In the last scenes of all of the divine tragedy there is no symbol but the Crown of Thorns, and to the Resurrection no flower is specially dedicated. But in the Thomas Altar,[244] by the Master of the Bartholomew Altar, the newly-risen Christ is shown, and round His feet, upon the marble step, are lying blossoms of violets and daisies and seven heads of the holy columbine. The passion flower does not appear in art before the seventeenth century. It was unknown in Europe before the Spanish conquest of South America, and it is said that when the Jesuits brought home reports of the miraculous flower bearing the insignia of the Passion, which grew from tree to tree in the forests of the new land, their tale was first received as a pious invention. But the plant itself at length arrived, and early in the eighteenth century Francesco Trevisani painted a delightful little picture[245] less noticed than it deserves to be. The Virgin, who is very sweet and gentle, both in pose and expression, sits sewing beside a table on which is a vase of roses and lilies. The little Christ, who has apparently just run in from the garden, points out to His Mother, with a most childlike gesture, the little thorny crown upon the passion flower which He holds in His hand. The picture, which is not unlike the work of Andrea del Sarto in miniature, is wonderfully attractive. XVII THE FLOWERS OF THE VIRGIN There were many flowers used by the early writers as similes of the Virgin. ‘Thou art the myrtle and the blooming rose of Paradise, Thou art the fairness of heaven, and The feast-day of our hearts,’ wrote Saint Petrus Damiani in the eleventh century. In Saint Bernard we read: ‘Mary is the violet of humility, the lily of chastity and the rose of charity.’ Conrad von Würtzburg compares her to the balsam of purest perfume, the fairest among flowers, the cedar of Lebanon, the cypress of Zion, fennel and mint, the white lily, the early flowering almond, the healing mandrake, the musk-flower, the evergreen myrtle, the low nard, the thornless rose in the dew of heaven, the noble frankincense and the hidden violet, and further addresses her as ‘A living Paradise Of grandly coloured flowers.’[246]