r lutes, but the attributes of the Cardinal Virtues, as in an
altar-piece by Taddeo Gaddi at Florence. (Santa Croce, Rinuccini
Chapel.)

The patriarchs, prophets, and sibyls, all the personages, in fact, who
lived under the old law, when forming, in a picture or altar-piece,
part, of the _cortege_ of the throned Virgin, as types, or prophets,
or harbingers of the Incarnation, are on the _outside_ of that sacred
compartment wherein she is seated with her Child. This was the case
with _all_ the human personages down to the end of the thirteenth
century; and after that time, I find the characters of the Old
Testament still excluded from the groups immediately round her throne.
Their place was elsewhere allotted, at a more respectful distance. The
only exceptions I can remember, are King David and the patriarch
Job; and these only in late pictures, where David does not appear as
prophet, but as the ancestor of the Redeemer; and Job, only at Venice,
where he is a patron saint.

The four evangelists and the twelve apostles are, in their collective
character in relation to the Virgin, treated like the prophets,
and placed around the altar-piece. Where we find one or more of the
evangelists introduced into the group of attendant "Sanctities" on
each side of her throne, it is not in their character of evangelists,
but rather as patron saints. Thus St. Mark appears constantly in the
Venetian pictures; but it is as the patron and protector of Venice.
St. John the Evangelist, a favourite attendant on the Virgin, is near
her in virtue of his peculiar relation to her and to Christ; and he is
also a popular patron saint. St. Luke and St. Matthew, unless they be
patrons of the particular locality, or of the votary who presents
the picture, never appear. It is the same with the apostles in their
collective character as such; we find them constantly, as statues,
ranged on each side of the Virgin, or as separate figures. Thus they
stand over the screen of St. Mark's, at Venice, and also on the carved
frames of the altar-pieces; but either from their number, or some
other cause, they are seldom grouped round the enthroned Virgin.

* * * * *

It is ST. JOHN THE BAPTIST who, next to the angels, seems to have
been the first admitted to a propinquity with the divine persons. In
Greek art, he is himself an angel, a messenger, and often represented
with wings. He was especially venerated in the Greek Church in