omplete without
adding the names of Palma Vecchio and Carpaccio to the list of those who
most delicately interpreted the subject. Examples of their work are
scattered over Northern Italy, but none perhaps are more representative
than Carpaccio's Presentation, in the Academy at Venice, and Palma's
altar-piece at Zerman.

[Illustration: ANGEL FROM PAINTING IN CHURCH OF REDENTORE.--VIVARINI.]

The child-angel as a playmate and companion of the Christ-child is a
conception which has not infrequently been represented in art with great
appropriateness. Both Van Dyck and Lucas Cranach have given us the
Repose in Egypt, enlivened by the presence of a company of frolicsome
cherubs sporting about the Divine Babe. Rubens painted a lovely group of
the Infant Jesus and Saint John, seated on the ground, playing with
their celestial little visitors. A Holy Family, by Ippolito Andreasi,
represents angel children gathering and bringing grapes to the Saviour.

With a small circle of Florentine artists, led by Botticelli, and
including Filippo Lippi and Filippino Lippi, a unique class of
child-angels is in great favor. These are children of a larger growth
and maturer appearance than the infantine cherubs of contemporary
artists, and might properly be called angel-youths. In the best examples
their expression is an admirable mingling of strength and purity. As
attendants to the Christ-child, they serve in various capacities with
loving and reverent grace.

In Botticelli's famous "round Madonna" of the Uffizi, one holds the ink
vessel into which the Virgin dips her pen as she writes the Magnificat,
two others hold a starry crown over her head, and two more complete the
group, as companions of the Saviour. In the Holy Family, by the same
artist, only two angels are introduced, one of whom leans over a
balustrade, with a beautiful lily-stalk in his hand, in token of the
Virgin's purity.

Filippo Lippi's charming rendering of angel-youths is best seen in the
picture which represents the Christ-child borne by two attendant cherubs
in exemplification of the psalmist's words, "They shall bear thee up in
their hands, lest thou dash thy foot against a stone." The Madonna
stands before the Divine Babe, with hands clasped in adoration, a lovely
impersonation of the Madre Pia.

[Illustration: ANGEL FROM VISION OF MADONNA APPEARING TO SAINT
BERNARD.--FILIPPINO LIPPI.]

The Madre Pia is also the subject of one of Filippino Lippi's most
exquisi