page_title: Animals in Christian art
section_title: Renaissance
hierarchical_section_title: Animals in Christian art / Renaissance
caption_attribution_description: English: Detail showing Goldfinch of Madonna del Cardellino (Madonna of the Goldfinch) by Raphael in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence. From above image on Commons, and Google Art ProjectFrançais&#160;: Détail de La Vierge au chardonneret (en italien&#160;: Madonna del Cardellino)&#160;: Jean le Baptiste tenant le chardonneret.
context_page_description: In Christian art, animal forms have at times occupied a place of importance. With the Renaissance, animals were nearly banished, except as an accessory to the human figure. Modern Christian art only revives symbols and decoration.
context_section_description: With the fourteenth century, animals become less frequent in iconography. The fifteenth and sixteenth centuries use them again, but copied more closely from life, usually of small size, and without any intention of symbolism. One finds now animals such as rats, snakes, rabbits, snails, and lizards.
  Raphael's Madonna del cardellino (Madonna of the Goldfinch) portrays John the Baptist holding a goldfinch while Christ reaches out his arms to touch it. The bird is associated by legend with the crucifixion, the red spot on its head supposedly arising from a drop of Christ's blood.
caption: Detail of goldfinch in Raphael's Madonna del cardellino, 1506
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