The introduction of the little St. John into the group of the Virgin and Child lends it a charming significance and variety, and is very popular; we must, however, discriminate between the familiarity of the domestic subject and the purely religious treatment.  When the Giovannino adores with folded hands, as acknowledging in Christ a superior power, or kisses his feet humbly, or points to him exulting, then it is evident that we have the two Children in their spiritual character, the Child, Priest and King, and the Child, Prophet.

In a picture by Lionardo da Vinci (Coll. of the Earl of Suffolk), the Madonna, serious and beautiful, without either crown or veil, and adorned only by her long fair hair, is seated on a rock.  On one side, the little Christ, supported in the arms of an angel, raises his hand in benediction; on the other side, the young St. John, presented by the Virgin, kneels in adoration.

Where the Children are merely embracing each other, or sporting at the feet of the Virgin, or playing with the cross, or with a bird, or with the lamb, or with flowers, we might call the treatment domestic or poetical; but where St. John is taking the cross from the hand of Christ, it is clear, from the perpetual repetition of the theme, that it is intended to express a religious allegory.  It is the mission of St. John as Baptist and Prophet.  He receives the symbol of faith ere he goes forth to preach and to convert, or as it has been interpreted, he, in the sense used by our Lord, “takes up the cross of our Lord.”  The first is, I think, the meaning when the cross is enwreathed with the Ecce Agnus Dei; the latter, when it is a simple cross.

In Raphael’s “Madonna della Famiglia Alva,” (now in the Imp.  Gal., St. Petersburg), and in his Madonna of the Vienna Gallery, Christ gives the cross to St. John.  In a picture of the Lionardo school in the Louvre we have the same action; and again in a graceful group by Guido, which, in the engraving, bears this inscription, “Qui non accipit crucem suam non est me dignus.” (Matt. x. 38.) This, of course, fixes the signification.

Another, and, as I think, a wholly fanciful interpretation, has been given to this favourite group by Treck and by Monckton Milnes.  The Children contend for the cross.  The little St. John begs to have it.

  “Give me the cross, I pray you, dearest Jesus. 
  O if you knew how much I wish to have it,
  You would not hold it in your hand so tightly. 
  Something has told me, something in my breast here,
  Which I am sure is true, that if you keep it,
  If you will let no other take it from you,
  Terrible things I cannot bear to think of
  Must fall upon you.  Show me that you love me: 
  Am I not here to be your little servant,
  Follow your steps, and wait upon your wishes?”

But Christ refuses to yield the terrible plaything, and claims his privilege to be the elder “in the heritage of pain.”