Few perhaps of Andrea’s larger works are as generally and deservedly popular. The mild Virgin, in blue hood and mantle, sitting under her leafy bower hung with fruit and coral and gay with twittering birds, is familiar to all visitors to the Louvre. Both mother and child stretch out their hands in blessing towards the kneeling Marquis, whose life-like portrait excited the universal admiration of contemporaries. Opposite him, the venerable form of St. Elizabeth is seen kneeling at the side of the young St. John, who stands on the carved pedestal of the Virgin’s throne, and in the background are the patron saints of Mantua, Andrew and Longinus. More beautiful than either of these are the two warrior saints, Michael and George, who stand in full armour on either side, holding the hem of the Virgin’s mantle, and who, with their noble features, manly forms, and flowing masses of fair locks, are perfect types of Christian chivalry—in other words, of that union of strength and tenderness which is held to constitute the heroic character. The “Virgin” of the National Gallery, long in the possession of different Milanese families, bears a close resemblance, both in style and execution, to the “Madonna della Vittoria,” and was probably painted about the same time. Here the Virgin is seated under a red baldacchino between St. Mary Magdalen and the Baptist, who stand erect against a background of dark green orange-trees and silver-clouded sky. The face of the Magdalen is lighted with the glad enthusiasm of her love, and in the foliage we notice the same careful finish as in the bowers of the “Parnassus” and in the leaf-painting of all Mantegna’s works. To the same period and class of picture belongs the “Glorified Madonna” which Andrea painted for the monks of Santa Maria in Organo of Verona, now in the Casa Trivulzi at Milan. Here the Madonna is enthroned on the clouds, with four life-sized saints; a landscape of tall lemon-trees is behind her. A troop of singing boy-angels hover in the air, after the fashion of the Camera degli Sposi frescoes, and one bears a scroll with the inscription:— “A Mantinia p. an. gracie 1497, 15 Augusti.” [Illustration: VIRGIN AND CHILD, WITH ST. JOHN AND THE MAGDALEN. BY MANTEGNA. _In the National Gallery, London._]