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The Virgin between St. Nicholas and St. George is a very expressive group; the former as the patron saint of merchants, tradesmen, and seamen, the popular saint of the bourgeoisie; the latter as the patron of soldiers, the chosen saint of the aristocracy.  These two saints with St. Catherine are pre-eminent in the Venetian pictures; for all three, in addition to their poetical significance, were venerated as especial protectors of Venice.

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St. George and St. Christopher both stand by the throne of the Virgin of Succour as protectors and deliverers in danger.  The attribute of St. Christopher is the little Christ on his shoulder; and there are instances in which Christ appears on the lap of his mother, and also on the shoulder of the attendant St. Christopher.  This blunder, if it may be so called, has been avoided, very cleverly I should think in his own opinion, by a painter who makes St. Christopher kneel, while the Virgin places the little Christ on his shoulders; a concetto quite inadmissible in a really religious group.

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In pictures dedicated by charitable communities, we often find St. Nicholas and St. Leonard as the patron saints of prisoners and captives.  Wherever St. Leonard appears he expresses deliverance from captivity.  St. Omobuono, St. Martin, St. Elizabeth of Hungary, St. Roch, or other beneficent saints, waiting round the Virgin with kneeling beggars, or the blind, the lame, the sick, at their feet, always expressed the Virgin as the mother of mercy, the Consolatrix afflictorum.  Such pictures were commonly found in hospitals, and the chapels and churches of the Order of Mercy, and other charitable institutions.  The examples are numerous.  I remember one, a striking picture, by Bartolomeo Montagna, where the Virgin and Child are enthroned in the centre as usual.  On her right the good St. Omobuono, dressed as a burgher, in a red gown and fur cap, gives alms to a poor beggar; on the left, St. Francis presents a celebrated friar of his Order, Bernardino da Feltri, the first founder of a mont-de-piete, who kneels, holding the emblem of his institution, a little green mountain with a cross at the top.

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Besides these saints, who have a general religious character and significance, we have the national and local saints, whose presence very often marks the country or school of art which produced the picture.

A genuine Florentine Madonna is distinguished by a certain elegance and stateliness, and well becomes her throne.  As patroness of Florence, in her own right, the Virgin bears the title of Santa Maria del Fiore, and in this character she holds a flower, generally a rose, or is in the act of presenting it to the Child.  She is often attended by St. John the Baptist, as patron of Florence; but he is everywhere