The painters of the Italian Renaissance, in spite of diligent classical study, were probably quite unconscious of this survival of paganism in their work. But the ancient traditions of the soil did crop up from time to time, in the same way that traces of the Norse conception of Heaven as a magnificent big-game hunt appear occasionally beneath the symbolism of Christian mediæval art in Germany. North of the Alps, where the pre-Christian sacrifices had usually run with blood, there was no inherited love of floral offerings, and we seldom find these votive vases or wreaths. The Madonna attributed to Mabuse in the Prado has a large vase of roses placed directly below her, but as a rule in Northern art the flowers are introduced strictly as symbols to recall some aspect or function of the Virgin or of her Divine Son. In an ‘Adoration’ the surrounding angels bring their roses and their lilies in tribute to the sinless Child. As Saint Mectilda says: ‘The lily figures His innocence and the rose His invincible patience.’[256] Where the Virgin is seated enthroned, surrounded by saints and angels, even though the Holy Child is upon her knee, all symbols except that which the Child holds in His hand refer again to her. It is rare, however, that, when holding the Child, she carries her own attribute herself. Usually the symbols, flowers or fruit, are held by angels or laid beside her throne, but in the large ‘Enthroned Madonna’ of Signorelli,[257] a painter who showed some originality in his use of symbols, Mary encircles the Child with her right arm and in her left hand holds a handsome stalk of lilies. That the flower refers to the wonder of her own purity in conjunction with her motherhood, and not to the Child’s sinlessness, is proved by the words on the scroll of the Prophet Isaiah, who stands below gazing up at her with rapture: ‘Behold a Virgin shall conceive and bear a Son.’ Vasari says of this work:[258] ‘In his old age he painted a picture for the brotherhood of San Girolamo in Arezzo, partly at the cost of Messer Niccolò Gamurrini, doctor of laws, and auditor of the Ruota, whose portrait, taken from life, is in the picture; he is kneeling before the Madonna, to whose protection he is recommended by Saint Nicholas. In the same work are figures of Saint Donatus and Saint Stephen, with that of Saint Jerome, undraped, beneath; there is likewise a figure of David singing to a psaltery with two prophets who are seen, by the written scrolls which they hold in their hands, to be engaged in a conference on the conception of the Virgin.’ In another altar-piece by Signorelli[259] it is the Infant Christ who carries the lily, the symbol of His own sinlessness. In this picture all the symbolism refers to the Holy Child, not to the Virgin, which is unusual in an ‘Enthroned Madonna.’ But the scroll upon the cross of the Baptist, with the words ‘_Ecce Agnus Dei_,’ directs the devotion of the worshipper to the Son.