An INFANT, naked, hovering over a dead body, symbolizes the newly-escaped soul. In a very early ancona by Bartolo di Fredi in Siena, depicting scenes from the life of the Virgin, one of the panels represents Her Death, where the Saviour in a glory of seraphs holds in His arms the Soul of His Mother as a little child, but fully clothed, in the manner of the period. (See Plates VI (1) and XI (2))

The LAMB is the symbol of the Saviour Himself adopted in the earliest times, from St. John the Baptist's words, "Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sins of the world" (John 1:29). On Plate XIX an old drawing represents Christ Himself, the Lamb of God, with a nimbus around His head, standing upon an elevation from which run the four rivers which rise in Paradise, a symbol of the four Evangelists. St. John the Baptist

is very frequently accompanied by a white lamb holding a banner inscribed "Ecce Agnus Dei" (Behold the Lamb of God). The Apocalytic Lamb, seen in pictures of Paradise and the Last Judgment, is portrayed as described in Revelation v:6. "Lo, in the midst of the throne and of the four beasts (the Evangelists) and in the midst of the elders, stood a Lamb, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent forth into all the earth." The lamb also symbolises meekness, and innocence, and purity, and as such is always seen with St. Agnes, whose name is a "pun" on the Latin word for "lamb” (agnus). (Plate VI.)

A LAMP is symbolic of piety and good example: "Let your light so shine before men," and also of wisdom and inspiration. In the former sense, it is given to St. Bridget of Ireland, before whose tomb at Kildare, a lamp was kept burning for many centuries. St. Gudula and St. Genevieve are also depicted with a lantern or taper as an attribute, referring to the miraculous relighting, by the power of prayer, of their lanterns extinguished by the evil spirit, a mystic significance, it is hardly necessary to state. St. Lucia, who tore out her own eyes so that they might not tempt a pagan youth who complained that their beauty obsessed him, is often depicted with a lamp symbolising the light of the spirit, though she dwelt in self-inflicted darkness.

The LILY is another emblem of purity and chastity. As such the Archangel Gabriel, the Angel of the Annunciation, always holds it, and frequently also does the Madonna with Her Child. "I am the Rose of Sharon and the Lily of the Valley." (Song of Solomon, 11:1.) Joseph, the husband of the Virgin Mary, is also depicted with lilies, his rod, according to the legend, having put them forth. A lily is also given to St. Dominick, St. Francis of Assisi, St. Catherine of Siena, and other Saints renowned for their surpassing purity. As stated before, the crucifix of St. Nicholas of Tolentino is shown entwined with lilies. St. Euphemia, the Greek Virgin martyr, holds a lily while a Lion crouches at her feet or is biting her hand, as in a picture by Mantegna. The lily, as one of the emblems of the Madonna, patroness of Florence, was adopted by that city for its device in the form of the "Fleur de Lys."

A lily intermingled with thorns refers to the second verse of Chapter II of the Canticles: "As the lily among thorns, so is my love among the daughters."

The LION is the symbol of fortitude and also of solitude in the desert. In the latter significance it is given to St. Jerome, though its character in this case is more of an attribute than a symbol. The Saviour is on rare occasions represented as the "Lion of Judah," wearing a cruciferous nimbus. The King of Beasts is also used as the symbol of the Resurrection in respect of the oriental legend that the lion-cub is born dead and is licked by its sire for three days, when it comes to life. It also symbolises the life work

of certain saints such as St. Magnus and St. Germain of Auxerre, who by their preaching and example turned lawless lands into law-abiding, Christian, countries. The Lion as the symbol of St. Mark the Evangelist is the King of Beasts and so symbolises the royal dignity of the "King of Men," which is the keynote of the Gospel according to St. Mark.

A MANDORLA is an almond-shaped "glory,” that is to say, an oval pointed at both ends, sometimes composed of simple lines or a halo of light, at others, of seraphs. It is used about the figures of the Divine Trinity in, or ascending to, Heaven. (See NIMBUS and Plates V and XI.)

NAKED INFANTS. See INFANT, NAKED.

