The four Latin Doctors are St. Jerome, St. Ambrose, St. Augustine, and St. Gregory. When represented together, they are generally distinguished from each other, and from the sacred personages who may be grouped in the same picture, by their conventional attributes. Thus St. Jerome is sometimes habited in the red hat and crimson robes of a cardinal, with a church in his hand; or he is a half-naked, bald-headed, long-bearded, emaciated old man, with eager wasted features, holding a book and pen, and attended by a lion. St. Ambrose wears the episcopal robes as bishop of Milan, with mitre and crosier, and holds his book; sometimes, also, he carries a knotted scourge, and a bee-hive is near him. St. Augustine is also habited as a bishop, and carries a book; he has often books at his feet, and sometimes a flaming heart transpierced by an arrow. The origin and signification of these symbols I shall explain presently. [Illustration: _The Four Latin Fathers._] * * * * * In the most ancient churches the Four Doctors are placed after the Evangelists. In the later churches they are seen combined or grouped with the evangelists, occasionally also with the sibyls; but this seems a mistake. The appropriate place of the sibyls is neither with the evangelists nor the fathers, but among the prophets, where Michael Angelo has placed them. * * * * * Where the principal subject is the glory of Christ, or the coronation or assumption of the Virgin, the Four Fathers attend with their books as witnesses and interpreters. 1. A conspicuous instance of this treatment is the dome of San Giovanni at Parma. In the centre is the ascension of Christ, around are the twelve apostles gazing upwards; below them, in the spandrils of the arches, as if bearing record, are the Four Evangelists, each with a Doctor of the Church seated by him as interpreter: St. Matthew is attended by St. Jerome; St. Mark, by St. Gregory; St. Luke, by St. Augustine; and St. John, by St. Ambrose. 2. A picture in the Louvre by Pier-Francesco Sacchi (A.D. 1640) represents the Four Doctors, attended, or rather inspired, by the mystic symbols of the Four Evangelists. They are seated at a table, under a canopy sustained by slender pillars, and appear in deep consultation: near St. Augustine is the eagle; St. Gregory has the ox; St. Jerome, the angel; and St. Ambrose, the lion. 3. In a well-known woodcut after Titian, ‘The Triumph of Christ,’ the Redeemer is seated in a car drawn by the Four Evangelists; while the Four Latin Doctors, one at each wheel, put forth all their strength to urge it on. The patriarchs and prophets precede, the martyrs and confessors of the faith follow, in grand procession.