i66 FLORAL SYMBOLISM 



military order, which was La Terraza, ' the 

 vase,' the pot of lilies of the Virgin.' 



The symbol of the vase had come to the 

 Netherlands and Germany while they were still 

 pictorially inarticulate ; but when they at length 

 found means of expression, the Germans slowly, 

 the Flemings in a splendid burst with the van 

 Eycks, it was their earhest and their favourite 

 symbol. Memling places it also beside his en- 

 throned Madonnas, and it is never omitted from 

 an Annunciation except on the occasions, com- 

 paratively rare in the North, when Gabriel holds 

 a branch of lihes in his hand instead of the 

 herald's wand. Then there is no vase, for there 

 is no necessity to repeat the symbol. 



But in Itaty itself the vase of lilies, though 

 popular, was never considered essential. No 

 vase decorates the loggias where sit the Virgins 

 of Giotto,^ BotticeUi,3 Melozzo da Forli,'* or 

 Leonardo da Vinci,^ though Giotto introduces 

 it with identical symbohsm in the Visitation. 

 Indeed many of the most typical painters of 



^ Spanish Handbook, first edition. 



• Lower Church, Assisi. * Uffizi, Florence. 



* Pantheon, Rome. ° Uf&zi, Florence. 