The NIMBUS, that circular halo or ring which surrounds the head of all divine personages and saints, is the outstanding symbol par excellence by which such holy figures can be distinguished from donors, or other ordinary human beings, so frequently introduced into their pictures by painters of the Cinquecento and later. Like the Palm (q. v.) the Nimbus was a pagan emblem of great antiquity, a luminous nebula derived from the divine essence, and so came to symbolise power. It is even mentioned as far back as Homer (940-850 B. C.) in the Iliad (Book xvIII, lines 255 et seq., not Book xxIII, line 205, as stated by Mrs. Jameson) referring to the hero, Achilles:

The great goddess (Pallas) caused

A golden cloud to gather round bis bead
And kindled in the cloud a dazzling flame.
(William Cullen Bryant's translation.)

I have also found a nimbus of tiny beads on ancient coins, e. g., a coin of Athena with the Phidian helmet (c. 4th century B. C.), while on another of Rhodes, bearing the head of the Colossus-one of the seven wonders of the ancient world-which represented the Sun God, there is a nimbus of ten rays. It is also used in India encircling the heads of three kings: Kanishka, Havishka and Vasudeya (58 B. C. to 41 A. D.), and on Roman monuments, traceable back to Egypt, e. g., the head of the Emperor Trajan on the Arch of Constantine.

It is, however, more than likely that the Christian use of the nimbus was evolved from the Hvareno, an aureole of fire, which surrounded the head of the Persian monarchs, and indicated that they had found favor in the sight of Ormazd, the Persian god of the sky. The belief of the populace in this respect gave rise to the doctrine that the Sun was the bestower of the Hvareno. Now Mithras, one of the chief Persian gods of light, was worshipped as the agent of the destruction of evil and the administrator of the world, and thus, in the moral realm, he became the god of truth and loyalty. But what is more important still, he was the god of victory. Therefore the cult of Mithras acquired an immense importance in Rome, where it was imported during the first century B. C., through the Cilician pirates taken by

Pompey. For about 200 years it lay dormant, but towards the close of the 2nd century A. D., Mithraism had gained great favor, and Rome indeed became its headquarters.

Mithraism was thereafter the religion of all the emperors, until Constantine took sides against it in favor of Christianity. But Julian the Apostate (361–363 A. D.) and the usurper Eugenius restored Mithraism to favor, though only for a short time, and under the emperor Theodosius (c. 395 A. D.), who for slaughtering 7,000 inhabitants of Thessalonica, was forbidden by St. Ambrose, Bishop of Milan, to enter the Cathedral, until he had done penance publicly as ordered, Mithraism died out for ever. (See Page 81.)

It is easy to see how this cult - the most dangerous antagonist with which the young Christianity had to contend and which was the propelling force behind all the most atrocious massacres of the Christians, from those under Nero (54-68 A. D.) until the last and most appalling ordered by Diocletian (284-304 A. D.), when the Christians sought refuge in, and decorated with disguised Christian pictures, the Roman Catacombs (see Plate I)—came to be used as a "blind" by those same Christians who, as mentioned previously, hid Jesus Christ and their worship of Him under the form of Orpheus. And so it came about that to this Persian idolatrous cult we owe the nimbus, Christianity's most distinctive emblem, after the Cross.

As a Christian symbol the Nimbus came into use in the 5th century and its development from that time till its virtual disappearance in the 16th century is of great interest to lovers of early Italian paintings and those of the northern Catholic countries. At first it was represented as a circular gold plate, more or less ornamented with interior circles, rays and stars in relief, behind the head of the saint to whom it belonged. When that saint was looking out of the picture towards the spectator or even was shown in profile, the effect was passable, but when, as in several of Fra Angelico's pictures, particularly in his "Coronation of the Virgin," saints and angels look up at the Divine group with their back to the spectators, the effect of them staring straight into a solid gold disc is, to say the least, curious. Such discs are universal in all pictures up to the end of the 14th century. Masolino (1403-1440) still used the disc. but made a move towards showing it in perspective, though the change was hardly perceptible. But his great disciple, Masaccio, provided his personages with a flat gold plate in perspective hovering as it were over the head, not framing it as hitherto. Then the material itself became lighter, and, with Fra Lippo Lippi, we find it a gold ring with a delicatelyembroidered lace pattern in gold or with wavy rays from the centre to the rim stretched over it. This form developed into the simple circular fillet of gold of the Cinquecento, and finally the nimbus disappeared altogether. Some painters, such as Cor

reggio, simply indicated a nimbus by a halo of light around the head of the saintly personage, thereby returning to the Homeric origin of the emblem, while others, notably of Leonardo's Milanese school, gave their subjects haloes of rays projecting beyond the contour of the head. Velasquez in the 17th century, in his very rare religious subjects, faintly indicated a few sparse rays of light.

