Dominic, who held in one hand a lily which, like the burning\nbush of Moses, burned but was not consumed. With his other hand he\noffered her the black and white habit of the Dominican Tertiaries.\nSaint Catharine regarded the dream as a definite call and later joined\nthe third Order of Saint Dominic. She was a woman not only of most\nsaintly life but of wonderful force of character, and intervened with\naltruistic motives and plain common sense in the complicated politics\nof her day. She experienced the mystical trances which were the crown\nof holiness to the medi\u00e6val mind, and was remarkable also for the\nausterities and good works which her devoted friend and biographer,\nRaimondo da Capua, likens to lilies.\n\n\u2018Taught, nay rather compelled, by her supreme Teacher, she learned\nevery day more and more both to enjoy the embraces of the Celestial\nBridegroom in the bed of flowers, and to descend into the valley of\nlilies to make herself more fruitful, nor ever to leave or lessen the\none for the sake of the other.\u2019\n\nThe most interesting of the pictures of Saint Catharine is that by\nher friend and disciple, Andrea Vanni,[292] and which is therefore a\nportrait from memory, if not from life. It was probably painted at the\ntime of her canonization, thirteen years after her death, and shows her\nas a tall, slight woman with a refined enthusiastic face. In her left\nhand she holds the lilies[293] which represent the austere virtues of\na monastic life. She is the most distinguished woman who wore the veil,\nand since she is almost invariably represented with a lily, the _lilium\ncandidum_ is sometimes called Saint Catharine\u2019s lily.\n\nSaint Scholastica of the Benedictines[294] and Saint Clare of the\nFranciscans are also usually depicted with lilies. The last, who\nstyled herself the Little Flower of Saint Francis, has met with\ngreat good fortune at the hands of the painters, for two at least,\nSimone Martini[295] and Luca Signorelli,[296] have very beautifully\nmaterialized her sweetness and humility.\n\nPictures which represent the mystic espousals of any nun usually have\nthe lily as a detail.\n\nChief among the monks who carry the flower is Saint Dominic. He was\na Spaniard and had all the chivalrous Spanish devotion to the person\nof the Virgin. It was he who arranged the rosary and instituted it\nas a religious exercise. He founded a community of preachers for the\nconversion of heretics, which afterwards developed into the great\nDominican order. The great aim of his life was to guard the purity of\nthe Catholic faith, and to this end he hunted forth the Albigenses with\nhis hounds of the Lord--the _Domini canes_. He is rewarded with the\nlily which, in his picture by Bellini,[297] has a singularly rigid stem.\n\nDuring the thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth centuries sainted\nmonks were comparatively rarely painted, preference being given to\nthe more picturesque figures of the early martyrs who suffered under\nRoman persecutions. But the earliest to appear, and the most frequently\nseen, is Saint Dominic. Duccio di Buoninsegna puts him beside the\nMadonna; Orcagna painted him among the happy souls in the Paradise\nof Santa Maria Novella. And the reason why he, rather than the other\ngreat founders, should appear in heavenly groups is not the fine relief\nof his black habit among the gay gowns of the angels, but because\nhis order spent their gold on painted decorations at a time when the\nFranciscans, vowed to poverty, and the Benedictines, devoted to the\nmaking and collecting of books, had less to spend on the encouragement\nof art. Later, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and more\nparticularly in Spain, saints in all habits constantly appear.\n\nSaint Dominic almost always carries a lily. Saint Francis was\nsufficiently distinguished by the stigmata, Saint Benedict by the\nchalice; but Saint Dominic has a lily white as the austerity of his\nfaith.\n\nSaint Anthony of Padua is to-day the most popular of all the monastic\nsaints. His sane and gentle piety and his reputation for granting\nlittle ordinary boons has endeared him to simple folk. There seems\nno particular reason why he, above other saintly monks, should be so\ndistinguished, but when he is not represented with the Infant Christ\nin his arms he invariably has a lily. In the very beautiful \u2018Vision of\nSaint Anthony,\u2019 by Murillo,[298] where the Holy Child appears in a ray\nof light, a vase of lilies stands upon the table. In another picture,\nby Annibale Caracci, the Child-Christ Himself holds the lily.\n\nAnother bearer of the lily is he\n\n            \u2018Whom Mary\u2019s charms\n    Embellish\u2019d, as the sun the morning star\u2019--\n\nSaint Bernard of Clairvaux.\n\nThough opposing the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of the\nVirgin, he had a very special devotion to the Mother of Christ.\n\nMany of his sermons, called by Henault _Chefs d\u2019\u0153uvre de sentiment et\nde force_, celebrate her perfections, and, in particular, the famous\nseries of sermons upon the Bride of the Song of Solomon.\n\nIt is said that it was his love for the \u2018lily of the valleys\u2019 which so\nimpressed the lily form upon the architecture of his order, for again\nand again in the Gothic stone-work of the Cistercian abbeys \u2018lily work\u2019\nis found.\n\nThe lily, it may be remarked, is given to those saints in holy orders\nwho were pious from their earliest youth and not to those who had\npassed a gay time in the world before conversion.\n\n\n\n\nXIX\n\nTHE VINE\n\n\nThe principal of the allegorical fruits is the vine. It is one of the\nmost ancient emblems of Christ, and is founded upon His own words, \u2018I\nam the vine, ye are the branches.\u2019\n\nIt is seen in the Catacombs, on early Christian sarcophagi, and in\nthe early mosaics, always as the emblem of Christ or of His Church.\nA fruiting vine very beautifully expresses a perfect life rich with\nthe fruits of the spirit, and even were the analogy not suggested by\nChrist\u2019s own words, it is possible that Christians would have seen in\nthe tree whence comes the sacramental wine, emblem of the holy blood, a\nlikeness to Him who shed that blood.\n\nWhere the cross, the sacred monogram or the figure of Christ Himself\nis introduced, the vine takes a secondary place as emblem of the\nChristian Church, and taken in this sense the symbolism admits of some\ncomplication, twelve bunches of grapes typifying the twelve Apostles,\nand birds among the branches Christian souls.\n\nOne example among many of its decorative and symbolical use is on\nthe gravestone of Saint Cummian, an Irish bishop, who died a monk at\nBobbio about the middle of the eighth century. Two vine branches spring\nfrom the holy chalice and form a border of oval arabesques, one oval\nenclosing fruit and leaves, the next framing a star alternately. At\nthe top, where the two branches almost meet, are two doves standing on\neither side of the holy monogram.\n\nThe vine is the Christian Church, springing from the chalice of\nChrist\u2019s blood; the fruit represents the good works of the righteous;\nthe stars which shine through the branches Christian hope. The doves,\nby the convention of the Catacombs, signify departed Christian souls\nadoring Christ, who is represented by the ancient star monogram, formed\nof the two Greek letters, I = Iota, and X = Chi, enclosed in the circle\nwhich is the symbol of eternity. The gravestone was executed by order\nof King Luitprand, and, by an oversight not unique among Christian\nmarbles before the twelfth century, the border has been placed\nreversed round the inscription--the doves, with their feet in the air,\nbeing at the bottom.\n\nAs directly emblematical of Christ Himself the vine received the\nplace of honour in all Christian churches, and, even when our Lord\nwas represented in His own person, it was often there by right of its\nsecondary significance as the Church of God--\u2018Ye are the branches.\u2019 A\nmosaic in the Church of Saint Prisca[299] shows a half-length figure\nof Christ framed in branches of vine, and the golden branches, often\nintricately wreathed against a dark-blue ground, occur repeatedly in\nthe early mosaics.\n\nBut when it grew more usual not only to represent Christ in His own\nperson but also the martyrs, saints and prophets of the Church, the use\nof the vine became decorative rather than devotional, and was chiefly\napplied to the ornamentation of vestments, altar-cloths and the vessels\nused in the celebration of the Eucharist. When, in a painting, the vine\nis introduced as the emblem of Christ or His Church, it is usually in\nsome detail, as in the very beautiful design of the Pelican in its\nPiety among grapes and vine leaves behind the figure of God the Father,\nKing of Heaven, in Hubert van Eyck\u2019s magnificent altar, \u2018The Adoration\nof the Lamb.\u2019[300]\n\nBotticelli, who handled symbols with a depth of sentiment unknown\nto art before, paints grapes with a different significance. For\nhim grapes, like the Eucharistic wine, are the symbol of the Holy\nBlood, and in one of the most beautiful and unaffected of all his\npictures[301] an angel, standing beside the Infant Christ, holds grapes\nand corn ears, symbols of the sacrifice of His death.\n\nThe Northern symbolists, also, took clustering grapes to have the same\nvalue as the Eucharistic wine as an emblem of Christ\u2019s blood. This is\nclearly seen in a tapestry of the fourteenth century, formerly in the\nSpitzer Collection. The Infant Christ, seated between the Virgin and\nSaint Joseph, presses with His hands the juice of a bunch of purple\ngrapes into a chalice.\n\nAnother Flemish tapestry of the same period, which was also in the same\ncollection, depicts the Holy Family with Saint Anne. Mary, from whom\nthe Saviour received His human blood, hands to her Son the grapes which\nHe crushes till the wine drops down into the cup.\n\nBut the cluster of grapes which several of the Flemish artists place in\nthe hand of the Infant Christ seems to be not only the emblem of the\nholy blood, but also, in some sort, the antithesis of the apple as the\nfruit of redemption, which in the hand of the second Adam replaces the\nfruit of the Fall.\n\nIn a picture by Mabuse, inscribed \u2018Verus Deus et Homo: casta mater et\nVirgo,\u2019[302] the Virgin offers a bunch of grapes to the Infant Christ,\nwho holds a quince, foreshadowing that He should exchange the fruit of\nEden, by which all men died, for the fruit of redemption, by which they\nshall be saved, and this substitution of the fruit of the vine for the\napple of Eden became in the North a rather favourite variation of the\nsymbolism of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.\n\n\n\n\nXX\n\nTHE FRUIT OF THE TREE OF KNOWLEDGE\n\n\nThe Scriptures give no indication whatever as to the size, shape or\ncolour of the Fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil which\ngrew in the midst of Eden, and it has been variously interpreted. Adam\nis depicted with an apple, a pear, a quince, a fig, according to the\nindividual opinion of the painter. Milton took the tree to be an apple:\n\n   \u2018A goodly tree....