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BOTTICELLI 
 
Bell's Miniature Series of Painters. 
 
 Edited by G. C. Williamson, Litt.D. 
 
 Fott &vo, with 8 Illustrations, issued in cloth or in 
 limp leather, with Photogravure frontispiece. 
 
 ALMA TADEMA. By H. Zimmern. 
 ROSA BONHEUR. By Frank Hird. 
 BOTTICELLI. By R. H. Hobart Cust. 
 BURNE-JONES. By Malcolm Bell. 
 CONSTABLE. By Arthur B. Chamberlain. 
 CORREGGIO. By Leader Scott. 
 DA VINCI. By R. H. Hobart Cust [in the press). 
 FRA ANGELICO. By G. C. Williamson, Litt.D. 
 GAINSBOROUGH. By Mrs. Arthur Bell. 
 GREUZE. By Harold Armitage. 
 HOGARTH. By G. Elliot Anstruther. 
 HOLBEIN. By Arthur B. Chamberlain. 
 HOLM AN HUNT. ByG. C. Williamson, Litt.D. 
 LANDSEER. By McDougall Scott, B.A. 
 LEIGHTON. By G. C. Williamson, Litt.D. 
 MICHELANGELO. By Edward C. Strutt. 
 MILLAIS. By A. Lys Baldry. 
 MILLET. By Edgcumbe Staley, B.A. 
 MURILLO. By G. C. Williamson, LittD. 
 RAPHAEL. By McDougall Scott, B.A. 
 REMBRANDT. By Hope Rea. 
 REYNOLDS. By Rowley Cleeve. 
 ROMNEY. By Rowley Cleeve. 
 ROSSETTI. By H. C. Marillier. 
 RUBENS. By Hope Rea. 
 TITIAN. By Hope Rea. 
 TURNER. By Albinia Wherry. 
 VAN DYCK. By E. R. Dibdin {in the press). 
 VAN EYCK (Hubert and Jan). By P. G. Konody. 
 VELAZQUEZ. By G. C. Williamson, Litt.D. 
 WATTEAU. By Edgcumbe Staley, B.A. 
 WATTS. By Malcolm Bell. 
 WHISTLER. By Mrs. Arthur Bell. 
 
[Mrs. J. L. Gardner, Boston, Mass. 
 MADONNA AND CHILD. 
 (From the Chi gi Palace , Rome.) 
 
Bell's Miniature Series oi" Painters 
 
 BOTTICELLI 
 
 BY 
 
 • R. H. HOBART CUST, M.A. 
 
 AUTHOR OF "GIOVANNI ANTONIO BAZZI," "THE PAVEMENT 
 MASTERS OF SIENA," ETC. ETC. 
 
 LONDON 
 
 GEORGE BELL & SONS 
 
 1908 
 
HDLZ3 
 
 HCWRY MORSE STEPHENS 
 
 CHISWICK PRESS: CHARLES WH1TTINGHAM AND CO. 
 TOOKS COURT, CHANCERY LANE, LONDON. 
 
^1/? 
 
 TO 
 
 G. C. W. 
 
 TO WHOM THE AUTHOR OWES HIS 
 FIRST INTRODUCTION TO THE GREAT WORLD 
 
 OF LETTERS, 
 THIS TINY WORK IS GRATEFULLY DEDICATED 
 
 sri K-1 77 
 
PREFACE 
 
 IT may, perhaps, seem somewhat presump- 
 tuous at a moment when scholars and stu- 
 dents are anxiously awaiting the early appearance 
 of Mr. Herbert Home's long-expected and 
 monumental monograph on Botticelli, for 
 anyone less well equipped with knowledge to 
 venture upon another sketch, however limited in 
 scope, regarding this charming painter. Never- 
 theless, the author is fain to take his courage in 
 his hands, and to hope that as far as his modest 
 work goes, he has not fallen into any very gross 
 errors, or such as may bring upon him the con- 
 tempt of so distinguished a critic. 
 
 December, 1 907. 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Preface 6 
 
 The Life of Botticelli 9 
 
 The Art of Botticelli 62 
 
 Our Illustrations 72 
 
 Chronology of the chief events in 
 
 the Life of Botticelli 89 
 
 List of the chief works by Botticelli 
 
 catalogued according to Locality . 92 
 
 Short Bibliography 98 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 TO FACE 
 PAGE 
 
 Madonna and Child. Collection of Mrs. 
 J. L. Gardner, Boston, U.S.A. 
 
 Frontispiece 
 
 Fortitude Uffizi Gallery 14 
 
 Portrait of Giovanni de' Medici 
 
 Academy, Florence 20 
 La Primavera . . Academy, Florence 28 
 The Adoration of the Magi 
 
 Uffizi Gallery 52 
 The Birth of Venus . . Uffizi Gallery 80 
 The Madonna of the Magnificat 
 
 Uffizi Gallery 82 
 The Nativity .... Natio?ial Gallery 84 
 
SANDRO BOTTICELLI 
 
 HIS LIFE 
 
 NO Tuscan painter of the Italian Renaissance 
 has laid more sudden and complete hold 
 of the imagination of the modern art-student 
 than Alessandro Filipepi, commonly called San- 
 dro Botticelli. Five-and-twenty years ago, 
 except to a limited number of unprejudiced con- 
 noisseurs, his name was scarcely known out of 
 Italy; his aims and methods were frankly despised 
 or made objects of derision; and numberless 
 examples of his work lay hidden in lumber-rooms 
 or dark corners of galleries, public and private. 
 With the Pre-Raphaelite Revival, however, and, 
 following that, the so-called "^Esthetic" move- 
 ment, a vast change took place in art apprecia- 
 tion throughout Europe : and now the pendulum 
 has swung almost too much in the opposite 
 direction. Every scrap of painting that can by 
 any stretch of imagination be attributed to the 
 School of Botticelli, or to the weakest of his 
 9 
 
io SANDRO BOTTICELLI 
 
 imitators, is; boldly labelled as the work of the 
 Master himself; and bitter and fierce are the 
 contests that rage over the genuineness and 
 probable date of execution of this or that paint- 
 ing: — even over those few that apparently are 
 supported by documentary evidence. 
 
 The authenticated facts of Botticelli's history 
 are comparatively scarce, and some of them even 
 difficult to reconcile with each other, or with his 
 known commissions; but certain biographical 
 assumptions may justly be drawn from his paint- 
 ings themselves. 
 
 Alessandro Filipepi was the fourth and young- 
 est son of a certain Mariano di Vanni Filipepi, 
 a prosperous tanner of Florence, living in what 
 was then called the Via Nuova (now Via Por- 
 cellana), a side street close to the church of 
 S. Lucia in the Borgognissanti. 
 
 M. Jacques Mesnil has recently identified his 
 house with No. 28 in that street, and has further 
 discovered that Messer Mariano rented his dwell- 
 ing from the heir of a certain Simone Manovelli 
 for a sum of ten florins a year. 
 
 Till recently, moreover, the date of our artist's 
 birth had been approximately fixed by a docu- 
 ment, " a ' Denunzia dei Beni,' " as having taken 
 place some time in the year 1447: since he is 
 
HIS LIFE ii 
 
 therein described (1480) as being thirty-three 
 years of age. Mr. Herbert Home has, however, 
 discovered another Income Tax Return, dated 
 February, 1457 (Florentine Style), wherein San- 
 dro is recorded as being then thirteen years of 
 age. This would throw the date of his birth back 
 to the year 1444, a date which is further con- 
 firmed by another document dated 1st March, 
 1446, in which Mariano Filipepi declares that 
 his youngest son was then at the age of tivo. 
 M. Mesnil, who made this latter discovery, points 
 out that our artist must therefore have seen the 
 light somewhere between 1st March, 1444, and 
 1 st March, 1445 (New Style). 
 
 These two learned critics then differ as to 
 whether the young Sandro was still a schoolboy 
 in 1458; Mr. Home maintains that, owing to his 
 delicate health (malsano) he was unable to com- 
 mence regular work like other Florentine boys 
 of his class, and was still at school. M. Mesnil, 
 on the other hand, denies that the expression 
 used in the document (for which he, however, 
 admits that he can find no other satisfactory 
 meaning) bears that interpretation. 
 
 Nevertheless, we learn from Vasari that school- 
 boy discipline proved excessively irksome to our 
 lively, high-spirited young friend, and that his 
 
12 SANDRO BOTTICELLI 
 
 wilful idleness was the occasion of much anxiety 
 and annoyance to his worthy father. In despair 
 at his son's vagaries, says the Aretine historian, 
 Messer Mariano apprenticed his son to a gold- 
 smith, named Botticelli, whence he obtained 
 the nickname by which he is usually known. 
 Here, as is too often the case in the chronicles 
 of that fascinating, but somewhat unscrupulous, 
 historian, we are in danger of being led into 
 error; since no trace can be found of any gold- 
 smith bearing that, or any similar name. On the 
 other hand, Sandro's eldest brother, Giovanni, 
 nearly twenty years his senior — a leather mer- 
 chant like their father — bore, for some reason 
 \ that has not come down to us, the nickname of 
 UBotticello or the little cask. From him no doubt 
 the appellation di Botticelli was transferred to his 
 younger brother. By that pseudonym he was 
 apparently known by his friends and contempor- 
 aries, and is best known to us now. 
 
 Sandro's second brother, Antonio, was a gold- 
 smith (who subsequently became a bookseller in 
 Bologna), and it is, of course, quite possible 
 that Mariano may have at first placed his youngest 
 son with the elder brother to learn that highly 
 lucrative trade. Nevertheless, in 1460 the young 
 artist, at the age of about fifteen or sixteen, seems 
 
HIS LIFE 13 
 
 to have achieved the desire of his heart and 
 entered the bottega of Fra Filippo Lippi, from 
 which time he appears to have devoted himself 
 heart and soul to the study of the art of paint- 
 ing. We hear that his enthusiasm, genius, and, 
 no doubt, personal charm, won the heart of his 
 master, who spared no effort to encourage and 
 help him. 
 
 The Frate had in 1452 undertaken to decorate 
 the choir of the Collegiate church at Prato, but 
 had delayed the work from time to time, so it 
 was not until 1465, under the Priorship of Carlo 
 dei Medici, natural son of Cosimo the Elder, 
 that the fine series of scenes from the Lives Oj 
 SS. Stephen and John 1, still to be seen there, was 
 completed. From these frescoes by his talented 
 master it is evident that our young hero obtained 
 many of the inspirations that served him so well 
 in after-life. The graceful floating form of Salome 
 as she dances before Herod, and the mournful 
 looks of the Apostles gathered around the dead 
 Stephen, reappear continually in Botticelli's work 
 throughout his career. 
 
 In the early months of the year 1465, Fra 
 Filippo having finished his task at Prato returned 
 to Florence. When two years later the Friar pro- 
 ceeded to Spoleto to carry out his last important 
 
 
14 SANDRO BOTTICELLI 
 
 work in the Duomo there, Sandro did not ac- 
 company him, but so strong a similarity exists 
 between the work of the two painters as to lead 
 us to the possible hypothesis that in some way 
 or other — perhaps in the composition of car- 
 toons, or subsequently when on his way to Rome 
 — Botticelli may have contributed a share to this 
 fine creation. 
 
 A deep sense of gratitude for his master seems 
 to have remained in our painter's mind, for when 
 after Fra Filippo's death in 1469 his young son 
 Filippino was brought back to Florence, a warm 
 welcome was offered to him by his father's former 
 pupil. 
 
 It is not possible to fix upon any one painting 
 as being actually Sandro's first essay, but an 
 interesting work of this earliest period of his 
 career was recently discovered by Mr. Berenson 
 and Mr. H. Home in a tiny wayside shrine near 
 Settignano, called La Madonna della Vannella. 
 It is a very badly injured Madonna and Child^ 
 but it displays traces of all the characteristics by 
 which our artist's work is best known. 
 
 At about the same period we would date the 
 bng narrow Adoration of the Magi, now in the 
 National Gallery, in London (No. 592). Here, 
 however, new influences are evident in the young 
 
\ Uffizi Gallery, Florence. 
 FORTITUDE. 
 
HIS LIFE 15 
 
 painter's style. After Fra Filippo's departure 
 Botticelli formed close relations with the gold- 
 smith-brothers, Piero and Antonio Pollajuolo; 
 and in competition with (not, as has been hitherto 
 supposed, under the direction of) these gifted 
 craftsmen, he executed one of seven allegorical 
 figures to adorn the large Council Hall of the 
 Palace of the Mercatanzia. These figures repre- 
 sent the Three Theological and the Four Cardinal 
 Virtues: and it was through the influence of 
 Tommaso Soderini, who on 17th May 1470 was 
 added to the Committee of Direction, that one 
 of them — that of Fortitude — was withdrawn from 
 Piero Pollajuolo and allotted to Sandro. Soder- 
 ini's affection for the artist does not appear to 
 have stopped short at procuring him employment, 
 for, to the dismay of the unhappy painter, he also 
 threatened to procure him a wife. 
 
 From the documents recently published by 
 M. Jacques Mesnil and Miss Cruttwell, it would 
 seem, moreover, that a sum of forty florins was 
 originally provided for Botticelli's share in this 
 work, which, according to the standard of pay- 
 ment for the other figures, seems rather to sug- 
 gest an intention that he should execute two of 
 them. Furthermore it has been proposed with great 
 show of probability that a drawing by Botticelli 
 
 
1 6 SANDRO BOTTICELLI 
 
 for Hope, still existing in the Uffizi Collection, 
 is a sketch for that Virtue in this series, planned 
 but never carried out by him. However this may 
 be, only one was completed by him, and he was 
 eventually paid but twenty florins. The figure 
 -of Fortitude, which is one of the best preserved 
 of the series, is a pendant to Piero Pollajuolo's 
 Prudence (long attributed, though wrongly, to his 
 brother Antonio). It shows very strongly the 
 influence of these two gifted brothers : so much 
 so in fact, that keen critics, even Morelli himself, 
 were tempted to doubt an authorship now docu- 
 mentarily proved. 
 
 From this point we can take a definite point 
 of departure in estimating our artist's style, and 
 we can proceed to fix approximately the date of 
 certain other paintings. Foremost among these 
 are two charming little works, now in the Uffizi 
 (Nos. 1 156 and 1158), painted with almost the 
 delicacy of miniatures. They once belonged, we 
 are told, to Bianca Cappello — a gift to her from 
 Messer Ridolfo Sirigatti — and they illustrate the 
 Story of Judith and Ho/of ernes. In one we see 
 Judith, the saviour of her country, proceeding 
 victoriously home from Holofernes' camp, at- 
 tended by her maid, bearing the tyrant's head 
 in a basket. In the other the soldiers and 
 
HIS LIFE 17 
 
 servants of the dead general are gazing through^ 
 the curtains of his tent upon his headless corpse. 
 The drawing and modelling in these two 
 paintings show clearly how very much Botticelli 
 owed to a careful study of the work of those 
 incomparable draughtsmen, the Pollajuoli. A 
 similar devotion to the faithful portrayal of 
 anatomy is evident in a dignified S. Sebastian, 
 now in the Berlin Museum, but painted, Vasari 
 tells us, in January 1473 an d 1474 to the order 
 of Lorenzo dei Medici (// Magnifico), for the 
 church of Sta Maria Maggiore. This painting 
 was also at one time attributed to Antonio 
 Pollajuolo. 
 
