1.  Giunta Pisano, 1230. (Assisi, S. Franceso.) Christ and the Virgin ascend together in a seated attitude upborne by clouds and surrounded by angels; his arm is round her.  The empty tomb, with the apostles and others, below.  The idea is here taken from the Canticles (ch. viii.), “Who is this that ariseth from the wilderness leaning upon her beloved?”

2.  Andrea Orcagna, 1359. (Bas-relief, Or-San-Michele, Florence.) The Virgin Mary is seated on a rich throne within the Mandorla, which is borne upwards by four angels, while two are playing on musical instruments.  Immediately below the Virgin, on the right, is the figure of St. Thomas, with hands outstretched, receiving the mystic girdle:  below is the entombment; Mary lies extended on a pall above a sarcophagus.  In the centre stands Christ, holding in his arms the emancipated soul; he is attended by eight angels.  St. John is at the head of the Virgin, and near him an angel swings a censer; St. James bends and kisses her hand; St. Peter reads as usual; and the other apostles stand round, with Dionysius, Timothy, and Hierotheus, distinguished from the apostles by wearing turbans and caps.  The whole most beautifully treated.

I have been minutely exact in describing the details of this composition, because it will be useful as a key to many others of the early Tuscan school, both in sculpture and painting; for example, the fine bas-relief by Nanni over the south door of the Duomo at Florence, represents St. Thomas in the same manner kneeling outside the aureole and receiving the girdle; but the entombment below is omitted.  These sculptures were executed at the time when the enthusiasm for the Sacratissima Cintola della Madonna prevailed throughout the length and breadth of Tuscany, and Prato had become a place of pilgrimage.

This story of the Girdle was one of the legends imported from the East.  It had certainly a Greek origin;[1] and, according to the Greek formula, St. Thomas is to be figured apart in the clouds, on the right of the Virgin, and in the act of receiving the girdle.  Such is the approved arrangement till the end of the fourteenth century; afterwards we find St. Thomas placed below among the other apostles.

[Footnote 1:  It may be found in the Greek Menologium, iii. p. 225]

THE LEGEND OF THE HOLY GIRDLE.

An account of the Assumption would be imperfect without some notice of the western legend, which relates the subsequent history of the Girdle, and its arrival in Italy, as represented in the frescoes of Agnolo Gaddi at Prato.[1]

[Footnote 1:  Notizie istoriche intorno alla Sacratissima Cintola di Maria Vergine, che si conserva, nella Citta di Prato, dal Dottore Giuseppe Bianchini di Prato, 1795.]

The chapel della Sacratissima Cintola was erected from the designs of Giovanni Pisano about 1320.  This “most sacred” relic had long been deposited under the high altar of the principal chapel, and held in great veneration; but in the year 1312, a native of Prato, whose name was Musciatino, conceived the idea of carrying it off, and selling it in Florence.  The attempt was discovered; the unhappy thief suffered a cruel death; and the people of Prato resolved to provide for the future custody of the precious relic a new and inviolable shrine.