e Immaculate Conception, and in the Assumption,
her tunic should be plain white, or white spangled with golden stars.
In the subjects relating to the Passion, and after the Crucifixion,
the dress of the Virgin should be violet or gray. These proprieties,
however, are not always attended to.

In the early pictures which represent her as nursing the divine Infant
(the subject called the _Vergine Lattante_), the utmost care is taken
to veil the bust as much as possible. In the Spanish school the most
vigilant censorship was exercised over all sacred pictures, and, with
regard to the figures of the Virgin, the utmost decorum was required.
"What," says Pacheco, "can be more foreign to the respect which we owe
to our Lady the Virgin, than to paint her sitting down with one of her
knees placed over the other, and often with her sacred feet uncovered
and naked? Let thanks be given to the Holy Inquisition, which commands
that this liberty should be corrected." For this reason, perhaps, we
seldom see the feet of the Virgin in Spanish pictures.[1] Carducho
speaks more particularly on the impropriety of painting the Virgin
unshod, "since it is manifest that, our Lady was in the habit of
wearing shoes, as is proved by the much venerated relic of one of them
from her divine feet at Burgos."

[Footnote 1: Or in any of the old pictures till the seventeenth
century "Tandis que Dieu est toujours montre pieds nus, lui qui est
descendu a terre et a pris notre humanite, Marie au contraire est
constamment representee les pieds perdus dans les plis trainants,
nombreux et legers de sa robe virginale; elle, qui est elevee au
dessus de la terre et rapprochee de Dieu par sa purete. Dieu montre
par ses pieds nus qu'il a pris le corps de l'homme; Marie fait
comprendre en les cachant qu'elle participe de la spiritualite de
Dieu."]

The Child in her arms is always, in the Greek and early pictures,
clothed in a little tunic, generally white. In the fifteenth century
he first appears partly, and then wholly, undraped. Joseph, as the
earthly _sposo_, wears the saffron-coloured mantle over a gray tunic.
In the later schools of art these significant colours are often
varied, and sometimes wholly dispensed with.

III. DEVOTIONAL AND HISTORICAL REPRESENTATIONS.

In this volume, as in the former ones, I have adhered to the
distinction between the devotional and the historical representations.

I class as devotional, all those which express a d