58 FLORAL SYMBOLISM 



beauty of holiness, for Saint Ambrose had 

 affirmed ' that, in the Mother of God, corporeal 

 beauty had been, as it were, the reflection of the 

 beauty of the soul, and the early artists, ham- 

 pered by lack of technical skill and confused by 

 monkish ideals of asceticism, too often rendered 

 their Madonnas emaciated and bloodless, even 

 languid and fretful in expression, mistaking the 

 outward signs of a subdued flesh for those of a 

 perfected spirit. 



It was at this time that Saint Dominic came 

 to Italy with his fiery zeal, his devotion to the 

 Virgin and his Spanish traditions of the flower 

 of Our Lady. For him, the quality which 

 raised her so far above all other women was her 

 spotlessness ; she was ' sin pecado,' ' Maria 

 Purissima.' Her other phases, as Mother 

 of the Sorrowful, Refuge of Sinners, or Con- 

 soler of the Afflicted, were to him of secondary 

 importance. 



Already through the preaching of Saint 

 Francis Italian intellect had been rendered 

 capable of appreciating the beauty of sim- 



' ' Ut ipsa corporis species simulacrum fuerit mentis.' 



De Verginit, lib. ii. chap. 2. 