 Of the same period and revealing many of the 
 same characteristic features, is the charming . 
 Madonna and Child with an Angel, formerly 
 in Prince Chigi's Collection in Rome, a repro- 
 duction of which forms the frontispiece to this 
 present volume. 
 
 It was at this time no doubt that Botticelli / 
 became acquainted with another young Florentine, 
 who in after years — though rallying him vigor- 
 ously on his methods of painting landscapes — 
 honoured him above all other contemporary 
 painters by a special and an affectionate allusion 
 (il nostro botticelld) in his famous " Treatise on 
 
 B 
 
v. 
 
 1 8 SANDRO BOTTICELLI 
 
 Painting." This was Leonardo da Vinci, his 
 junior, it is true, by some years, but even then a 
 personality which could not have failed to extend 
 its influence upon so impressionable and earnest 
 a soul as that of our artist. 
 
 Early in 1474 Botticelli's fame having spread 
 beyond his native town he was invited to Pisa to 
 assist Benozzo Gozzoli, his fellow-citizen, in the 
 adornment of the Campo Santo there. In May 
 therefore he paid a first visit to that city, and his 
 journey expenses — one florin— were defrayed by 
 the Duomo Office of Works. He agreed to paint 
 an Assumption in the chapel of the Incoronata 
 in the Cathedral as a proof of his skill before 
 being engaged to represent the same subject in 
 the Campo Santo. From July to September the 
 Duomo Archives record allowances in food-sup- 
 plies and money for materials made for this work. 
 In September, however, they cease abruptly. 
 Vasari tells us that the work did not give satis- 
 faction, but this scarcely seems likely. There was 
 probably some other reason, which we do not know. 
 
 In any case Sandro returned to his native 
 own, where he found himself warmly welcomed; 
 and the opening of his bottega was the signal for 
 the commencement of the most prosperous and 
 interesting period of his career. 
 
HIS LIFE 19 
 
 This was the Golden Age for Florence. 
 Lorenzo dei Medici ruled with almost royal 
 splendour over a city nominally republican, and 
 around him gathered a Court almost unequalled 
 in its own and every other time for brilliance 
 and learning. Botticelli's earliest teachers had 
 enjoyed Medicean protection and thriven under 
 it, so that it was scarcely likely that his pre- 
 eminent abilities would escape the notice of the 
 " Magnificent " Lorenzo : and some of our artist's 
 most poetic and characteristic work was carried 
 out to the order of this appreciative and muni- 
 ficent patron. 
 
 He had already, as we have seen, painted a 
 S. Sebastian for Lorenzo; but at the end of 1474 
 he was directed to prepare an emblematic banner 
 to be used by Giuliano, the handsome younger 
 brother and the darling of the Florentine 
 populace, at a tournament held in the Piazza 
 Santa Croce in January of the following year. 
 Giuliano, splendidly attired in silver armour 
 and magnificent jewels, before the eyes of his 
 beloved Simonetta Vespucci, vanquished all 
 rivals. The emblem borne by him on this oc- 
 casion has been described for us in an account 
 of the Tournament, still existing in the Maglia- 
 becchian Library; as follows: 
 
20 SANDRO BOTTICELLI 
 
 The Goddess Pallas Athene was painted on a 
 blue ground with a rising sun above her head. 
 She was robed in white with a fine golden vest, 
 and stood upon burning boughs of olive. In 
 her right hand she held a lance, whilst her 
 left grasped a shield, upon which was the head 
 of Medusa. Behind her lay Cupid bound by 
 golden cords to an olive tree. The chronicler 
 has not reported for us the name of the author 
 of this device, but so exactly does this descrip- 
 \ tion tally with that of a painting of Pallas which 
 N Vasari tells us was executed by Botticelli for 
 Lorenzo himself, that we have good reason for 
 supposing the two paintings to have been one 
 and the same. This Pallas is again alluded to 
 n an inventory dated 15 12, of the treasures 
 in the Medici Palace, copied from one made 
 in 1492 at the death of "the Magnificent," as 
 follows : " In the room of Piero — a cloth (panno) 
 set in a gold frame, about 4 braccia high by 2 
 wide, bearing a figure of Pa — [Pallas] with a 
 burning shield and an arrow, by the hand of 
 Sandro da Botticelli." 
 
 This and certain other recorded paintings 
 have unfortunately perished : a Bacchus (re- 
 corded by Vasari) and some Medici family 
 portraits. Among these were likenesses of 
 
[ Ujfizi Gallery, Florence. 
 GIOVANNI DE MEDICI. 
 
HIS LIFE 2i 
 
 Lorenzo's mother, Lucrezia Tornabuoni, and 
 of the lovely and universally beloved Simonetta 
 Vespucci. Existing portraits of this beauteous 
 lady (in the Pitti Palace) and of her devoted 
 lover, Giuliano de' Medici (in the Morelli Gallery 
 at Bergamo; — with a replica in the Royal 
 Museum at Berlin), once attributed to Botticelli 
 are now assigned to that gifted but unknown 
 pupil, for whom Mr. Berenson has invented the 
 ingenious name of " Amico di Sandro." 
 
 Two portraits belonging to this period do 
 however exist. One of these a delightful like- 
 ness of an unknown Florentine boy in a red cap, 
 now in the National Gallery (No. 626), was once 
 assigned to Masaccio; whilst the other is in the 
 Uffizi (No. 1 154) and was once called a Portrait 
 of a Medallist, from the golden medal bearing 
 the head of Cosimo the elder conspicuously dis- 
 played in the hands of the sitter. Many and 
 various have been the conjectures as to whom 
 this portrait represents. Pico della Mirandola, 
 the medallist Pietro Razzanti, and later, Piero 
 di Lorenzo de' Medici are among the various 
 names given to it at different times. The general 
 consensus of opinion is now, however, agreed 
 that it is a portrait of Giovanni di Cosimo dei 
 Medici, painted (since he died in 1463) after 
 his death. 
 
22 SANDRO BOTTICELLI 
 
 Various other portraits have been from time 
 to time attributed to our artist, but it seems 
 more probable that they are the work of the 
 assistants. It is sufficient however for our purpose 
 x x to note that Botticelli's repute as a portrait-painter 
 was well established by 1478, when he was com- 
 missioned to perpetuate the eternal infamy of 
 the Pazzi conspirators. 
 
 Before recording that event the subject of 
 portraits brings us to the celebrated Adoration 
 of the Magi, once in the church of Santa Maria 
 Novella, now in the Uffizi Gallery (No. 1286), 
 the date of which may be approximately fixed 
 at 1476-7, and into which a vast number of 
 portraits of the Medici family and their friends 
 have been introduced. This justly renowned 
 work is here illustrated, and will be more par- 
 ticularly described later on (p. 75). It is, how- 
 ever, not the only representation of this subject 
 painted by Botticelli; neither is it the earliest, 
 nor indeed the only one into which he has 
 introduced portraits of contemporary person- 
 ages. The two earlier examples (dated probably 
 1468 and 1477 respectively), are in the National 
 Gallery, and are numbered 592 and 1033. 
 Both these paintings bear close resemblances 
 to the style of Filippino Lippi, to whom they 
 
 \ 
 
HIS LIFE 23 
 
 are still attributed in the Official Catalogue of 
 the Gallery; but Signor Morelli, and, following 
 him, Messrs. Berenson and Herbert Home are 
 unanimous in correcting these attributions. The 
 latter example, which is of the tondo form, and 
 may well be the work which Vasari tells us that 
 he saw in the palace of the Pucci family, shows 
 markedly the influence of the Pollajuoli brothers. 
 
 The anonymous author of the Codice Gaddiano 
 records another Adoration as having been 
 painted by our artist in the Palazzo dei Signori, 
 "above the staircase that leads to the Catena"; 
 but of this work no trace, except some detached 
 drawings now exists. Nevertheless much later 
 on in our painter's career he sketched in tempera 
 the striking, but cruelly injured Adoration 
 (No. 3436 in the Uffizi Gallery), wherein once 
 more it is alleged may be traced a vast number 
 of portraits, including that of the Reformer Fra 
 Girolamo Savonarola. Some critics are inclined 
 to consider that these two Adorations are one 
 and the same, but Mr. Herbert Home has con- 
 clusively proved that this is impossible. 
 
 The same anonymous writer tells us of yet 
 another Adoration of the Magi, painted by 
 Botticelli during his stay in Rome, which he 
 adds was "the most beautiful work that the 
 
24 SANDRO BOTTICELLI 
 
 artist ever did." This has been identified with 
 the exquisite painting in the Hermitage Gallery 
 at St. Petersburg (No. 163). It resembles in 
 many respects both the tondo in the National 
 Gallery and the earlier of the two Adorations in 
 the Uffizi, but in composition it shows a strong 
 advance on both. It is neither so crowded nor 
 so confused; the exaggerated action that mars so 
 much of the painter's later work is absent ; nor 
 do we notice so many obvious portraits. 
 
 We must now retrace our steps and return 
 x to the year 1476-7, about which date, as we 
 have seen, our artist painted the Adoration of 
 the Magi for the church of Santa Maria Novella. 
 The introduction of so many portraits into that 
 remarkable work proves the strong tie existing 
 between the painter and the all-powerful house 
 of the Medici, then ruling in Florence. So that 
 it is not surprising to find from Vasari and other 
 writers that during these years he was employed 
 by various members of that family to paint 
 secular subjects, and to illustrate for them the 
 Ne o-Classic myths t hat had taken so strong a 
 h old upoj i tfrfr imflfripat-inn of the cultured classes 
 of that day. Into the execution of the ideas of 
 his patrons he clearly entered con amore^ and 
 his own vivid and exuberant fancy still further 
 
HIS LIFE 25 
 
 tended to assist in producing those exquisite 
 creations which are so characteristic of his own 
 personality, and at the same time so truly an 
 expression of the age in which he lived. We 
 learn that he painted "many figures of nude 
 women that were surpassingly beautiful." Com- 
 paratively few of these have come down to us, 
 but from these we can frankly admit that our 
 informant was not incorrect in his admiration. 
 The two most famous of these fanciful creations 
 seem to have been painted for Lorenzo di Pier 
 Francesco, great-nephew of Cosimo the Elder, 
 and head of the younger branch of the Medici, 
 whose villa at Castello they once adorned. They 
 represent an Allegory of Spring {La Primaverd), 
 and the Birth of Venus respectively. As we have 
 fully described them later on we need not do 
 more here than remark that though from super- 
 ficial general resemblances they are often classed 
 together, very strong differences do exist between 
 them : and that several years, — how many, critics 
 are not agreed — passed between their respective 
 execution. 
 
 On Sunday, 26th April 1478, all Florence 
 was startled by the outbreak of the Pazzi Con- 
 spiracy, in which Giuliano, the idol of the people 
 of Florence, perished on the steps of the Duomo 
 
 f 
 
26 SANDRO BOTTICELLI 
 
 Choir, whilst the Magnifico himself barely 
 escaped with his life. The fury of the Floren- 
 tines was not content with meting out swift and 
 condign punishment upon the murderers (in- 
 cluding even the Archbishop of Pisa), but to 
 perpetuate their eternal infamy, Botticelli was 
 employed to paint their effigies upon the walls 
 of the Palazzo Pubblico, from the windows of 
 which they had met their death. 
 
 Two years later, when peace was again re- 
 stored and Lorenzo's power more firmly estab- 
 lished than ever, our artist seems to have under- 
 taken another semi-classic allegory. This was 
 the painting representing Pallas and a Centaur^ 
 which for many years lay hid in a dark corner 
 of the Royal Apartments in the Pitti Palace. At 
 the time of its re-discovery great controversies 
 arose, since attempts were made to identify it 
 with the Pallas recorded by Vasari of which we 
 have already made mention above. But the de- 
 scriptions of the two works do not in any respect 
 tally, and, moreover, this composition shows a 
 later aspect in the artist's technical development. 
 In an inventory, made in October 1516, of the 
 Medici collections in their palace in the ViaLarga, 
 occurs an entry recording a painting which re- 
 presented a Minerva a?id a Centaur: an entry 
 
HIS LIFE 27 
 
 which may reasonably be supposed to refer to this 
 picture. The Goddess tall and stately, armed 
 with buckler and halberd, grasps the Centaur 
 by his forelock; symbolizing we may justly infer, 
 the victory of the Medici over their enemies, 
 and their wise and beneficent rule. The white 
 robe of Pallas is adorned with the favourite 
 Medici device of the intertwining rings, and 
 her breast and arms are garlanded with the olive- 
 boughs of peace. The Centaur, strange to relate, 
 is no revolting monster full of ugliness and vice, 
 but has a strangely pathetic and even somewhat 
 venerable countenance, recalling some of our 
 artist's elderly saints. The distant view of the 
 Bay of Naples, upon which a ship is sailing, 
 probably alludes to Lorenzo de Medici's recent 
 successful embassy to the Neapolitan Court. 
 The painting, though badly injured and still 
 more cruelly restored, yet remains a very fine 
 and imposing work. 
 V Another interesting work, composed on classic 
 tines and dating from this period, is the long 
 panel of Mars and Venus, now in the National 
 Gallery (No. 915). Like the Primavera and the 
 Birth of Venus, this painting seems also to have 
 been suggested by certain passages in Poliziano's 
 1 Stanze per la Giostra.' In a flowery mead and 
 
28 SANDRO BOTTICELLI 
 
 under the shelter of a hedge of myrtle, Mars, a 
 handsome nude youth, having laid aside his 
 armour lies sunk in deep slumber. Around him 
 frolic four baby- Fauns, playing various tricks 
 with his weapons. One of these is endeavouring 
 to awaken the God by blowing a blast through 
 a conch-shell in his ear. Over against him, half 
 raising herself on her right elbow which rests 
 upon a crimson cushion, reclines Venus. Robed 
 in white and gold, with carefully arranged tresses 
 of blonde hair, she gravely contemplates her 
 sleeping lover. The drawing and colouring of 
 this work are admirable, and so lifelike are the 
 features of the two deities that it has even been 
 suggested, that, as in the Primavera, we may also 
 here discover a secondary meaning to the com- 
 position, allusive to the devotion shown by the 
 young Giuliano dei Medici, so tragically slain, 
 for the beautiful Simonetta Vespucci, whose 
 early death from consumption was cause for 
 such widespread sorrow throughout the city of 
 Florence. From its rather peculiar long shape it 
 seems probable that the painting was intended 
 to surmount a door. The companion picture 
 (No. 916), which reached the National Gallery 
 at the same time and from the same (Barker) 
 collection, and once also bore the Masters 
 

 
 
 
 
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 CM 
 
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HIS LIFE 29 
 
 name, is now assigned with good reason by 
 Mr. Berenson to one of his most skilful assistants, 
 Jacopo del Sellajo. Here Venus is seen alone, 
 reposing upon a couch, whilst three Amorini 
 play around her with red and white roses and 
 bunches of grapes. It is a painting of very con- 
 siderable charm, bearing very strong evidence of 
 the Master's direct influence, and it may well 
 have been at first sight attributed to him, 
 though close inspection reveals its true author. 
 
