8.  BIRDS.—­The bird in the Egyptian hieroglyphics signified the soul of man.  In the very ancient pictures there can be no doubt, I think, that the bird in the hand of Christ figured the soul, or the spiritual as opposed to the material.  But, in the later pictures, the original meaning being lost, birds became mere ornamental accessories, or playthings.  Sometimes it is a parrot from the East, sometimes a partridge (the partridge is frequent in the Venetian pictures):  sometimes a goldfinch, as in Raphael’s Madonna del Cardellino.  In a Madonna by Guercino, the Mother holds a bird perched on her hand, and the Child, with a most naive infantine expression, shrinks back from it.[1] In a picture by Baroccio, he holds it up before a cat (Nat.  Gal. 29), so completely were the original symbolism and all the religious proprieties of art at this time set aside.

[Footnote 1:  It was in the collection of Mr. Rogers.]

Other animals are occasionally introduced.  Extremely offensive are the apes when admitted into devotional pictures.  We have associations with the animal as a mockery of the human, which render it a very disagreeable accessory.  It appears that, in the sixteenth century, it became the fashion to keep apes as pets, and every reader of Vasari will remember the frequent mention of these animals as pets and favourites of the artists.  Thus only can I account for the introduction of the ape, particularly in the Ferrarese pictures.  Bassano’s dog, Baroccio’s cat, are often introduced.  In a famous picture by Titian, “La Vierge au Lapin,” we have the rabbit. (Louvre.) The introduction of these and other animals marks the decline of religious art.

Certain women of the Old Testament are regarded as especial types of the Virgin.

EVE.  Mary is regarded as the second Eve, because, through her, came the promised Redemption.  She bruised the head of the Serpent.  The Tree of Life, the Fall, or Eve holding the Apple, are constantly introduced allusively in the Madonna pictures, as ornaments of her throne, or on the predella of an altar-piece, representing the Annunciation, the Nativity, or the Coronation.

RACHEL figures as the ideal of contemplative life.

RUTH, as the ancestress of David.

ABISHAG, as “the Virgin who was brought to the King.” (I Kings i. 1.)

BATHSHEBA, because she sat upon a throne on the right hand of her Son.

JUDITH and ESTHER, as having redeemed their people, and brought deliverance to Israel.  It is because of their typical character, as emblems of the Virgin, that these Jewish heroines so often figure in the religious pictures.[1]

[Footnote 1:  The artistic treatment of these characters as types of the Virgin, will be found in the fourth series of “Legendary Art.”]

In his “Paradiso” (c. xxxii.), Dante represents Eve, Rachel, Sara, Ruth, Judith, as seated at the feet of the Virgin Mary, beneath her throne in heaven; and next to Rachel, by a refinement of spiritual and poetical gallantry, he has placed his Beatrice.