During the early Italian Renaissance the Virgin Mary, cloaked in blue, became a central subject of religious art. Laws were passed to ban ordinary citizens from wearing blue, reserving it exclusively for depictions of the Virgin. “A noble colour, beautiful, the most perfect of all colours,” wrote the artist Cennino Cennini (1360-1427). The supply of Ultramarine blue pigment, made from the finest imported lapis lazuli, was controlled by the church which resulted in it becoming more expensive than gold.