The Virgo cluster of galaxies is a testbed for globular cluster system studies which has proven fruitful over and over again, beginning with the classic survey photographic work of Hanes (1977). Among the Virgo ellipticals, the ones from which we have gathered the most informative data are the two supergiants, NGC 4472 (M49) and NGC 4486 (M87) - the latter galaxy being the prototypical ``high-SN'' cD galaxy. Though their stellar populations are currently a bit beyond reach of our best imaging tools, we can still use their GCSs as extremely interesting touchstones for the various galaxy formation models mentioned above.
Both galaxies have strikingly similar bimodal MDFs, with roughly equal numbers of clusters in each ``mode'' (Geisler et al. 1996; Whitmore et al. 1995; Elson & Santiago 1996; Harris et al. 1998). Despite their factor-of-three differences in specific frequency, it has long been established that the luminosity distributions of their clusters have virtually identical forms, as they do in all giant ellipticals studied to date (Harris et al. 1991; Whitmore et al. 1995; H99).