circle
or glory, robed in white, with the youthful and beardless face, his
eyes looking into yours. He sits on the rainbow; his left hand holds
an open book, inscribed, "Come, ye blessed of my Father!" while
the right is raised in benediction. The Virgin stands on the right
entirely _within_ the glory; "she is sweet in feature and graceful
in attitude, in her long white robe." The Baptist stands on the left
_outside_ the glory.

In pictures representing the glory of heaven, Paradise, or the Last
Judgment, we have this idea constantly repeated--of the Virgin on the
right hand of her Son, but not on the same throne with him, unless it
be a "Coronation," which is a subject apart.

In the great altar-piece of the brothers Van Eyck, the upper part
contains three compartments;[1] in the centre is Christ, wearing the
triple tiara, and carrying the globe, as King, as Priest, as Judge--on
each side, as usual, but in separate compartments, the Virgin and St.
John the Baptist. The Virgin, a noble queenly figure, full of serene
dignity and grace, is seated on a throne, and wears a superb crown,
formed of lilies, roses, and gems, over her long fair hair. She
is reading intently in a book--The Book of Wisdom. She is here the
_Sponsa Dei_, and the _Virgo Sapientissima_, the most wise Virgin.
This is the only example I can recollect of the Virgin seated on the
right hand of her Son in glory, and _holding a book_. In every other
instance she is standing or seated with her hands joined or crossed
over her bosom, and her eyes turned towards him.

[Footnote 1: It is well known that the different parts of this great
work have been dispersed. The three compartments mentioned here are at
Berlin.]

Among innumerable examples, I will cite only one, perhaps the most
celebrated of all, and familiar, it may be presumed, to most of my
readers, though perhaps they may not have regarded it with reference
to the character and position given to the Virgin. It is one of the
four great frescoes of the Camera della Segnatura, in the Vatican,
exhibiting the four highest objects of mental culture--Theology,
Poetry, Philosophy, and Jurisprudence. In the first of these,
commonly, but erroneously, called _La Disputa dell' Sacramento_,
Raphael has combined into one great scene the whole system of
theology, as set forth by the Catholic Church; it is a sort of
concordance between heaven and earth--between the celestial and
terrestrial witnesses of the truth