irgin. She is now a magnificent creature of flesh and blood. Her face
is proud and handsome; her figure large, well-proportioned, and
somewhat voluptuous. No Bethlehem stable ever sheltered this haughty
beauty; her home is in kings' palaces; she belongs distinctly to the
realm of wealth and worldliness. She has never known sorrow, anxiety,
or poverty; life has brought her nothing but pleasure and luxury. Her
throne stands no longer in the sacred place of some inner sanctuary,
where angel choristers make music. It is an elevated platform, at one
side of the composition, as in Titian's Pesaro altar-piece, and
Veronese's Madonna in the Venice Academy. This gives an opportunity
for a display of elaborate draperies, such as we may see in Veronese's
picture.

The peculiar qualities of art in Verona and Venice are blended in
Paolo Veronese. No artist ever enjoyed more the splendors of color, or
combined them in more enchanting harmonies. Such gifts transform the
commonest materials, and, though his Virgin is a very ordinary woman,
she has undeniable charms. An oft-copied figure, in this picture, is
that of the little St. John, a universal favorite among child lovers.

[Illustration: VERONESE.--MADONNA AND SAINTS.]

The reader must have remarked that, though the fundamental idea of
the enthroned Madonna is that of queenship, the Virgin wears no crown
in any of the pictures thus far cited; the crowned Madonna is not
characteristic of Italian art. It is found occasionally in mosaics
from the eighth to the eleventh centuries, and in some of the early
votive pictures, but does not appear in the later period except in a
few Venetian pictures by Giovanni da Murano and Carlo Crivelli. The
same idea was often carried out by placing two hovering angels over
the Virgin's head, holding the crown between them. Botticelli's
Madonna of the Inkhorn is treated in this way.

The crown is essentially Teutonic in origin and character. Turning to
the representative art of Germany and Belgium, we find the Virgin
almost invariably wearing a crown, whether she sits on a throne, or in
a pastoral environment. No better example could be named than the
celebrated Holbein Madonna, of Darmstadt, known chiefly through the
copy in the Dresden Gallery. Here the imposing height of the Virgin is
rendered still more impressive by a high, golden crown, richly
embossed and edged with pearls. Beneath this her blond hair falls
loosely over her beautiful neck, an