In the great altar-piece of the brothers Van Eyck, the upper part contains three compartments;[1] in the centre is Christ, wearing the triple tiara, and carrying the globe, as King, as Priest, as Judge—­on each side, as usual, but in separate compartments, the Virgin and St. John the Baptist.  The Virgin, a noble queenly figure, full of serene dignity and grace, is seated on a throne, and wears a superb crown, formed of lilies, roses, and gems, over her long fair hair.  She is reading intently in a book—­The Book of Wisdom.  She is here the Sponsa Dei, and the Virgo Sapientissima, the most wise Virgin.  This is the only example I can recollect of the Virgin seated on the right hand of her Son in glory, and holding a book.  In every other instance she is standing or seated with her hands joined or crossed over her bosom, and her eyes turned towards him.

[Footnote 1:  It is well known that the different parts of this great work have been dispersed.  The three compartments mentioned here are at Berlin.]

Among innumerable examples, I will cite only one, perhaps the most celebrated of all, and familiar, it may be presumed, to most of my readers, though perhaps they may not have regarded it with reference to the character and position given to the Virgin.  It is one of the four great frescoes of the Camera della Segnatura, in the Vatican, exhibiting the four highest objects of mental culture—­Theology, Poetry, Philosophy, and Jurisprudence.  In the first of these, commonly, but erroneously, called La Disputa dell’ Sacramento, Raphael has combined into one great scene the whole system of theology, as set forth by the Catholic Church; it is a sort of concordance between heaven and earth—­between the celestial and terrestrial witnesses of the truth.  The central group above shows us the Redeemer of the world, seated with extended arms, having on the right the Virgin in her usual place, and on the left, also in his accustomed place, St. John the Baptist; both seated, and nearly on a level with Christ.  The Baptist is here in his character of the Precursor “sent to bear witness to the light, that through him all men might believe.” (John i. 7.) The Virgin is exhibited, not merely as the Mother, the Sposa, the Church, but as HEAVENLY WISDOM, for in this character the Catholic Church has applied to her the magnificent passage in Proverbs:  “The Lord possessed me in the beginning of His way, before His works of old.  I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever the earth was.”  “Then I was by Him as one brought up with Him, and I was daily His delight, rejoicing alway before Him.”  (Prov. viii, 12-36, and Eccles. xxiv. 15, 16.)

Nothing can be more beautiful than the serene grace and the mingled majesty and humility in the figure of the Virgin, and in her countenance, as she looks up adoring to the Fountain of all light, all wisdom, and all goodness.  Above the principal group, is the emblematical image of the FATHER; below is the holy Dove, in the act of descending to the earth.[1]