In our picture we see that a Latin inscription on the base of the lowest step contains the name of Leonardo Salutati, bishop of Fiesole.[18] It was by the order of this bishop that the altar was executed, as was also the tomb opposite it in the cathedral of Fiesole.
[12] St. Luke, chapter ii., verse 49.
[13] St. Luke, chapter iii., verse 16.
[14] See Chapter IX., on the "Children of the Shell," in the volume on Murillo in the Riverside Art Series.
[15] This is on the authority of a French writer, A. Jourdain, quoted by William H. Tillinghast in an essay on the "Geographical Knowledge of the Ancients," in the Narrative and Critical History of America. In the same essay an anonymous poem of the thirteenth century is quoted to show the prevalent belief in the sphericity of the earth.
[16] In Didron's Christian Iconography, several interesting illustrations from old miniatures, etc., show the globe in the hand of the Creator. It is curious that this supposedly exhaustive authority on church symbolism gives no account of the origin and history of this emblem.
[17] See Madonna pictures by Raphael, Titian, Correggio, and Michelangelo in other volumes of the Riverside Art Series.
[18] Eps, with the curious mark above, stands for episcopus.