In most of the earlier figures of Christ, either as a "Bambino" (child) or as a man, He bore a cruciferous (cross-bearing) nimbus, that is, either with a cross painted, generally in red, on the gold plate-nimbus, or forming part of the dainty pattern of the later "lace" nimbus. When even the fillet was disappearing rapidly, the Christ head was often adorned, particularly by such men as Bernardino Luini and others of Leonardo's Milanese school, with a cruciform nimbus, composed of a cross of bunched rays of which the upper three branches alone are seen. In the rare examples of a depicted saint, living at the time of his being incorporated into a picture, his nimbus is square. St. Francis of Assisi (1182-1226) is sometimes portrayed thus. A hexagonal nimbus indicates not a saint but an allegorical personage, e. g., Charity or Fortitude or Faith. (See Plate I.)

A nimbus is often called an aureole, but that is erroneous, for the latter properly means a large circular light surrounding the entire figure. It is only bestowed upon personages of the Godhead and the Virgin Mary, though the latter application is rare unless She is accompanied by the Saviour as in a Coronation, or, when alone, in an "Assumption" or an "Immaculate Conception." This aureole is frequently termed a "Glory." An almond-shaped Glory, i. e., an oval pointed at both ends, is called in Italy a Mandorla, and is again used only for the members of Godhead and the Virgin as above. (See Plate V.)

ORB. See GLOBE.

The OLIVE is symbolic of peace, hope, and abundance, and as such is often employed in pictures of the Madonna and Child. The Archangel Gabriel in Annunciations is frequently crowned with an olive wreath. (See page 52.)

The Ox is the symbol of sacrifice, and is always given to St. Luke, whose gospel stresses the Priestbood of Christ. It is always seen with the Ass, in pictures of the Nativity, with a bearing upon the prophecies of Habakkuk 111:4. “He shall lie down with the Ox and the Ass." These two beasts were never absent in pictures of the Nativity from the 6th to the 16th century. They have always been considered as symbolic, the Ox of the Jews, the Ass of the Gentiles.

The PALM, like the Crown, is the universal symbol of martyrdom, and like the nimbus comes down from classical times, far antedating the Christian era, when it was an emblem of triumph and victory. Its symbolism in the Church is therefore easy to under

stand: victory over suffering, triumph over pagan cruelty. The early Christians found their justification for the adoption of so distinctive a pagan emblem in Revelation vII:9, "A great multitude. stood before the throne, and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes and palms in their hands."

...

The PEACOCK is still another pagan emblem, of which the application to the Christian religion is more remote than either the palm or the nimbus. It was the bird of Juno, the divine wife of Jupiter, and in pagan literature signified the apotheosis of an Empress. Thus it came to mean in Christian art the immortalization after death of the mortal soul. It is an early symbol and died out of general use in the 5th century. It is interesting to note that the peacock is even today the emblem of the Empress of China-the title still exists though the Emperor has no longer any empire to rule. It is only in quite recent times that this handsome bird has come to signify earthly pride.

A PEAR Symbolises, like the Apple and the Pomegranate, the fruits of the spirit: love, joy, and peace. The PELICAN is the emblem of self-sacrifice in suffering, from the ancient belief that the female bird tears open her breast to feed her young upon her own blood. It is thus used to symbolise the redemption of mankind through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. It is often found with the Lamb, the latter lying at the foot of the Cross symbolising the Redeemer without blemish, and the Pelican at the top. The Pelican is thus shown at the summit of the curious symbolic tree-like cross of the Giotto altarpiece in the Refectory of Santa Croce in Florence, and in a still more extraordinary Pietà with a symbolic cross in the background, surrounded by all the attributes of the Passion, by Lorenzo Monaco, in the Uffizi Gallery. This remarkable work is reproduced on Plate III.

The POMEGRANATE (see PEAR) burst open with its seeds exposed is emblematic of the Hope of Immortality, of an Eternal Future. It often figures in pictures of the Madonna and Child, the fruit being then in the hands of the Child, who is frequently depicted giving it to His Mother.

The SERPENT is the emblem of Sin. It is often placed beneath the feet of the Virgin Mary, with obvious meaning. In an old enamel by Godefroid de Claire in the Brussels Museum the serpent on the top of a column is the Brazen Serpent, with Moses on one side, holding the Tables of the Law, and Aaron, with his rod, on the other. (Plate VII.) The Serpent, issuing from a chalice in representations of St. John the Evangelist, is rather an attribute than a symbol, for it refers to legends of futile attempts to poison him.

