36 FLORAL SYMBOLISM 



the lily of the valley in German, but not in 

 Spanish art. 



Bnt it was not climate alone that determined 

 the use or disuse of any particular plant as a 

 symbol. If the fleur-de-lys, founded upon the 

 iris form, had not been borne by the House of 

 Burgundy, which protected the early Flemish 

 school, it is possible that the iris might not have 

 appeared in the early Flemish pictures as a 

 flower of the Virgin, and certainly had there not 

 been a continual interchange of Flemish mer- 

 chandise, which included painted panels, for 

 Spanish gold, the iris would not have taken its 

 place as the characteristic flower of a Spanish 

 * Immaculate Conception/ 



Also, had there not been ceaseless warfare and 

 everlasting hatred between Florence and Siena, 

 it is possible that Siena would have adopted the 

 lily as an attribute of Mary in an Annunciation 

 instead of using invariably the olive branch. But 

 the lily was the badge of Florence and the cities 

 were desperately jealous of each other, both in 

 painting and in politics, and this seems to be the 

 real reason of the conservatism of Sienese art. 



On the whole the svmbolism of the Nether- 



