It is goldsmith's work on a gigantic scale, this marble reliquary of the archangelic painter. "A miracle of loveliness," wrote Lord Lindsay, "and though clustered all over with pillars and pinnacles, inlaid with the richest marbles, lapis-lazuli, and mosaic work, it is chaste in its luxuriance as an Arctic iceberg--worthy of her who was spotless among women." The whole is crowned with a statue of St. Michael, and the miraculous picture is enclosed in an infinite wealth and profusion of statues and arabesques, angels and prophets, precious stones and lions' heads. Scenes in bas-relief from Our Lady's life alternate with prophets and allegorical representations of the virtues, some of these latter being single figures of great beauty and some psychological insight in the rendering--for instance, Docilitas, Solertia, Justitia, Fortitudo--while marble Angels cluster round their Queen's tabernacle in eager service and loving worship. At the back is the great scene beneath which, to right and left, the series begins and ends--the death of Madonna and her Assumption, or rather, Our Lady of the Girdle, the giving of that celestial gift to the Thomas who had doubted, the mystical treasure which Tuscan Prato still fondly believes that her Duomo holds. This is perhaps the first representation of this mystery in Italian sculpture, and is signed and dated: _Andreas Cionis pictor Florentinus oratorii archimagister extitit hujus, 1359._ The figure with a small divided beard, talking with a man in a big hat and long beard, is Orcagna's own portrait. The miraculous painting itself is within the tabernacle. The picture in front, the Madonna and Child with goldfinch, adored by eight Angels, is believed to be either by Orcagna himself or Bernardo Daddi[33]; it is decidedly more primitive than their authenticated works, probably because it is a comparatively close rendering of the original composition. [33] There are three extant documents concerning pictures of the Madonna for the Captains of Saint Michael; two refer to a painting ordered from Bernardo Daddi, in 1346 and 1347; the third to one by Orcagna, 1352. _See_ Signor P. Franceschini's monograph on Or San Michele, to which I am much indebted in this chapter. On the side altar on the right is the venerated Crucifix before which St. Antoninus used to pray. At one time the Dominicans were wont to come hither in procession on the anniversary of his death. In his Chronicle of Florence, Antoninus defends the friars from the accusations of Villani with respect to their scepticism about the miraculous picture. On the opposite side altar is the marble statue of Mother and Child from the tabernacle of the Medici e Speziali. It was executed about the year 1399; Vasari ascribes it to a Simone di Firenze, who may possibly be Simone di Francesco Talenti.