Explaining The Bible on Instagram: "The painting Santa Francesca Romana Holding the Christ Child, created around 1445 by the Italian artist Antonio del Massaro da Viterbo (also known as Pastura), is a small tempera-on-wood panel with a gold ground, now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Robert Lehman Collection. It depicts Saint Frances of Rome (1384–1440), the noble Roman mystic and founder of the Olivetan Oblates, tenderly cradling the infant Christ in her arms. This intimate, devotional imag

Explaining The Bible on Instagram: "The Virgin and Child with a Pomegranate (ca. 1480–1500), produced in the workshop of the renowned Italian Renaissance artist Sandro Botticelli, is a tender devotional painting (often in tondo or circular format) depicting the Virgin Mary gently holding the infant Jesus. The Christ Child prominently holds or reaches for a split pomegranate, from which seeds spill out, while Mary supports Him lovingly. Surrounded sometimes by angels, the composition uses soft co