 The name of Simonetta Vespucci recalls the 
 fact that in the year 1480 the family of that ill- 
 fated lady commissioned Botticelli to paint in 
 fresco on one of the walls of the church of the 
 Ognissanti a figure of St. Augustine, to rival a St. 
 Jerome by Domenico Ghirlandajo on the corres- 
 ponding wall. Later alterations in the internal 
 structure of the church necessitated the removal, 
 — which, Vasari tells us, was most skilfully ac- 
 complished, — of both these works to their present 
 position, right and left of the nave. Both are 
 works of great merit, and in both the Saints are 
 depicted at their studies : but whereas the char- 
 acter and learning of St. Jerome are expressed by 
 elaborate accessories — furniture, books, and in- 
 struments, — the less overladen conception of 
 St. Augustine — his eyes raised to Heaven as if 
 
3 o SANDRO BOTTICELLI 
 
 in contemplation of the Beatific Vision and seek- 
 ing from thence strength and inspiration — is 
 infinitely the more impressive. Moreover, the 
 less strident scheme of colour in the painting by 
 Botticelli strikes a quieter and more appropriate 
 note. 
 
 It is in this same year that we gain another 
 glimpse of the painter's domestic circle. An 
 Income Tax Return dated 1480 enables us to 
 obtain an idea of the number and circumstances 
 of the Filipepi family. Mariano, now eighty-six 
 years of age and a widower, still resides in the 
 same house in the Via Nuova, but, in order to ac- 
 commodate the tribe of children, grandchildren, 
 and other relatives — twenty souls in all — who 
 are living under his roof, he has been obliged to 
 overflow into the house next door, which he rents 
 for a sum of nine florins per annum. His own 
 working days are over, and Monna Vangelista, 
 aged seventy, his late wife's sister and widow of 
 his brother Amedeo, manages his house for him. 
 Giovanni (J I Botticello), his eldest son, the leather 
 merchant, now sixty, has a wife, Nera di Benin- 
 casa dei Chori, and seven children. Of these 
 children, Benincasa, the eldest (nineteen), is a 
 clerk in the Salviati Bank in Rome, but costs his 
 parents mere than he earns; Amedeo (eleven), 
 
HIS LIFE 3i 
 
 also a bank clerk, has excellent prospects but so 
 far is earning nothing; two little boys, Agnoletto 
 (aged eight) and Jacopo (three) are still at 
 school; whilst three girls — Alessandra, Anna, 
 and Smeralda (an infant in arms) are dowerless. 
 Antonio (aged fifty-one), the second son, once a 
 goldsmith, is now a bookseller at Bologna, making 
 about two florins a month and expenses. He too 
 is married, to Bartolommea Spigolati, and be- 
 sides three children — Elisabetta (nine), Mariano 
 (now seven, who became afterwards an artist and 
 died in 1537), and Bartolommeo (five) — shortly 
 expects another. The third brother, Simone 
 (aged about forty-one), is living in Naples, ap- 
 parently unemployed; whilst our friend Sandro, 
 Mariano's youngest son, whose age is given (as 
 we have shown incorrectly) as thirty-three \ "works 
 in the house when he chooses." Although, with 
 that touch of human nature common to all times 
 and all classes the Filepepi family protest their 
 poverty, we learn that they must have been in 
 comfortable circumstances. Mariano had in- 
 herited from his childless brother Jacopo, like- 
 wise a tanner, all his property; besides which he 
 owned houses and land at Peretola producing 
 seventy-two bushels of wheat and thirteen mea- 
 sures of wine per annum. He moreover rented 
 
32 SANDRO BOTTICELLI 
 
 a farm near the Magnifico's famous residence at 
 Careggi, as a refuge in time of plague. He must 
 therefore have been a man of some substance, 
 and could afford to let an almost middle-aged 
 son live at home and "work as he pleased." 
 
 Vasari, in the same sentence in which he 
 alludes to Botticelli's very beautiful "nude" 
 studies tells us of certain tondi by his hand. A 
 great number of paintings in this form by the 
 Master and by his pupils have come down to us, 
 but the dates of their execution respectively can 
 only be approximately inferred from their style. 
 
 It is at about this period that critics usually 
 date the creation of the most beautiful of these 
 works: the world-renowned Madonna of the 
 Magnificat (Uffizi Gallery, No. 1267 bis). No 
 facts regarding its history have come down to 
 us, and the restorer (?) has worked cruel havoc 
 upon it; but nothing can destroy its simple charm 
 and extraordinary fascination. As, however, it 
 is fully described later on we will not pause to 
 dwell upon it any further here. 
 
 Another of these compositions, known as the 
 Madonna of the Pomegranate (delta Melagrana) 
 (Uffizi Gallery, No. 1289), is also generally as- 
 signed to these years. Beside the Magnificat 
 this lovely painting looks somewhat pale and 
 
 / 
 
HIS LIFE 33 
 
 cold, but it is no less beautiful in its own way, 
 and has perhaps suffered less at the hands of the 
 renovator. The Virgin is shown full-face, with 
 the Divine Babe in her lap. His Right Hand is 
 raised in blessing, whilst with the other He plays 
 with a pomegranate that His Mother supports 
 with her left hand. Behind them, three on either 
 side, are six adoring angel-youths, holding lilies 
 and choir-books; whilst from above rays of 
 golden light illumine the entire group. Of this 
 work also no definite information is forthcoming, 
 but it seems probable that it may be identified 
 with a tondo, representing " the Madonna with 
 several life-size attendant angels" recorded by 
 Vasari as being in his time in the church of 
 San Francesco, outside Porta San Miniato. 
 
 It appears probable also that it was in this time 
 that Botticelli at least began the wonderful series 
 of drawings to illustrate Dante's " Divina Corn- 
 media " of which no less than ninety-three have 
 fortunately come down to us. Vasari alludes to 
 a Commentary on Dante made by the painter 
 as a waste of time on his part: and the Anonimo 
 Gaddiano mentions a work of this kind executed 
 by him for his wealthy patron and friend, 
 Lorenzo di Pier Francesco de' Medici. Both 
 these notices may reasonably be supposed to 
 c 
 
34 SANDRO BOTTICELLI 
 
 refer to the same work. Nevertheless there are 
 many reasons which lead us to believe that the 
 execution of the series extended over a good 
 many years: and the first part may even have 
 been repeated twice. In 1481 Cristoforo Landino 
 published in Florence a Commentary on Dante, 
 illustrated with nineteen plates executed by the 
 German painter, Nicolaus Lorenz (or, as the 
 Italians called him, Nicolb della Magna). These 
 plates bear a striking resemblance to the earlier 
 designs in our artist's series : too striking, in 
 fact, to be altogether fortuitous. It is therefore 
 probable that these designs must have been 
 seen by della Magna, — were perhaps even made 
 for this work, — but left incomplete when the 
 artist was summoned to Rome. Hence their 
 abrupt termination. 
 
 The series apparently originally consisted of 
 one hundred drawings with a title page and a 
 plan of Hell. They were executed in soft silver- 
 point, and afterwards roughly traced over with 
 pen and ink. Eighty-eight pages of the manu- 
 script, containing eighty-five drawings, were found 
 about half a century ago by Dr. Waagen among 
 the collections of the Duke of Hamilton, at 
 Hamilton Palace in Scotland; whilst eight more, 
 including the diagram of Hell, were discovered 
 
HIS LIFE 35 
 
 by Dr. Strzygowski in the Vatican Library 
 amongst a number of miscellaneous papers, etc., 
 which formerly belonged to Queen Christina 
 of Sweden. The compositions, of very unequal 
 merit, are badly damaged, and eight of the 
 earliest designs are still wanting; but enough 
 remains to prove to us that in them we have 
 some of the finest and most imaginative work of 
 the Renaissance. Three of the drawings have 
 been painted over in body-colour, whilst a fourth, 
 illustrating Canto X, is partially tinted. From 
 this fact it might be inferred that it was originally 
 intended that all the illustrations should be 
 coloured, but it is doubtful whether this colour- 
 ing was done by the Master himself. For what 
 reason such an idea, if ever proposed, was aban- 
 doned, we do not know, but it can hardly be 
 said that we have lost much by the absence of 
 colour, since the supreme merit of these designs 
 lies in their exquisite feeling for line. In unity 
 of composition many of them — especially the 
 earlier ones --are sadly lacking: the repetition 
 of the figures of Dante and Virgil many times 
 over in the same design, in order to slavishly 
 picture every single episode in the Canto illus- 
 trated, creates a somewhat disconcerting con- 
 fusion. We may therefore not unreasonably 
 
36 SANDRO BOTTICELLI 
 
 surmise that the increasing simplicity, with a 
 concurrent advance in pure decoration^ is due 
 to the fact that the work was not completed all at 
 once; and that the development observable in 
 the artist's larger compositions in tempera and 
 fresco is reflected here in miniature. 
 
 Many propositions have been put forward re- 
 garding the exact reason why Botticelli was 
 selected by Pope Sixtus IV to assist in the 
 adornment of his newly-erected chapel in the 
 Vatican. Vasari tells us that it was the direct 
 result of the fame acquired by the painter on 
 the completion of the Adoration of the Magi in 
 Santa Maria Novella, and on that account the 
 Pontiff chose him as overseer for the entire 
 work. It is not altogether easy to understand 
 this, since Sixtus was the bitterest enemy of the 
 House of Medici, and his nephew, Girolamo 
 Riario, was the prime mover of the Pazzi Con- 
 spiracy, wherein the beloved Giuliano perished. 
 To punish the Florentines for having in their 
 righteous indignation hung the Archbishop of 
 Pisa and imprisoned Cardinal RarTaelle Riario, 
 the Pope laid the city under an interdict. This 
 ban was only removed in December 1480, but 
 one of the first stipulations was that the effigies 
 of the conspirators, which, as we have already 
 
HIS LIFE 37 
 
 related, Botticelli had been commissioned to 
 paint on the walls of the Palazzo Vecchio, 
 should be effaced. And now this same artist 
 goes to Rome in the employ of the very Pope 
 who had commanded the destruction of his 
 earlier work. It has been suggested that 
 he found favour in the eyes of another of the 
 Pope's nephews, Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere, 
 who visited Florence in June 1481, but this 
 would be too late, since the Tuscan painters 
 were already at work long before that date. It 
 seems more probable that one of the envoys 
 sent by Florence to the Pope in 1480, either 
 Giovanni Tornabuoni or Guido Antonio Ves- 
 pucci (who both belonged to families that had 
 already patronized the artist), put in a word for 
 him. 
 
 All that is known, however, for certain, is that 
 on the 27th of October 1481, the four paint- 
 ers, Alessandro di Mariano, Cosimo Rosselli, 
 Domenico Tommaso (Ghirlandajo) of Florence, 
 and Pietro Perugino of Citta della Pieve, agreed 
 with the Papal Commissioner, Giovannino dei 
 Dolci, to paint ten frescoes, which were to be 
 completed by the 15 th of the following March. 
 Mention is made in the same document of work 
 already done by the same artists, and we have 
 
38 SANDRO BOTTICELLI 
 
 reason to believe from a contemporary writer 
 that the chapel was in the hands of workmen 
 throughout the whole of that year. 
 
 There is nothing to show that Botticelli was 
 in any way the overseer of his fellow-painters, and 
 his actual work seems to have been limited to 
 three of the larger historical frescoes, together 
 with some of the portraits of former Popes, which 
 stand in niches above them. How many of these 
 latter may be assigned to him is a matter of con- 
 siderable discussion between critics: made still 
 more difficult to decide, owing to their present 
 damaged condition. Those of Sixtus II, Ste- 
 phanus Romanus, and perhaps Cornelius, may 
 be attributed to him. Some at least of the 
 others, it has been suggested, may be the work 
 of Fra Diamante, his fellow pupil under Fra 
 Filippo Lippi, who certainly was employed in 
 this chapel, receiving an exceptionally large 
 payment therefor, but whose work we cannot 
 otherwise identify. 
 
 The Pope, who had attained considerable re- 
 nown as a theologian before his elevation to the 
 Chair of St. Peter, chose, we learn, the subjects 
 for the adornment of his chapel himself. Six 
 scenes from the Life of Moses ', as the Type, cover 
 the left wall, whilst six others from the Life of 
 
HIS LIFE 39 
 
 Our Blessed Lord, as the Antitype, correspond 
 with them on the opposite wall; thus outlining 
 the chief events in the Old and New Covenants. 
 Originally these were completed on the end wall 
 by The Assumption of the Virgin, between the 
 Finding of Moses and the Birth of Christ. These 
 three frescoes, painted by Perugino, were sub- 
 sequently destroyed by order of Paul III to make 
 way for Michelangelo's Last Judgement. 
 
 The first of our artist's three larger works is 
 placed exactly opposite the Papal Throne. The 
 subject of the painting ostensibly is the Tempta- 
 tion of Christ, but the three episodes dealing 
 with that event are shown in the background; 
 whilst the entire foreground is occupied by a 
 group of many persons intent upon what is evi- 
 dently some ceremonial connected with the 
 Jewish cult. For a long time it baffled students 
 and critics to divine what this ceremony could 
 be, and what connection it could have with the 
 real subject of the picture, or with the Pope 
 himself. It was left to the late Dr. Ernest Stein- 
 mann to explain the mystery. He pointed out 
 that the handsome Renaissance Temple in the 
 centre of the composition is the exact facsimile 
 of the fagade of the old Hospital of Santo Spirito 
 in Rome, an institution that Pope Sixtus IV had 
 
4 o SANDRO BOTTICELLI 
 
 recently largely endowed and partially rebuilt on 
 a magnificent scale. The scene depicted in the 
 foreground of the composition represents in all 
 its elaborate detail that enjoined by the Law 
 of Moses to be carried out for the Purification 
 of a Leper. Now the nursing of those unhappy 
 beings was one of the special duties enjoined upon 
 his followers by St. Francis, and to that Order 
 the Pope himself belonged. Hence the connect- 
 ing idea of the fresco is to commemorate the 
 Pontiff's own pious and charitable acts. More- 
 over, among the crowd of onlookers are a num- 
 ber of portraits of members of the Papal Court, 
 among them his nephews, Girolamo Riario (the 
 husband of Caterina Sforza, and Gonfaloniere 
 of the Church), and Cardinal Giovanni della 
 Rovere. 
 
