ndeed uncommonly pretty, but for the rest are like
other children, eying each other somewhat shyly in the early stages of
acquaintance. It will not be long before they are the best of friends.

The figures in our illustration form a part of a marble altar-piece by
Mino da Fiesole. The whole composition consists of three niches
approached by steps. In the central compartment kneels the mother
Mary, adoring with folded hands the child, who sits below her. We see
in our picture only the lower part of her dress behind the Christ
child. In the side niches are figures of saints, the little St. John
kneeling in front of the one on the Madonna's right.

Mino da Fiesole has been called "The Raphael of sculpture," and his
work in this altar-piece illustrates the fitness of comparing him with
the great painter. Especially do the figures of the two children here
remind us of the child ideals of Raphael. At the time when this work
was executed (1462) painters and sculptors had just begun to represent
the Christ child undraped. The earlier artists had always shown the
little figure clad in a tunic. We shall presently see how this old
custom was still followed in bas-reliefs of the Madonna and Child by
Luca della Robbia and Rossellino. The more progressive artists were
unwilling to conceal the beauty of the child's figure by any sort of
dress. By the beginning of the sixteenth century the old way had
entirely given place to the new.[17]

In our picture we see that a Latin inscription on the base of the
lowest step contains the name of Leonardo Salutati, bishop of Fiesole.
[18] It was by the order of this bishop that the altar was executed,
as was also the tomb opposite it in the cathedral of Fiesole.

[Footnote 12: St. Luke, chapter ii., verse 49.]

[Footnote 13: St. Luke, chapter iii., verse 16.]

[Footnote 14: See Chapter IX., on the "Children of the Shell," in the
volume on _Murillo_ in the Riverside Art Series.]

[Footnote 15: This is on the authority of a French writer, A.
Jourdain, quoted by William H. Tillinghast in an essay on the
"Geographical Knowledge of the Ancients," in the _Narrative and
Critical History of America_. In the same essay an anonymous poem of
the thirteenth century is quoted to show the prevalent belief in the
sphericity of the earth.]

[Footnote 16: In Didron's _Christian Iconography_, several interesting
illustrations from old miniatures, etc., show the globe in the hand of
the Creator. It is curi