On a panel of the Tabernacle there is an Annunciation which was the most beautiful representation of the subject so far given to the world, and the kneeling angel with the sweeping wings carries in his left hand a heavy stalk of _lilium candidum_. It is interesting to trace the evolution of the straight smooth stick which the angel held in the earliest representations of the Annunciation into the natural branch of lilies carried by the typical Announcing Angel of Christian art. First we find upon the wand the three-pointed fleur-de-lys, which from the days of the Assyrians had ornamented the royal sceptre. The heavenly herald bore a wand ornamented with the royal symbol when he brought a message from the Lord of the Universe to the Maiden of the House of David, who was to be the Mother of His Son. Gradually the fleur-de-lys gained some likeness to the natural lily. The sceptre was made of ivory. It was white. Two leaves appeared wreathing the stick. Midway in the transformation are the lilies carried by the lovely choir of seated angels in a picture by Guariento.[223] Each angel holds in his left hand an orb and in the right a straight lily stem with leaves growing naturally up its whole length. At the top is a single flower, which, seen in profile, has the shape of the fleur-de-lys. Simone Martini indicates the blossom’s cup-like form. With Orcagna we find the fully-realized stem of lilies. One unidentified master of the fourteenth century[224] went even further in botanical fidelity, and paints the bulb and pendent rootlets, though, strangely enough, he at the same time keeps to the old convention and places a scroll in the hand of both Madonna and angel. Meanwhile, in 1344, Ambrogio di Lorenzetti had painted an Annunciation[225] in which the angel, crowned with olive, holds the palm branch with which the ancient Romans were accustomed to salute a conqueror. The symbol of the palm was used also by Spinello Aretino,[226] a pupil of Giotto, and was supported by Dante, who describes the angel Gabriel as: ‘He that bore the palm Down unto Mary, when the Son of God Vouchsafed to clothe Him in terrestrial weeds.’ But it did not come into general use in this connection, and chiefly for the reason that the palm became consecrated to representations of the last scenes of the Virgin’s life. The _Legenda Aurea_, when recounting how the angel Gabriel announced to the Virgin her approaching death, states: ‘He (Gabriel) gave her a branch of palm from Paradise, which he commanded should be borne before her bier.’