 In the background upon a rocky eminence to 
 the left amid a grove of oak trees (the Della 
 Rovere emblem), we may observe Satan request- 
 ing that Christ will prove his Almighty Power by 
 making bread out of the stones that lie in his 
 path. On the roof of the temple in the centre 
 the Devil endeavours to persuade the Saviour 
 to tempt His Father by risking self-destruction : 
 whilst on a mountain-top to the right, the 
 Tempter, finally worsted, throws himself from a 
 
HIS LIFE 41 
 
 high precipice, and angels are seen preparing a 
 repast for the Redeemer of the World. It is 
 curious to note that the Foul Fiend is represented 
 clothed in the habit of a Franciscan friar. 
 
 On the opposite wall Botticelli depicts no less 
 than seven episodes from the Life of Moses. The 
 central motive is a particularly charming one; 
 showing Moses in converse with the daughters 
 of Jethro the Midianite beside the Well. The 
 figure of Zipporah, crowned with myrtle, is 
 one of our artist's most graceful female types. 
 Around this group are arranged six other events, 
 as follows, beginning on the left : Moses kills the 
 Egyptian : he flies into the desert : he drives away 
 the shepherds who are molesting the daughters 
 of Jethro: while watching the flocks of his father- 
 in-law he is told by the Almighty to remove his 
 sandals : God speaks to him out of the Burning 
 Bush: and lastly, he and his family are seen 
 journeying out of Egypt. The approximation of all 
 these subjects into a single painting is ingeniously 
 managed, but there is inevitably a loss of unity 
 in general effect. It is, however, characteristic of 
 Botticelli that both in this composition and in its 
 pendant a comparatively insignificant episode is 
 selected as the link to unite several others rela- 
 tively far more important. The fresco has un- 
 
42 SANDRO BOTTICELLI 
 
 fortunately been very badly injured in the erection 
 of a baldacchino over the Papal Throne, and 
 consequently the figures on the right-hand side 
 have been repainted. 
 
 Botticelli's third design which forms the pen- 
 dant to Perugino's Delivery of the Keys to St. 
 Peter, represents the Punishment of Korah, 
 jDathan, and Abiram: and the words of the text, 
 " And no man taketh this honour unto himself, 
 but he that is called of God, as was Aaron" 
 (Heb. v. 4), in Latin, is inscribed conspicu- 
 ously over the Arch of Constantine, which 
 appears in the background of the composi- 
 tion. The choice of this subject was suggested, 
 it has been supposed, by the revolutionary 
 proceedings of Andrea Zamometic, Archbishop 
 of Krain in Hungary, who, in March 1482, 
 having denounced the Pope as the "child of 
 the Devil," had proclaimed a General Council 
 at Bale in opposition to his authority. Sudden 
 and swift vengeance, like that which overtook 
 the three rebellious Israelites, fell upon this un- 
 ruly prelate, and he perished miserably in prison 
 by his own hand. A coincidence such as this could 
 hardly be entirely fortuitous, and if we allow it any 
 weight would lead us to believe that this was the 
 latest of the three frescoes in point of date, and 
 
HIS LIFE 43 
 
 was painted subsequent to December 1482: a 
 conclusion which would accord with its more 
 restrained style. Only three episodes are shown. 
 In the centre, beside a Jewish altar, are seen 
 Moses and Aaron; and the Patriarch is calling 
 down Divine Vengeance upon the rebels. To 
 the left Moses challenges their leaders to prove 
 their claims, and the earth is opening under their 
 feet: whilst in the group upon the right we may 
 observe him directing the stoning of a blasphemer. 
 One of the faces — a youngish man seen full-face, 
 the second figure from the right in the back row 
 — is said to be another representation of our 
 artist himself; but it bears but small resemblance 
 to either of the other two alleged portraits. 
 
 It is known that the young Filippino Lippi 
 was at this time absent from Florence, and the 
 late Dr. Ulmann has suggested that he may have 
 been in Rome assisting his master in the details 
 of these frescoes. That critic has reminded us 
 further that Botticelli was not a landscape painter ', 
 whereas Filippino was: and was, moreover, an 
 enthusiast for reproducing architecture drawn 
 from the remains of Ancient Rome. That Botti- 
 celli himself did not fail to be influenced by these 
 relics of a past age is evidenced by the figure of 
 a child holding an arm-full of grapes, in the scene 
 
44 SANDRO BOTTICELLI 
 
 of the Purification of a Leper^ which is modelled 
 after an antique statue now in the Capitoline 
 Museum; but it seems probable that another 
 hand contributed at least some portion of the 
 landscape and architecture, notably in the last 
 fresco of the Destruction of Korah. 
 
 These works, although they carjjiot be con- 
 sidered by any means masterpieces, are full of 
 fine and beautiful details, and certain well-known, 
 and agreeably characteristic types and figures 
 reappear throughout them. They have not, it 
 must be admitted, the grandeur of composition 
 of Ghirlandajo, nor the sense of space of Peru- 
 gino, but they have all the charm which is so 
 essentially Botticelli's own; and we learn that 
 they greatly pleased the Pope, who paid the 
 artist very handsomely for his work: money, 
 which we further read he speedily dissipated so 
 recklessly that he was compelled to return hastily 
 to his native city in order to renew his means of 
 livelihood. 
 
 It is at this point that Vasari alludes to the 
 Commentary on Dante's " Divina Commedia," 
 and it is observable that he speaks of our painter 
 as a "persona sofistica" a statement in direct con- 
 tradiction to his earlier assertion that Sandro as a 
 boy would not even learn to read or count. If he 
 
HIS LIFE 45 
 
 had been as idle and ignorant as the Aretine 
 biographer would have us believe, how are we 
 to account for the unusual learning and insight 
 evidenced in the choice of subject, and the 
 fanciful play of imagination displayed by the 
 painter in the many works that have come down 
 to us. Furthermore, it is impossible to suppose 
 that a man, who had eschewed all education in 
 his boyhood, could have secured and kept a place 
 of honour and emolument amid so cultured a 
 circle, as that which surrounded the Medici and 
 their Court. 
 
 Botticelli seems to have returned to Florence 
 in the early autumn of 1482, since on the 5th 
 of October in that year he received a commission 
 to adorn in fresco a Hall in the Palazzo Vecchio. 
 He was to be assisted by his own pupil, Biagio 
 Tucci, and to work in company with Ghirlandajo 
 and Perugino, but since we hear no more of this 
 work, it would seem that it must have been 
 countermanded. A few years later however 
 (1487) Botticelli painted a tondo for the Hall of 
 Audience of the Council of the Massari. 
 
 Although when recording our painter's lovely 
 creation, La Primavera, we also chronicled its 
 rival, the Birth of Veni4S> it should be noted 
 that this latter painting not improbably belongs 
 
46 SANDRO BOTTICELLI 
 
 to a date subsequent to Botticelli's visit to Rome: 
 but from the absence of all documentary proof 
 for any of these dates we are compelled to fall 
 back upon such inferences as may be drawn from 
 style and technique. 
 
 We know that Botticelli "was among those 
 favoured artists to whom the Magnifico gave 
 almost constant employment in one or other of 
 his villas, and we hear specially of fresco decora- 
 tion at his villa of Lo Spedaletto, near Volterra. 
 All these, however, perished in a fire during the 
 last century. 
 
 In June i486, took place the wedding of 
 the young Lorenzo, son of the wealthy banker, 
 Giovanni Tornabuoni, and first cousin to Lorenzo 
 the Magnificent, with the beautiful Giovanna 
 degli Albizzi, whose portrait we know so well 
 from Ghirlandajo's paintings. In honour of this 
 wedding Botticelli was employed to decorate in 
 fresco a room in the Tornabuoni Villa at Chiasso 
 Macerelli, near Careggi, where the young couple 
 were to reside. These frescoes for centuries lay 
 hidden beneath a coat of whitewash, being only 
 discovered accidentally in 1873 by tne tnen 
 owner, Dr. Lemmi. The larger portions of the 
 two principal subjects were saved, and being sold 
 to the French Government, have been placed 
 
HIS LIFE 47 
 
 in the Picture Gallery at the Louvre; but the 
 remainder were too much injured to bear re- 
 moval. These two compositions represent: first, 
 Giovanna, the Bride, saluted by Venus, who is 
 attended by the Three Graces, or, as some 
 critics suggest, the Four Cardinal Virtues: and 
 secondly, Lorenzo, the Bridegroom, introduced 
 by Dialectic into the Court of Queen Philosophy, 
 who sits enthroned amid the other Sciences: 
 Arithmetic, Grammar, Rhetoric, Geometry, As- 
 tronomy and Music. In spite of their sadly v 
 damaged condition these frescoes display un-/ 
 usual beauty and simplicity in arrangement, the 
 limited number of figures being grouped with 
 greater taste, and without the confusion that so 
 often mars our artist's larger works. 
 
 The fate of this young couple was almost as 
 tragic as that which overtook Giuliano dei Medici 
 and his beloved Simonetta Vespucci. Giovanna 
 died a few years after marriage at the birth of 
 her third child; whilst Lorenzo in 1497, at the 
 age of thirty-two, was put to death in connection 
 with a conspiracy to bring back Piero de' Medici. 
 
 In the following year (1487) another wedding 
 was the occasion of an order for a specimen of 
 Botticelli's talents. This was the marriage of 
 Pier Francesco Bini with Lucrezia, daughter 
 
48 SANDRO BOTTICELLI 
 
 of Francesco Pucci : and the work ordered was 
 to take the form of a cassone, or marriage chest, 
 decorated with the Story of Nastagio degli Onesti 
 from Boccaccio's Decameron The designs for 
 this order were no doubTmade by our artist 
 himself, but the execution was certainly con- 
 signed to the hands of pupils, probably Barto- 
 lommeo di Giovanni and Jacopo del Sellajo. 
 
 It was probably at this time that there issued 
 from Botticelli's bottega^ bearing more or less the 
 impress of his designs or his teachings, most of 
 those charming works dealing with well-known 
 histories, Sacred and Profane, and with Classic 
 Myths, that modern criticism is by degrees 
 classifying, and, as far as may be, assigning to 
 his various pupils and followers. Mr. Berenson 
 suggests as a reason why so few genuine drawings 
 by the painter himself have survived, that they 
 were so constantly employed and handled by 
 his pupils that they literally fell to pieces from 
 continual use. This would account for the strong 
 resemblances that all these works bear to one 
 another: and the fact that such works were 
 multiplied so largely, proves how keenly the 
 Master and his circle entered into the spirit of 
 their age. 
 
 Nor were historical and imaginative works the 
 
HIS LIFE 49 
 
 only product of the painter and his pupils during 
 these years. Although it is impossible, in the 
 absence of documentary evidence, to assign 
 Botticelli's Madonnas and Groups of Saints of 
 this period to any particular year, there is one 
 exception, namely, the Madonna and Child en- 
 throned between St. John the Evangelist and 
 St. John the Baptist^ painted to the order of 
 Giovanni dei Bardi, for his family chapel in the 
 church of San toSpirito, then but recently restored 
 by Brunelleschi. We are enabled to fix the exe- 
 cution of this work by a document recently dis- 
 covered among the Guicciardini Archives, and 
 dated 7th February, 1485, recording payments 
 made to Giuliano di San Gallo for the frame en- 
 closing this picture. The painting, which is now 
 in the Royal Museum at Berlin, represents the 
 Blessed Mother seated upon a marble throne 
 with her Babe upon her lap. Behind and above 
 her rises a bower of interlaced palm-branches, 
 whilst against backgrounds of myrtle and cypress 
 stand the two SS. John. /"Upon either side of 
 the throne extends a marble balustrade, upon 
 which stand enamelled pots containing olive- 
 branches, and bowls of red and white roses. 
 Below the step of the throne, on a small tablet, is 
 a representation of the Crucified Saviour. .The 
 
 D 
 
50 SANDRO BOTTICELLI 
 
 sorrow and grief expressed in the Virgin's coun- 
 tenance is intense, but the Holy Child is for 
 Botticelli an unusually joyous conception of 
 bVbyhood. The picture is painted with great 
 care, and the general effect is exceedingly 
 decorative. 
 
 Another composition, which probably also 
 dates from this period is the large Madonna 
 and Child with Six Saints (No. 85 in the 
 Florence Academy), painted for the church of 
 San Barnaba. The Madonna is seen on a lofty 
 throne supported by fine Renaissance columns 
 of marble. The crimson velvet curtains of a 
 canopy above are drawn away on either side by 
 an angel, whilst two more, with gestures ex- 
 pressive of profoundest grief, display the Symbols 
 of the Passion. Upon his Mother's knee stands 
 the Infant Saviour, His Right Hand raised in 
 blessing. Below the throne stand Six Saints: 
 on the right, SS. Barnabas, Ambrose, and 
 Catherine: on the left, SS. John the Baptist, 
 Augustine and Michael. The conception of this 
 work is very fine, but the whole composition is 
 pervaded with a melancholy that is almost 
 painful, and a later restorer has lengthened the 
 work both at the top and at the bottom with 
 unpleasing results. Part of the predella is also 
 
HIS LIFE 51 
 
 in the same Picture Gallery (Nos. 157, T58, 161, 
 162): A Risen Christ: The Death of St. Am- 
 brose: St. Augustine and the Child: and Salome 
 with St. John the Baptist's Head. The remainder 
 has been lost. 
 
