222 FLORAL SYMBOLISM 



unicorn was of all created beasts the fiercest and 

 most difficult to capture. But should a maid be 

 in his path he would lie down with his head 

 upon her lap and then the hunter could take him 

 with great ease. 



* The Triumph of Chastity ' with the 



* Triumph of Love ' as a pendant were rather 

 favourite subjects in the fifteenth century in 

 Italy, particularly as a decoration of the elabo- 

 rate bridal chests or cassoni, then in vogue. 



* The Triumph of Chastity ' of Liberale da 

 Verona ' is typical. The white-clothed figure 

 of a young woman stands upon a car drawn by 

 unicorns, while behind follows a rejoicing crowd. 

 She holds a cornucopia but no lily appears. 



On the shutters in the Hall of Heliodorus, 

 in the Vatican, there is a very beautiful Renais- 

 sance design in which the lily and the unicorn 

 are united, but usually in Italy the hly was kept 

 as an ecclesiastical and the unicorn as a secular 

 symbol. 



In German art both lily and unicorn are 

 held to be symbols of the Virgin's purity, and 

 in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries there 



' Museum, Verona. 



