The mosaicist Cavallini,[30] Duccio di Buoninsegna,[31] Giotto,[32] Simone Martini,[33] and Orcagna[34] led the way, and the Christian artists of the world have followed. The earliest lilies flowered in Rome; but Siena, Umbria, Florence, Venice, and later the Netherlands and Germany, all soon had their votaries of the mystic flower. The French ivory workers of the fourteenth century, influenced doubtless by the tradition of the seal-cutters, frequently placed flowers in the hand of the Madonna. These little ivory statuettes are usually very sweet in type and often exquisite in workmanship. The Child is held on the left arm, and the right hand holds a large single lily cup, a pear-like fruit, or, more generally, a natural stalk of lilies with leaves and flowers. Always when placed beside the Virgin, or in her hand, the lily is the symbol of her purity, and a lily standing alone, as does the beautiful stem in _pietra-dura_ work, which decorates the little oratory of ‘Our Lady of the Annunciation’ in the Church of the Santissima Annunziata of Florence, is the emblem of the Madonna herself, the ‘Lilium inter Spinas.’ Modern Biblical commentators are agreed that the ‘lily of the valleys’ of the Song of Solomon is not the white lily of Europe but the scarlet anemone. The _lilium candidum_ appears never to have grown in Syria. In the late spring and early summer, however, the anemones grow thickly in every grassy patch around Jerusalem and throughout Palestine. That the flower mentioned is red seems indicated by the comparison between it and the lips of the ‘Beloved,’ and the anemone, which responds so readily to the sun, throwing back its scarlet petals and baring its heart to the warmth, might well stand for the passionate lover of the Canticles. But the fathers of the Church held the flower to be a _lilium_, and for the Church and for sacred art it was and remains the _lilium candidum_. [Illustration: _From French MS. of 14th Century_] IV THE IRIS The only rival to the _lilium candidum_ as the lily of the Virgin is the iris. Strictly speaking, it is not a lily at all, for the _Iridacea_ and the _Liliacea_ are distinct botanical orders. But in Germany it is known as the sword-lily, from its sword-shaped leaves; in France it has always been identified with the ‘fleur-de-lys’; in Spain it is a ‘lirio’--a lily--and Shakespeare writes: ‘... And lilies of all kinds The Flower-de-luce being one.’