\n    Laden with fruit of fairest colours mixt\n    Ruddie and gold ...\n            Sharp desire I had\n    Of tasting those fair apples.\u2019[303]\n\nAnd the majority of artists have chosen that fruit. It grew in every\npart of Europe, and, except the cherry, it was almost the only\ncultivated fruit in Germany and the Netherlands. Besides grapes, figs\nand pomegranates it is the only fruit mentioned in Scripture, and it is\nalso possible that some found reason for identifying it with the fruit\nwhich brought sin into the world in the apparent similarity of the two\nLatin words, \u2018m\u0103lum\u2019 = evil, and \u2018m\u0101lum\u2019 = an apple.\n\nAnd as the fruit varies in the hand of Adam so it varies in the hand\nof the Infant Christ, the second Adam. Memling and the painters of\nCologne depict Him with an apple. Il Moretto paints a pear,[304]\nGiovanni Bellini a quince,[305] and Botticelli a pomegranate.[306]\nThe Eve of Jan van Eyck holds a lemon,[307] but he keeps to the older\nconvention in the symbols which he places in the hand of the Infant\nSaviour: the bird, emblem of the human soul, the inscribed scroll or\nthe cross-surmounted orb.\n\nThe apple, when in the hand of Adam, is always the symbol of the Fall;\nwhen in the hand of Christ, it is the symbol of the sin of the world\nwhich He took upon Himself. \u2018For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ\nshall all be made alive.\u2019\n\nBut in the early instances of a fruit in the Christ-Child\u2019s hand it\ndoes not appear to be definitely the death-giving apple of Eden. It is\nfruit of Paradise, a delight promised to the blessed which the King of\nHeaven brings down with Him to earth.\n\nIn the early school of Siena, as we have already seen, the little\nChrist was still the Royal Infant, still \u2018trailing clouds of glory,\u2019\nuntouched by shadow of suffering, and usually bearing in His hand some\nindication of His high estate. Often His hand was raised in blessing,\nsometimes He held a lily of Paradise.\n\nOn an early fourteenth-century panel in the manner of the Lorenzetti,\nin Siena Academy, the Child holds a fruit, but it is not clearly\ndefined. In one of Sano di Pietro\u2019s most attractive works,[308]\nhowever, which is dated 1444, the Child, seated on the Virgin\u2019s\nknee, holds a golden orange with its foliage. To His right and left\nare saints, and close around there are six angels crowned with blue\ncorn-flowers and carrying roses and lilies. No attempt is made to\nrealize earthly conditions; the glowing scene is set in Heaven, and\nthe little Lord of Heaven holds in His hand a celestial fruit, just\none of such fruits as hang upon the trees in Giovanni di Paolo\u2019s\n\u2018Paradise.\u2019[309]\n\nIn another picture by Sano di Pietro,[310] the Child (perhaps the most\ncharming \u2018_Bambino_\u2019 ever painted in Siena) holds in His hand a bunch\nof cherries.\n\nCherries, painted more than once within the tiny hand by Sano di\nPietro, are always taken as the delicious fruit. Like the lilies of\nthe earlier Paradises they typify the delights of the blessed, and in\nGerman art particularly they are painted often as the peculiar fruit\nof Heaven. They are never taken as the Fruit of the Tree of Knowledge\nof Good and Evil, and therefore, at least in the early Sienese school,\nthis fruit held by the Infant Christ would seem to be the fruit of\nParadise.\n\nIn Northern art, in the work of the French ivory cutters, and\nparticularly in the work of Memling and of those artists influenced\nby him, the apple takes precedence of all other symbols in the\nChrist-Child\u2019s hand. Northern theologians, studying the Old Testament\ncarefully, and deeply interested in types and anti-types, saw in Adam\nthe type of Christ. The _Biblia Pauperum_, originally designed with\nthe intention of teaching the faith to the unlettered, served as a\npattern-book for stained glass and other ecclesiastical decoration from\nthe ninth century onwards. Each page is divided into three sections.\nIn the centre is a scene from the life of Christ; in the sections\non either side is a scene from Old Testament History, showing some\nincident in the lives of those men who are considered to be types of\nChrist, which foreshadowed some act of the Redeemer. And chief of these\ntypes is Adam. Therefore in the Northern Church the idea of Jesus\nChrist as the second Adam was familiar, and the fruit in His hand was\nperfectly understood as a symbol. Memling, who, if he did not originate\nthe symbolism of the apple of Eden, made it famous by constant\nrepetition on his magnificently executed panels, usually treats it\nquite simply. The apple is the symbol of the Fall, and therefore of\nthe world\u2019s sin, which Christ accepts as His own. In the fine example\nat Chatsworth, the Infant Christ, with one hand pointing to the book of\nprophecy, takes with the other the apple held by an attendant angel.\nBut one painting by Memling[311] is especially interesting, since it\nlinks together the two symbols, the fruit of heavenly bliss and the\nfruit of Man\u2019s redemption. The Child sits upon His mother\u2019s knee,\nand in one hand clutches cherries, the fruit of Paradise. He seems,\nhowever, on the point of relinquishing them to take the apple from the\nangel\u2019s hand, as He relinquished heavenly joy to take upon Himself the\nsin of the world.\n\n[Illustration:\n\n      _Hugo van der Goes_      _Photo Brogi_\n\nTHE FRUIT OF DAMNATION EXCHANGED FOR THE FRUIT OF REDEMPTION]\n\n[Illustration:\n\n      _Memling_     _Photo Brogi_\n\nTHE FRUIT OF HEAVEN RELINQUISHED FOR THE APPLE OF EDEN]\n\nMeanwhile the painters of Florence, Fra Angelico, Neri di Bicci,\nFilippo Lippi and Botticelli, had painted the Child with the\npomegranate, and it is not very clear whether they held to the Sienese\nsymbolism or sympathized with the Northern tradition. But it was\nprobably the fruit of Eden, for in all other points the Florentines had\nbroken with the Byzantine conventions, and the Child was for them no\nlonger the Royal Child, richly clothed and dignified in gesture, but\nHe was a little naked human baby, born into the world to repair, as\nthe second Adam, the old Adam\u2019s fault. That He is the Saviour, rather\nthan the King, is particularly emphasized by Botticelli, who seldom\nfails, even though it be only by the foreboding in the grey eyes of the\nangels, to give some hint of the coming tragedy.\n\nOn the other hand it may be possible that the painters of Florence\nin the fifteenth century had harked back to another source for their\nsymbolism and had taken the imagery of Saint Gregory the Great, who\nused the pomegranate as the emblem of the Christian Church \u2018because\nof the inner unity of countless seeds in one and the same fruit.\u2019 But\nin later Italian art, as in all the Northern countries and in modern\nChurch symbolism, the fruit, most usually the apple, which is in the\nhand of the Infant Christ, is the fruit of redemption, as the apple of\nAdam was the fruit of damnation.\n\nFollowing the same analogy, the Virgin is regarded as the second Eve,\nthe second universal mother, who, through her Son, is to repair the\nfault of the first.\n\nThe symbolists of the thirteenth century found what they considered\nproof of this in the word of Scripture.\n\nConrad von W\u00fcrztburg writes:\n\n   \u2018Let a man take three letters:\n    When these straightforward are read,\n    The little word \u201cAve\u201d stands out,\n    The new word of salutation (or healing).\n    Let him begin at the end,\n    And read to the beginning,\n    And \u201cEva\u201d is found written.\n\n           *       *       *       *       *\n\n    That one may thereby know,\n    It is thou who fulfillest,\n    The old and the new Covenants.\n    The greeting from the angel\u2019s mouth\n    Greeting thee, O royal spotless maid,\n    Hath told me this.\u2019[312]\n\nTherefore the apple, which masters of the Flemish and early German\nschools sometimes introduced into Annunciations, laying it, for\ninstance, upon the window-sill, is the apple of redemption.\n\nThe apple in the hand of Eve is always the apple of damnation. There is\na curious drawing by Martin Sch\u00f6ngauer of the \u2018Descent into Hell.\u2019 Adam\nand Eve come forth first of the released souls, Eve holding the apple,\nwhich has the marks of her teeth still upon it.\n\nIn the hand of Mary it is again the apple of redemption, but it is the\nfruit of the Fall when it is between the jaws of the serpent or dragon,\nwhich she, at her Assumption, treads under foot.\n\n[Illustration:\n\n  _Martin Sch\u00f6ngauer_\n\nADAM AND EVE DELIVERED FROM HELL\n\n(Print Room, Alte Pinakothek, Munich)]\n\nIn Italian art the apple is less often found in the Madonna pictures,\nbut the ancient analogy was not forgotten. On the predella of Lorenzo\ndi Credi\u2019s \u2018Annunciation\u2019[313] there are three exquisite little scenes\nfrom the life of Eve, and Vasari introduces the Tree of the Knowledge\nof Good and Evil into his \u2018Conception of the Virgin,\u2019 painted in 1540.\nVasari describes it himself:\n\n\u2018The Tree of the Original Sin was represented in the centre of the\npainting, and at the roots thereof were placed nude figures of Adam and\nEve bound, as being the first transgressors of God\u2019s commands. To the\nprincipal branches there were also bound Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses,\nAaron, Joshua, David and the rest of the kings, law-givers, etc.,\naccording to their seniority, all fastened by both arms, excepting\nonly Samuel and Saint John the Baptist, who are bound by one arm only,\nto intimate that they were sanctified before their birth. At the trunk\nof the tree, and with the lower part turning around it, is the Old\nSerpent, but the upper part of the form has the shape of Man, and the\nhands are confined behind the back; on his head is one foot of the\nglorious Virgin, which is trampling down the horns of the demon, while\nthe other foot is fixed on a moon. Our Lady is clothed with the sun\nand crowned with twelve stars, being sustained in the air within a\nsplendour of numerous angels, nude, and illuminated by the rays which\nproceed from the Madonna herself. These same rays, moreover, passing\namidst the foliage of the tree, give light to the figures bound to the\nbranches; nay, they seem to be gradually loosening their bonds, by the\npower and grace which they derive from her out of whom they proceed. In\nHeaven, meanwhile, that is, at the highest point of the picture, are\ntwo children bearing a scroll, on which are the following words:\n\n        \u2018\u201c_Quos Eva culpa damnavit, Mari\u00e6 gratia solvit._\u201d\u2019[314]\n\nIt was thus that Vasari united in one picture the two universal\nmothers, the physical and the spiritual, and his allegory was typical\nof the mysticism of his day, for he tells us that, being doubtful as\nto the due treatment of the subject, he and his patron, Messer Bindo,\n\u2018took counsel with such of our common friends as were men of letters,\u2019\nand Vasari\u2019s friends included the fine flower of Italian intellect.