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The glory was originally a sort of nimbus of a larger order, surrounding the entire figure, instead of merely the head. It was oval in shape, like the almond or mandorla. A picture of this class is the famous Madonna della Stella, of Fra Angelico. It is in a beautiful Gothic tabernacle, which is the sole ornament of a cell in San Marco, Florence.
Below the said throne was a man who, when the mandorla had reached its place, made it fast with a bolt without being seen, so that it stood firmly on its base.
Above this sorrowful scene you may see the Glory and Assumption of Our Lady in a mandorla glory, upheld by six angels, while St. Thomas kneels below, stretching out his arms, assured at last.
Certainly one of the loveliest works of the early Renaissance, it is so full of life and gracious movement, so natural and so noble, that everything else in the Cathedral, save the work of Donatello, is forgotten beside it. Madonna enthroned among the Cherubim in her oval mandorla, upheld by four puissant fair angels, turns with a gesture most natural and lovely to St.
Within the mandorla was a youth about fifteen years of age in the guise of an angel, girt round the middle with an iron, and secured by a bolt to the foot of the mandorla in a manner that he could not fall; and to the end that he might be able to kneel, the said iron was divided into three parts, whereof one part entered readily into another as he knelt.
In the midst of this cluster of eight angels for so was it rightly called was a mandorla of copper, hollow within, wherein were many holes showing certain little lamps fixed on iron bars in the form of tubes; which lamps, on the touching of a spring which could be pressed down, were all hidden within the mandorla of copper, whereas, when the spring was not pressed down, all the lamps could be seen alight through some holes therein.
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