FRUIT OF TREE OF KNOWLEDGE 243 



and lilies. No attempt is made to realize earthly- 

 conditions; the glowing scene is set in Heaven, 

 and the little Lord of Heaven holds in His hand 

 a celestial fruit, just one of such fruits as hang 

 upon the trees in Giovanni di Paolo's ' Paradise.' ' 



In another picture by Sano di Pietro,^ the 

 Child (perhaps the most charming ' Bambino ' 

 ever painted in Siena) holds in His hand a bunch 

 of cherries. 



Cherries, painted more than once within the 

 tiny hand by Sano di Pietro, are always taken 

 as the delicious fruit. Like the lilies of the 

 earlier Paradises they typify the delights of 

 the blessed, and in German art particularly they 

 are painted often as the peculiar fruit of Heaven. 

 They are never taken as the Fruit of the Tree of 

 Knowledge of Good and Evil, and therefore, 

 at least in the early Sienese school, this fruit 

 held by the Infant Christ would seem to be the 

 fruit of Paradise. 



In Northern art, in the work of the French 

 ivory cutters, and particularly in the work of 

 Memling and of those artists influenced by him, 

 the apple takes precedence of all other symbols 



^ Belle Arti, Siena. ' Ibid. 



