a saint of such power and importance as an attendant on the divine personages, that his appearance in a picture does not stamp it as Florentine.  St. Cosmo and St. Damian are Florentine, as the protectors of the Medici family; but as patrons of the healing art, they have a significance which renders them common in the Venetian and other pictures.  It may, however, be determined, that if St. John the Baptist, St. Cosmo and St. Damian, with St. Laurence (the patron of Lorenzo the Magnificent), appear together in attendance on the Virgin, that picture is of the Florentine school.  The presence of St. Zenobio, or of St. Antonino, the patron archbishops of Florence, will set the matter at rest, for these are exclusively Florentine.  In a picture by Giotto, angels attend on the Virgin bearing vases of lilies in their hands. (Lilies are at once the emblem of the Virgin and the device of Florence.) On each side kneel St. John the Baptist and St. Zenobio.[1]

[Footnote 1:  We now possess in our National Gallery a very interesting example of a Florentine enthroned Madonna, attended by St. John the Baptist and St. Zenobio as patrons of Florence.]

A Siena Madonna would naturally be attended by St. Bernardino and St. Catherine of Siena; if they seldom appear together, it is because they belong to different religious orders.

In the Venetian pictures we find a crowd of guardian saints; first among them, St. Mark, then St. Catherine, St. George, St. Nicholas, and St. Justina:  wherever these appear together, that picture is surely from the Venetian school.

All through Lombardy and Piedmont, St. Ambrose of Milan and St. Maurice of Savoy are favourite attendants on the Virgin.

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In Spanish and Flemish art, the usual attendants on the queenly Madonna are monks and nuns, which brings us to the consideration of a large and interesting class of pictures, those dedicated by the various religious orders.  When we remember that the institution of some of the most influential of these communities was coeval with the revival of art; that for three or four centuries, art in all its forms had no more powerful or more munificent patrons; that they counted among their various brotherhoods some of the greatest artists the world has seen; we can easily imagine how the beatified members of these orders have become so conspicuous as attendants on the celestial personages.  To those who are accustomed to read the significance of a work of art, a single glance is often sufficient to decide for what order it has been executed.

St. Paul is a favourite saint of the Benedictine communities; and there are few great pictures painted for them in which he does not appear.  When in companionship with St. Benedict, either in the original black habit or the white habit of the reformed orders, with St. Scholastica bearing her dove, with St. Bernard, St. Romualdo, or other worthies of this venerable community, the interpretation is easy.