There is a picture by Filippino Lippi, which appears to me eminently beautiful and poetical. Here the mystical garden is formed of a balustrade, beyond which is seen a hedge all in a blush with roses. The Virgin kneels in the midst, and adores her Infant, who has his finger on his lip (_Verbum sum!_); an angel scatters rose-leaves over him, while the little St. John also kneels, and four angels, in attitudes of adoration, complete the group. But a more perfect example is the Madonna by Francia in the Munich Gallery, where the divine Infant lies on the flowery turf; and the mother, standing before him and looking down on him, seems on the point of sinking on her knees in a transport of tenderness and devotion. This, to my feeling, is one of the most perfect pictures in the world; it leaves nothing to be desired. With all the simplicity of the treatment it is strictly devotional. The Mother and her Child are placed within the mystical garden enclosed in a treillage of roses, alone with each other, and apart from all earthly associations, all earthly communion. The beautiful altar-piece by Perugino in our National Gallery is properly a Madre Pia; the child seated on a cushion is sustained by an angel, the mother kneels before him. The famous Correggio in the Florentine Gallery is also a Madre Pia. It is very tender, sweet, and maternal. The Child lying on part of his mother's blue mantle, so arranged that while she kneels and bends over him, she cannot change her attitude without disturbing him, is a _concetto_ admired by critics in sentiment and Art; but it appears to me very inferior and commonplace in comparison to the Francia at Munich. In a group by Botticelli, angels sustain the Infant, while the mother, seated, with folded hands, adores him: and in a favourite composition by Guido he sleeps. And, lastly, we have the Mater Amabilis in a more complex, and picturesque, though still devotional, form. The Virgin, seen at full length, reclines on a verdant bank, or is seated under a tree. She is not alone with her Child. Holy personages, admitted to a communion with her, attend around her, rather sympathizing than adoring. The love of varied nature, the love of life under all its aspects, became mingled with the religious conception. Instead of carefully avoiding whatever may remind us of her earthly relationship, the members of her family always form a part of her _cortège_. This pastoral and dramatic treatment began with the Venetian and Paduan schools, and extended to the early German schools, which were allied to them in feeling, though contrasted with them in form and execution.