\n\nThe picture, which is a good deal darkened by time, and less\ninteresting than the description leads one to expect, is still in its\noriginal place in the Church of SS. Apostoli in Florence.\n\nIn some pictures, particularly those showing the influence of Memling,\nan attendant angel holds the apple, holding it ready till the time\nshall come when the Infant Saviour, with growing consciousness of His\nmission, holds forth His hand to take it.\n\nBut there are various \u2018Holy Families\u2019[315] of the early German school\nin which Saint Anne sits holding the apple. It seems strange that she\nshould, but it is to be remembered that in German popular religion and\nin German art Saint Anne holds an important place. Altars were often\ndedicated to her, and the holy family might, in a manner, be called her\nattribute. Frequently Saint Anne and the Virgin are depicted seated\non one seat, apparently with equal possessive rights over the Holy\nChild, who stands between them. There is also that strange allegorical\nconception usually styled \u2018_Mutter Anna selb-dritt_,\u2019 where Saint Anne\nsits with the Infant Christ on one knee and the Child-Virgin on the\nother. She was the Virgin\u2019s nearest blood-relation, and if the Virgin\nwas without sin, it was Anne, born in sin but the Mother of His Mother,\nwho most nearly connected the incarnate Godhead with the erring human\nrace. It was perhaps fitting, therefore, that she, representing sinful\nhumanity, should offer to the Saviour the fruit of the Fall, which in\nHis hand would become the fruit of Redemption. At other times it is\nMary who holds the fruit, but offering it to the Saviour, who raises\nHis hand to take it. She, as the second Eve, places in His hand the\napple by which mankind is to be redeemed, not lost, since she, by\ngiving Him a human body, had made that redemption possible.\n\nIn the Corsini Gallery[316] there is a picture, attributed to Hugo\nvan der Goes, in which Mother and Child hold each a fruit. At first\nsight it seems as if it were a presentment in one picture of Christ as\nthe second Adam, and Mary as the second Eve, with a doubling of the\nsymbolism of the apple which would be illogical. But the fruit held by\nMary is distinctly a pear, that held by Christ apparently an apple. The\nartist has, therefore, discriminated between the apple of damnation and\nthe sweeter, mellower fruit, which may be the symbol of Redemption, for\nthe Holy Child seems to be in the act of exchanging one for the other.\n\nThis may possibly also explain the thought in the mind of the\nFrench ivory-cutters of the fourteenth century, for they, too, not\ninfrequently, placed a small round fruit resembling an apple in the\nhand of the Infant Christ and a larger pear-shaped fruit in that of His\nmother, though they give little indication of any action of exchange.\n\nNorthern art, though realistic, was very placid, and, except in scenes\nfrom the Passion, quite unmarked by the sometimes painful pathos of the\nItalian and Spanish schools. In the Madonna pictures the only faint\nreminder of the tragedy for which the Child was born into the world\nis the rosy-cheeked apple in the tiny hand. The mother is satisfied\nand untroubled, the Child smiling happily, and an apple is a natural,\npleasant thing to place within a baby\u2019s hand. Rubens painted a\ndelightful \u2018Holy Family beneath an Apple Tree\u2019[317]--a little scene of\nidyllic happiness; and scarcely noticeable is the pathetic suggestion\nof the branch of apples which Zacharias holds towards the little Christ.\n\nThe shifting of theological and artistic standpoints at the Reformation\nin no way disturbed the Northern love of Old Testament analogies or the\naffection for this particular symbol, and in Germany one of its most\ncharming developments was the Christmas tree, the evergreen tree laden\nwith golden and silver apples, set up in every home to commemorate the\nbirth of Christ. It is the Tree of Eden, which Christ by His birth and\ndeath transmuted into a tree of Paradise.\n\nThe apple is the most usual fruit in the hand of the Infant Christ, but\nsome Flemish painters of the early sixteenth century give Him grapes\ninstead. The grapes symbolize the divine blood by which souls lost\nthrough Adam\u2019s fall are redeemed. Gerard David[318] puts a cluster of\nwhite grapes in the tiny hand; Lucas van Leyden[319] white grapes also\nwith leaves and tendrils; and in another picture Lucas van Leyden[320]\nplaces the apple and the grapes together upon the broad ledge in the\nforeground. In this last there is the same idea of exchange which is\nfound more clearly expressed in the picture by Mabuse at Berlin.\n\nThis substitution of the fruit of the vine for the apple of Eden seems\nonly to be found in the Netherlands. In a very beautiful picture by\nBotticelli, the grapes held by the angel have a simpler meaning. They,\nwith the corn, are the direct emblems of the body and the blood of the\nSaviour, and foretell the coming sacrifice of His death; the symbolism\nis identical with that of the embroidered vine-leaves and wheat-ears of\nso many modern altar frontals.[321]\n\nVery often, as upon the fa\u00e7ade of Orvieto Cathedral, the fig-tree\nis taken as the Tree of Temptation, for, it might be argued, our\nfirst parents would take to make themselves garments the leaves of\nthe tree nearest to their hand, the leaves of that same tree of\nwhose fruit they had just eaten. \u2018It is possible that the erotic\nsignificance which the fig had among the ancients was also considered\nin this connection,\u2019[322] and it is probably because of its classical\nassociations that the fig was never placed in the hand of the Infant\nSaviour.\n\nExcept as the forbidden fruit the fig is not found in Italian or\nFlemish ecclesiastical art, but in Germany there appears to have been\nno prejudice against it. It is painted frequently in the Madonna\npictures. A small fig-tree overshadows the cot of the Infant Christ\nin a picture by Matthias Gr\u00fcnewald;[323] Hans Burgkmair[324] paints\nit with the rose, the iris, the columbine and other attributes of the\nVirgin; Hans Holbein[325] the Younger sets his Saint Ursula against a\nfig-tree; and it is the only growing thing introduced in his best-known\nwork, the beautiful Madonna of the B\u00fcrgomeister Meyer.[326]\n\nThese fig-trees, unlike the barren fig-tree of Scripture, always bear\nfruit and appear to be the symbols of a holy life rich with the fruits\nof the Spirit.\n\n\n\n\nXXI\n\nTHE GOURD\n\n\nIn the works of Crivelli, who painted in the cities of the Marches\nbetween 1468 and 1493, the apple repeatedly occurs with a gourd laid\nclose beside it. In the \u2018Annunciation\u2019[327] they are together upon\nthe foreground\u2019s edge. In \u2018The Infant Christ giving the Keys to Saint\nPeter\u2019[328] the apple lies on the ground and the gourd is suspended on\nthe right hand of the throne. In the triptych in the Brera they hang\nforward prominently from the wreath above the Madonna\u2019s head. They\nare again suspended, singly, each side of the head of Saint Giacomo\ndella Marca[329] (sometimes taken to be Saint Bernadine), toning with\nthe colour scheme, which has all the subdued richness of old Cordova\nleather; and exactly the same apple and gourd lie on a ledge before\nthe \u2018Madonna with the Child\u2019 by Francia,[330] and have the identical\nposition in an \u2018Enthroned Madonna\u2019 by Lorenzo da San Severino.[331]\n\nAs the grouping of these two fruits is so insistently repeated there is\nreason to think that it was no chance arrangement. The painter seems\nto attach some definite meaning to their juxtaposition, and since not\nCrivelli only, but also Francia and Lorenzo da San Severino, place them\ntogether, and well forward in the picture where the eye cannot miss\nthem, they are apparently recognized symbols, not the whim of a single\npainter.\n\nThe apple is, probably, here as elsewhere, the fatal fruit of Eden, and\nthe gourd may represent the fruit which is to be the antidote, in the\nsame sense that the grape is occasionally used by painters of the early\nFlemish school. In this case the gourd would represent the Resurrection\nand be the revival of a very ancient symbol which has an interesting\nhistory. Among the wall paintings of the Catacombs the story of\nJonah is very repeatedly found. He is taken as the type of the risen\nChrist,[332] since Christ Himself, answering the Pharisees, made the\ncomparison. He is represented both as being cast up by the fish and, in\nthe ensuing incident of his history, reposing under the gourd on the\neast side of the city of Nineveh. The first subject being certainly\ngrotesque, it became more usual to depict him beneath the booth covered\nwith long-shaped gourds, and his sleeping figure (usually with the\nlegs crossed) is found constantly both among the Catacomb paintings\nand on fragments of the early Christian gilded glass. Above him there\nis always the same pergola-like booth with the hanging gourds. One\nsmall disk of gold-ornamented Catacomb glass[333] has upon it the usual\ngourd, but below, in place of Jonah, there is a large fish (Ichthys),\nan emblem of Christ dating from the second century. Thus the type of\nChrist has been replaced by His emblem, but the gourd, by association\nsymbol of His Resurrection, remains.\n\nTherefore in these pictures by Crivelli the apple would be the symbol\nof our death by the act of Adam, and the gourd of our Resurrection by\nthe act of the second Adam, Jesus Christ.\n\nIn a picture of the Fall, painted in 1570 by Floris Francesco of\nAntwerp,[334] Adam sits upon the ground while Eve offers him an apple\nfrom the tree. On the earth beside Adam lies a very large gourd. This\ngourd may only exemplify the fruitfulness of Eden, or it may be another\nexample of the antithetical use of this symbol.\n\n\n\n\nXXII\n\nTHE POMEGRANATE\n\n\nNeri di Bicci,[335] Fra Angelico,[336] Filippo Lippi[337] and other\nartists of the fifteenth century painted the Infant Saviour with a\npomegranate in His hand.\n\nOn the wall of the Bargello,[338] in the Chapel of the Podest\u00e0, is\na frescoed Paradise, which contains a figure long believed to be\na portrait of Dante by Giotto. He is seen in profile, wearing the\ncharacteristic hood, and holds in his hand a small branch on which\nare two ripe pomegranates. The fresco is not now considered to be by\nGiotto, nor the portrait contemporaneous, but that would not materially\naffect the meaning of the pomegranates, if they be a symbol, since the\npainting dates from the last half of the fourteenth century.\n\nWere it not for Dante\u2019s pomegranate there would be no particular\nreason to think that the artists of the \u2018Quattrocento\u2019 meant more than\nsimply to indicate some heavenly fruit when they placed the pomegranate\nin the hand of the Child Christ. In accordance with the Byzantine\ntradition to which Siena held, they regarded Him as the Royal Child\ncome to earth with Heavenly gifts in His hand; they had not yet adopted\nthe symbolism of the North, which saw in the Infant Christ the second\nAdam, holding the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil,\nthough indeed Botticelli, who almost always gives some indication of\ncoming sorrow in Christ\u2019s childhood, seems to have found some sad inner\nmeaning in the symbol.