y. 1. For
instance, in a picture by Cima, Tobit and the angel are introduced
on one side, and St. Helena and St. Catherine on the other. 2. In a
picture by Francia (Bologna Gal.), the Infant, reclining upon a white
napkin, is adored by the kneeling Virgin, by St. Augustine, and by two
angels also kneeling. The votary, Antonio Galeazzo Bentivoglio, for
whom the picture was painted, kneels in the habit of a pilgrim.[1] He
had lately returned from a pilgrimage to Jerusalem and Bethlehem, thus
poetically expressed in the scene of the Nativity, and the picture was
dedicated as an act of thanksgiving as well as of faith. St. Joseph
and St. Francis stand on one side; on the other is a shepherd crowned
with laurel. Francia, according to tradition, painted his own portrait
as St. Francis; and his friend the poet, Girolamo Casio de' Medici,
as the shepherd. 3. In a large and famous Nativity by Giulio Romano
(Louvre, 293), which once belonged to our Charles I., St. John the
Evangelist, and St. Longinus (who pierced our Saviour's side with his
lance), are standing on each side as two witnesses to the divinity of
Christ;--here strangely enough placed on a par: but we are reminded
that Longinus had lately been inaugurated as patron of Mantua, (v.
Sacred and Legendary Art.)

[Footnote 1: "An excellent likeness," says Vasari. It is engraved as
such in Litta's Memorials of the Bentivogli. Girolamo Casio received
the laurel crown from the hand of Clement VII. in 1523. A beautiful
votive Madonna, dedicated by Girolamo Casio and his son Giacomo, and
painted by Beltraffio, is in the Louvre.]

In a triptych by Hans Hemling (Berlin Gal.) we have in the centre the
Child, adored, as usual, by the Virgin mother and attending angels,
the votary also kneeling: in the compartment on the right, we find the
manifestation of the Redeemer to the _west_ exhibited in the prophecy
of the sibyl to Augustus; on the left, the manifestation of the
Redeemer to the _east_ is expressed by the journey of the Magi, and
the miraculous star--"we have seen his star _in the east_."

But of all these ideal Nativities, the most striking is one by Sandro
Botticelli, which is indeed a comprehensive poem, a kind of hymn on
the Nativity, and might be set to music. In the centre is a shed,
beneath which the Virgin, kneeling, adores the Child, who has
his finger on his lip. Joseph is seen a little behind, as if in
meditation. On the right hand, the angel presents three fig