 But in 1 49 1 a great change came owey 
 Florence, and our painter, swept into the re- 
 ligious current of enthusiasm, showed even 
 greater vehemence in the expression of his re- 
 ligious convictions than he had already done in 
 more mundane affairs. Fra Girolamo Savonarola 
 — whose influence had already made itself felt 
 within the enlightened circle of thinkers and 
 writers who surrounded the House of Medici — 
 in the Lent of that year began to preach in the 
 Duomo the famous course of sermons that was 
 to stir up so powerfully the hearts of the citizens 
 of Florence. Pico della Mirandola, Marsilio 
 Ficino, Angelo Poliziano, the poets Girolamo 
 and Benevieni, the youthful Michelangelo and 
 many others, deeply impressed by his sermons, 
 had become his followers. But whilst it was his 
 mysticism affected the Medicean circle, it was 
 the element of prophecy in his discourses that 
 appealed most vividly to Botticelli; and we can 
 trace his influence most strongly throughout the 
 painter's later work. According to Vasari the 
 
52 SANDRO BOTTICELLI 
 
 impression made by the Frate resulted in an 
 entire abandonment of artistic work, so that the 
 painter was reduced to the point of starvation ; 
 but such a statement is not warranted by fact. It 
 is true, however, that becoming one of that band 
 of enthusiasts, known by the name of Piagnoni 
 (weepers), he for the most part abandoned 
 secular subjects, and devoted himself more than 
 ever to religious compositions. From his dottega, 
 besides the paintings above mentioned, there 
 issued engravings and illustrations for books of 
 devotion — Vasari also deprecates his waste of 
 time in unsuccessful work of this nature — many 
 of which show traces of Savonarola's teachings. 
 To this period belong two interesting com- 
 positions, to one of which we have already had 
 occasion to allude. This is the powerful design 
 for the Adoration of the Magi (Uffizi Gallery, 
 No. 3436). Originally executed in tempera it 
 has been wickedly injured, and furthermore 
 coarsely coloured in oils at some time in the 
 seventeenth century. Amid a wide and stony 
 landscape, in a cavern beneath precipitous cliffs, 
 are grouped the Holy Family. Before them 
 kneel eight figures, who, it has been suggested, 
 may represent the eight chief magistrates of 
 Florence; since they bear none of the attributes 
 
< 
 
 
 O 
 < 
 
 O 
 
 Q 
 < 
 
 a 
 
 H 
 
HIS LIFE 53 
 
 usual in representations of the Magi. From all 
 directions stream long processions of people 
 of all ages and sexes in attitudes of wonder or 
 worship. Many of the figures are apparently 
 portraits, which have been variously identified by 
 different critics. Of all Botticelli's compositions 
 this is perhaps the most crowded, but in spite of 
 all its multitude of figures, and the destructive 
 results of retouching, it remains singularly free 
 from confusion in composition and effect. 
 
 This Adoration certainly seems to allude to the 
 great religious revival and to the proclamation 
 of Christ as King of Florence. After the collapse 
 of the movement and the death of its prime 
 instigator at the stake, the picture would no 
 doubt have been thrust aside and it lay hidden 
 away until but a few years since, when it was 
 once more produced from the lumber-rooms 
 of the Ufiizi. Such has been the general con- 
 sensus of critical opinion regarding this work: 
 an explanation which sounds plausible enough; 
 but it is only fair to remark that Mr. Herbert 
 Home, the greatest modern authority on Botti- 
 celli, is entirely opposed to this date and inter- 
 pretation, considering that the design belongs 
 to a much earlier period (about 1481), before 
 even Botticelli's visit to Rome. 
 
54 SANDRO BOTTICELLI 
 
 The other work is the great Coronation of the 
 Virgin (No. 73 in the Florence Academy), 
 painted to the order of the Guild of Silk 
 Workers for the church of San Marco. The 
 upper portion of this composition resembles the 
 work of earlier painters, in as much as it is 
 painted on a gold ground, and as the figures of 
 God the Father, wearing a triple crown, and of the 
 kneeling Virgin are posed after the traditional 
 manner. But the troop of wildly-dancing angels, 
 scattering roses in their flight, are entirely Botti- 
 celli's own. Below, in characteristic attitudes, 
 stand four Saints : to wit, SS. Jerome, Augustine, 
 John the Evangelist and Eligius. The predella 
 shows the Annunciation and a scene from the 
 Life of each of the four Saints represented in 
 the picture above. This again is a picture, over 
 the date of which critics of eminence radically 
 differ. Dr. Julius Meyer places it as late as 
 1497, whilst Mr. Berenson would throw it back 
 to 1480. It is, however, to be noticed that both 
 the paintings just described express a very strong 
 emotion, which is certainly foreign to the painter's 
 earlier work, before the influence of ^Jie Reformer 
 took such hold upon his imagination. 
 
 A word ought to be said here regarding a 
 composition now in the National Gallery (No. 
 
HIS LIFE 55 
 
 1 136), which, on the authority of Vasari and 
 other early writers, for centuries bore the name 
 of Botticelli, but which modern criticism has 
 convincingly proved to be the work of Francesco 
 Botticini. This is the large Assumption of the 
 Virgin^ painted originally for the church of San 
 Piero Maggiore in Florence, which, in 1882, 
 found its way into the National Collection from 
 that of the Duke of Hamilton at Hamilton 
 Palace. It was said to have been ordered by the 
 poet, Matteo Palmieri, whose poem, " The City 
 of Life," it is supposed to illustrate. It is a vast 
 composition and the Heavenly Personages are 
 encircled by the celestial hosts in three compact 
 semicircles. Below, the sorrowing Apostles sur- 
 round a tomb, full to the brim with lilies, 
 whilst on either side kneel the Donor and his 
 wife. Behind spreads a wide landscape resem- 
 bling the Arno Valley. Vasari and general tradi- 
 tion add the information that, after the death of 
 Palmieri, his poem was condemned by ecclesi- 
 astical authorities, since he was supposed to 
 have fallen into the heresy of Origen regarding 
 the nature of angels: that the picture was also at- 
 tacked as tending to support this false doctrine, 
 and was not only itself shrouded by a curtain, 
 but the chapel in which it hung was closed for 
 
56 SANDRO BOTTICELLI 
 
 public worship. It is questionable how much of 
 this tradition is warranted by fact, but there is 
 no doubt that the composition is not the work 
 of Botticelli; and that it was attributed to him 
 under a mistake arising from similarity in the 
 sound of his name to that of Botticini. 
 
 To this period, however, there does belong 
 one picture that cannot strictly be described as 
 religious. This is the small painting known as 
 the Allegory of Calumny (Uffizi Gallery, No. 
 1 182), painted for the artist's closest friend, 
 Antonio Segni. The subject is taken from 
 Lucian's " Dialogues," as interpreted by Leon 
 Battista Alberti in his "Treatise on Painting." 
 The elaborately decorated portico in which the 
 scene is laid shows a strange mixture of Greek 
 myth and Biblical story in its adornments : Pallas 
 is ranged beside Judith, St. George jostles Apollo, 
 etc. On a throne to the right of the spectator, 
 with crown and sceptre and robed in green, sits 
 the Unjust Judge. Into his long ass's ears, 
 Ignorance and Suspicion whisper their accusa- 
 tions. Pale Envy stretches out a hand to call 
 the Judge's attention to Calumny, a beautiful 
 and splendidly dressed woman, who is dragging 
 Innocence, a nude youth, by the hair to the foot 
 of the throne. Fraud and Treachery, her hand- 
 
HIS LIFE 57 
 
 maidens, wreathe her hair with roses, whilst 
 Innocence in vain lifts imploring hands to 
 Heaven. At the feet of Innocence stands an 
 old woman, wrapped in a ragged black mantle 
 and leaning on a crutch, in whom we have no 
 difficulty in recognizing Remorse, gazing at 
 naked Truth, who lifts her hands on high in 
 protest against the wrong that is being com- 
 mitted. Through the arches of the portico we 
 perceive a wide expanse of green sea. The work 
 is exquisitely finished, whilst the vehement action 
 expressed in the figures displays strong emotion 
 on the part of its author. / 
 
 On 4th January 1491, Botticelli was elected 
 on the Committee chosen to select a design for 
 the fagade of the Duomo, and on 14th May of 
 
 the self-same year, in company with the two . 
 
 brothers Ghirlandajo, and Gherardo and Monte 
 di Giovanni, painters in miniature, he was ap- 
 pointed to decorate in mosaic the chapel of San 
 Zenobio, in the same building. The death of 
 Lorenzo the Magnificent on the 8th of April in 
 the following year, however, put an end to all 
 these commissions. The decease of that power- 
 ful Prince was a great loss to our artist, although 
 he still retained the friendship of Lorenzo di 
 Pier Francesco de' Medici, from whom, as we 
 
58 SANDRO BOTTICELLI 
 
 have already seen, he had received important 
 employment. This wealthy and intelligent patron 
 had also taken under his protection the young 
 Michelangelo, who, likewise imbued with the 
 religious spirit of the times, writing from Rome 
 to his noble patron at this period, under cover 
 to Botticelli, marks his letter with the inscrip- 
 tion " Christus " so characteristic of the followers 
 of Savonarola. 
 
 Another Income Tax Return, dated 1498 — 
 the year when the Friar met his death — once 
 again tells us something of the Filipepi family. 
 Sandro is still living in the old home, but both 
 his father, Mariano, and his eldest brother, 
 Giovanni, are dead, and the house belongs to 
 two of our artist's nephews, Benincasa and 
 Lorenzo. Simone Filipepi, who had returned 
 from Rome at the end of 1493 — soon after his 
 father's death — is living in the family home ; but 
 the brothers had in April 1494 also bought a 
 country house in the parish of San Sepolcro, 
 outside the Porta San Frediano, together with 
 some fields and an old vineyard, subject to a quit- 
 rent of four soldi and two capons, payable yearly 
 to the Hospital of Santa Maria Nuova. The pos- 
 session of this property should dispose of Vasari's 
 assertions regarding Botticelli's extreme poverty. 
 
HIS LIFE 59 
 
 Simone, like his brother Sandro, seems also 
 to have become an ardent admirer of Savona- 
 rola, and like him was a Piagnone. He too was 
 a man of some culture, and wrote a Commentary 
 on one of Dante's " Canzone." Moreover, he 
 compiled a Chronicle of the leading events in the 
 Florence of his day, which gives us very intimate 
 information regarding the Reformer and his 
 followers. The following conversation, which took 
 place on the Feast of All Souls (2nd November, 
 1499), is worth recording in connection with our 
 painter: "Alessandro di Mariano, my brother, 
 one of the good painters which our city had in 
 these times, being at home, by the fire, about eight 
 o'clock at night, related how that day in his shop 
 in the house of Sandro he had reasoned with 
 Doffo Spini on the fate of Fra Girolamo. Sandro, 
 knowing Doffo to have been one of the chief 
 persons who were present at his examination, 
 adjured him to tell him truthfully what crimes 
 were found in him which could deserve so shame- 
 ful a death. Upon which Doffo replied, * Sandro, 
 must I speak the truth? We never found in him 
 any venial, much less any mortal sin.' Then 
 Sandro asked, ' Why did you put him to so 
 shameful a death?' He replied, 'It was not I, 
 but Benozzo Federighi. For if we had not made 
 
6o SANDRO BOTTICELLI 
 
 this prophet and his companions die, and had 
 sent them back to San Marco, the people would 
 have sacked our houses and cut us all to 
 pieces.' " 
 
 The following year saw the creation of Botti- 
 celli's beautiful Nativity \ now in the National 
 Gallery (No. 1034), upon which he has inscribed 
 his own comment on the events of the time. 
 This painting we have fully described further on. 
 
 Whether this was, as some have supposed, 
 his last work is uncertain, for he lived ten years 
 longer, and to this period has been assigned 
 the small St. Augustine (No. 1 179, Uffizi Gallery) 
 and certain other less important works; but 
 here again there is considerable diversity of 
 opinion. 
 
 One extremely interesting painting, however, 
 must surely have had its origin at about this 
 time. It is in the possession of Prince Pallavicini 
 in Rome, and is called The Outcast {La Derelitta). 
 Upon some steps before an archway leading to 
 closed gates is seated the half-clad figure of a 
 woman. Other garments lie scattered on the steps 
 below, and her whole attitude is expressive of the 
 most utter and complete despair. This picture is 
 remarkable for the curiously modern sentiment 
 that emanates from it, which makes it difficult 
 
HIS LIFE 61 
 
 for us at first to believe that it is a work of the 
 Renaissance at all. Some authorities suggest that 
 it illustrates the story of the Unhappy Woman 
 described in the Book of Judges, Chapter xix. 
 
 On 25 th January 1504 all the principal artists 
 then in Florence were summoned to the Opera 
 del Duomo to debate regarding a site for the 
 erection of Michelangelo's colossal David. Botti- 
 celli's opinion, we read, was that it should stand 
 at the corner in front of the Duomo, so that it 
 might be well seen by passers-by. 
 
 From this time we have no further information 
 regarding our painter, except a statement by 
 Vasari that, as old age crept on, he became very 
 infirm, and was obliged to support his tottering 
 limbs upon two crutches. On 17th May 15 10 — 
 not in 15 15, as Vasari asserts — he died and was 
 buried in the family vault in the church of the 
 Ognissanti. 
 
 / 
 
THE ART OF BOTTICELLI 
 
 ALTHOUGH it cannot truthfully be said 
 that Botticelli reached the heights of art- 
 istic power and merit attained by Raphael, 
 Michelangelo, or Leonardo da Vinci, still he 
 had certain gifts and qualities in which he was 
 unsurpassed even by these colossal geniuses. 
 His delicate play of fancy and his absolutely 
 certain control over pure line is unequalled by 
 any European artist, and to rival it, as Mr. 
 Berenson justly remarks, we must turn to Japan 
 and Oriental Art. His drawing is too often 
 faulty — anatomy and proportion are disregarded 
 — but the lovely curve and sweep of his sure 
 and graceful line is never for a moment absent. 
 No matter whether he be designing one of his 
 exquisite representations of the Divine Mother, 
 painting a portrait of some contemporary worthy, 
 or indulging his imagination in some pseudo- 
 mythic or romantic story, the same supreme 
 quality may always be traced firm and true. 
 Moreover, as Mr. Berenson further points out, 
 "the same touch of the whimsical, the same 
 62 
 
HIS ART 63 
 
 dreamy grace, the same subtlety of refinement 
 that we learn to love in his pictures, meet us 
 once more in his sundry sketches; and always 
 the line which envelops, which models, which 
 realizes with such vivacity, with such a speed in 
 communicating itself, that, if you do not frighten 
 away its shy influence by too coldly assaying 
 the anatomical correctness of its creations, you 
 quickly find yourself not looking at the form, 
 but kissing it with your eyes, not discerning 
 
 but living the action." ,*- 
 
 That Botticelli at the outset of his career was 
 deeply influenced by his master, Fra Filippo, is 
 plainly evident; and that, further, the strong 
 personalities of those craftsmen, with whom he 
 came into such close contact in his youth, 
 Verrocchio and the Pollajuoli brothers, played 
 great part in the formation of his artistic char- 
 acter, was almost inevitable from the circum- 
 stances under which artists in Florence at that 
 period lived and worked. Nevertheless, Botticelli 
 was no slavish imitator, content to follow in con- 
 ventional lines : rather he was a leader and an 
 innovator ; and, if himself susceptible to external 
 influence, never allowed it to interfere with an 
 individuality which he in his turn communicated 
 to his followers. 
 
