basket, or even a spinning-wheel, close by. The archangel Gabriel enters at the door, bearing a spray of lilies, or, in some antique specimens, an olive-branch. His drapery is usually rich and full, while his wings may be peacock-eyed, or ornamented with gold. Sometimes the angel kneels before the Virgin, sometimes the Virgin before the angel. The dove of the Holy Spirit should of course be present. Often the Eternal Father is introduced as a majestic and venerable form, looking benignly from the clouds, and sending forth the dove. Most painters, from the early Siennese school down to modern times, have delighted in this theme, varied in attitudes and other unimportant particulars. The scene of the Mystery has been also changed. In some compositions we find the Madonna in a cloister; in others, standing on a green hill, or seated enthroned under a canopy, or even in a rose-garden, in allusion to the verse in Canticles, "A garden. inclosed is my sister, my spouse!"

The Visitation of Mary to Elizabeth, in which the two. women meet and embrace, holds its rank among the frescoes, and is also the subject of separate easel-pieces. The three most famous examples are by Mariotto Albertinelli, 1474, in the Uffizi Gallery, Florence, where they salute each other under an Italian archway; by Ghirlandajo in the Louvre, and by Raphael at Madrid.

The legends from the nativity to the resurrection and ascension of our Lord we shall presently touch upon while noticing the treatment of the life of Christ. In describing what followed the resurrection, quaint old writers have recorded that Christ, after rising from the dead, appeared first of all to his mother, who was praying in the solitude of her

chamber; "while she prayed, a host of angels surrounded her, singing 'Regina Coeli:' and then came Christ, partly clothed in a white garment, having in his left hand the standard of the cross; and with him came the patriarchs and prophets whose long-imprisoned spirits he had released from Hades." This, however, was seldom painted till the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

The poetical tradition relating to the death and assumption of the Virgin, I repeat in substance from the "Christian Art" of Lord Lindsay, who copied it from its ancient

source:

"The Virgin dwelt, for twenty-four years after the ascension, in her house beside Mount Zion. One day the angel Gabriel came and reverently saluted her, and told her that after three days she should depart from the flesh, and reign with him forever. He gave her also a palm-branch from Paradise, which he commanded should be borne before her bier. And the palm-branch was green in the stem, but its leaves were like the morning star."

Then the apostles were miraculously summoned to be with her when she should die.

"And when the Virgin beheld the apostles assembled round her, she blessed the Lord; and they sat around her and watched, with lights burning till the third day.

"And toward nightfall, on the third day, Jesus came down with his hosts of saints and angels, and they ranged themselves before Mary's couch, and sweet hymns were heard at intervals, till the middle of the night. Then Jesus called her softly, twice, that she should come to him, and she answered that she was ready joyfully to yield her spirit. And

thus her spirit quitted the body and flew into the arms of her Son; and she neither suffered pain, nor her body corruption.

"And straightway there surrounded her flowers of roses, which are the blessed company of martyrs; and lilies of the valley, which are the bands of angels, confessors, and virgins.

"And when the body was laid on the bier, Peter and Paul uplifted it, and the other apostles ranged themselves around it. And John bore the palm-branch in front of it. And Peter began to sing, 'In Exitu Israel de Egypto,' and the rest joined softly in the psalm. And the Lord covered the bier and the apostles with a cloud, so that they might be heard and not seen; and the angels were present, and singing with the apostles; and all the city was gathered to that wondrous melody.

"And the apostles laid the body of the Virgin in the tomb, and they watched beside it three days. And on the third day the Lord appeared with a multitude of angels, and raised up Mary, and she was received, body and soul, into heaven."

Another slightly different version makes the saluting angel not Gabriel, but Michael, the lord of souls, who carries either a starry palm or a taper. Byzantine artists, as well as Italian, have left us many such compositions. Cimabue painted the miraculous death at Assisi; Giotto, Angelico, and others in every age reproduced it; frescoes of Mary's life rivaled each other in depicting it; while Taddeo Bartolo devoted the wall of the chapel of the Public Palace at Sienna to its commemoration.

Pictures of the Virgin's Assumption are easily recognized.