i64 FLORAL SYMBOLISM 



The most characteristic treatment of the Uly, 

 as the lily of the Annunciation, was to place it in 

 a pot or vase. About the year 1291, Cavallini, 

 the mosaicist, was in Rome decorating the 

 Church of S. Maria in Trastevere, and beneath 

 the great centre mosaic of the apse he placed a 

 series of scenes from the life of the Virgin. In 

 the Annunciation the Virgin is seated on a 

 marble throne, which has broad, table-like arms. 

 On one arm there is a dish, apparently of fruit, 

 and on the other a vase filled with hlies. The 

 vase may or may not have been placed there 

 definitely as a symbol, but as a detail — in vulgar 

 English phraseology — it caught on. We find 

 it on the famous carved candlestick of Gaeta,' 

 worked by an unknown contemporary of Niccola 

 d' Apulia. It appears on an embroidered book- 

 cover of Enghsh work ^ attributed to the end of 

 the thirteenth century, and is cleverly squared 

 out of the chequered background of a Nether- 

 landish music-book ^ of 1330. 



The vase of lilies soon became a more or 

 less elaborate detail in numerous illuminations, 



1 At Gaeta. British Museum. 



' South Kensington Museum. 