64 SANDRO BOTTICELLI 
 
 Although the system of bottega work, in which 
 master and pupil together, or pupils under the 
 eye of the master, carried out works that sub- 
 sequently bore the master's name, tends to 
 confuse our judgements : a confusion further 
 increased by the wilful ruin wrought on too 
 many of our artist's own pictures by the hands 
 of the restorer (?): still enough remains to show 
 how fully Botticelli deserved the estimation in 
 which he was held by his contemporaries. That 
 his Art could not appeal to a generation that 
 revelled in the grandiose and the academic is 
 quite understandable. We know that through- 
 out the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries 
 Botticelli's merits remained under a cloud; the 
 gentle appeal of his fanciful imagination, his 
 soft and often somewhat pallid colouring, and 
 even the beauty of his line, failed to obtain for 
 him the notice he so well deserved. The writer 
 himself can well remember how, on a visit to 
 Italy so recently as the early eighties, he was 
 rallied severely for venturing to express any sort 
 of admiration for so poor and crude an artist. 
 
 We are bound to admit that the somewhat 
 angular pose and the eternal melancholy ex- 
 pression in the eyes and mien of Sacred and 
 Classic Personages alike become at times some- 
 
HIS ART 65 
 
 what tiresome: whilst Leonardo himself com- 
 plained of the poorness of Sandro's ideas in 
 painting landscape, and the faulty anatomy of 
 such figures as Fortitude amount almost to 
 deformity. To explain the first of these faults 
 we have to remember the age in which Botticelli 
 lived; and to recollect how typical a creature of 
 that particular age he was. The minds of men 
 of every rank and of every variety of type had 
 been deeply stirred by the Neo-Classic Revival, 
 and the conflict between the Pagan Ideal, with 
 its visions of earthly beauty, and the Christian 
 one, with its promises of an intangible world be- 
 yond this present life, were sharp and fierce. 
 And whilst the world of thought was going 
 through a period of upheaval, Italy was torn and 
 rent by invaders and by the ambitions of her 
 own princes, and Florence herself was enduring 
 the miseries of constant internecine struggle 
 amongst her citizens. Upon a genius quickened 
 by a vivid imagination, like that of Botticelli, 
 such events, political, social, religious and liter- 
 ary, could not have remained without their im- 
 pression: and if his personages, saintly and 
 secular alike, exhibit in their countenances an 
 expression of sadness, it is the reflex of a mind 
 ever seeking something — it knows not what — 
 
 E 
 
\ 
 
 66 SANDRO BOTTICELLI 
 
 better or more beautiful, which it desires to con- 
 vey to others. Vasari tells us that, at least in his 
 younger days, Botticelli was a gay and sportive 
 person, full of fun and tricks, — some of which 
 he relates to us, — but it is not easy to associate 
 the idea of levity with the painter of the Mag- 
 nificat^ or even with the creator of the Primavera 
 and the Birth of Venus. Of exuberance of feel- 
 ing — intense joy or deepest sorrow — we know 
 that he was profoundly capable; but there is a 
 certain religious awe even in his angels wildly 
 dancing in celestial joy, whilst there is an entire 
 absence of the serio-comic element dear to 
 mediaeval artists in his illustrations of the In- 
 fernal Regions and their inhabitants. 
 
 In portraiture we have plenty of evidence to 
 show how apt Botticelli was in securing the 
 essential characteristics of his sitter; and that 
 he thoroughly enjoyed this branch of pictorial 
 art is clear from the vast number of portraits 
 with which certain of his pictures teem: each 
 individual being so carefully individualized as to 
 leave no mistake as to whom he intended to 
 represent. His favourite types, we are told, lack 
 virility. This is no doubt in a sense true: but 
 where he fails in producing the impression of 
 muscularity and the rather brutal strength con- 
 
HIS ART 67 
 
 veyed by Verrocchio and the Pollajuoli, he gains 
 considerably in sweetness and delicacy of line. 
 That he was not wholly incapable of understand- 
 ing the importance of expressing muscular de- 
 velopment in the service of illustration is evi- 
 denced by his design for the Giants in Canto 
 XXXI of Dante's Inferno. Nevertheless it is 
 clear that his own predilection lay in the direc- 
 tion of long-limbed figures, instinct with some- 
 what feminine languor or glowing with ascetic 
 zeal. This tendency too often leads him into an 
 excess of slenderness, and thence into the ana- 
 tomical faults, for which he has been taken to 
 task by the academic : the over-long neck and 
 small head of some of his female creations, and j 
 the exaggerated hip-curve. The shape of Forti-S 
 tude, for example, did she rise from her throne, 
 would certainly be surprising, and both her great 
 toes are absolutely deformed. 
 
 Our artist's success in composition is wholly 
 due to his vivid genius for decorative effect. In 
 a few, therefore, of his most famous works, 
 wherein he has been able to concentrate his 
 lines according to the principle of pure design, 
 he has been most pre-eminently successful. For 
 which reason the tondo form of composition 
 seems specially to have appealed to him : finding 
 
V 
 
 68 SANDRO BOTTICELLI 
 
 * its highest expression in the Madonna of the 
 Magnificat, which Mr. John Addington Symonds 
 not inaptly likens to "the corolla of an open 
 rose." Too often, however, in his larger works, 
 as in the Sistine Chapel frescoes, he becomes 
 confused, and in his endeavours to depict a 
 number of different events in one composition 
 loses his grasp over the whole; so that for want 
 of a central idea the painting pictorially becomes 
 chaos. The painter would seem to have in some 
 sense realized this when painting these frescoes, 
 since in at least two of them he has endeavoured 
 to concentrate the action of the figures; not 
 around the main subject, which of necessity had 
 to be told in more than one episode, but, in one 
 case upon a subordinate, and in the other upon 
 a totally different and apparently irrelevant, idea ; 
 whereby he has been able to bind the composi- 
 tion together, and to produce an harmonious 
 whole. But his love of the complex and the 
 intricate is more often too much for his sense of 
 unity. 
 
 Of Botticelli's colouring it is not easy to judge 
 fairly at the present day. Time and natural acci- 
 dents have necessarily done much to dim their 
 original hues and to mar their harmony: but 
 successive repaintings and wanton restoration (?) 
 
HIS ART 69 
 
 have done much more. It is always clear and 
 transparent, but whereas the Adoration of the 
 Magi horn Santa Maria Novella, the two panels of 
 Judith and Holofernes^ and some others glow 
 with a brilliance like that of jewels, the Prima- 
 vera^ the Birth of Venus and the large frescoes 
 are pale in the extreme. Apparently though, 
 Botticelli in his colouring too often fell into the 
 same faults as in his composition : he attempted 
 too great an intricacy of colour scheme, produc- 
 ing thereby an effect of confusion and patchi- 
 ness. 
 
 His good-natured friend, Leonardo da Vinci, 
 laughed at him, as we know, over his methods of 
 depicting landscape — asserting that for Botticelli 
 a sponge full of colour thrown against the wall 
 sufficed to produce one of his " melancholy land- 
 scapes": perspective was not indeed a strong 
 point with our artist; whilst for space composi- 
 tion he shows but little skill. Nearer objects are 
 painted by him with meticulous care and neat- 
 ness, but to express different planes with reference 
 to one another is often beyond him, so that he 
 rarely ventures on compositions requiring great 
 variation in perspective. The backgrounds, with 
 their elaborate architectural effects copied from 
 the remains of ancient Rome, introduced into 
 
70 SANDRO BOTTICELLI 
 
 his Vatican frescoes are perhaps the work of 
 Filippino Lippi, who we have good reason to 
 believe assisted in their execution. 
 
 No work by Botticelli in oils is known, nor 
 have we any record that he ever worked in that 
 medium. Buon fresco or tenipera sufficed for him, 
 and such advances as he attempted on time- 
 honoured methods were in the nature of im- 
 provements on the latter. In this way he ac- 
 quired a lightness of touch and such a skill in 
 the fusion of tints as enabled him to produce 
 desired effects with but slight recourse to hatch- 
 ing. He also made innovations and experiments 
 in the preparation and employment of varnishes, 
 which he often laid on so thickly as to make the 
 picture appear embossed, or even to resemble 
 oil painting. His preference seems to have 
 been for painting on panels of wood, although 
 certain of his works are executed on prepared 
 canvas. 
 
 Lastly, we should point out that Botticelli's 
 creations themselves are in flat contradiction to 
 Vasari's statement as to his ignorance through 
 wilful idleness in his early years. The evidence 
 of such highly imaginative works as have come 
 down to us, even without the further proof 
 brought forward by the Dante designs, would 
 
HIS ART 71 
 
 suffice to prove a more than ordinary degree of 
 culture on our artist's part, which could scarcely 
 have been acquired without some early scholastic 
 training. 
 
OUR ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 IT is no easy task to select from among the 
 number and variety of the works of Botticelli 
 eight examples such as may be specially repre- 
 sentative of his style at different periods of his 
 career. The size and shape of this present work 
 excludes his remarkable frescoes in the Sixtine 
 Chapel in Rome and for the Villa Lemmi (now 
 in the Louvre); whilst his illustrations to Dante's 
 Divina Commedia are from their already deli- 
 cately minute form unsuited to further reduction. 
 
 We have, however, endeavoured to select 
 characteristic specimens, the originals of which 
 can be easily examined, or of which larger 
 photographs can be obtained by the student 
 without difficulty. 
 
 The first of these is an extremely interesting 
 example of our artist's earliest methods, whilst 
 still under the influence of his first master Fra 
 Filippo Lippi; to several of whose panels the 
 composition bears a very close resemblance. 
 The painting till a comparatively few years ago 
 7* 
 
OUR ILLUSTRATIONS 73 
 
 lay hidden in a corner of the picture gallery of 
 Prince Chigi in Rome, whence its sale and 
 removal to the collection of Mrs. J. L. Gardner 
 of Boston, U.S.A., was the subject of a notorious 
 law-suit. 
 
 The Madonna is seated against a marble 
 screen, through which is seen a glimpse of a 
 pleasant landscape of river and mountain. She 
 gazes pensively at her Divine Infant, seated 
 upon her knees, who raises His tiny Right Hand 
 in blessing over a basket of grapes and ears of 
 corn, presented to Him by one of the most 
 charming of the many beautiful boy-angels that 
 Botticelli throughout his artistic career was so 
 fond of portraying. The entire work expresses 
 the naive charm characteristic of our artist's 
 youth; but it also displays already many of the 
 qualities which constitute the particular attrac- 
 tion for which we admire his more mature work. 
 
 Our next illustration presents a very different 
 subject and type of work. A stately lady, 
 partially clad in armour and wielding a mace, is 
 enthroned in a niche adorned with handsome 
 Renaissance mouldings. This is Botticelli's con- 
 ception of Fortitude^ executed in 1470 for the 
 Tribunal of the Mercatanzia. Till recently this 
 painting was considered to be the earliest ascer- 
 
74 SANDRO BOTTICELLI 
 
 tained work by our painter. Later criticism has 
 however proved this to be incorrect : a fact that 
 might have been surmised earlier from its date 
 and the circumstances that gave origin to it. It 
 is scarcely likely that unless Botticelli had 
 already distinguished himself by some work of 
 merit he would, without any guarantee of ability, 
 have received so important a commission. 
 Furthermore we learn that it was executed, not 
 under the direction^ but in competition wit/i, the 
 Pollajuoli brothers, and so closely does it re- 
 semble the work of those famous craftsmen, that 
 even Signor Morelli was at one time inclined to 
 doubt its parentage. Grave faults in drawing, 
 anatomy and proportion cannot wholly destroy 
 the impression of force expressed by this fine 
 figure, which moreover thus early displays the 
 quality of line for which our artist was so 
 specially gifted. It has been unfortunately 
 cruelly restored and repainted. It hangs now 
 in the Uffizi Gallery (No. 1299). 
 
 For our third illustration we have chosen a 
 portrait (Uffizi Gallery, No. n 54). It represents 
 a handsome clean-shaven young man, with a 
 melancholy expression on his countenance. He 
 is clad in black, and long curls of fair hair flow 
 on to his shoulders from under a scarlet cap. 
 
OUR ILLUSTRATIONS 75 
 
 With both hands spread around it, he exhibits 
 a gold medal bearing the effigy of Cosimo 
 de' Medici. Behind him stretches a pleasant 
 landscape, through which meanders a wide river. 
 This portrait has been the object of much de- 
 bate. Not only has the execution of the work 
 been attributed to a variety of authors other than 
 Botticelli, but the subject of the painting has 
 been hotly contested. It was long designated 
 as a portrait of Pico della Mirandola, and sub- 
 sequently of Piero di Lorenzo de' Medici — a 
 name that it still bears in the gallery to which 
 it now belongs. Most authorities are now how- 
 ever agreed that it is a portrait of Giovanni, 
 the younger and best-beloved son of Cosimo 
 de' Medici, but that it was probably painted 
 after the death of that popular personage from 
 some earlier portrait, or from a death mask. 
 
 The famous Adoration of the Magi, painted 
 about 1477 for the church of Santa Maria Novella 
 (now also in the Uffizi, No. 1285) forms our 
 fourth illustration. This beautiful painting, since 
 it includes portraits of at least three of the 
 Medici family, was long supposed to have been 
 commissioned as a votive offering to com- 
 memorate the miraculous escape of the principal 
 members of that house from the daggers of the 
 
76 SANDRO BOTTICELLI 
 
 Pazzi conspirators. This theory Mr. Herbert 
 Home ("Monthly Review," February 1902) 
 has proved to be incorrect, since the painting 
 originally formed part of the altar of the Lami 
 family, and seems to have been commissioned 
 by Giovanni Lami, or del Lama, a well-to-do 
 Florentine merchant and an adherent of the 
 Medici. 
 
 In the centre of the composition the Holy 
 Family are seen grouped under a rude shed, 
 upon the broken wall of which is perched a 
 handsome peacock. The building is raised upon 
 a slight eminence, so that the three approach- 
 ing Magi may be easily distinguished from one 
 another, and from their respective suites. The 
 foremost of these, a venerable old man, in a 
 dark green mantle embroidered with gold and 
 edged with fur, bends down to kiss the Foot 
 of the Divine Babe. This figure is the aged 
 Cosimo de' Medici, the founder of the fortunes of 
 that house: taken, of course, by the artist from 
 the medal attributed to Michelozzo Michelozzi. 
 Below, in the centre of the foreground, clad in 
 scarlet and ermine, kneels with his back to the 
 spectator, — not, as Vasari would have us believe, 
 Giuliano de' Medici, — but his father Piero, sur- 
 named il Gottoso. To his right we see Giovanni 
 
OUR ILLUSTRATIONS 77 
 
 de ; Medici, robed in white, also kneeling and 
 turning slightly to speak to his elder brother. 
 Among the crowd of attendants on either side, 
 whose splendid attire gives to this work the 
 appearance of a mass of gorgeous jewels, there 
 must undoubtedly be a vast number of portraits 
 of personages well known at the time. Among 
 them various critics have indicated Giuliano and 
 Lorenzo (it Magni/zco); but the evidence in 
 support of these, and of other identifications 
 is small and somewhat arbitrary. One other 
 portrait, however, has the sanction of some pro- 
 bability, from its resemblance to another portrait 
 in Filippino Lippi's fresco of Scenes from the 
 Lives of SS. Peter and Paul in the Brancacci 
 Chapel of the church of the Carmine. This may 
 be traced in a figure of a man in a yellow robe, 
 who stands at the extreme right of the com- 
 position, and, unlike all the other persons re- 
 presented, gazes out of the picture. It is not easy 
 to account for the unwonted splendour of his 
 attire, considering his rank and circumstances, 
 but nevertheless this figure is generally held to 
 be a likeness of the artist himself. 
 
