This is an entry for the categories Child’s Play, and The Neck Best Thing: a baby’s charm and teether.
Mistress katherine says:
In Detti’s Madonna della Pergola (painted in 1523), a young child holds a light chain which carries a piece of coral, a cross, a token, a coin or pilgrim badge and a dog’s tooth. The coral and the tooth were used as teethers; the remainder were to call upon less physical aid.
This charm from my swaddling days holds coral to ward off the plague, a cross from Rome, an angel, and a pilgrim’s scallop from Santiago de Compostela.
