One of the most beautiful things in the beautiful city of Lucca is the little chapel of Santa Maria della Rosa. It was originally dedicated to Saint Paul and fell into disuse, but in the very earliest years of the fourteenth century a fresco was discovered beneath the creepers which covered the walls. The fresco was even then considered to be extremely ancient, and represented the Virgin with the Child and holding three roses in her hand. In 1309 the Bishop of Lucca conceded to the _Università de’ Mercanti_ the power to erect on the spot a church dedicated to the Virgin of the Rose and the Apostles Peter and Paul, and the present exquisite little building was commenced. The outside is ornamented with lovely arabesques of roses in low relief executed in 1333, and upon one angle is a statue of the Virgin with a rose in her hand, possibly by Giovanni Pisano. In the sacristry are the arms of the confraternity figuring Mary surrounded by an oval nimbus and supported by two bushes, which carry thirteen roses, and form a crown from which rise patriarchs and prophets. The original fresco has disappeared. Very rarely the Virgin holds a violet. The flower is used in Christian art almost exclusively to indicate the humility of the Son of God in taking upon Himself our human form, and in the beautiful altar-piece by Stephen Lochnar[263] the Saviour stretches up His tiny hand to grasp the violet held by Mary, so making it His individual attribute. The panel is rich in colouring, but Mary is of the simple, placid type of the early German school. She is gravely, deeply happy in her motherhood, and not saddened, as in Italy, by painful forebodings. The Child reaches up His hand with a pretty gesture, accepting from her, who had given Him His tender little body, also the violet, symbol of His humility. In a picture by Bruder Wilhelm[264] the Virgin holds a sweet-pea, bearing both the flower and ripened pods. The symbolism of the pea is obscure and is not to be traced in Christian iconography, though there is the legend of the _erbilia_, a species of pea which, springing first from the footsteps of Saint Columban, still grows upon the Tuscan mountains. Possibly the symbolism may lie in the simultaneous flowering and fruiting of the pea, for the palm was held by some writers to be an emblem of the Virgin, and for the reason that ‘it flowered and fruited at one and the same time.’[265] There are three subjects, all connected with the Virgin’s death, where lilies are once more found. They are her Ascension, the Giving of her Girdle to Saint Thomas, and her Coronation. In each of these the flower-filled tomb, from which she has just arisen, is introduced, usually as the base of the composition.