 The picture underwent many vicissitudes ere 
 it reached its present resting-place, and even 
 then remained unrecognized until 1849, being 
 
78 SANDRO BOTTICELLI 
 
 up to that time attributed to Domenico Ghir- 
 landajo. 
 
 We now come to a reproduction of what is 
 perhaps the best-known, and is certainly the 
 most discussed, of all the works of Botticelli. Its 
 subject is clearly allegorical; in fact an Allegory 
 of Spring. Hence it is generally known as La 
 Primavera. It is reasonably probable, more- 
 over, that it was also intended to convey some 
 secondary meaning, allusive to some event then 
 well known; — especially since it was executed to 
 adorn the Medici Villa at Castello. Endless 
 therefore are the conjectures and interpretations 
 suggested by critics of all nationalities. Even 
 the probable date of the painting has been 
 fiercely contested, though opinion is generally 
 in favour of fixing it at about 1478. It is further 
 held that the patron, to whose order both it and 
 subsequently the Birth of Venus were executed, 
 was the young Lorenzo di Pier Francesco de' 
 Medici, the wealthy grandson of Cosimo's 
 younger brother, Lorenzo, and head of the 
 junior branch of that family. Its marked re- 
 semblance to the description of the " Realm of 
 Venus " given in Angelo Poliziano's " Stanze per 
 la Giostra," — a poem wherein are celebrated the 
 amorous and martial exploits of the handsome 
 
OUR ILLUSTRATIONS 79 
 
 Giuliano de' Medici, victor in the famous 
 Tournament held in January 1475, — ls beyond 
 dispute. How far, though, this or that figure 
 may be identified with Giuliano himself, or with 
 his beloved Simonetta Vespucci, then but re- 
 cently deceased, involves questions too long to 
 argue here. The beautiful harmony of colour in 
 this work has suffered sadly at the hands of the 
 restorer (?), but it nevertheless remains one of 
 the most lovely and characteristic examples of 
 the Art of its period, and attracts every visitor 
 to the Accademia delle Belle Arti in Florence, 
 where it now hangs (No. 80). 
 
 The scene is laid in a grove of orange-trees, 
 laden with ripe fruit and carpeted with masses 
 of the loveliest Spring-flowers. In the centre of 
 the composition, against a background of myrtle- 
 boughs stands Venus. Over her long robe of 
 white and gold she carries a red mantle. Before 
 her, with fingers interlaced, dance the Three 
 Graces, attired in robes of thinnest muslin. Still 
 further to the left stands a charming figure of a 
 youth, who bears the attributes of Mercury. A 
 red drapery partially conceals his finely modelled 
 limbs; a baldrick slung across his body supports 
 his sword. Toe-less buskins cover his feet and a 
 winged helmet his thick dark hair. His left hand 
 
80 SANDRO BOTTICELLI 
 
 rests upon his hip, whilst his right with uplifted 
 caduceus disperses the clouds before the coming 
 of Venus. Over the head of the Goddess floats 
 a Cupid, blindfolded but with drawn bow, aim- 
 ing an arrow in the direction of Mercury. To 
 the extreme right of the picture Zephyr, endea- 
 vouring to burst somewhat violently into the 
 grove, and bending the tree trunks in his path, 
 essays to embrace the flying Flora, who turns 
 her face toward him, half-terrified by his vehem- 
 ence. A scanty muslin garment drapes her form, 
 and from her lips there pours a stream of Spring- 
 blossoms. Between this figure and Venus stands 
 the chief figure in the composition : the Genius 
 of Spring. Robed in a garment covered with 
 flowers of every hue, her long fair hair crowned 
 with daisies and cornflowers, garlanded with ivy 
 and briar roses, and with even the folds of her 
 robe filled with countless blossoms, she trips 
 bare-foot over the flower-decked grass. A more 
 poetic personification of Spring it would be diffi- 
 cult to imagine ; and it is easy to understand the 
 fame that this charming painting has acquired. 
 
 The Birth of Venus, which is our next illus- 
 tration, bears a strong superficial resemblance to 
 the Allegory of Spring, is incidentally derived 
 from the same poem, and was seen by Vasari 
 
OUR ILLUSTRATIONS 81 
 
 and others in the same Villa. Nevertheless there 
 are marked differences between the two paint- 
 ings, and critics are very divided in their views as 
 to the probable date of this latter work. At first 
 sight the two paintings would appear to be com- 
 panions : but although they once hung together, 
 neither in size nor in material do they really cor- 
 respond : the Primavera is painted on wood, the 
 Birth of Venus on canvas. Strong differences are 
 moreover apparent in the style and treatment of 
 the subjects portrayed. The latter picture was 
 certainly not painted before 1480: but whether 
 before or after Botticelli's visit to Rome in 
 148 1-2 is a matter of considerable conjecture. 
 It undoubtedly shows a great advance in tech- 
 nique upon, and is happily in a better condition 
 than, the Primavera. It is preserved now in the 
 Uffizi Gallery (No. 39). Over the summer sea, 
 standing erect upon a large open shell, and nude 
 save for the long tresses of her golden hair, Venus 
 approaches the shore whereon, beneath the 
 shadow of a grove of orange trees, stands the 
 Genius of Spring. Clad in a robe embroidered 
 with cornflowers and garlanded with sprays of 
 olive, she extends a pink mantle dotted over 
 with daisies, wherein to clothe the Goddess upon 
 her landing. On the opposite side two Zephyrs 
 
82 SANDRO BOTTICELLI 
 
 closely intertwined waft the shell with its lovely 
 occupant across the lightly-rippling billows. The 
 exquisite modesty in pose of the central figure : 
 the graceful tripping movement of Spring, as 
 she hurries forward to meet the approaching 
 Deity: and the force expressed in the wild rush 
 of the two young Breezes : form an ensemble of 
 immense charm and skill in composition. There 
 can be no doubt that the subject was inspired 
 by one of the " Homeric Hymns," but it has 
 reached our artist through the medium of 
 Poliziano's poem on the " Giostra" above alluded 
 to. It is therefore filled with Renaissance 
 rather than Classical sentiment, which would 
 account for important variations from the 
 Homeric description. For example Zephyr is 
 here represented by two figures, whilst the 
 Hours are resolved into but one, who wears 
 the semblance of the Genius of Spring. The 
 colouring of this beautiful painting has no 
 doubt paled somewhat through the passage of 
 time, but at all times it must have been deli- 
 cately harmonious, with its shades of tender pink 
 and green. The most striking feature, however, 
 is the delicate rhythm of line in motion: sl 
 quality for which Botticelli is so deservedly re- 
 nowned, and in which he pre-eminently excelled. 
 
[ Uffizi Gallery, Florence. 
 THE MADONNA OF THE MAGNIFICAT. 
 
OUR ILLUSTRATIONS 83 
 
 To show this quality at its highest perfection 
 we could choose no better example than this 
 one. 
 
 Next to the Madonna delta Seggiola of Raphael 
 no representation of our Blessed Lady and her 
 Divine Infant is more widely known among 
 the pictures to be visited in Florence than the 
 lovely tondo here reproduced : usually designated 
 as the Madonna of the Magnificat. Injudicious 
 restoration has reduced this work to a glaring 
 combination of violent and crude colour, but 
 nothing can destroy the lovely sentiment, or the 
 exquisite grace of its composition and harmony 
 of line. No documentary evidence exists regard- 
 ing it, but critics are generally agreed in fixing 
 its date at about the year 1479. The tondo form 
 was one specially affected by Botticelli and his 
 followers, but in this work he has unquestion- 
 ably reached the highest point attainable in this 
 attractive species of composition. Mr. John 
 Addington Symonds has aptly likened it to 
 "the corolla of an open rose." The Madonna 
 is seated on one side of the picture, bending 
 forward over her Babe seated upon her lap. 
 Their left hands hold between them a pome- 
 granate, whilst with His Right He directs hers in 
 dipping a quill-pen into an ink-stand, held by a 
 
84 SANDRO BOTTICELLI 
 
 boy-angel. This angel, assisted by a companion 
 supports an open book on the page of which 
 may be read the opening words of the Canticle: 
 Magnificat anima mea. Another angel bends 
 over the first two with an air of gentle inter- 
 est; whilst two more, — one on either side of the 
 entire composition, — raise a jewelled crown above 
 the head of the Mother of God. Between the 
 Mother and Child and the first-named group of 
 the three angels we see a glimpse of a charming 
 landscape with a winding river. The skill, where- 
 with the two lesser groups are linked together 
 by their attitudes and by the two outer angels 
 with their uplifted hands, is incomparably beauti- 
 ful. The painting now forms one of the chief 
 ornaments of the Ufrlzi Gallery (No. 1267 bis). 
 
 Our last illustration is remarkable in many 
 ways. It is one of the very few works which 
 bear the artist's own signature with the date of 
 execution. It is moreover, with the exception, 
 perhaps, of some of his Dante drawings, his 
 latest work ; and it bears obvious traces of 
 the influence of that powerful Reformer, Fra 
 Girolamo Savonarola. The painting, which, 
 coming from the Fuller-Maitland Collection, is 
 now one of the gems of the National Gallery in 
 London (No. 1034), is quite a small— almost a 
 
{National Gallery. 
 
 THE NATIVITY. 
 
OUR ILLUSTRATIONS 85 
 
 miniature — work; but it is full of movement, 
 and shows an exuberance of feeling worthy of 
 Botticelli's best period. We do not know the 
 occasion of the painting, nor whether or no it 
 was the result of a commission. All that we can 
 ascertain concerning it is embodied in an in- 
 scription written in Greek characters along the 
 upper edge of the panel, which has been trans- 
 lated by Mr. Sidney Colvin as follows : This 
 picture /, Alessandro, painted at the end of the 
 year 1500, during the troubles of Italy in the 
 half-time after the time ivhich was prophesied in 
 the Eleventh of St. John and the Second Woe of 
 the Apocalypse, when the devil was loosed upon 
 the earth for three years and a half Afterwards 
 he shall be put in chains according to the Twelfth, 
 and we shall see him trodden under foot as in this 
 picture. 
 
 Upon an eminence in the centre of the panel, 
 beneath a rude pent-house set up against a rocky 
 cavern, the Virgin adores the Infant Christ, who 
 lies upon the ground before her. Behind the 
 Holy Child Joseph sleeps soundly, his head 
 buried on his knees. At the back of the shed 
 are seen the Ox and the Ass. On the right of 
 the hut a winged angel encourages two kneeling 
 shepherds: on the left another heavenly mes- 
 
86 SANDRO BOTTICELLI 
 
 senger points out the Holy Family to three men — 
 probably intended to represent the Magi, — who are 
 also on their knees in adoration. Garlands of olive 
 adorn the heads of both groups of worshippers, 
 and branches of the same plant are in the angels' 
 hands. Upon the thatched roof kneel three more 
 angels supporting a book from which they are 
 singing canticles of joy. They are clad respec- 
 tively in red, white and green, and likewise carry 
 branches of olive. Above in the blue vault 
 dance twelve seraphs in a rainbow circle of many- 
 coloured floating garments, waving branches of 
 olive and fluttering ribands, to which are attached 
 golden circlets. In the foreground of the com- 
 position, below the hut, three other angels, 
 again with olive branches, are effusively em- 
 bracing three olive-crowned figures, who may 
 reasonably be supposed to represent Savonarola 
 himself and his two martyred companions, Fra 
 Domenico Buonvicini and Fra Silvestro Marussi. 
 Behind them devils are seen shrinking away 
 into the crevices of the rocks. The most strik- 
 ing feature with regard to this painting is its 
 wild, almost frantic, expression of pure religious 
 fervour. The denizens of Heaven, who have 
 descended to earth to celebrate the Birth of 
 God Incarnate, and to direct all Nature to do 
 
OUR ILLUSTRATIONS 87 
 
 Him honour, seem utterly unable to restrain 
 their joy; and few paintings exist that so fully 
 express outwardly the inner emotion fermenting 
 in the craftsman's soul. That Botticelli was 
 gifted with a very vivid and fertile imagination 
 his whole life's work bears evidence; but he has 
 here given it fullest play in a religious subject, 
 with even more ardour than he ever showed for 
 Classic myth or purely secular illustration. It 
 would be easy captiously to find fault with the 
 drawing and other details, but Botticelli's sure- 
 ness and delicacy of line is still to be traced 
 here; whilst the lightly-poised grace of his 
 dancing seraphs is unsurpassed and unsurpass- 
 able. 
 
CHRONOLOGY OF THE CHIEF 
 
 EVENTS IN THE LIFE 
 
 OF BOTTICELLI 
 
 Note. — In the face of very diverse, and in some cases 
 absolutely contradictory, views of various critics with 
 regard to the dates of most of Botticelli's paintings, it is 
 impossible to make a reliable chronology of them in 
 detail. All that one can attempt is to state approximately 
 the chief events of his life. 
 
 1444. Born in Florence. 
 
 1459-60. Enters the studio of Fra Filippo 
 
 Lippi. 
 1467-68. Returns from Prato to Florence. 
 1470. Paints a Fortitude for the Tribunal of 
 
 the Mercatanzia. 
 1472. Takes charge of Filippino Lippi. 
 1474. Commissioned to paint a St. Sebastian 
 
 for Lorenzo the Magnificent. 
 
 1474. Sent for to Pisa to paint an Assumption 
 
 for the Opera del Duomo. 
 
 1475. Paints an emblematical Pallas for 
 
 Giuliano de' Medici. 
 89 
 
9o SANDRO BOTTICELLI 
 
 1476. Paints an Adoration of the Magi for 
 
 Sta. Maria Novella. 
 1480. Pallas subduing the Centaur. 
 1480. Denunzia de' Beni of the property of 
 
 the Filipepi family. 
 
 1480. Paints a fresco of St. Augustine in the 
 
 church of the Ognissanti for the 
 Vespucci family. 
 
 1 48 1. Publication of Cristoforo Landino's 
 
 Commentary on .Dante's Inferno. 
 
 1 48 1. Botticelli goes to Rome to paint frescoes 
 
 in the Sixtine Chapel. 
 
