A. The Virgin and Child enthroned.  She has the sun on her breast, the moon under her feet, the twelve stars over her head, and is attended by angels bearing the attributes of the cardinal virtues.  B. St. John the Baptist.  C. St. Francis.  D. St. John Evangelist.  E. Mary Magdalene. 1.  The Crucifixion, with the Virgin and St. John. 2, 3, 4, 5.  The four Evangelists with their books:  half length. 6, 7.  St. Peter and St. Paul:  half length. 8, 9, 10, 11.  St. Thomas, St. Philip, St. James, and St. Andrew:  half length.  PP.  The Predella. 12.  The Nativity and Adoration of Magi. 13.  St. Francis receives the Stigmata. 14.  Baptism of Christ. 15.  The Vision of St. John in Patmos. 16.  Mary Magdalene borne up by angels.  Between the altar-piece and the predella runs the inscription in Gothic letters, AVE DELICISSIMIS VIRGO MARIA, SUCCURRE NOBIS MATER PIA.  MCCCLXXVIII.

The second example is sketched from an altar-piece painted for the suppressed convent of Santa Chiara, at Venice.  It is six feet high, and eight feet wide, and the ornamental caning in which the subjects are enclosed particularly splendid and elaborate.

[Illustration:  Altar-piece]

A. The Coronation of the Virgin, treated as a religious mystery, with choral angels.  B. The Nativity of our Lord.  C. The Baptism.  D. The Last Supper.  E. The Betrayal of Christ.  F. The Procession to Calvary, in which the Virgin is rudely pushed aside by the soldiers.  G. The Crucifixion, as an event:  John sustains the Virgin at the foot of the cross.  H. The Resurrection and the Noli me tangere.  I. Ascension. 1.  Half-figure of Christ, with the hand extended in benediction; in the other hand the Gospel. 2.  David. 3.  Isaiah. 4, 5, 6, 7.  The four Evangelists standing. 8. 9, 11, 12.  Scenes from the Life of St. Francis and St. Clara. 10.  The Descent of the Holy Ghost. 13.  The Last Judgment.

It is to be regretted that so many of these altar-pieces have been broken up, and the detached parts sold as separate pictures:  so that we may find one compartment of an altar in a church at Rome, and another hanging in a drawing-room in London; the upper part at Ghent, the lower half at Paris; one wing at Berlin, another at Florence.  But where they exist as a whole, how solemn, significant, and instructive the arrangement!  It may be read as we read a poem.  Compare these with the groups round the enthroned Virgin in the later altar-pieces, where the saints elbow each other in attitudes, where mortal men sit with unseemly familiarity close to personages recognized as divine.  As I have remarked further on, it is one of the most interesting speculations connected with the study of art, to trace this decline from reverence to irreverence, from the most rigid formula to the most fantastic caprice.  The gradual disappearance of the personages of the Old Testament, the increasing importance given to the family of the Blessed Virgin, the multiplication of legendary subjects, and all the variety of adventitious, unmeaning, or merely ornamental accessories, strike us just in proportion as a learned theology replaced the unreflecting, undoubting piety of an earlier age.