"St. Joseph had an office, and it was not possible that poverty could have obliged him to forego those comforts for his child, which scarcely the meanest beggars are without." Another fertile subject of dispute among the Spanish artists and theologians, was the number of nails used in the Crucifixion, some arguing for three, and some for four, and drawing their proofs on either side from the vision of some saint!
The precepts as to the proper modes of painting the Virgin, are innumerable. The greatest caution against any approach to nudity is of course requisite. Nay, Pacheco says, "What can be more foreign from the respect which we owe to the purity of Our Lady the Virgin, than to paint her sitting down, with one of her knees placed over the other, and often with her sacred feet uncovered and naked?" We scarcely ever, therefore, see the feet of the Virgin in Spanish pictures. Carducho speaks more particularly on the impropriety of painting the Virgin unshod, since it is manifest that she was in the habit of wearing shoes, as is proved by "the much venerated relic of one of them, from her divine feet, in the Cathedral of Burgos!"
A painter had a penance inflicted on him at Cordova, for painting the Virgin at the foot of the Cross in a hooped petticoat, pointed boddice, and a saffron-colored head-dress; St. John had pantaloons, and a doublet with points. This chastisement Pacheco considers richly deserved. Don Luis Pas-