The SHELL is the symbol of pilgrimage.

The SKULL Symbolises penance, and is generally present in pictures of hermit saints. It is almost always given to the penitent Magdalene.

The SHIP is symbolic of the church. In earliest days it used to represent the ark floating on the

water, an obvious symbol of the security of the Christian faith, but later any ship came to have this meaning.

The SQUARE used to be symbolic of earth in very early works, while the circle represented Heaven.

The SWORD is both a symbol and an attribute. In its former meaning, it is given to many saints who did not die by the sword. But as a rule it is as the attribute of martyrdom that it appears. Warrior saints, of course, bear a sword as part of their equip

ment.

STAG. See HART.

The STAR, given to St. Dominick and St. Nicholas of Tolentino, is an emblem of the divine attestation of particular sanctity. It is seen sometimes on the head, sometimes on the shoulder or breast. A Sun with rays, on St. Thomas Aquinas' breast, must not be mistaken for a Star.

The UNICORN is the symbol of female chastity, and so is given to the Virgin, though only very rarely, and to St. Justina of Antioch, e.g., the picture of St. Justina and Alphonso of Este-Ferrara, in the Vienna Belvedere. A curious allegorical picture of the school of Botticelli in the Turin Gallery presents a chariot, bearing a throne with a female figure upon it, and a bound figure of Love in front of her, the chariot being drawn by two unicorns, led by a maiden holding aloft a banner bearing the Lamb, emblem of purity. The picture is named "The Triumph of Chastity." Another of the same subject, and forming one of a pair, the Triumph of Chastity, and the Triumph of Love, by Jacopo del Sellaio, are in the Church of S. Ansano at Fiesole.

The Ear of WHEAT or CORN is symbolic of the Bread of the Eucharist, and so is frequently seen in the hand of the Child-Christ in pictures of the Madonna and Child.

ST. JUSTINA OF ANTIOCH WITH HER SYMBOLIC UNICORN, WITH ALPHONSO D'Este, the THIRD HUSBAND OF LUCREZIA BORGIA (Picture by Moretto da Brescia, in the Belvedere in Vienna.)

The TRIANGLE was symbolic of the Holy Trinity in those very early days of the Faith when it was necessary to conceal as far as possible the worship of Christ and abandonment of that of the pagan deities. It is also used as a nimbus for the Almighty (see Plate VII).

The TETRAMORPH (see Plate VII) was a symbol of the four evangelists, bearing the heads of the "four beasts" of the Apocalypse, surrounding by wings covered with eyes, and with the feet of the cherub or angel of St. Matthew resting upon two winged wheels.

THE SYMBOLISM OF COLORS

WHITE Symbolises Purity, Innocence, Chastity, Faith, Light, Felicity and Integrity. It is worn by Jesus Christ after the Resurrection, and by His Mother in the Immaculate Conception and the "Assumption." The Dominicans wear a white frock covered with a black cloak, in reference to a legend that these hues were dictated by the Blessed Virgin herself in a vision of a monk of Orleans. The white, representing the purity of life of the Dominican brethren, was to be covered with the black of mortification and penance. The Diamond is the precious stone symbolic of the "white idea."

RED is emblematic of loyalty and, also of course, of royalty; fire, divine love, the creative power, heat (generative power) and the Holy Spirit. Red and white roses are worn as a wreath by St. Cecilia, symbolic here of love and wisdom. St. Elizabeth of Hungary has the same combination of colored roses, for several of the above reasons. In an adverse sense, red denotes blood, war, and hatred. ("Seeing red.") RED AND BLACK are the colors of Satan, Purgatory, and evil spirits. The Ruby is the precious stone.

BLUE of the Sapphire is symbolic of Heaven, divine love, truth, constancy and fidelity.

RED AND BLUE are the vestment colors of the Madonna, the tunic being red and the mantle over it blue. In Fra Angelico's pictures, these colors are in the most delicate of what, today, we call pastel shades. But there are numerous exceptions to this law. (See end of Chapter V.)

GREEN, the color of Spring, denotes Hope and Victory (see Chapter V). The Emerald is technically the corresponding stone, but in general practice the green has more of an olive tone.

YELLOW or Gold represents the Sun's glory, the bounty of Almighty God, marriage and fertility. St. Joseph and St. Peter are usually depicted in