\n\nBut in Dante\u2019s hand the fruit could not be the fruit of Paradise, and\nit may therefore have some further meaning even when held by the Infant\nSaviour.\n\n[Illustration:\n\n      _Botticelli_        _Photo Brogi_\n\nTHE CHILD WITH THE POMEGRANATE SURROUNDED BY ANGELS WITH LILIES AND\nROSE-GARLANDS\n\n(Uffizi Gallery, Florence)]\n\nWalter Pater writes: \u2018The mystical fruit, which because of the\nmultitude of its seeds was to the Romans a symbol of fecundity ... to\nthe middle age became a symbol of the fruitful earth itself; and then\nof that other seed sown in the dark underworld; and at last of the\nwhole hidden region, which Dante visited.... Botticelli putting it\ninto the childish hands of Him, who, if men went down into hell, is\nthere also.\u2019\n\nSo, as the symbol of the life on the other side of death, the\npomegranate is exceedingly well placed when given to the writer of the\n_Divina Commedia_, and it is even more appropriate in the hand of the\nincarnate Godhead--He who holds our future destinies in the hollow of\nHis palm.\n\nBut it is difficult to ascertain if this was really the thought in the\nminds of the Florentine artists.\n\nMrs Jameson considers the pomegranate to be the symbol of immortality,\nor, showing the seeds, of hope in eternity.\n\nBut it would scarcely be the symbol of immortality in the Infant\nSaviour\u2019s hand, since the symbol so placed is never His exclusive\nattribute, but the indication of some relationship with humanity. But\nshowing the seeds--and the seeds are usually shown--it might be the\nsymbol of a hope in eternity which He gives to man, the parallel lying\nin the unexpected sweetness of the fruit within the hard rind.\n\nBut possibly the authority followed by the masters of the\n\u2018Quattrocento,\u2019 or by those churchmen who gave them their commissions,\nwas Gregory the Great, for he says: \u2018The pomegranate is the emblem of\ncongregations because of its many seeds: also emblem of the Christian\nChurch because of the inner unity of countless seeds in one and the\nsame fruit.\n\nFollowing this interpretation, the pomegranate, when carried by Dante\nor any other being of mortal birth, would indicate his faith in the\nHoly Catholic Church.\n\nIn Northern art the pomegranate is very rare. The Flemish artists\nignore it, and those few German artists who paint it are those who\nhad come under Italian influence. And it does not seem entirely clear\nwhether those German artists who, like Hans Burgkmair,[339] paint it\nin the Infant Christ\u2019s hand, give to the Southern fruit the Southern\nsignificance, or if for them it becomes the fruit of Eden in the hand\nof the second Adam.\n\nIn scenes representing different events in the life of Christ, trees\nof pomegranates are occasionally introduced. Giovanni di Paolo sets\nthe \u2018Nativity\u2019[340] in an orchard of pomegranates, and in a Florentine\npicture of the fourteenth century[341] the newly-risen Christ is\nsurrounded by palms, pomegranates and flowers. These pomegranates,\nhowever, do not seem to be used attributively but merely to give some\nslight geographical indication. Bethlehem was an Eastern city; the tomb\nof Christ was in an Eastern garden.\n\nThe pomegranate is also, theoretically, the emblem of the Virgin. \u2018In\nthe symbolism of the cult of Mary, the ripe pomegranate, because of\nits pleasant fragrance and its numerous seeds, represents her beauty\nand many virtues, but the gradually-developing fruit refers to her\nlife.\u2019[342]\n\n\u2018The pomegranate with its crowned top is her as queen, and typifies\nalso hope and fruitfulness, the \u201cVirginitas fecunda\u201d of the octave of\nChristmas.\u2019[343]\n\nJeremy Taylor, in a beautiful passage, describes Mary as the\npomegranate tree and Christ as the fruit.\n\n\u2018When the Holy Virgin now perceived that the expectation of the nations\nwas arrived at the very doors of revelation and entrance into the\nworld, she brought forth the _Holy Jesus_, who, like light through a\ntransparent glass, past through, or a ripe pomegranate from a fruitful\ntree, fell to the earth, without doing violence to its nurse and\nparent.\u2019\n\nIn art, however, the pomegranate is very seldom used as the attribute\nof the Virgin. Occasionally the Florentine masters ornament the\nVirgin\u2019s throne with knobs which more or less resemble the fruit, and\nFlemish artists, Memling in particular, place behind her a brocaded\npanel of the well-known pomegranate design. But these pomegranate knobs\nwere a very usual detail in carved work, and the pomegranate pattern,\nwhich still persists, was a standard design of the silk-weavers of\nFrance and Italy.\n\nThe fruit itself is not used by the older masters. Even Crivelli, who\nlavishes fruit of almost every sort upon his slender, long-figured\nMadonnas, leaves the pomegranate aside.\n\nIn modern work, Podesti, in his vast fresco of the Immaculate\nConception,[344] has placed a large single pomegranate upon a book\narranged prominently in the foreground. It is the symbol, apparently,\nof the fruitfulness of the Virgin.\n\nThe ancient Jews ornamented their temple with the pomegranate, and\ntheir high priest\u2019s robes were bordered with alternate bells and\npomegranates. In the Christian Church, too, they have been admitted\nas decoration, though not with any very clear and definite symbolical\nsignificance. There is a very handsome seventeenth-century altar-rail\nof marble on which rest candlesticks and huge brass pomegranates before\nthe high altar in the ancient church of S. Cecilia in Rome; and a great\nbronze pomegranate, worn by much caressing, is on the balustrade in the\ntiny chapel which was once the bathroom of the saint.\n\n\n\n\nXXIII\n\nTHE STRAWBERRY\n\n\nThe strawberry stands apart from all other symbolical fruits. It is\nfound in Italian, Flemish and German art, and also in the English\nminiatures. There is a finely-executed Spanish miniature of the\nsixteenth century in South Kensington Museum. The Pelican in her\nPiety is in the centre and the border is formed of roses alternating\nwith strawberries. As a symbol it is not only widespread, but of\ncomparatively early origin. In Siena it appears as a flower of Heaven,\ngrowing with lilies, violets and carnations, in the \u2018Paradise\u2019 of\nGiovanni di Paolo painted in 1445;[345] and, almost at the same time,\na master of the Upper Rhine painted the well-known \u2018Madonna of the\nStrawberries,\u2019[346] which represents the Virgin sitting upon the edge\nof a raised bed filled with exquisitely-rendered strawberries. Behind\nis a hedge of roses, and at her feet violets and lilies of the valley.\nIn the foreground is a small figure of the donor kneeling among tufts\nof snowdrops. The snowdrop is rare as a symbol (though by no means\nmisplaced in a Madonna picture, having all the qualities, except the\nperfume, of the lily of the valley), and it was probably the individual\nfancy of the donor.\n\nThe strawberry is not mentioned in Scripture, neither does it seem\nto have been remarked by those Fathers of the Church who concerned\nthemselves with symbolism, but it was very successful in its appeal\nto the artists of the Renaissance. It is a very perfect fruit, with\nneither thorns nor stone, but sweet, soft and delicious through and\nthrough. Its flowers are of the whiteness of innocence and its leaves\nalmost of the sacred trefoil form, and since it grows upon the ground,\nnot on a tree, there is no possibility of its being the dread fruit of\nthe Tree of Knowledge.\n\nIts meaning always appears to be the same; it is the symbol of perfect\nrighteousness, or the emblem of the righteous man whose fruits are\ngood works.\n\nAs the symbol of perfect righteousness, in Italy it is chiefly used in\n\u2018Adorations,\u2019 where the Infant Christ is laid upon the ground among the\ngrass. Botticelli seems to have been the first to have placed it among\nthe violets and daisies, but he had many followers, and a very charming\npicture, with the little scarlet berries in the foreground, is the\n\u2018Adoration\u2019 by Perugino, now in Munich. Botticelli may, however, have\nborrowed the symbol from Giovanni di Paolo,[347] who painted a small\nminutely-finished picture of the Virgin, seated on a cushion, with\nthe Holy Child in her arms. Behind are fruit trees and strawberries,\nviolets and carnations are at her feet, and since it was usual in\nSiena, in pictures where the Infant Saviour appears, to refer all\nsymbols to Him, they are His attributes. In German art of the fifteenth\ncentury, on the other hand, the symbolical plants, including the\nstrawberry, which appears in the mystical \u2018Enclosed Gardens,\u2019 express\nthe virtues of Mary.\n\nThe symbolical strawberry is almost invariably accompanied by the\nviolet, from which we may gather that the truly fruitful soul is always\nhumble.\n\n\n\n\nXXIV\n\nFRUIT IN GARLANDS\n\n\nFruit in general signifies \u2018the fruits of the Spirit--joy, peace and\nlove.\u2019 And therefore the painters of Northern Italy wove peach and\nplum, apples and grapes into heavy garlands, which they looped above\nthe place where the Holy Child sat enthroned upon His mother\u2019s knee, or\nthey laid fresh, ripe fruit upon the step where the Virgin\u2019s feet were\nresting.\n\nThe wreath of fruit, when festooned behind or below a saint, was more\nparticularly a symbol of the good works of the righteous; when looped\nabove his head, it is a festal wreath equalling the victor\u2019s crown.\nSuch a wreath is that of mingled fruit and flowers above the head of\nMantegna\u2019s \u2018Triumphant Saint George.\u2019[348]\n\nBut the fruit in many of the devotional pictures of the earlier\nVenetian masters would seem, like the rose gardens of Florence, to be\npartly votive. They wished to give of their best, and the cool fruit\nwhich came in high-piled boats to the gardenless city among the lagoons\nseemed infinitely precious to them--more precious, for they were a\npractical race of traders, than the fragile blossoms of ephemeral\nflowers. Besides, except for pinks, which, judging from various\npictures, grew then as now in pots along the balconies, flowers to\nserve as models were rare in Venice.\n\nGarlands of fruit, excellently modelled but somewhat wanting in\nsoftness and bloom, are especially remarkable in the work of the\npupils of Squarcione, who taught in Padua during the last half of the\nfifteenth century. This famous School of Art is known to have been well\nfurnished with ancient marbles of Greek and Roman origin, and it is to\nbe supposed that there the pupils acquired a love for the classical\nfestooned wreath. Mantegna\u2019s wreaths, and those in the earlier work\nof Crivelli, are firmly bound and formal. But later, Crivelli laid\nclassicism aside, painting fruit with a freedom and profusion which is\nquite his own, though there is ever the feeling that it is sculptured\nand coloured stone, not soft and perfumed fruit-flesh. He, in one\npicture, paints fruit decoratively, bound with its foliage into a sort\nof bower for the Virgin, places it symbolically in the hand of the\nInfant Christ, and also lays it as a votive offering at the Virgin\u2019s\nfeet.