be so wholly profaned by degrading sentiments and associations, as the mere portrait heads of the Virgin alone.  No matter what the model for the Madonna, might have been,—­a wife, a mistress, a contadina of Frascati, a Venetian Zitella, a Madchen of Nuremberg, a buxom Flemish Frau,—­for the Child was there; the baby innocence in her arms consecrated her into that “holiest thing alive,” a mother.  The theme, however inadequately treated as regarded its religious significance, was sanctified in itself beyond the reach of a profane thought.  Miserable beyond the reach of hope, dark below despair, that moral atmosphere which the presence of sinless unconscious infancy cannot for a moment purify or hallow!

Among the most ancient and most venerable of the effigies of the Madonna, we find the old Greek pictures of the Mater Amabilis, if that epithet can be properly applied to the dark-coloured, sad-visaged Madonnas generally attributed to St. Luke, or transcripts of those said to be painted by him, which exist in so many churches, and are, or were, supposed by the people to possess a peculiar sanctity.  These are almost all of oriental origin, or painted to imitate the pictures brought from the East in the tenth or twelfth century.  There are a few striking and genuine examples of these ancient Greek Madonnas in the Florentine Gallery, and, nearer at hand, in the Wallerstein collection at Kensington Palace.  They much resemble each other in the general treatment.

The infinite variety which painters have given to this most simple motif, the Mother and the Child only, without accessories or accompaniments of any kind, exceeds all possibility of classification, either as to attitude or sentiment.  Here Raphael shone supreme:  the simplicity, the tenderness, the halo of purity and virginal dignity, which he threw round the Mater Amabilis have, never been surpassed—­in his best pictures, never equalled.  The “Madonna del Gran-Duca,” where the Virgin holds the Child seated on her arm; the “Madonna Tempi,” where she so fondly presses her check to his,—­are perhaps the most remarkable for simplicity.  The Madonna of the Bridgewater Gallery, where the Infant lies on her knees, and the Mother and Son look into each other’s eyes; the little “Madonna Conestabile,” where she holds the book, and the infant Christ, with a serious yet perfectly childish grace, bends to turn over the leaf,—­are the most remarkable for sentiment.

Other Madonnas by Raphael, containing three or more figures, do not belong to this class of pictures.  They are not strictly devotional, but are properly Holy Families, groups and scenes from the domestic life of the Virgin.