[516] De Spectaculis, c. 30.
[517] See Shelley’s Notes to Queen Mab.
[518] Maitland, p. 333.
[519] The letters B. M., so frequently recurring in sepulchral inscriptions, have no reference to the Virgin Mary. They stand for Bene Merenti—To the well-deserving, or Bonæ Memoriæ—Of pious memory.
[520] Ut ipsa corporis facies simulacrum fuerit mentis, figura probitatis.—De Virgin., lib. ii, c. 2.
[521] Neque enim novimus faciem Virginis Mariæ.—De Trin., c. 8.
[522] Aringhi (tom. ii, p. 195) copies a crucifixion from the Catacomb of “Julii Papæ," in which Mary appears crowned with a nimbus, and bearing, after the Byzantine manner, the label Dei Genetrix—Mother of God. It was probably painted by a Greek artist of late date. The miraculous images of Mary are too numerous to mention. Among these are the winking Madonna of Rimini; that of St. Peter’s, which shed blood when struck; that of Arezzo, which wept at the profanity of some drunkards; another at Rome, which shed tears at the invasion of the French; stranger still, one at Lucca, which transferred the infant Christ from one arm to the other to preserve him from danger; and one mentioned in the Fablieux of Le Grand, which, when a scaffold broke, stretched forth a painted arm to rescue from death the artist to whom she owed her existence! The practical and undevout curiosity of the Czar Peter of Russia exposed the fraud of one of the weeping Madonnas of the Greek church by the detection of a reservoir of water behind her eyes. In popular legend, also, Mary has often come down from her throne of glory, not to communicate lessons about sin and salvation, but to secure some trivial gain or to recover some lost money.
[523] Peinture, tom. ii, p. 38.
[524] Harduin, iv, 430, A. D. 712.
[525] In the church of St. Cecilia at Rome. The homage of the Virgin was now called ὑπερδουλεία—the highest degree of veneration.