h the picture was hailed was unprecedented, and
Cimabue became at once the acknowledged master of his time. So great
was the joy and appreciation with which this Madonna was received, that
a beautiful story is told to the effect that it was only after its
completion that the name Allegri [joyous] was given to the locality in
which the work was done; but, unfortunately, the facts do not bear out
the tale--Baedeker and other eminent authorities to the contrary
notwithstanding. Before this picture was taken to the beautiful chapel
of the Rucellai in the Chiesa Santa Maria Novella in Florence, where it
can be seen to-day, the French nobleman Charles of Anjou went to inspect
it, and with him went a stately company of lords and ladies. Later, when
it was removed to the church, a solemn religious procession was
organized for the occasion. Preceded by trumpeters, under a rain of
flowers, and followed by the whole populace, it went from the Borgo
Allegri to the church, and there it was installed with proper ceremony.

The list of holy women who, by means of their good lives and their
deeds, helped on the cause of the Church during this early time is a
long one; in almost every community there was a local saint of great
renown and wonderful powers. Ignorance, superstition, and credulity had,
perhaps, much to do with the miraculous power which these saints
possessed, but there can be no doubt that most, if not all, of the
legends which concern them had some good foundation in fact. The holy
Rosalia of Palermo is one of the best known of these mediaeval saints,
and even to-day there is a yearly festival in her honor. For many years
she had lived in a grotto near the city; there, by her godly life and
many kind deeds, she had inspired the love and reverence of the whole
community. When the pest came in 1150--that awful black death which
killed the people by hundreds--they turned to her in their despair and
begged her to intercede with them and take away this curse of God, as it
was believed to be. Through an entire night, within her grotto, the good
Rosalia prayed that the plague might be taken away and the people
forgiven, and the story has it that her prayers were answered at once.
At her death she was made the patron saint of Palermo, and the lonely
grotto became a sacred spot which was carefully preserved, and which may
be seen to-day by all who go to visit it on Monte Pellegrino.

In the first part of the thirteenth century two