[349]\n\nIn a picture by Giorgio Schiavone, another pupil of Squarcione, odd\nlittle angels offer dishes of fruit to the Infant Christ.[350]\n\nBut, except in Northern Italy, fruit in garlands was more used in\ndecoration than in devotional pictures. Magnificent wreaths of carved\nstone fruit and foliage droop on either side of the great circular\nwindows of Siena Cathedral; there are heavy painted wreaths of it\nbeneath the figures of the Apostles in the chapel of the Vatican\ndecorated by Fra Angelico; and the Della Robbias enclosed some of\ntheir most lovely works, with apples, pears, lemons, pine-cones and\npomegranates, growing stiffly and beautifully into a symmetrical\nborder. Fruit-forms were, indeed, infinitely better suited to the\nDella Robbia medium than were the delicate petals of flowers.\n\nThe Florentines, too, often placed their Madonnas in elaborate wooden\nframes of carved and gilded fruit--remembering perhaps the epithet of\nSaint Bernard, who styled the Virgin Mary \u2018the sublime fruit of the\nearth,\u2019[351] finding in her the fulfilment of the prophecy:\n\n\u2018In that day shall the branch of the Lord be beautiful and glorious,\nand the fruit of the earth shall be excellent and comely.\u2019[352]\n\nBut many of these garlands of fruit, or of mixed fruit and flowers,\nare entirely decorative with no hidden meaning. They were a very usual\nfestal decoration in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and when\nswung above the head of Memling\u2019s \u2018Enthroned Madonna,\u2019[353] they are\nno more a symbol than is the carpet beneath her feet, for an almost\nidentical wreath, held in place by the same small _putti_, is above the\nthrone in Gerard David\u2019s \u2018Judgment of Cambyses,\u2019[354] while one which\nis very similar hangs above the enthroned \u2018Emperor Sigis mondo,\u2019[355]\nincised upon the pavement of Siena Cathedral. These wreaths distinguish\nthe throne as being more than an ordinary seat, but, beyond vaguely\nindicating pomp and splendour, they have no special meaning.\n\n[Illustration: _The Sacred Heart (19th Century--German)_]\n\n\n\n\nTHE PARADISE OF GIOVANNI DI PAOLO\n\n\nIn the Gallery of Siena there is a panel by Giovanni di Paola, the\ncontemporary and occasional assistant of the better-known Sano di\nPietro. The panel, which was painted in 1453, represents the Last\nJudgment, and, naturally, it is the portion of it which is given to\nParadise, that is interesting because of its flower symbolism.\n\nHeaven is depicted as a hill, for in the 15th century the prophet\nEsdras was the authority relied on for descriptions of the heavenly\nland, and Paradise, he says, has \u2018seven mighty mountains on which grow\nroses and lilies.\u2019[356]\n\nAt the summit of the hill there are six fruit-bearing trees, for the\nprophet continues, \u2018Saith the Lord, ... I have sanctified and prepared\nfor thee twelve trees laden with diverse fruit.\u2019[357]\n\nThere are six trees, not twelve, in this picture, for, by a convention\ncommon enough in early art, where the space did not admit of a certain\nnumber, that number was halved.\n\nBeneath the trees wander the happy souls, of whom the greater part\nappear to have taken holy orders when in the flesh. Those just arrived\nare welcomed joyfully by the angels or by friends who had preceded them.\n\nOn the grassy bank there are lilies, the symbol of purity; the\ncarnation, equalling the rose as the flower of divine love, the violet\nof humility and the strawberry, whose fruit symbolises the good works\nof the righteous.\n\nThese are the values of the flowers as symbols; as emblems they\ntranslate this Heaven as a perfected counter-part of the Church upon\nEarth, \u2018for\u2019 says Durandus, commenting on the text, \u2018See the smell of\nmy son is as the smell of a field which the Lord hath blessed.\u2019 \u2018This\nfield is the Church, which is verdant with flowers, which shineth with\nvirtues, which is fragrant with good works; and wherein be the roses\nof martyrs, the lilies of virgins, the violets of confessors, and the\nverdure of beginners in the faith.\u2019 Following the same authority, the\ntrees are emblems of righteous men, rich in good works.[358]\n\nSo for three different reasons the flowers in this painted Paradise\nappealed to the devout. They help to give a realistic picture of\nHeaven, presenting in form and colour the description of the prophet;\nthey express mystically the Christian graces; they represent, to the\ninstructed, the bands of martyrs, the choirs of virgins, and the\ncountless happy souls for which the painter had no space.\n\nThe little childish beings, with wounds upon their necks or sides, are\nthe Holy Innocents. Two climb up the lilies which are their attributes\nas virgin martyrs. Though unbaptised, the Innocents, since they died\nfor Christ, were permitted to enter Heaven.\n\nIn the foreground, among the violets, are hares, the hare being an\nancient emblem of a Christian, founded upon the words of Tertullian:\n\n\u2018Upon us, as were we hares, is the hunt let loose.\u2019[359]\n\nAlso the early naturalists averred that the hare slept with his eyes\nopen; whence the prayer of Saint Mectilda:\n\n\u2018Grant, O Lord, that, like the hare, I may watch for Thee in Spirit,\neven while my body takes its needful repose.\u2019[360]\n\n[Illustration:\n\n      _Giovanni di Paolo_       _Photo Brogi_\n\nPARADISE\n\n(Instituto delle Belle Arti, Siena)]\n\n\n\n\nTHE QUEEN OF HEAVEN\n\nBY\n\nHUBERT VAN EYKE\n\n\nOn the 6th of May, 1432, the great altar-piece painted by Hubert and\nJan van Eyke, entitled \u2018The Adoration of the Mystic Lamb,\u2019 was erected\nas a finished work in the Church of S. Bavon in Ghent.\n\nEach of its twelve panels is extremely interesting but the detail which\nis most important in connection with flower symbolism is the crown of\nthe Madonna. Mary as Queen of Heaven, is seated on the right hand of\nGod the Father, her head is slightly bowed as she reads from the book\nwhich she holds open.\n\nHer crown is of gold, set with pearls, sapphires and rubies. Above each\nlarge square-cut ruby is placed a lily with two dark-blue columbines\nat its base. Above the sapphires and alternate with the lilies, are\nroses, each surmounted by three slender stalks of lily of the valley. A\ncluster of diaphanous gold stars form a sort of aureole.\n\nThe symbolism of jewels is complicated and confused, varying with\ndifferent authorities, but that of flowers is almost always unchanged.\nIn this crown the _lilium candidum_, which takes the place of the\ngolden fleurs-de-lys that ornament the crowns of earthly queens,\nindicates the purity of body and of soul by which the Virgin had found\nfavour in God\u2019s sight. The roses, three in number, denote the Divine\nLove of the Holy Trinity, and since these are placed, though singly, in\na crown, they hold also some measure of heavenly joy.\n\nThe seven blooms of the columbine, symbolize the seven gifts of the\nHoly Spirit, which, when attributed to the Virgin, are, Faith, Hope,\nCharity, Justice, Prudence, Temperance, and Strength.\n\nThe lily of the valley, found only in northern symbolism, typifies the\nmeekness and \u2018low estate\u2019 of the \u2018hand-maid of the Lord.\u2019\n\nThe twelve stars suggested by the starry crown of the Apocalypse, are\nsaid by some authorities to represent the twelve Apostles, illustrating\nMary\u2019s title of \u2018Regina Apostolorum.\u2019 The \u2018great wonder\u2019 had appeared\nin Heaven and the lily-like maid was now a queen, \u2018the woman clothed\nwith the sun, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars.\u2019\n\n[Illustration:\n\n  _Hubert van Eyke_\n\nTHE QUEEN OF HEAVEN\n\n(From copy by Coxie, Alte Pinakothek, Munich)]\n\n\n\n\nTHE ADORATION OF THE SHEPHERDS\n\nBY\n\nHUGO VAN DER GOES.\n\n\nThere has been lately placed in the Uffizi Gallery, the large\n\u2018Adoration of the Shepherds,\u2019 by Hugo van der Goes, which was painted\nbetween 1470 and 1475 by order of Tommaso Portinari, agent of the\nMedici in Bruges, for the Chapel of the Florentine Hospital of Santa\nMaria Nuova.\n\nIt is a tryptich. On the side wings are the donor and his family; in\nthe centre is the \u2018Adoration of the Shepherds.\u2019\n\nUpon the ground in the courtyard of a stable, the Holy Child lies in\na pool of light emanating from Himself. His mother kneels beside Him,\nand plain little angels with jewelled head-dresses form a circle round\nthem. To the right is a group of adoring shepherds--to the left Saint\nJoseph.\n\nIn the foreground of the picture, before the Infant Christ, there lies\na sheaf of corn. There are also two vases. One is of pottery, with\na conventional design of grapes and vine leaves, and is filled with\norange lilies and the purple and the white iris. In the other, which\nis of transparent glass, there is columbine and three red carnations;\nupon the ground are scattered blue and white violets. Each flower is\npainted with the most exquisite precision. Here the flower symbols\nall emphasize the spiritual significance of the scene. The scattered\nviolets symbolize humility, for the King of Heaven lies on the ground\nas a little Child. The white ones among them may denote the innocence\nof His babyhood. The transparent glass so often seen in Annunciations,\nis the symbol of His immaculate conception, the group of carnations,\nalike in shape and colour, typifies the divine love of the triune\nGodhead, which moved the Son to take a human form for our salvation.\nThe seven blossoms of the columbine, the flower of the dove, are\nsymbols of the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit with which He was endowed\nat birth. The lilies in the vase are His own emblem as the King of\nHeaven, since He said: \u2018I am the flower of the field, and the lily of\nthe valleys.\u2019 They are not the _lilium candidum_, the flower of the\nMadonna\u2019s purity, but the royal lilies of the field, orange, purple and\nwhite. Even Solomon, in gold, purple and fine linen, \u2018was not arrayed\nlike one of these.\u2019\n\nLastly there is the vine, pictured upon the vase, and the sheaf of\ncorn, the eucharistic substances which in the sacrifice of the Mass,\nrepeat the sacrifice for which He was born into the world as a little\nchild.\n\nIt has been said, and reproachfully, of the Northern artists that they\npreferred gold, jewels and rich embroideries to the more ephemeral\nloveliness of flowers. This dictum may be just when applied to the\nearly German schools; of Flemish Art it is not true. In this picture,\nfor instance, the little angels are richly dressed but not rose-crowned\nlike their Florentine cousins. They wear instead circlets of precious\nstones and pearls, from which spring aigrettes with pendant jewels.