 1482. Commissioned to adorn a Hall in the 
 
 Palazzo Vecchio, Florence. 
 1485. Paints a Madonna and Child with 
 
 SS. John the Evangelist and the 
 
 Baptist for the Bardi chapel in 
 
 Santo Spirito. 
 i486. Frescoes in the Tornabuoni Villa at 
 
 Chiasso Macerelli. 
 1487. Commissioned to make a marriage chest 
 
 on the occasion of the Bini-Pucci 
 
 wedding. 
 1487. Paints a tondo for the Hall of Audience 
 
 of the Council of the Massari. 
 1489. Savonarola began to preach in Florence. 
 1 49 1. Botticelli appointed on a committee 
 
 regarding the fagade of the Duomo. 
 
CHIEF EVENTS 91 
 
 149 1. Commissioned to decorate with mosaics 
 
 the chapel of San Zenobio. 
 
 1492. Death of Lorenzo il Magnifico. 
 
 1494. Sandro and Simone Filipepi purchase 
 
 property at San Sepolcro outside the 
 
 Porta San Frediano. 
 1496. Michelangelo writes to Botticelli from 
 
 Rome. 
 1498. Execution of Savonarola. 
 1498. Another Denunzia of the Filipepi 
 
 family. 
 1500. The Nativity in the National Gallery, 
 
 London. 
 1504. Committee regarding a site for Michel- 
 angelo's David. 
 1 5 1 o. Death of Botticelli. 
 
LIST OF THE CHIEF WORKS BY 
 BOTTICELLI 
 
 CATALOGUED ACCORDING TO LOCALITY 
 
 THE BRITISH ISLES 
 
 LONDON, The National Gallery. 
 
 No. 592, The Adoration of the Magi, Tempera 
 on wood. (Ascribed in the Catalogue to 
 Filippino Lippi.) 
 
 No. 626, Portrait of a Young Man. Tempera 
 on wood. (Formerly ascribed to Masaccio.) 
 
 No. 915, Mars and Venus. Tempera on wood. 
 (From the Barker Collection.) 
 
 No. 1033, The Adoration of the Magi. Tondo. 
 Tempera on wood. (From the Fuller- 
 Maitland Collection. Also ascribed in the 
 Catalogue to Filippino Lippi). This is per- 
 haps the painting that Vasari saw in the 
 Casa Pucci. 
 
 No. 1034, The Nativity. Tempera on canvas. 
 1500. (From the Fuller-Maitland Collec- 
 tion.) 
 
 9* 
 
CHIEF WORKS 93 
 
 The Collection of Mr. J. P. Heseltine. 
 Madonna and Child with St. John, Tempera 
 on wood. (Partly by Botticelli.) 
 
 The Collection of Dr. Ludwig Mond. 
 Scenes fivm the Life of San Zenobio. Tempera 
 on wood. (2 Panels.) 
 
 FRANCE. 
 
 PARIS, The Louvre. 
 
 No. 1297, Giovanna degli Albizzi with Venus 
 
 and the Three Graces. Fresco, i486. 
 No. 1298, Lorenzo Tornabuoni introduced into 
 
 the Circle of the Sciences. Fresco, i486. 
 (These two frescoes were brought hither from 
 
 the Villa Lemmi, near Florence.) 
 
 GERMANY 
 
 BERLIN, The Royal Museum. 
 
 No. 106. The Madonna and Child with SS. 
 John the Evangelist and Baptist. Tempera 
 on wood. (Painted in 1485 for the Bardi 
 chapel in the church of Santo Spirito, 
 Florence.) 
 
 No. 1 1 28, St. Sebastian. Tempera on wood. 
 (Painted for the church of Sta. Maria Mag- 
 giore, Florence, 1473-74.) 
 
94 SANDRO BOTTICELLI 
 
 DRESDEN, The Picture Gallery. 
 
 No. 12, Scenes from the Life of San Zenobio. 
 Tempera on wood. 
 
 ITALY 
 
 BERGAMO, The Morelli Gallery. 
 The Story of Virginia. Tempera on wood. 
 
 FLORENCE, The Academy. 
 
 No. 73, The Coronation of the Virgin. Tem- 
 pera on wood. (Painted for the church of 
 San Marco, Florence.) 
 
 No. 74, The predella to the above. The An- 
 nunciation, and Scenes from the Lives of 
 SS. John the Evangelist, Augustine, Jerome 
 and Eligius. Tempera on wood. 
 
 No. So, An Allegory of Spring. ("La Prima- 
 vera"). Tempera on wood. 
 
 No. 85, The Madonna and Child with four 
 Angels and SS. Michael, Augustine, John 
 the Baptist, Barnabas, Ambrose and Cather- 
 ine. Tempera on wood. (Painted for the 
 church of San Barnaba, Florence.) 
 
 No. 157, Christ rising from the Tomb. Tem- 
 pera on wood. 
 
 No. 158, The Death of St. Ambrose. Tempera 
 on wood. 
 
CHIEF WORKS 95 
 
 No. 1 6 1, Salome with the head of the Baptist, 
 Tempera on wood. 
 
 No. 162, The Vision of St. Augustine. Tem- 
 pera on wood. 
 
 (The above four small panels formed part of 
 the predella to No. 85.) 
 
 The Uffizi Gallery. 
 
 No. 39, The Birth of Venus. Tempera on 
 
 wood. 
 No. 1 1 54, Portrait of Giovanni di Cosimo de' 
 
 Medici. Tempera on wood. 
 No. 1 156, The Return of Judith. Tempera on 
 
 wood. 
 No. 1 158, Holof ernes lying dead in his tent. 
 
 Tempera on wood. 
 No. 1 179, St. Augustine in his study. Tem- 
 pera on wood. 
 No. T182, The Calumny of Apelles. Tempera 
 
 on wood. 
 No. 1267 bis, The Madonna of the Magnificat. 
 
 Tondo. Tempera on wood. 
 No. 1286, The Adoration of the Magi. (Painted 
 
 for the Lami altar in Sta. Maria Novella, 
 
 Florence.) 
 No. 1289, The Madonna of the Pomegranate. 
 
 Tondo. Tempera on wood. 
 
96 SANDRO BOTTICELLI 
 
 No. 1299, Fortitude. Tempera on wood. 
 
 (Painted for the Tribunal of the Merca- 
 tanzia.) 
 
 No. 3436, The Adoration of the Magi. Tem- 
 pera on wood. 
 
 (The design only laid in by Botticelli. Ruined 
 by later hands.) 
 
 Palazzo Pitti. (In the Royal Apartments.) 
 Pallas subduing a Centaur. Tempera on 
 canvas. 
 
 Palazzo Capponi. (Collection of Marchese 
 Farinola.) 
 The Last Communion of St. Jerome. Tempera 
 on wood. 
 The Church of the Ognissanti. 
 St. Augustine. Fresco. 
 
 MILAN, The Poldi-Pezzoli Collection. 
 No. 17, The Madonna and Child, Tempera 
 on wood. 
 
 The Ambrosiana Gallery. 
 
 No. 145, The Madotina and Child with Angels. 
 Tempera on wood. 
 
 ROME, The Vatican. 
 
 The Temptation of Christ. (The Purification 
 of a Leper.) 
 
CHIEF WORKS 97 
 
 Scenes from the Life of Moses, 
 
 The Punishment of Korah, Dathan and 
 
 Abiram. 
 Portraits of certain of the earlier Popes, 
 (All the above are frescoes on the walls of 
 
 the Sixtine Chapel. Painted in 1482.) 
 The Collection of Prince Pallavicino. 
 The Outcast (" Za Z>erelitta") Tempera on 
 
 wood. 
 
 RUSSIA 
 
 ST. PETERSBURG, The Hermitage Gal- 
 lery. 
 
 No. 163, The Adoration of the Magi. Tem- 
 pera on wood. 
 
 (Perhaps painted during the artist's stay in 
 Rome.) 
 
 THE UNITED STATES 
 
 BOSTON, The Collection of Mrs. J. L. 
 Gardner. 
 The Madonna and Child, to whom an Angel 
 offers grapes and ears of corn. Tempera on 
 wood. 
 (Formerly in the Chigi Collection in Rome.) 
 The Death of Lucretia. Tempera on wood. 
 
SHORT BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 Berenson, Bernard: Le Pallas de Botticelli. 
 
 ("Gazette des Beaux Arts." Paris, 1895.) 
 
 The Florentine Painters of the Renaissance. 
 
 (London and New York, 1902.) 
 The Study and Criticism of Italian Art. 
 First series. Amico di Sandro. (London, 
 1901.) 
 Alunno di Domenico. ("The Burlington 
 
 Magazine." London, 1903.) 
 The Drawings of Florentine Painters. (Lon- 
 don, 1903.) 
 Bode, Wilhelm, and Burchardt, J. : Der Cicerone. 
 
 (Berlin, 1898.) 
 Brinton, Selwyn: The Renaissance in Italian 
 
 Art. Part I. (London, 1898.) 
 Cartwright, Julia: Sandro Botticelli. ("The Port- 
 folio." London, 1882.) 
 A Heretic Picture. ("The Magazine of 
 
 Art." London, 1883.) 
 The Painters of Florence, from the Thir- 
 teenth to the Sixteenth Centuries. (Lon- 
 don, 1901.) 
 Sandro Botticelli. (London, 1904.) 
 98 
 
SHORT BIBLIOGRAPHY 99 
 
 Cavalcaselle, G. B., and Crowe, J. A.: Storia 
 
 della Pittura Italiana. Vol. VI. (Firenze, 
 
 1894.) 
 History of Painting in Italy. New edition 
 
 (in progress). 
 Colvin, Sidney: Botticelli. ("The Portfolio." 
 
 London, 1861.) 
 " Encyclopedia Britannica." 
 Cruttwell, Maud: Antonio Pollaiuolo. (London, 
 
 1907.) 
 Davey, Richard: Botticelli. (London, 1905.) 
 Ephrussi, Charles: (Articles in "La Gazette des 
 
 Beaux Arts." Paris, 1882-1885.) 
 Home, Herbert : Quelques Souvenirs de Sandro 
 
 Botticelli. (" Revue Archeologique." 
 
 Paris, 1 90 1.) 
 The Story of a Famous Botticelli. (" The 
 
 Monthly Review." London, 1902.) 
 A Lost Adoration of the Magi. ("The 
 
 Burlington Magazine." London, 1903.) 
 Kugler, F. T. : Handbook of Painting (with' 
 
 additions by Sir A. H. Layard). (London, 
 
 1900.) 
 Lanzi,Luigi: Storia Pittorica dell' Italia. (Venezia, 
 
 1837.) 
 Lee, Vernon : Botticelli at the Villa Lemmi. 
 "Juvenilia." (1882.) 
 
ioo SANDRO BOTTICELLI 
 
 Masters in Art: Botticelli. (Boston, 1900.) 
 Mesnil, Jacques: Documenti su Sandro Botti- 
 celli. ("Miscellanea d'Arte." Florence, 
 
 1903-) 
 
 Morelli, G. : Italian Painters, Critical Studies of 
 their Works. The Borghese and Doria- 
 Pamfili Galleries in Rome (translated by 
 Miss C. J. ffoulkes). (London, 1892.) 
 Italian Masters in German Galleries (trans- 
 lated by Mrs. J. P. Richter. (London, 
 1883.) 
 
 Pater, Walter : Studies in the Renaissance. 
 (London, 1893.) 
 
 Phillimore, C. M. : Fra Angelico and Sandro 
 Botticelli. (London, 1872.) 
 
 Plunkett, Count C. N. : Sandro Botticelli. (Lon- 
 don, 1900.) 
 
 Richter, Dr. J. P. : Lectures on the National 
 Gallery. (London, 1898.) 
 
 Rusconi, Art Jahn : Sandro Botticelli. (Bergamo, 
 1907.) 
 
 Ruskin, John: Ariadne Fiorentina. Lecture VI. 
 (London, 1906.) 
 Mornings in Florence. Before the Soldan. 
 
 (London, 1906.) 
 Fors Clavigera. (London, 1907.) 
 
 Steinmann, Dr. E. : Botticelli. (Knackfuss Series. 
 
SHORT BIBLIOGRAPHY 101 
 
 Translated by Campbell Dodgson.) (^Lon- 
 don, 1897.) 
 
 Stillmann, W. J. : Early Italian Masters. Botti- 
 celli. ("The Century Magazine." New 
 York, 1890.) 
 
 Streeter, A. : Botticelli. (Catholic Truth Society.) 
 (London, 1900.) 
 Botticelli. (Great Masters Series.) (London, 
 
 1903-) 
 Supino, I. B. : Sandro Botticelli. (Firenze, 1900.) 
 Symonds, John Addington : The Renaissance in 
 
 Italy. The Fine Arts. (London, 1899.) 
 Ulmann, H. : Sandro Botticelli. (Munich, 1893.) 
 Vasari Giorgio : Le Opere, con nuove Anno- 
 
 tazioni e commenti di Gaetano Milanesi. 
 
 (Firenze, 1878-1885.) 
 Lives of the Painters, translated by Mrs. 
 
 Jonathan Foster. 6 vols. (London, 
 
 1894-5.) 
 Selections from the Lives of the Painters, 
 
 edited and annotated in the light of 
 
 recent discoveries by E. H. and E. W. 
 
 Blashfield and A. A. Hopkins. 4 vols. 
 
 (London, 1897.) 
 
CH1SWICK PRESS: CHARLES WHITTINGHAM AND CO. 
 TOOK'S COURT, CHANCERY LANE, LONDON. 
 
Third edition > post 8vo, with 35 illustrations ', 
 $s. net. 
 
 How to Look at Pictures 
 
 ROBERT CLERMONT WITT, M.A. 
 
 * ' This book, which we have read with great pleasure, 
 shows that the author has both wide sympathy and know- 
 ledge, and it cannot but be largely helpful to those who 
 wish to increase their interest in pictures. A better gift 
 for people who are dimly 'fond of pictures,' but who 
 regret that they 'know nothing about them,' could not 
 be found." — Spectator. 
 
 11 Mr. Witt has written a book delightful to read, and 
 beyond doubt of great value to those who are capable of 
 profiting by it. And not the least part of his work has 
 been the selection of the thirty-five pictures, reproductions 
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 from all over Europe, and each one has been chosen with 
 a purpose, and is inserted in exactly the right place. ,, 
 — Daily News. 
 
 1 ■ Mr. Witt has written a very useful work, in which he 
 shows a wide and accurate knowledge of art history, and 
 of the technique of painting, and a fine critical judgment. 
 The volume is well written, well printed, and adequately 
 illustrated. It is a suitable book to give to any young 
 student of pictures." — Daily Chronicle. 
 
 "We do not know any book which may with greater 
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 LONDON: GEORGE BELL AND SONS 
 
OPINIONS OF THE PRESS 
 
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