in, and made a solemn vow that, if victorious, they would make
over their whole territory to her as a perpetual possession, and hold
it from her as her loyal vassals. After the victory of Arbia, which
placed Florence itself for a time in such imminent danger, a picture
was dedicated by Siena to the Virgin _della Vittoria_. She is
enthroned and crowned, and the infant Christ, standing on her knee,
holds in his hand the deed of gift.

* * * * *

2dly. For deliverance from plague and pestilence, those scourges of
the middle ages. In such pictures the Virgin is generally attended by
St. Sebastian, with St. Roch or St. George; sometimes, also, by St.
Cosmo and St. Damian, all of them protectors and healers in time of
sickness and calamity. These intercessors are often accompanied by the
patrons of the church or locality.

There is a remarkable picture of this class by Matteo di Giovanni
(Siena Acad.), in which the Virgin and Child are throned between St.
Sebastian and St. George, while St. Cosmo and St. Damian, dressed as
physicians, and holding their palms, kneel before the throne.

In a very famous picture by Titian. (Rome, Vatican), the Virgin and
Child are seated in heavenly glory. She has a smiling and gracious
expression, and the Child holds a garland, while angels scatter
flowers. Below stand St. Sebastian, St. _Nicholas_, St. Catherine, St.
Peter, and St. _Francis_. The picture was an offering to the Virgin,
after the cessation of a pestilence at Venice, and consecrated in a
church of the _Franciscans_ dedicated to St. _Nicholas_.[1]

[Footnote 1: San Nicolo de' Frari, since destroyed, and the picture
has been transferred to the Vatican.]

Another celebrated votive picture against pestilence is Correggio's
"Madonna di San Sebastiano." (Dresden Gal.) She is seated in heavenly
glory, with little angels, not so much adoring as sporting and
hovering round her; below are St. Sebastian and St. Roch, the latter
asleep. (There would be an impropriety in exhibiting St. Roch sleeping
but for the reference to the legend, that, while he slept, an angel
healed him, which lends the circumstance a kind of poetical beauty.)
St. Sebastian, bound, looks up on the other side. The introduction of
St. Geminiano, the patron of Modena, shows the picture to have been
painted for that city, which had been desolated by pestilence in 1512.
The date of the picture is 1515.

We may then take it for granted,