Among the votive Madonnas of the mendicant orders, I will mention a few conspicuous for beauty and interest, which will serve as a key to others. 1. The Virgin and Child enthroned between Antony of Padua and St. Clara of Assisi, as in a small elegant picture by Pellegrino, must have been dedicated in a church of the Franciscans. (Sutherland Gal.) 2. The Virgin blesses St. Francis, who looks up adoring: behind him St. Antony of Padua; on the other side, John the Baptist as a man, and St. Catherine. A celebrated but not an agreeable picture, painted by Correggio for the Franciscan church at Parma. (Dresden Gal.) 3. The Virgin is seated in glory; on one side St. Francis, on the other St. Antony of Padua, both placed in heaven, and almost on an equality with the celestial personages. Around are seven female figures, representing the seven cardinal virtues, bearing their respective attributes. Below are seen the worthies of the Franciscan Order; to the right of the Virgin, St. Elizabeth of Hungary, St. Louis of France, St. Bonaventura; to the left, St. Ives of Bretagne, St. Eleazar, and St. Louis of Toulouse.[1] Painted for the Franciscans by Morone and Paolo Cavazzolo of Verona. This is a picture of wonderful beauty, and quite poetical in the sentiment and arrangement, and the mingling of the celestial, the allegorical, and the real personages, with a certain solemnity and gracefulness quite indescribable. The virtues, for instance, are not so much allegorical persons as spiritual appearances, and the whole of the ripper part of the picture is like a vision. [Footnote 1: For these Franciscan saints, v. Legends of the Monastic Orders.] 4. The Virgin, standing on the tree of Site, holds the Infant: rays of glory proceed from them on every side. St. Francis, kneeling at the foot of the tree, looks up in an ecstasy of devotion, while a snake with a wounded and bleeding head is crawling away. This strange picture, painted for the Franciscans, by Carducho, about 1625, is a representation of an abstract dogma (redemption from original sin), in the most real, most animated form--all over life, earthly breathing life--and made me start back: in the mingling of mysticism and materialism, it is quite Spanish.[1] [Footnote 1: Esterhazy Gal., Vienna. Mr. Stirling tells us that the Franciscan friars of Valladolid possessed two pictures of the Virgin by Mateo de Cerezo "in one of which she was represented sitting in a cherry-tree and adored by St. Francis. This unusual throne may perhaps have been introduced by Cerezo as a symbol of his own devout feelings, his patronymic being the Castilian word for cherry-tree."--_Stirling's Artists of Spain_, p. 1033. There are, however, many prints and pictures of the Virgin and Child seated in a tree. It was one of the fantastic conceptions of an unhealthy period of religion and art.]