\nThey carry no flowers and no flowers are used to fill vacant spaces in\nthe picture. Flowers are reserved instead for the highest use of all\nand are placed in the forefront of the scene to represent the virtues\nof the Holy One.\n\nHugo van der Goes has painted almost these same flowers of the\nAdoration in his Fall.[361] Adam and Eve stand beneath the tree from\nwhich Eve reaches an apple. The lizard-bodied tempter stands behind. In\nthe centre of the foreground, in front of the figures, is the iris, the\ncolumbine, the violet, a rose-bush not yet in bloom and the strawberry.\nThere is also a pansy (which is rare as a symbol, except in England\nwhere it was named Herb Trinity,) and its meaning in this picture does\nnot seem clear.\n\nThese flowers, used elsewhere as the emblems and attributes of Jesus\nChrist, here are introduced to recall the coming of the \u2018second Adam,\u2019\nexactly reversing the symbolism which places an apple in the hand of\nthe Infant Christ.\n\n[Illustration:\n\n      _Hugo van der Goes_      _Photo Brogi_\n\nTHE ADORATION OF THE SHEPHERDS\n\n(Uffizi Gallery, Florence)]\n\n\n\n\nTHE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION\n\nBY\n\nMURILLO\n\n\nIn the 17th century the Spanish Inquisition appointed certain\n_familiares_ whose warrant ran:\n\n  \u2018We give him commission and charge him hence forward that he take\n  particular care to inspect and visit all paintings of sacred\n  subjects which may stand in shops or in public places; if he finds\n  anything to object to in them he is to take the picture before the\n  Lords of the Inquisition.\u2019\n\nMurillo, painting for the Church in Seville, the most orthodox city of\nSpain, may therefore be reckoned correct in his method of presenting\nsacred subjects. At the period in which he painted, the particular form\nof Madonna picture most often ordered by the Spanish Church, was that\nknown as the \u2018Immaculate Conception.\u2019\n\nThe sinless birth of the Virgin was a dogma that had been adopted\nenthusiastically by the Spanish, so much so that Philip III and Philip\nIV sent special embassies to Rome to obtain more explicit papal\nrecognition of the doctrine. It did not, however, become an article\nof faith till 1854 and, as a subject, it is chiefly confined to the\nSpanish School.\n\nThe scheme of the picture is invariably taken from the Revelation of\nSt. John.\n\n  \u2018And there appeared a great wonder in Heaven; a woman clothed with\n  the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of\n  twelve stars.\u2019\n\nIt was usual to add a group of _putti_ about the Virgin\u2019s feet (her\nfeet, according to an injunction of the Inquisition as to \u2018decency\u2019\nbeing carefully covered) and these _putti_ almost always carried\nflowers, the rose, lily, olive and palm. Sometimes the iris was added,\nand occasionally the iris alone was used.[362] Very often a _putto_\ncarries a looking-glass,[363] a symbol of the Immaculate Conception\nwhich appears to be of Spanish origin, but which is perhaps a variation\nor development of the transparent vase, which in the 15th century art\nwas a symbol of the virgin birth of Christ. The idea is that the glass,\nwhatever be the image cast upon it, remains in itself unstained.\n\nIn Murillo\u2019s masterpiece, \u2018_La Purissima_\u2019 of the Prado, the flowers\nindicate Mary\u2019s virtues. The rose, symbol of love and mercy, show\nher as the _Mater misericordi\u00e6_; the lily shows her purity--she is\n\u2018_La Purissima_:\u2019 the palm of triumph is hers as the Queen of Heaven\nand the olive tells of the healing she brings to mankind; she is the\n_Consolatrix Afflictorum_.\n\nAnd the Church having identified the Virgin with the \u2018Wisdom\u2019 of the\n24th Chapter of Ecclesiasticus, these symbols are also her direct\nemblems, for, says Wisdom:\n\n\u2018I was exalted like a palm-tree in Engaddi, and as a rose-plant in\nJericho, as a fair olive-tree in a pleasant field.\u2019\n\nAnd the lily is always her emblem as \u2018The lily of the valleys.\u2019\n\nIt is noticeable that this figure of the Virgin, realized from the\nword picture of the Revelation of Saint John, was one that appealed\nstrongly to the Spanish. She is \u2018clothed with the sun and the moon\nunder her feet.\u2019 The moon is represented as the crescent moon which was\nthe sacred device of the followers of Mahomet, and which had surmounted\ninnumerable mosques throughout the Iberian peninsula for more than\nfive hundred years. Ferdinand, husband of Isabella, put an end to\nthe Moorish dominion in 1492, but the impress of the Moor is to this\nday strong on the land, and in the 17th century it seemed a fitting\nthing that the Virgin\u2019s foot should be upon the hated crescent which\nsymbolized Moorish rule and the faith of Islam. It was therefore, as\na symbol of the Mohamedan faith [rather than as a symbol of chastity\nthrough its connection with the Goddess Diana, as is sometimes\nsuggested], that representations of the Virgin with her feet upon a\ncrescent, became so popular in Spain.\n\n[Illustration:\n\n      _Murillo_       _Photo Anderson_\n\nTHE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION\n\n(Prado, Madrid)]\n\n\n\n\nTHE GIRLHOOD OF MARY VIRGIN\n\nBY\n\nDANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI\n\n\nIn the year 1848, three young English painters, Dante Gabriel Rossetti,\nJohn Everett Millais and William Holman Hunt, founded the Preraphaelite\nBrotherhood, the aim of which was to bring back to modern art the\nsincerity of those painters who had preceded Raphael.\n\nThe original characteristics of the brotherhood\u2019s work were a\nsimplicity in the types chosen and a workmanship almost Flemish in its\ncareful and minute finish. But later, and more particularly in the work\nof Rossetti, \u2018Preraphaelism\u2019 became associated with a certain mysticism\nof subject whose deeper meaning was accentuated and elucidated by the\nuse of symbols and more especially flower symbols.\n\nRossetti\u2019s earliest exhibited work was \u2018The Girlhood of Mary Virgin,\u2019\npainted in 1849.\n\nThe Virgin with Saint Anne by her side, sits at an embroidery frame and\nworks upon a strip of red material the lily with two flowers and a bud\nwhich grows in a vase before her. A little rosy winged angel waters the\nlily, and, lying crossed upon the ground, is a seven-leaved palm and a\nseven-thorned briar, united by a little scroll bearing the words \u2018_Tot\ndolores, tot gaudia_.\u2019\n\nThe second part of the double sonnet written by the artist for this\npicture explains to some extent the symbolism.\n\n                                   II\n\n    These are the symbols. On that cloth of red\n    I\u2019 the centre is the Tripoint: perfect each\n    Except the second of its points, to teach\n    That Christ is not yet born. The books--whose head\n    Is golden charity, as Paul hath said--\n    Those virtues are wherein the soul is rich:\n    Therefore on them the lily standeth, which\n    Is innocence, being interpreted.\n\n    The seven-thorn\u2019d briar and the palm seven-leaved,\n    Are her great sorrow and her great reward.\n    Until the end be full, the Holy One\n    Abides without. She soon shall have achieved\n    Her perfect purity: yea, God the Lord\n    Shall soon vouchsafe His Son to be her Son.\n\nBehind the Virgin is the trellis of the \u2018Enclosed Garden.\u2019 Beyond--for\nstill the \u2018Holy One abides without\u2019--is the vine, emblem of the \u2018True\nVine,\u2019 the figure of Saint Joseph, who tends it, forecasting that he\nwould be the guardian of Christ\u2019s infancy. Upon the trellis, up which\nwreathes the white convolvulus, used in the 15th century as the symbol\nof humility, sits the Holy Dove.\n\nFinally, upon the balustrade is a rose in a transparent vase, the rose\nof divine love conjoined with the symbol of transcendant purity.\n\n[Illustration:\n\n      _Dante Gabriel Rossetti_      _Photo Mansell_\n\nTHE GIRLHOOD OF MARY VIRGIN]\n\n\n\n\nLIST OF AUTHORITIES\n\n\n  Antony, Joseph, _Symbolik der Katholischen Kirchen Gebrauche_\n\n  Arch\u00e6ologia\n\n  Augustine, St, _Confessions_\n\n  Beaumont, de, _Recherches sur l\u2019origine du Blazon et en particulier\n      la Fleur-de-Lis_\n\n  Bernard of Clairvaux, St, _Sermons_\n\n  _Biblia Pauperum_, Heidelberg Copy, 1440; German Ed., 1471,\n      Wolfenb\u00fcttel Copy\n\n  _Byzantine Guide to Painting_ (Didron\u2019s Translation)\n\n  Dante, _Divina Commedia_\n\n  Didron, _Christian Iconography_\n\n  Durandus, _Rational of the Divine Offices_\n\n  Edmonson, _Complete Book of Heraldry_, 1780\n\n  Ford, _Spanish Handbook_ (First Edition)\n\n  Hirn, Yrj\u00f6, _The Sacred Shrine_\n\n  Huysman, J. K., _La Cath\u00e9drale_\n\n  Jacobus de Voragine, _Legenda Aurea_\n\n  Jameson, Mrs, _Sacred and Legendary Art_\n\n  Jenner, Mrs H., _Christian Symbolism_\n\n  Liebman, P. S., _Kleine Handw\u00f6rterbuch der Christlichen Symbolik_\n\n  Martin, Arthur, _M\u00e9langes d\u2019Arch\u00e9ologie_\n\n  Mectilda, St, _Spiritual Grace_\n\n  Menzel, Wolfgang, _Christliche Symbolik_\n\n  Neale, J. M., _Hymni Ecclesiae_\n\n  Northcote and Brownlow, _Roma Sotterana_\n\n  Schmid, A., _Christliche Symbole aus alter und neuer Zeit_\n\n  Smith, _Classical Dictionary_\n\n  Strabo, Walafrid, _Hortulus_\n\n  _Syrian Codice of 586_, Laurentian Library\n\n  Taylor, Jeremy, _The History of the Life and Death of the Holy Jesus_\n\n  Tertullian\n\n  Twining, Louisa, _Symbols and Emblems_\n\n  Vasari, _Lives of the Painters_\n\n  Venturi, _Storia dell\u2019 Arte Italiana_\n\n\n\n\nINDEX OF ARTISTS\n\n\n  Angelico da Fiesole, 81, 90, 131, 144, 167, 245, 261\n\n  Antinoles, Jos\u00e9, 216\n\n\n  Barabino, Niccolo, 122\n\n  Bellini, Giov., 232, 241\n\n  Bonfigli, 91, 158\n\n  Botticelli, 45, 71, 75, 85, 100, 119, 122, 123, 124, 128, 166, 213,\n        238, 246, 262, 263\n\n  Botticini, 77, 188, 213\n\n  Breu, J\u00f6rg, 107\n\n  Bruder Wilhelm, 210\n\n  B\u00fcrgkmair, Hans, 127, 255, 264\n\n\n  Cano, Alonzo, 128\n\n  Carotto, Giov. Franc., 188\n\n  Carpaccio, Vittore, 138\n\n  Cavallini, 59, 164\n\n  Cimabue, 138\n\n  Crivelli, 192, 257, 273\n\n\n  Donatello, 158\n\n  Duccio di Buoninsegna, 59, 144\n\n  D\u00fcrer, Albert, 39, 51, 68, 173\n\n\n  Filarete, Ant., 44\n\n  Francesca, Piero della, 140\n\n  Franciabigio, Francesco, 202\n\n  Fries, Hans, 156\n\n\n  Gaddi, Taddeo, 226\n\n  Ghirlandaio, Dom., 67, 167, 200\n\n  Giambono, 208\n\n  Giotto, 59, 157, 166, 200, 224, 226\n\n  Giovanni di Paolo, 177, 268, 270\n\n  Gozzoli, Benozzo, 98, 214\n\n  Gr\u00fcnwald, Mat., 255\n\n  Guariento, 180\n\n\n  Holbein, Hans, 256\n\n  Holman Hunt, 40, 129\n\n\n  Joos van Cleeve, 250\n\n\n  Leighton, Frederick, 48\n\n  Leonardo da Vinci, 12, 39, 166\n\n  Liberale da Verona, 222\n\n  Lippi, Fra Filippo, 45, 167, 186, 245, 261\n\n  Lochnar, Stephen, 210\n\n  Lorenzetti, Ambrogio, 114, 142, 177, 181, 242\n\n  Lorenzo da San Severino, 258\n\n  Lucas van Leyden, 51, 227, 254\n\n  Luini, 93, 109, 231\n\n\n  Mabuse, 94, 119, 204, 239\n\n  Mantegna, 120, 127, 272\n\n  Maratta, Carlo, 39\n\n  Master of Fl\u00e9malle, 63, 69, 165\n\n  Master of the Bartholomew Altar, 110, 195\n\n  Master of the Carnations, 86\n\n  Master of the Sterzing Altar, 144, 189\n\n  Memling, 50, 63, 65, 66, 100, 119, 168, 243, 245\n\n  Michael-Angelo Buonarroti, 12, 191\n\n  Moretto, 119, 158\n\n  Murillo, 75, 115, 233\n\n\n  Neri di Bicci, 45, 77, 245, 261\n\n  Niccolo d\u2019Apulia, 164\n\n\n  Orcagna, 59, 179\n\n\n  Palmezzano da Forli, 68\n\n  Perr\u00e9al, J., 158, 174\n\n  Perugino, 45, 276\n\n  Pesello, 67, 169, 192\n\n  Pinturicchio, 172\n\n  Pisano, 209\n\n  Podesti, 267\n\n\n  Raphael Santi da Urbino, 12, 93, 213\n\n  Robbia, Della, 274\n\n  Romano, Giulio, 214\n\n  Rosselli, Cosimo, 108, 158\n\n  Rossello di Jacopo Franchi, 188\n\n  Rossetti, D. G., 40, 175, 185, 199\n\n  Rubens, P. P., 20, 51, 140, 253\n\n\n  Sano di Pietro, 38, 242, 243\n\n  Sassetta, 223\n\n  Sassoferrato, 130\n\n  Schiavone, Giorgio, 274\n\n  Sch\u00f6ngaur, 123, 247\n\n  Sch\u00fcchlin, Hans, 110\n\n  Seghers, 131\n\n  Signorelli Luca, 47, 74, 195, 204, 206, 231\n\n  Simone Martini, 59, 91, 117, 178, 179, 231\n\n  Sodoma (Bazzi), 109, 123, 213\n\n  Spinello Aretino, 142, 167, 181\n\n  Squarcione, 203\n\n  Stefano da Zevio (da Verona), 100\n\n\n  Taddeo di Bartolo, 167\n\n  Tobar, Alfonso da, 82\n\n  Trevisani, Francesco, 196\n\n\n  Van der Goes, Hugo, 65, 68, 85, 106, 108, 192, 252\n\n  Van der Weyden, Roger, 165\n\n  Van Eyck, Hubert, 12, 98, 106\n\n  Van Eyck, Jan, 63, 165, 167, 241\n\n  Vanni, Andrea, 177\n\n  Vasari, G., 248\n\n  Veronese, Paul, 228\n\n\n  Watts, F. G., 40\n\n  Wolgemut, 156\n\n\n  Zurburan, 76, 77, 12\n\n\n\n\nINDEX OF FLOWERS\n\n\n  Acanthus, Chap. xii.