It was dedicated in the church of the Ara-Coeli at Rome, which belongs to the Franciscans; hence St. Francis is one of the principal figures.  When I was asked, at Rome, why St. Jerome had been introduced into the picture, I thought it might be thus accounted for:—­The patron saint of the donor, St. Sigismund, was a king and a warrior, and Conti might possibly think that it did not accord with his profession, as an humble ecclesiastic, to introduce him here.  The most celebrated convent of the Jeronimites in Italy is that of St. Sigismund near Cremona, placed under the special protection of St. Jerome, who is also in a general sense the patron of all ecclesiastics; hence, perhaps, he figures here as the protector of Sigismund Conti.  The picture was painted, and placed over the high altar of the Ara-Coeli in 1511, when Raphael was in his twenty-eighth year.  Conti died in 1512, and in 1565 his grandniece, Suora Anna Conti, obtained permission to remove it to her convent at Foligno, whence it was carried off by the French in 1792.  Since the restoration of the works of art in Italy, in 1815, it has been placed among the treasures of the Vatican.

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2.  Another perfect specimen of a votive picture of this kind, in a very different style, I saw in the museum at Rouen, attributed there to Van Eyck.  It is, probably, a fine work by a later master of the school, perhaps Hemmelinck.  In the centre, the Virgin is enthroned; the Child, seated on her knee, holds a bunch of grapes, symbol of the eucharist.  On the right of the Virgin is St. Apollonia; then two lovely angels in white raiment, with lutes in their hands; and then a female head, seen looking from behind, evidently a family portrait.  More in front, St. Agnes, splendidly dressed in green and sable, her lamb at her feet, turns with a questioning air to St. Catherine, who, in queenly garb of crimson and ermine seems to consult her book.  Behind her another member of the family, a man with a very fine face; and more in front St. Dorothea, with a charming expression of modesty, looks down on her basket of roses.  On the left of the Virgin is St. Agatha; then two angels in white with viols; then St. Cecilia; and near her a female head, another family portrait; next St. Barbara wearing a beautiful head-dress, in front of which is worked her tower, framed like an ornamental jewel in gold and pearls; she has a missal in her lap.  St. Lucia next appears; then another female portrait.  All the heads are about one fourth of the size of life.  I stood in admiration before this picture—­such miraculous finish in all the details, such life, such spirit, such delicacy in the heads and hands, such brilliant colour in the draperies!  Of its history I could learn nothing, nor what family had thus introduced themselves into celestial companionship.  The portraits seemed to me to represent a father, a mother, and two daughters.

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