
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, http://hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.4623
Molanus discusses attributes, like crowns, halos and the like in the depictions of saints, they represent the four cardinal virtues.
“We must hasten to point out that according to the deacon John, in this painting Gregory did not have a crown, but the sign of the one who possesses life. He thus teaches us from what antiquity it is the custom of Aegis to add to the paintings of the saints a round shield at the vertical of their head, or else a crown, and not only this shield or this crown of life but also a sign of another form. Guillaume Durand indicates in his Rationale what kind it was: ‘When prelates or saints were depicted during their lifetime, their crowns were not painted in the form of a round shield, but in the form of a square, to show, according to what we read in the legend of Blessed Gregory, that they shone with the four cardinal virtues.'”
“Diligentet porro notandum est quod Ioannes Diaconus dicat Gregorium in ea pictura non habuisse cornam, sed insigne viventis. Hinc enim discimus quam vetusto more Ecclesiae, sanctis af verticem capitis appingatur scutum rotundum, sive corona et quod viventibus huiusmodi scutum sive corona vitae non solet appingi, sed alterius formae insigne: quod cuiuscemodi fuerit, indicat Guilielmus Durantus dum in rationali scribit: Cum vero aliquis Praelatus aut sanctus vivens pingitur non in formam scuti rotundi sed quadrati corona ipsa depingitur, ut quaruor Cardinalibus virtutibus vigere monstretur, prout in legenda beati Gregorii habetur.”






Molanus 1996, 309.