EMBLEMS AND SYMBOLS 19 



of both the poets and the artists of the Itahan 

 Renaissance. In Germany his place was taken 

 by Conrad von Wiirtzburg, a poet of infinitely 

 less genius but who equally influenced his native 

 art, at least as far as devotional representations 

 of the Virgin Mary were concerned. He was 

 a minnesinger who consecrated the last effort 

 of a long life to praising the virtues of her whom 

 he terms * The Empress of Heaven.' About 

 the year 1286 he wrote ' The Golden Forge,' 

 which he describes as: 



' A golden song 

 Forged in the smithy of my heart 

 And beautifully inlaid 

 With the jewelled thoughts of my heart.' 



It is an eulogy of the Virgin, close-packed with 

 allegory, simile and metaphor, which are borrowed 

 for the greater part from the Fathers of the 

 Church, but some few are of his own finding. 



His work was never to be compared with 

 that of the great Italian, but it very strongly 

 influenced the hymnology and the pictorial 

 expression of the cult of the Virgin in both the 

 Netherlands and Germany. 



In England there was no great symbolist 



