THE LILY 47 



flower in the Christ-Child's hand. At first the 

 fruit, following an artistic tradition as old as the 

 fourth century, was also a promise of heavenly 

 bhss, it was a fruit from the heavenly gardens; 

 but it was soon identified as the fruit of the tree 

 of Knowledge of Good and Evil, since He, as the 

 Second Adam, had come to repair the fault of the 

 first. 



Meanwhile in Florence, during the fifteenth 

 century, the lily, already the flower of the virgin 

 saints, was attributed more especially to the 

 Virgin Mary as the symbol of spotless purity, 

 and it became accepted throughout Christendom 

 with this significance. 



Therefore, on the rare occasions after the 

 fourteenth century when the lily is placed in the 

 hand of the Infant Christ it is the symbol of 

 purity, of His perfect sinlessness. In the 

 Enthroned Madonna of Luca SignoreUi' He 

 holds a large stalk of lilium candidum. In the 

 great majority of representations of the Madonna 

 with the Child in her arms only the symbol in 

 the Child's own hand refers to Him; other 

 symbols refer to Mary. But in this picture, to 



' Cathedral, Perugia. 



