[Footnote 26: The exact date is here given because of the vagueness of some writers who refer to the event as "not many years" and "within twenty years" after Ilaria's death in 1405.]
[Footnote 27: Quoted by Sydney Colvin in an article on Jacopo della Quercia, in the _Portfolio_, 1883. See also _Modern Painters_, Part III.]
In reading the gospel narrative of the life of Jesus we are glad to learn something of his mother Mary. Her life had some peculiar hardships to test the strength of her character. It was a strange lot for a mother to have to tend her babe in the manger of an inn, but such was Mary's experience. At the time of Jesus's birth she and Joseph were in Bethlehem, whither they had come to pay their taxes. There were many other people there on the same errand, and the inn was so crowded that the young mother had to find quarters in the stable.
While the child was still very young a terrible danger threatened his life. An order went forth from King Herod to slay all the young children of Bethlehem. Still the mother's courage did not fail. She arose by night, and, taking her babe, fled with her husband into Egypt. Returning at length to their home in Nazareth, she watched her boy's growth, and kept all his sayings in her heart.
When Jesus entered upon his ministry Mary was the first to show perfect confidence in her son.[28] She seems to have followed him whenever she could.[29] Her courage sustained her even in the hour of his agony, and we read how she stood with his disciples at the foot of the cross.[30]
It is this woman of quiet fortitude whom we see in Luca della Robbia's bas-relief of the Madonna and Child. We are impressed at once with a sense of her strength and poise of character. It is precisely such as fits the story of her life. Steadying her little boy with both hands, she turns her face in the direction in which he is looking. The Child seems to stand on a sort of balustrade in front of his mother. With feet wide apart he holds himself erect in a firm posture. His right hand is raised in a gesture of benediction. With his left he grasps firmly a long scroll bearing the Latin inscription, "Ego sum Lux Mundi" (I am the Light of the World).
Both mother and child seem to belong to the happy, every-day working world. Mary has the straight figure, full throat, and square shoulders of a Tuscan peasant girl. Her only aristocratic feature is the shapely hand. She holds her chin level, like a country maiden used to carrying burdens on the head. It may be that the artist had seen her like in some market-place in Florence. The boy too has the square shoulders and sturdy frame of a child of the people.