_compunction_," which we are told seized all Italy at this time, the
passionate devotion for the benign Madonna mingled the poetry of
pity with that of pain; and assuredly this state of feeling, with its
mental and moral requirements, must have assisted in emancipating art
from the rigid formalism of the degenerate Greek school. Men's hearts,
throbbing with a more feeling, more pensive life, demanded something
more _like_ life,--and produced it. It is curious to trace in the
Madonnas of contemporary, but far distant and unconnected schools of
painting, the simultaneous dawning of a sympathetic sentiment--for the
first time something in the faces of the divine beings responsive to
the feeling of the worshippers. It was this, perhaps, which caused
the enthusiasm excited by Cimabue's great Madonna, and made the people
shout and dance for joy when it was uncovered before them. Compared
with the spectral rigidity, the hard monotony, of the conventional
Byzantines, the more animated eyes, the little touch of sweetness in
the still, mild face, must have been like a smile out of heaven. As
we trace the same softer influence in the earliest Siena and Cologne
pictures of about the same period, we may fairly regard it as an
impress of the spirit of the time, rather than that of an individual
mind.

In the succeeding century these elements of poetic art, expanded and
animated by an awakened observation of nature, and a sympathy with
her external manifestations, were most especially directed by the
increasing influence of the worship of the Virgin, a worship at once
religious and chivalrous. The title of "Our Lady"[1] came first into
general use in the days of chivalry, for she was the lady "of all
hearts," whose colours all were proud to wear. Never had her votaries
so abounded. Hundreds upon hundreds had enrolled themselves in
brotherhoods, vowed to her especial service;[2] or devoted to acts of