But in Italy itself the vase of lilies, though popular, was never considered essential. No vase decorates the loggias where sit the Virgins of Giotto,[196] Botticelli,[197] Melozzo da Forlì,[198] or Leonardo da Vinci,[199] though Giotto introduces it with identical symbolism in the Visitation. Indeed many of the most typical painters of both the early and the high Renaissance, Taddeo di Bartolo,[200] Spinello Aretino,[201] Fra Angelico,[202] Lorenzo di Credi[203] and Raphael,[204] banish lilies entirely, both from the vase and from the angel’s hand. Ghirlandaio places a vase beside the Virgin’s reading-desk, but alters its significance by filling it with roses, daisies and jasmine, the flowers of love, innocence and divine hope.[205] On the other hand, some of the Florentine artists who had a special fondness for the flower, notably Fra Filippo Lippi,[206] and the Della Robbias,[207] use both, so doubling the symbolism; but it was more correct, where there was a vase of lilies, to show the angel with folded hands or with a branch of olive, or, as in the beautiful Annunciation of Jan van Eyck at St Petersburg, holding the herald’s wand. In Jan van Eyck’s Annunciation at Berlin, where Gabriel carries a magnificent bunch of lilies, there is no vase. According to Northern tradition the true Annunciation lily should have no stamens, but this was a refinement of symbolism largely ignored by artists, who were discouraged probably by the insipid appearance of the flower when deprived of its gold-dusted centre. In Italy it was entirely neglected, but some painters of the sixteenth century have placed a tiny flame in the centre of each lily-cup; a burning flame, according to Vasari,[208] signifying eternal love. There seems to have been sometimes a doubt in the minds of the Northern artists as to which was really the Madonna’s flower, the _lilium candidum_ or the iris, which so closely resembled in form the golden lilies on the royal shields of France and England. Memling, who had painted the fleur-de-lys heraldically for the Duke of Burgundy,[209] seemed unable to decide, and in the vase of the Annunciation,[210] as well as in the vase which stands beside the enthroned Madonna,[211] he has placed an iris among the white lilies. Or possibly, with a deeper symbolism, taking the iris as the fleur-de-lys, the ancient symbol of royalty, which, with its three united petals, recalls also the nature of the Holy Trinity, he has striven to interpret florally the message of the angel, that God incarnate would spring from a lily-like virginity. It may not be without design that the iris in the Annunciation is overshadowed by the lilies, while in the picture where the Holy Child sits upon His Mother’s lap, the iris in the vase (in this case marked with the sacred monogram) has sprung upwards beyond the white lilies. [Illustration: _Pinturicchio_ _Photo Alinari_ THE ROSE OF DIVINE LOVE RISING FROM A PRECIOUS VESSEL