[Footnote 1:  For a detailed description of this fresco, see Passavant’s Raphael, i. 140, and Kugler’s Handbook, 2d edit., where a minute and beautiful reduction of the whole composition will give and idea of the general design.]

The Virgin alone, separate from her Son, standing or enthroned before us, simply as the Virgine Dea or Regina Coeli, is rarely met with in modern art, either in sculpture or painting.  I will give, however, one signal example.

In an altar-piece painted by Cosimo Rosselli, for the Serviti at Florence, she stands alone, and in a majestic attitude, on a raised pedestal.  She holds a book, and looks upward, to the Holy Dove, hovering over her head; she is here again the Virgo Sapientiae.  (Fl.  Gal.) On one side is St. John the Evangelist and St. Antonino of Florence (see Legends of the Monastic Orders); on the other, St. Peter and St. Philip Benozzi; in front kneel St. Margaret and St. Catherine:  all appear to contemplate with rapturous devotion the vision of the Madonna.  The heads and attitudes in this picture have that character of elegance which distinguished the Florentine school at this period, without any of those extravagances and peculiarities into which Piero often fell; for the man had evidently a touch of madness, and was as eccentric in his works as in his life and conversation.  The order of the Serviti, for whom he painted this picture, was instituted in honour of the Virgin, and for her particular service, which will account for the unusual treatment.

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The numerous—­often most beautiful—­heads and half-length figures which represent the Virgin alone, looking up with a devout or tender expression, or with the head declined, and the hands joined in prayer, or crossed over the bosom with virginal humility and modesty, belong to this class of representations.  In the ancient heads, most of which are imitations of the old Greek effigies ascribed to St. Luke, there is often great simplicity and beauty.  When she wears the crown over her veil, or bears a sceptre in her hand, she figures as the queen of heaven (Regina Coeli).  When such effigies are attended by adoring angels, she is the queen of angels (Regina Angelorum).  When she is weeping or holding the crown of thorns, she is Our Lady of Sorrow, the Mater Dolorosa.  When she is merely veiled, with folded hands, and in her features all the beauty, maiden purity, and sweetness which the artist could render, she is simply the Blessed Virgin, the Madonna, the Santa Maria Vergine.  Such heads are very rare in the earlier schools of art, which seldom represented the Virgin without her Child, but became favourite studies of the later painters, and were multiplied and varied to infinitude from the beginning of the seventeenth century.  From these every trace of the mystical and solemn conception of antiquity gradually disappeared; till, for the majestic ideal of womanhood, we have merely inane prettiness, or rustic, or even meretricious grace, the borrowed charms of some earthly model.