the almond or mandorla.

A picture of this class is the famous Madonna della Stella, of Fra
Angelico. It is in a beautiful Gothic tabernacle, which is the sole
ornament of a cell in San Marco, Florence. At every step in these
sacred precincts, we meet some reminder of the Angelic Brother. How
the gray walls blossomed, under his brush, into forms and colors of
eternal beauty! After seeing the larger wall-paintings in corridors
and refectory, this little gem seems to epitomize his choicest gifts.
A rich frame, fit setting for the jewel, encloses an outer circle of
adoring angels, and within, the central panel contains only the full
length figure of the Virgin with her child, against a mandorla formed
of golden rays running from centre to circumference. The Madonna is
enveloped in a long, dark blue cloak, drawn around her head like a
Byzantine veil. A single star gleams above her brow, from which is
derived the title of the picture. She holds her child fondly, and he,
with responsive affection, nestles against his mother, pressing his
little face into her neck. Faithful to the standards of his
predecessors, and untouched by the new spirit of naturalism all about
him, the monk painter preserves, in his conception, the most sacred
traditions of past ages, and yet unites with them an element of love
and tenderness which appeals strongly to every human heart.

[Illustration: FRA ANGELICO.--MADONNA DELLA STELLA.]

It is but a step from this earlier form of the Madonna in Gloria to
the more modern style of the Madonna in the Sky, where the field of
vision is enlarged, and we see the Virgin and child raised above the
surface of the earth. In some pictures, her elevation is very slight.
There is a curious composition, by Andrea del Sarto (Berlin Gallery),
where we are puzzled to know if the Madonna is enthroned or enskied.
A flight of steps in the centre leads up as if to a throne, but above
these the Virgin sits in a niche, on a bank of clouds.

In Correggio's Madonna of St. Sebastian, in the Dresden Gallery, the
Virgin seems to be descending from heaven to earth with her babe, and
the surrounding clouds and cherubs rest literally upon the heads of
the saints who are honored by the vision.

In other pictures the dividing line between earth and heaven is much
more strongly marked. We have a landscape below, then a stratum of
intervening air, and, in the upper sky, the Madonna with her child.
The lower part of the picture is o