\n\n  Almond, 197\n\n  Anemone, 60, 93\n\n  Apple, 14, 32, 94, 119, 240, Chap. xx.\n\n\n  Balsam, 197, 218\n\n  Briars, 33\n\n  Buckthorn, 33\n\n  Burning Bush, 132, 192\n\n\n  Carnation, Chap. vi., 190, 191\n\n  Cedar, 26, 217\n\n  Cherries, 243, 245\n\n  Clover, _see_ Shamrock\n\n  Columbine, 30; Chap. viii., 174, 198\n\n  Convolvulus, 29, 48\n\n  Cyclamen, 33\n\n\n  Daisy, 31, 45, 110, 167\n\n  Dandelion, 34, 195, 199\n\n\n  Fig, 255, 256\n\n  Fleur-de-lys, 36, Chap. xiii.\n\n  Flower, Community of the, 41\n\n  Flower, Our Lady of the, 81\n\n  Frankincense, 198\n\n  Fruit in Garlands, Chap. xxiv.\n\n\n  Gold flower, 73\n\n  Gourd, Chap. xxi.\n\n  Grapes, 238, 254\n\n\n  Heath, 29\n\n  Hellebore, 33\n\n  Hemlock, 130\n\n  Hyssop, 33\n\n\n  Iris, 36; Chap. iv., 168, 198\n\n  Ivy, 130\n\n\n  Jasmine, 31, 48, 167, 201\n\n\n  Laurel, 116, 177\n\n  Lemon, 241\n\n  Lettuce, 29\n\n  Lily, 14, 24; Chap. iii., 92, 198, 211, 215\n\n  Lily of Florence, 81\n\n  Lily of the Angel Gabriel, Chap. xv.\n\n  Lily of the Annunciation, Chap. xiv.\n\n  Lily of the Saints, Chap. xviii.\n\n  Lily of the Valley, 198, 207\n\n  Lilies of the Virgin\u2019s Tomb, 213\n\n\n  Mandrake, 33\n\n  Musk flower, 197\n\n  Myrrh, 24, 25, 218\n\n  Myrtle, 197, 201\n\n\n  Nettle, 25, 33\n\n\n  Oleander, 227\n\n  Olive, 24, 36, Chap. ix.\n\n  Orange, 242\n\n\n  Palm, 24, 26, Chap. xi.\n\n  Palm-tree, 137, 138, 218\n\n  Pansy, 32\n\n  Passion Flower, 195\n\n  Pear, 119, 252\n\n  Pomegranate, 98, 119, 218, 245, Chap. xxii.\n\n  Poppy, 33\n\n\n  Quince, 119, 239, 241\n\n\n  Rose gardens, 97, 100\n\n  Rose garlands, Chap. vii.\n\n  Rose, golden, 101, 102, 103\n\n  Rose hedge, 99\n\n  Rose of Charity, 29, 208\n\n  Rose of Divine Love, 24, 28; Chap. v., 172, 190, 198\n\n  Rose of Martyrdom, 72\n\n  Rose of Venus, 101, 102, 103\n\n\n  Saffron, 26\n\n  Shamrock, 30, 191\n\n  Snowdrop, 269\n\n  Spices, 24\n\n  Strawberry, 45, 110; Chap. xxiii., 198\n\n  Sunflower, 199\n\n  Sycamore, 26\n\n\n  Thistle, 195\n\n  Thorns, 33, 77; Chap. x., 216\n\n  Thorns, Crown of, 126, 127, 128, 131\n\n  Turpentine Tree, 24\n\n\n  Vine, 23; Chap. xix.\n\n  Violet, 28, 45, 48, 110, 197, 198, 210\n\n\n  Water-lily, 29\n\n  Willow, 195\n\n\n\n\nFOOTNOTES\n\n\n[1] Dr March states very clearly the difference between a symbol and\nan emblem. \u2018A symbol stands for an abstract idea, an emblem denotes\na concrete thing, an attribute appears in apposition with the person\nit qualifies; for example, in a presentment of the Blessed Virgin,\nthe lily that she holds in her hand or that flowers by her side is\nher attribute. When the lily appears alone it represents the Queen of\nHeaven and is her emblem, but if it indicates purity it is a symbol.\u2019\n\n[2] Ghent Cathedral.\n\n[3] The Prado, Madrid.\n\n[4] Antwerp Cathedral.\n\n[5] Author of _Liber aggregationis, seu Liber mirabilium de virtutibus\nherbarum, lapidum et animalium_.\n\n[6] Authoress of _The Garden of Health_.\n\n[7] \u2018This is that herb which such physicians as are licensed to\nblaspheme by authority without danger of having their tongues burned\nthrough with a hot iron called an herb of the Trinity; it is also\ncalled, by those who are more moderate, three faces in a hood ... and\nin Sussex we call them pancies.\u2019 Culpeper\u2019s _Herbal_.\n\n[8] C. Marriott.\n\n[9] Corsini Gallery, Florence.\n\n[10] Naples Museum.\n\n[11] Stroganoff Collection, Rome.\n\n[12] Accademia, Florence.\n\n[13] Ex Convent of S. Apollonia, Florence.\n\n[14] Bargello, Florence.\n\n[15] Adoration, Pitti Palace, private apartments.\n\n[16] Cathedral, Perugia.\n\n[17] J. K. Huysmans, _La Cath\u00e9drale_.\n\n[18] Attributed to Giotto. Collection of A. E. Street, Esq.\n\n[19] Isaiah XXXV. 1.\n\n[20] Wolfenb\u00fcttel Copy, Biblioth\u00e8que Nationale.\n\n[21] Marienpfarrkirchen, Danzig.\n\n[22] Town Museum, Leyden.\n\n[23] \u2018The Smaller Passion,\u2019 British Museum.\n\n[24] J. K. Huysmans, _La Cath\u00e9drale_.\n\n[25] _Complete Book of Heraldry_, 1780. vol. i.\n\n[26] \u2018The effigies of the Kings of Navarre, successors to Garcias,\nare still to be seen with this order about their necks in the Church\nof St Mary at Nagera, St Saviour\u2019s de Layra and St Mary la Reale of\nPompelona, as also in the church at Ronceneux, and at St John\u2019s de la\nPigna.\u2019 (Edmondson.)\n\n[27] Now in Seville Cathedral.\n\n[28] Solomon\u2019s Song v. 9.\n\n[29]\n\n         \u2018Ut ipsa corporis species simulacrum fuerit mentis.\u2019\n                             _De Verginit_, lib. ii. chap. 2.\n\n[30] S. Maria Trastevere, Rome.\n\n[31] National Gallery, London.\n\n[32] Lower Church, Assisi.\n\n[33] Uffizi, Florence.\n\n[34] Or San Michele, Florence.\n\n[35] Frankfort-on-the-Maine.\n\n[36] Berlin.\n\n[37] Alte Pinakothek, Munich.\n\n[38] Royal Museum, Antwerp.\n\n[39] Coll. Radziwill, Berlin.\n\n[40] Royal Gallery, Berlin.\n\n[41] Prado, Madrid.\n\n[42] Uffizi, Florence.\n\n[43] \u2018Coronation of the Virgin,\u2019 shrine of Saint Ursula, Bruges.\n\n[44] \u2018Christ surrounded by Angels,\u2019 Royal Museum, Antwerp.\n\n[45] \u2018Madonna with the Child,\u2019 Marienpfarrkirche, Danzig.\n\n[46] _Purga_, xxix. 81.\n\n[47] _See_ Chapter XIV., \u2018The Lily of the Annunciation.\u2019\n\n[48] Accademia, Florence.\n\n[49] The Brera, Milan.\n\n[50] The Rudolphinum, Prague.\n\n[51] Chaucer, _The Knight\u2019s Tale_.\n\n[52] Schifanoja Palace, Ferrara.\n\n[53] Botticelli, Uffizi.\n\n[54] Walter Pater, \u2018Sandro Botticelli.\u2019\n\n[55] _Legenda Aurea._\n\n[56] William Dunbar.\n\n[57] _The Book of Spiritual Grace._\n\n[58] Orvieto Cathedral.\n\n[59] Accademia, Florence.\n\n[60] The _Portincula_ or _Porzuincola_ (the little portion) built by\nSaint Benedict and rebuilt by Saint Francis was the first church of the\nFranciscan order. It is now enclosed by the Church of S. Maria degli\nAngeli, and, close by, the rose-bushes of the legend, still thornless,\nare shown.\n\n[61] Prado, Madrid.\n\n[62] Cadiz.\n\n[63] Wilton House.\n\n[64] Museo Provincial, Seville.\n\n[65] Florence. To be placed in the Riccardi Palace.\n\n[66] Palazzo Pitti.\n\n[67] Robert de la Condamine, _The Upper Garden_.\n\n[68] In the Biblioth\u00e8que de l\u2019Ars\u00e9nal, Paris.\n\n[69] British Museum.\n\n[70] Dante.\n\n[71] In France at the same period it was very usual to place a\n\u2018fleur-de-lys\u2019 in the Madonna\u2019s hand. For instance, the beautiful\nstatuette in silver gilt of the early fourteenth century, now in the\nLouvre, carries a \u2018fleur-de-lys\u2019 of crystal in the right hand.\n\n[72] The Prado, Madrid.\n\n[73] Private apartments, Pitti Palace, Florence.\n\n[74] Uffizi, Florence.\n\n[75] An exception is the Assumption by Fungai in the Belle Arti\nof Siena, where white roses and red carnations fill the tomb. The\nprejudice appears to have been against the red rose.\n\n[76] Kunst Museum, Bern.\n\n[77] \u2018The Key\u2019 of Saint Melitus.\n\n[78] \u2018Hortulus,\u2019 Walafrid Strabo.\n\n[79] \u2018Spiritual Grace,\u2019 Saint Mectilda.\n\n[80] The Wisdom of Solomon ii. 8.\n\n[81] _Passio S.S. Jacobi, Mariani et aliorum martyrum in Numidia._\n\n[82] _Sensations d\u2019Italie._\n\n[83] S. Maria Novella, Florence.\n\n[84] The Brera, Milan.\n\n[85] _Legenda Aurea._\n\n[86] Prado, Madrid.\n\n[87] Ghent Cathedral.\n\n[88] _Paradiso_, xxx. 114.\n\n[89] _Ibid._ 121.\n\n[90] 2 Esdras ii. 18\u201319.\n\n[91] Written by the monk Dionysius of Mount Athos in the twelfth\ncentury. Translated by M. Didron.\n\n[92] Adoration of the Lamb, Ghent Cathedral.\n\n[93] Florence.\n\n[94] Ruskin, _Modern Painters_.\n\n[95] Town Museum, Frankfort-on-the-Maine.\n\n[96] The Song of Solomon ii. 2.\n\n[97] Museum, Verona.\n\n[98] _Rat. Off._, iii. 18.\n\n[99] _Tr\u00e9sor_ of Aix la Chapelle.\n\n[100] Arthur Martin, _M\u00e9langes d\u2019Arch\u00e9ologie_.\n\n[101] Opera del Duomo.\n\n[102] Isaiah xi. 1\u20132.\n\n[103] _Christian Iconography_, Didron.\n\n[104] Ghent Cathedral.\n\n[105] Uffizi Gallery.\n\n[106] _Christian Iconography_, Didron.\n\n[107] Kaiser-Friedrich Museum, Berlin.\n\n[108] Uffizi Gallery.\n\n[109] St Petersburg.\n\n[110] Tiefenbronn Church.\n\n[111] Wallraf-Richartz Museum, Cologne.\n\n[112] Sophocles, _\u0152dipus Coloneus_.\n\n[113] Smith\u2019s _Classical Dictionary_.\n\n[114] _De Baptismo_, c. viii.\n\n[115] See title-page.\n\n[116] Northcote and Brownlow, _Roma Sotterana_.\n\n[117] Palazzo Pubblico, Siena.\n\n[118] Taddeo di Bartolo, Sano di Pietro, Francesco di Giorgio Martini,\nBelle Arti, Siena.\n\n[119] No. 160, Belle Arti, Siena.\n\n[120] Stefano di Giovanni, Belle Arti, Siena.\n\n[121] _Tr\u00e9sor_ of Aix la Chapelle.\n\n[122] _Tr\u00e9sor_ of the King of Bavaria.\n\n[123] Milton.\n\n[124] \u2018The Nativity,\u2019 National Gallery.\n\n[125] \u2018The Nativity,\u2019 Belle Arti, Siena.\n\n[126] Collection L. Mond, London.\n\n[127] Durandus, _Rat. Off._, vi. 47\u20139.\n\n[128] Ecclesiasticus xxiv. 14.\n\n[129] _Lives of the Painters._\n\n[130] Corsini Gallery, Florence.\n\n[131] Monza.\n\n[132] Palazzo Pubblico, Siena.\n\n[133] Uffizi, Florence.\n\n[134] Munich.\n\n[135] Private apartments, Pitti Palace.\n\n[136] Nierenberg.\n\n[137] Mantegna, Belle Arti, Verona.\n\n[138] Botticelli, Poldi Pezzoli Collection, Milan.\n\n[139] Botticelli, Borghese Gallery, Rome.\n\n[140] Museo Provincial, Seville.\n\n[141] Collection of the Duchess of Fife.\n\n[142] Royal Gallery, Augsburg.\n\n[143] Sassoferrato, Church of S. Sabina, Rome.\n\n[144] Accademia, Florence.\n\n[145] Uffizi, Florence.\n\n[146] _Der Goldene Schmiede._\n\n[147] Munich.\n\n[148] 1 Maccabees xiii. 51.