Except the second of its points, to teach
That Christ is not yet born.’
Several of the masters of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries painted the two flowers with the bud or three fully-opened blooms, but more often, arguing possibly that this lily was the emblem of God the Son when made Man, and not of the Holy Trinity, they painted simply a natural lily plant with clustering buds and one or many blossoms, taking the whole plant as the symbol.
Sometimes the vase holds three distinct stalks of lilies with a single bloom on each, an arrangement which was suggested, it is said, by the Dominican legend of the doubting Master.
A Master of the Dominicans, unable to believe in the stainlessness of the Blessed Virgin, went to ask help of the saintly brother Egidius.
‘O Master of the Preachers,’ said Egidius, on meeting him, ‘Virgo ante partum.’ He struck the ground with his staff and from the spot there immediately sprang a lily. ‘O doubting Master,’ he said again, ‘Virgo in partu.’ He struck the earth and again a lily sprang. He spoke a third time, ‘O my brother, Virgo post partum,’ a third lily bloomed, and the Master of the Dominicans doubted no more.
A detached vase holding three lily blooms occurs frequently as the motive of an architectural decoration executed in low relief, one beautiful example being above the door of the Badia Church of Florence. But it is not confined to buildings of Dominican origin, and the arrangement seems to owe its popularity more to its symmetry than to any supporting legend. In pictures, where greater freedom of treatment is desirable, the lilies are one, two, three or more—there is no rule.
XV
THE LILY OF THE ANGEL GABRIEL
In the majority of the Annunciations which were painted during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries the archangel Gabriel carries a lily. In the earliest representations of the subject he has simply a herald’s wand, which in later Byzantine art usually terminated in a fleur-de-lys, the ancient symbol of royalty, or in a more or less elaborate cross. More rarely he carries a scroll on which are inscribed the words of his message.
In the early Sienese school he still holds the herald’s wand,[217] or brings to the Virgin a branch of olive,[218] the symbol of peace and goodwill. Once at least he holds a branch of laurel,[219] the meed of those who excel, and sometimes the palm[220] of victory over sin.