MARIA VIRGO ASSUMPTA AD ETHERIUM THALAMUM
  IN QUO REX REGUM STELLATO SEDET SOLIO.

The whole of this vast and poetical composition is admirably executed, and it is the more curious as being, perhaps, one of the earliest examples of the glorification of St. Francis and St. Antony of Padua (Monastic Orders), who were canonized about thirty or forty years before.

The mosaic, by Gaddo Gaddi (Florence, A.D. 1330), over the great door in the cathedral at Florence, is somewhat different.  Christ, while placing the crown on the head of his Mother with his left hand, blesses her with his right hand, and he appears to have laid aside his own crown, which lies near him.  The attitude of the Virgin is also peculiar.[1]

[Footnote 1:  In the same cathedral (which is dedicated to the Virgin Mary) the circular window of the choir opposite to the mosaic exhibits the Coronation.  The design, by Donatello, is eminently fine and classical.]

In a small altar-piece by Giotto (Florence, S. Croce), Christ and the Virgin are seated together on a throne.  He places the jewelled crown on her head with both hands, while she bends forward with her hands crossed in her lap, and the softest expression in her beautiful face, as if she as meekly resigned herself to this honour, as heretofore to the angelic salutation which pronounced her “Blessed:”  angels kneel before the throne with censers and offerings.  In another, by Giotto, Christ wearing a coronet of gems is seated on a throne:  the Virgin kneels before him with hands joined:  twenty angels with musical instruments attend around.  In a “Coronation,” by Piero Laurati, the figures of Christ and the Virgin, seated together, resemble in sentiment and expression those of Giotto.  The angels are arranged in a glory around, and the treatment is wholly typical.

One of the most beautiful and celebrated of the pictures of Angelico da Fiesole is the “Coronation” now in the Louvre; formerly it stood over the high altar of the Church of St. Dominick at Fiesole, where Angelico had been nurtured, and made his profession as monk.  The composition is conceived as a grand regal ceremony, but the beings who figure in it are touched with a truly celestial grace.  The Redeemer, crowned himself, and wearing the ermine mantle of an earthly monarch, is seated on a magnificent throne, under a Gothic canopy, to which there is an ascent of nine steps.  He holds the crown, which he is in the act of placing, with both hands, on the head of the Virgin, who kneels before him, with features of the softest and most delicate beauty, and an expression of divine humility.  Her face, seen in profile, is partly shaded by a long transparent veil, flowing over her ample robe of a delicate crimson, beneath which is a blue tunic.  On each side a choir of lovely angels, clothed from head to foot in spangled tunics of azure and rose-colour, with shining wings, make celestial music, while they gaze with looks of