on these subjects when treating of the artistic representations from the History of Christ.  I will only add here, that their frequency as separate subjects, and the preeminence given to the figure of the Virgin as the mother of Pity, are very suggestive and affecting when we come to consider their intention as well as their significance.  For, in the first place, they were in most instances the votive offerings of those who had lost the being most dear to them, and thus appealed so the divine compassion of her who had felt that sword “pierce through her own heart also.”  In this sense they were often suspended as memorials in the chapels dedicated to the dead, of which I will cite one very beautiful and touching example.  There is a votive Deposition by Giottino, in which the general conception is that which belonged to the school, and very like Giotto’s Deposition in the Arena at Padua.  The dead Christ is extended on a white shroud, and embraced by the Virgin; at his feet kneels the Magdalene, with clasped hands and flowing hair; Mary Salome kisses one of his hands, and Martha (as I suppose) the other; the third Mary, with long hair, and head dropping with grief, is seated in front to the right.  In the background, in the centre, stands St. John, bending over the group in profound sorrow; on his left hand Joseph of Arimathea stands with the vase of “spices and ointments,” and the nails; near him Nicodemus.  On the right of St. John kneels a beautiful young girl, in the rich Florentine costume, who, with a sorrowful earnestness and with her hands crossed over her bosom, contemplates the dead Saviour.  St. Romeo (or San Remigio) patron of the church in which the picture was dedicated, lays his hand paternally on her head; beside her kneels a Benedictine nun, who in the game manner is presented by St. Benedict.  These two females, sisters perhaps, are the bereaved mourners who dedicated the picture, certainly one of the finest of the Giottesque school.[1]

[Footnote 1:  It is now in the gallery of the Uffizii, at Florence.  In the Florentine edition of Vasari the name of the church in which this picture was originally placed is called San Romeo, who is St. Remi (or Remigio), Bishop of Reims.  The painter, Giottino, the greatest and the most interesting, personally, of the Giottesque artists, was, as Vasari says, “of a melancholy temperament, and a lover of solitude;” “more desirous of glory than of gain;” “contented with little, and thinking more of serving and gratifying others than of himself;” “taking small care for himself, and perpetually engrossed by the works he had undertaken.”  He died of consumption, in 1356, at the age of thirty two.]