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 montré pieds nus, lui qui est descendu à terre et a pris notre humanité, Marie au contraire est constamment représentée les pieds perdus dans les plis trainants, nombreux et légers de sa robe virginale; elle, qui est elevée au dessus de la terre et rapprochée de Dieu par sa pureté. 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 spiritualité 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 dogma merely; all the enthroned Madonnas, alone or surrounded by significant accessories or attendant saints; all the Mystical Coronations and Immaculate Conceptions; all the Holy Families with saints, and those completely ideal and votive groups, in which the appeal is made to the faith and piety of the observer. I shall give the characteristic details, in particular instances, further on.