Note 10 — ITALIAN (continued 2)

“The pomegranate in the hand of the Child, bursting open and showing the seeds, has been variously interpreted. It may be a symbol of the hope in eternity, which the Christ gave to man, signified by the unexpected sweetness of the fruit within the hard rind. In the writings of the early Fathers the fruit is also interpreted as the emblem of congregations, because of its many seeds, or as the emblem of the Christian Church because of the inner unity of countless seeds in one and the same fruit.”—Mediæval and Renaissance Painting (Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, 1927).