the Madonna from the East, which makes St. Luke a painter. It is said
that he painted many portraits of the Virgin, and, naturally, all the
churches possessing old Byzantine pictures claim that they are genuine
works from the hand of the evangelist. There is one in the Ara Coeli
at Rome, and another in S. Maria in Cosmedino, of which marvellous
tales are told, besides others of great sanctity in St. Mark's,
Venice, and in Padua.

It would not be interesting to dwell, in any detail, upon these
curious old pictures. We would do better to take our first example
from the art which, though founded on Byzantine types, had begun to
learn of nature. Such a picture we find in the Venice Academy, by
Jacopo Bellini, painted at the beginning of the fifteenth century,
somewhat later than any corresponding picture could have been found
elsewhere in Italy, as Venice was chronologically behind the other art
schools. The background is a glory of cherub heads touched with gold
hatching. Both mother and child wear heavy nimbi, ornamented with
gold. These points recall Byzantine work; but the gentler face of the
Virgin, and the graceful fall of her drapery, show that we are in a
different world of art. The child is dressed in a little tunic, in the
primitive method.

With the dawn of the Italian Renaissance, the old style of portrait
Madonna passed out of vogue. More elaborate backgrounds were
introduced from the growing resources of technique. In the fifteenth
and sixteenth centuries, pictures of the portrait style were
comparatively rare. Raphael, however, was not above adopting this
method, as every lover of the Granduca Madonna will remember. His
friend Bartolommeo also selected this style of composition for some of
the loveliest of his works.