\n\n[149] Revelation vii.\n\n[150] 2 Esdras ii. 45.\n\n[151] Chaucer, _The Second Nonnes Tale_.\n\n[152] A. Venturi, _Storia dell\u2019 Arte Italiana_.\n\n[153] _Ibid._\n\n[154] _Rat. Off._\n\n[155] S. Cecilia, Uffizi.\n\n[156] Accademia, Venice.\n\n[157] Dante.\n\n[158] Rubens, Uffizi.\n\n[159] Piero della Francesca, Uffizi.\n\n[160] At Heidelberg.\n\n[161] SS. Annunziata.\n\n[162] Belle Arti, Siena.\n\n[163] Lord Lindsay.\n\n[164] Opera del Duomo, Siena.\n\n[165] Sterzing, Rathaus.\n\n[166] Opera del Duomo, Siena.\n\n[167] Uffizi, Florence.\n\n[168] W. Menzel, _Christliche Symbolik_.\n\n[169] _Die Sinnbilder und Beiworte Mariens in der deutschen Literatur\nund lateinischen Hymnenpoesie des Mittelalters._\n\n[170] Rome.\n\n[171] _Ibid._\n\n[172] _Recherches sur l\u2019origine du Blazon et en particulier la\nFleur-de-Lis._\n\n[173] Ragalium Franci\u00e6, Libro duo, 1545.\n\n[174] In possession of Sir J. Tobin.\n\n[175] S. Chiara, Naples.\n\n[176] Westminster Abbey.\n\n[177] Psalterium cum Figuris, Bib. National.\n\n[178] Roman des Trois P\u00e9lerinages, Bib. S. Genevi\u00e8ve.\n\n[179] St Martin in Vignes, Troyes.\n\n[180] Germanisches Museum, Nuremburg.\n\n[181] Scenes from the Passion, Alte Pinakothek, Munich.\n\n[182] Edmund G. Gardner, Florence.\n\n[183] Louvre.\n\n[184] Uffizi, Florence.\n\n[185] First part of _King Henry VI_, Act I. sc. ii.\n\n[186] Trial of Jeanne d\u2019Arc, 1431.\n\n[187] Florence.\n\n[188] Rome.\n\n[189] At Gaeta.\n\n[190] British Museum.\n\n[191] South Kensington Museum.\n\n[192] Imperial Gallery, St Petersburg.\n\n[193] Alte Pinakothek, Munich.\n\n[194] Collection M\u00e9rode, Brussels.\n\n[195] _Spanish Handbook_, first edition.\n\n[196] Lower Church, Assisi.\n\n[197] Uffizi, Florence.\n\n[198] Pantheon, Rome.\n\n[199] Uffizi, Florence.\n\n[200] Belle Arti, Siena.\n\n[201] SS. Annunziata, Arezzo.\n\n[202] Museo di S. Marco, Florence.\n\n[203] Uffizi, Florence.\n\n[204] Vatican, Rome.\n\n[205] Cathedral, S. Giminiano.\n\n[206] National Gallery.\n\n[207] Spedale degli Innocenti, Florence.\n\n[208] _Lives of the Painters_, Titian.\n\n[209] Diptych of Jeanne de Bourbon, Mus\u00e9e Cond\u00e9, Chantilly.\n\n[210] Collection of Prince U. Radziwill, Berlin.\n\n[211] Royal Gallery, Berlin.\n\n[212] British Museum.\n\n[213] British Museum.\n\n[214] W. Menzel, _Christliche Symbolik_.\n\n[215] _Dies in l\u00e6titi\u00e6_, Neale\u2019s translation.\n\n[216] The large transparent vase which stands beside the Madonna with\nthe Child, by Jean Perr\u00e9al, in the Louvre, contains iris, the white\nlily, lily of the valley and columbine.\n\n[217] Duccio di Buoninsegna, National Gallery.\n\n[218] Giovanni di Paolo, Vatican.\n\n[219] Andrea Vanni, Collection Saracini, Siena.\n\n[220] Ambrogio Lorenzetti, Belle Arti, Siena.\n\n[221] Uffizi, Florence.\n\n[222] Sacchetti.\n\n[223] Museum of Padua.\n\n[224] Vatican.\n\n[225] Belle Arti, Siena.\n\n[226] The Cathedral, Arezzo.\n\n[227] Sermon on Ezekiel.\n\n[228] Sermon on Amos and Zachariah.\n\n[229] Tate Gallery.\n\n[230] In the collection of Miss Hertz, Rome.\n\n[231] Pinakothek, Munich.\n\n[232] Milton.\n\n[233] Botticini, Accademia; School of Botticelli, Accademia.\n\n[234] Carotto, S. Eufemia, Verona.\n\n[235] Alte Pinakothek.\n\n[236] Rossello di Jacopo Franchi, Accademia, Florence.\n\n[237] Luca Signorelli.\n\n[238] Rathaus, Sterzing.\n\n[239] Uffizi.\n\n[240] Uffizi.\n\n[241] Frankfort-on-Maine.\n\n[242] S. Spirito, Florence.\n\n[243] Yrj\u00f6 Hirn, _The Sacred Shrine_.\n\n[244] Wallraf Richartz Museum, Cologne.\n\n[245] Uffizi.\n\n[246] _Goldene Schmiede._\n\n[247] Huysman, _La Cath\u00e9drale_.\n\n[248] Collection of Lady Jekyll.\n\n[249] Tate Gallery, London.\n\n[250] Lower Church, Assisi.\n\n[251] Accademia, Florence.\n\n[252] Uffizi, Florence.\n\n[253] _Goldene Schmiede._\n\n[254] _Die Sinnbilder und Beiworte Mariens in der deutschen Literatur\nund lateinischen Hymnenpoesie des Mittelalters._\n\n[255] Uffizi, Florence.\n\n[256] _Spiritual Grace._\n\n[257] Pinacoteca, Arezzo.\n\n[258] _Lives of the Painters_, Signorelli.\n\n[259] Cathedral, Perugia.\n\n[260] Accademia, Florence.\n\n[261] Collection Pierpont Morgan, America.\n\n[262] Kaiser Friedrich Museum, Berlin.\n\n[263] Cologne.\n\n[264] Cologne.\n\n[265] W. Menzel, _Christliche Symbolik_.\n\n[266] Oratory of S. Bernardino, Siena.\n\n[267] Vatican.\n\n[268] National Gallery (now attributed to Botticini).\n\n[269] Vatican.\n\n[270] Vatican.\n\n[271] Cathedral, Bagno di Romagna.\n\n[272] Accademia, Florence.\n\n[273] Robert Browning.\n\n[274] Alte Pinakothek, Munich.\n\n[275] Uffizi, Florence.\n\n[276] Now in the Pinacoteca, Lucca.\n\n[277] Ecclesiasticus xxiv. 17, 18, 20.\n\n[278] _Cant. Cantic._ iv. 13.\n\n[279] In Collection of the Duke of Devonshire.\n\n[280] Cremona.\n\n[281] Museum, Verona.\n\n[282] A Sienese painter of the Franciscan Legend.\n\n[283] Upper Church, Assisi.\n\n[284] Capella dell\u2019 Arena, Padua.\n\n[285] Capella Baroncelli, Santa Croce, Florence.\n\n[286] S. Girolamo Spello.\n\n[287] Cathedral, Como.\n\n[288] Alte Pinakothek, Munich.\n\n[289] Rijks Museum, Amsterdam.\n\n[290] _Arch\u00e6ologia_, vol. 45.\n\n[291] Villa Mas\u00e8r, near Treviso.\n\n[292] S. Domenico, Siena.\n\n[293] The name Catharine, it will be remembered, is from the Greek\n_Katharos_, which has the same signification as the lily, _i.e._,\npurity.\n\n[294] Luini, S. Maurizio, Milan.\n\n[295] S. Francesco, Assisi.\n\n[296] Royal Gallery, Berlin.\n\n[297] National Gallery, London.\n\n[298] Seville Cathedral.\n\n[299] Rome.\n\n[300] Ghent Cathedral.\n\n[301] Collection Gardener, Boston.\n\n[302] Berlin.\n\n[303] _Paradise Lost._\n\n[304] Vatican.\n\n[305] Brera, Milan.\n\n[306] Uffizi.\n\n[307] Museum, Brussels.\n\n[308] Belle Arti, Siena.\n\n[309] Belle Arti, Siena.\n\n[310] _Ibid._\n\n[311] Uffizi.\n\n[312] _Goldene Schmiede._\n\n[313] Uffizi.\n\n[314] _Lives of the Painters._\n\n[315] Joos van Cleeve, Royal Gallery, Brussels; Wolf Trant, National\nMuseum, Munich.\n\n[316] Florence.\n\n[317] Imperial Gallery, Vienna.\n\n[318] Museum, Rouen.\n\n[319] Alte Pinakothek, Munich.\n\n[320] Kaiser Friedrich Museum, Berlin.\n\n[321] The \u2018Chigi\u2019 Madonna, Collection Gardener, Boston.\n\n[322] W. Menzel, _Christliche Symbolik_.\n\n[323] Museum. Colmar.\n\n[324] German Museum, N\u00fcremburg.\n\n[325] Kunsthalle, Karlsruhe.\n\n[326] Royal Gallery, Dresden.\n\n[327] National Gallery.\n\n[328] Museum, Berlin.\n\n[329] Vatican Gallery.\n\n[330] Capitoline Museum, Rome.\n\n[331] National Gallery.\n\n[332] \u201cFor as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale\u2019s\nbelly; so shall the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the\nheart of the earth\u201d (Matt. xii. 40).\n\n[333] Vatican Museum.\n\n[334] Uffizi, Florence.\n\n[335] Uffizi.\n\n[336] Accademia, Florence.\n\n[337] Pitti.\n\n[338] Florence.\n\n[339] German Museum, N\u00fcremburg.\n\n[340] Vatican Gallery.\n\n[341] _Ibid._\n\n[342] Dr Anselm Salzer, O.S.B. _Die Sinnbilder und Beiworte Mariens in\nder deutschen Literatur und lateinischen Hymnenpoesie des Mittelalters_.\n\n[343] Mrs Henry Jenner, _Christian Symbolism_.\n\n[344] Vatican.\n\n[345] Belle Arti, Siena.\n\n[346] Town Museum, Solothurn.\n\n[347] Belle Arti, Siena.\n\n[348] Accademia, Venice.\n\n[349] Brera, Milan.\n\n[350] National Gallery, London.\n\n[351] Sermon on the Assumption of the Virgin.\n\n[352] Isaiah iv. 2.\n\n[353] Imperial Gallery, Vienna.\n\n[354] Town Museum, Bruges.\n\n[355] Dom di Bartolo d\u2019Asciano.\n\n[356] II. Esdras II., 19.\n\n[357] II. Esdras II., 18.\n\n[358] Rat. Off. of Altars.\n\n[359] Ad. Nat., 2, 3.\n\n[360] Spiritual Grace.\n\n[361] Imperial Gallery, Vienna.\n\n[362] Jos\u00e9 Antolines, Alte Pinakothek, Munich.\n\n[363] Murillo, Prado, Madrid.\n\n\n\n\nJUST PUBLISHED\n\n\n  =THE CHILDHOOD OF ART; or, The Ascent of Man.= A Sketch of the\n    Vicissitudes of his Upward Struggle, based chiefly on the Relics\n    of his Artistic Work in Prehistoric Times. By H.\u00a0G. SPEARING,\n    M.A., Queen\u2019s College, Oxford. With 16 Plates in Colour and\n    nearly 500 Illustrations in Black and White. Royal 8vo, =21/-=\n    net.\n\n  =BIBLE WAYS IN BIBLE LANDS: An Impression of Palestine.= By MAUDE\n    M. HOLBACH, author of \u201cDalmatia, the Land where East meets West.\u201d\n    With Thirty-two beautiful Illustrations from Photographs taken by\n    Otto Holbach. Crown 8vo, =5/-= net.\n\n  This interesting volume records the author\u2019s impressions of the\n    Holy Land. She shows the unchangingness of the East, sketching\n    for those who cannot visit Bible Lands the landscapes and the\n    people, and describes the customs of everyday life that our\n    Master drew upon to illustrate His spiritual teachings as they\n    are to-day--that is, almost exactly as they were nineteen hundred\n    years ago. The book makes a strong appeal to Bible students.\n\n  =FRANCIA\u2019S MASTERPIECE: An Essay on the Beginnings of the\n    Immaculate Conception in Art.= By MONTGOMERY CARMICHAEL, author\n    of \u201cIn Tuscany,\u201d etc. With 10 Plates. Crown 8vo, =5/-= net.\n\n  =THE FLORA OF THE SACRED NATIVITY: An Attempt at collecting the\n    Legends and Ancient Dedications of Plants connected in Popular\n    Tradition with the Life of Our Blessed Lord from His Nativity to\n    the Flight into Egypt.= By ALFRED E.\u00a0P. RAYMUND DOWLING, B.A., St\n    John\u2019s College, Oxford. Demy 8vo, =7/6= net.\n\n  =LEGENDS OF OUR LORD AND THE HOLY FAMILY.= By Mrs ARTHUR BELL. With\n    32 Illustrations from the Old Masters. Crown 8vo, =6/-= net.\n\n               KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, TR\u00dcBNER & CO. Limited\n\n\n                               EDINBURGH\n                            COLSTONS LIMITED\n                                PRINTERS\n\n\n\n\nTranscriber\u2019s Notes\n\n\nPunctuation, hyphenation, and spelling were made consistent when a\npredominant preference was found in the original book; otherwise they\nwere not changed. In particular, spelling variations in quotations of\narchaic text and poetry were not changed.\n\nSimple typographical errors were corrected; unbalanced quotation\nmarks were remedied when the change was obvious, and otherwise left\nunbalanced.\n\nIllustrations in this eBook have been positioned between paragraphs\nand outside quotations. In versions of this eBook that support\nhyperlinks, the page references in the List of Illustrations lead to\nthe corresponding illustrations.\n\nThe phrase \u201cto face page\u201d have been removed from the List of\nIllustrations and the caption area of the illustrations, as the\nillustrations are positioned within or adjacent to the pages referenced\nin the List of Illustrations.\n\nThe index was not checked for proper alphabetization or correct page\nreferences.\n\nFootnotes, originally at the bottoms of pages, have been collected,\nrenumbered, and placed after the Index.\n\nA painter\u2019s name is spelled \u201cvan Eyck\u201d in most of this book, but as\n\u201cvan Eyke\u201d on pages 279-281. Both variants have been retained here.","title":"The floral symbolism of the great masters","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":52206}