ANIMAL LIFE IN ITALIAN PAINTING 



the Virgin, another subject from the apocryphal gospel. 

 A maid brings in to the mother, who is lying in bed, 

 a fowl trussed on a dish. In the lower left-hand corner 

 are a dog and cat in attitudes of exaggerated defiance. 

 The dog is of a bulldog type, and with raised paw 

 barks at the cat, which spits at him, arching her back 

 and stiffening her tail ; uncomfortable visitors in any 

 sick-room one would think, let alone one with such sacred 

 associations ; but the Italian painters even until the 

 succeeding century had some of the Gothic sense of the 

 incongruous, and one can imagine how popular with the 

 vulgar such an open-air picture, seen above the every- 

 day life of the square, would be. 



The conventional parrots which appear on the woven 

 hangings behind the bed may be noticed also on the 

 carpet in No. 581 in the National Gallery. 



In the great Dominican fresco in the Spanish chapel 

 of Sta. Maria Novella, Florence, by Andrea da Firenze 

 (or somebody else), the monks are represented as dogs, 

 Domini Canes, hunting the heretics, who are painted 

 under the form of wolves. One wolf carries a lamb 

 over its shoulder, holding it by the neck ; another has 

 been got down by two dogs which have rescued a lamb 

 from its jaws. Under a grove of pomegranate trees 

 is a group of knights and ladies with falcons and lap- 

 dogs. In another painting in the same chapel, the 



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