y, and St. Catherine
herself with sweet seriousness. Any comparison of the scene with a
human marriage is set aside by the fact that the bridegroom is an
infant. The ceremony is of purely spiritual significance, a true
sacrament. St. Catherine's expression and manner are full of humility,
as in a religious service.

The Christ-child is a robust little fellow whose chief beauty is his
curls. He has the large head which usually shows an active
temperament, and we fancy that he is somewhat masterful in his ways.
We shall see the same boy again in the picture called The Madonna of
St. Jerome.

The mother, too, has a face which soon becomes familiar to the student
of Correggio's works. The eyes are full, the nose is rather prominent,
the mouth large and smiling, and the chin small. Even St. Catherine is
of the same type, except that her face is cast in a smaller and more
delicate mould. Her hair is arranged precisely like that of the
Madonna, the braids bound about the head, preserving the pretty round
contour. Both women wear dresses cut with round low necks, showing
their full throats. St. Catherine's left hand rests upon a wheel with
spiked rim, which, as we have seen, is her usual emblem. Another
emblem is the sword, whose hilt projects from behind the wheel. This
was the instrument of her execution.

Special prominence is given in the picture to three sets of hands. The
skill with which they are painted is noted by critics as one of the
many artistic merits of the work. One of Browning's poems[6] describes
an artist's meditations while trying to draw a hand. His failure
teaches him to realize that he must study the

"Flesh and bone and nerve that make
The poorest coarsest human hand
An object worthy to be scanned
A whole life long for their sole sake."

Such must have been Correggio's study to enable him to produce the
beautiful hands we see here.

[Footnote 6: _Beside the Drawing Board._]

St. Sebastian is a figure not to be overlooked. We may find his like
among the genii of the Parma Cathedral, which we are to study. He is a
joyous being to whom it is good merely to be alive. The elfin locks
falling about his face make him look like some creature of the woods.
We are reminded most of the faun of the Greek mythology. The arrows in
his hand suggest some sylvan sport, but in reality they are the emblem
of his martyrdom. According to tradition the young saint was bound by
his enemies to a tree,