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MASTERPIECES >^ v 
 
 IN COLOU R 
 
 EDITED BY - - 
 T. LEMAN HARE 
 
 BOTTICELLI 
 
 I444(?)— 1510 
 
"Masterpieces in Colour** Series 
 
 ARTIST. 
 
 BELLINI. 
 
 BOTTICELLI. 
 
 BOUCHER. 
 
 BURNE-JONES. 
 
 CARLO DOLCl. 
 
 CHARDIN. 
 
 CONSTABLE. 
 
 COROT. 
 
 DA VINCI. 
 
 delacroix. 
 
 dCrer. 
 
 fra angelico. 
 
 fra filippo lippi. 
 
 fragonard. 
 
 franz hals. 
 
 gainsborough 
 
 GREUZE. 
 
 HOGARTH. 
 
 HOLBEIN. 
 
 HOLMAN HUNT. 
 
 INGRES. 
 
 LAWRENCE. 
 
 LE BRUN. vigEe. 
 
 LEIGHTON. 
 
 LUINL 
 
 MANTEGNA. 
 
 MEMLINC. 
 
 MILLAIS. 
 
 MILLET. 
 
 MURILLO. 
 
 PERUGINO. 
 
 RAEBURN. 
 
 RAPHAEL. 
 
 REMBRANDT. 
 
 REYNOLDS. 
 
 ROMNEV. 
 
 ROSSETTI 
 
 RUBENS. 
 
 SARGENT. 
 
 TINTORETTO 
 
 TITIAN. 
 
 TURNER. 
 
 VAN DVCK. 
 
 VELAZQUEZ. 
 
 WATTEAU. 
 
 W.\TTS. 
 
 WHISTLER. 
 
 Author. 
 Grorgb Hav. 
 Henky B. Binns. 
 C Haldane MacFalu 
 A. Lvs Baldrv. 
 Gborgs Hay. 
 Paul G. Konodv. 
 C. Lewis Hind. 
 Sidney Allnutt. 
 m. w. b rockwell. 
 Paul G. Konody. 
 H. E. A. FuRST. 
 James Mason. 
 Paul G. Konodv. 
 C Haldane MacFall. 
 Edgcumue Staley. 
 Max Rothschild. 
 
 AlVS EvrB MACtCLIN. 
 
 C. Lewis Hind. 
 S. L. Bensusan. 
 Mary E. Coleridge. 
 
 A. J. FiNBERG. 
 
 S. L. Bensusan. 
 
 C. Haldane MacFall 
 
 A. Lys Baldrv. 
 
 James Mason. 
 
 Mrs. Arthur Bell. 
 
 W. H. J. & J. C. Wbale 
 
 A. Lys Baldry. 
 
 Percy M. Turner. 
 
 S. L. Bensusan. 
 
 Sblwvn Brinton. 
 
 James L. Caw. 
 
 Paul G. Konodv. 
 
 JosEP Israels. 
 
 S. L. Bensusan. 
 
 C. Lewis Hind. 
 
 LUCIBN PiSSARRa 
 
 S. L. Bensusan. 
 T. Martin Wood. 
 S. L. Bensusan. 
 S. L. Bensusan. 
 C. Lewis Hind. 
 Percy M. Turner. 
 S. L. Bensusan. 
 C. Lewis Hind. 
 W. LoFTUS Hare. 
 T. Martin Wood 
 
 Others in Preparation, 
 
PLATE I.— THE BIRTH OF VENUS. From the 
 tempera on canvas in the Uffizi. (Frontispiece) 
 
 This picture is generally regarded as the supreme achievement 
 of Botticelli's genius. It was probably painted about 1485, after 
 his return from Rome. The canvas measures 5 ft. 8 in. by 9 ft. 
 I in., so that the figures are nearly life size. No reproduction can 
 do justice to the exquisite delicacy of expression in the original. 
 Something of the same quality will be found in the "Mars and 
 Venus" in the National Gallery, which was probably painted 
 about the same time. The two figures on the left are usually 
 described as Zephyrus and Zephyritis, representing the south 
 and south-west winds: that on the right may be one of the 
 Hours of Homer's Hymn, or possibly the Spring. 
 
BOmCEIXI 
 
 BY HENRY BRYAN BINNS 
 
 ILLUSTRATED WITH EIGHT 
 REPRODUCTIONS IN COLOUR 
 
 LONDON: T. C. & E. C. JACK 
 NEW YORK: iREDERICK A. STOKES CO. 
 
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 L 
 
 Q? (5b' 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 Plate 
 I. The Birth of Venus . . . Frontispiece 
 
 From the tempera on canvas in the Uffizi 
 
 Page 
 
 11. Spring 14 
 
 From the tempera on wood in the Florence Academy 
 
 III. Portrait of a Man 24 
 
 From the panel in the Florence Academy 
 
 IV. The Madonna of the Magnificat, known 
 
 also as the Coronation of the Virgin . 34 
 
 From the tondo in the Uffizi 
 
 V. The Madonna of the Pomegranate . 40 
 
 From the tondo in the Uffizi 
 
 VI. The Annunciation 50 
 
 From the panel in the Uffizi 
 
 VII. The Virgin and Child with St. John and 
 
 an Angel 60 
 
 From the panel in the National Gallery 
 
 VIII. Judith and Holofernes .... 70 
 
 In the Uffizi Gallery, Florence 
 
 293432 
 
FROM Florence, in the second half of the 
 fifteenth century, men looked into a 
 new dawn. When the Turk took Constanti- 
 nople in 1453, the "glory that was Greece" 
 was carried to her by fleeing scholars, and 
 she became for one brilliant generation the 
 home of that Platonic worship of beauty and 
 
 zz 
 
12 BOTTICELLI 
 
 philosophy which had been so long an exile 
 from the hearts of men. I say Platonic, be- 
 cause it was especially to Plato, the mystic, 
 that she turned, possessed still by something 
 of the mystical intensity of her own great 
 poet, himself an exile. When, in 1444, Pope 
 Eugenius left her to return to Rome, 
 Florence was ready to welcome this new 
 wanderer, the spirit of the ancient world. 
 And the almost childish wonder with which 
 she received that august guest is evident in 
 all the marvellous work of the years that 
 followed, in none more than in that of Sandro 
 Botticelli. 
 
 He, indeed, was born in the very year of 
 that new advent, lived through the period 
 of its sunshine into one of storms — Stygian 
 darkness and frightful flashes of light — and 
 went down at last, an old broken man, 
 staggering between two crutches, to his 
 grave. His times were those of Lorenzo 
 the Magnificent, who was a few years his 
 
PLATE II.— SPRING. (From the tempera on wood 
 in the Florence Academy) 
 
 The date of this painting is much debated. It may probably 
 be about 1478, before the Roman visit It is somewhat larger 
 than the "Venus," but the figures are of similar size. Reading 
 from the left they are usually described as Mercury, the Three 
 Graces, Venus, Primavera the Spring-maiden, Flora, and Zephyrus. 
 The robed Venus is in striking contrast with that of the later 
 picture. 
 
BOTTICELLI 15 
 
 junior, the unacknowledged despot of the 
 Tuscan Republic, a prince, cold and hard 
 as steel, worthy to be an example for young 
 Macchiavelli, yet none the less a poet, and 
 a devoted lover both of philosophy and of 
 all beautiful things. 
 
 It was an age when a new synthesis was 
 being made, and old enemies reconciled, so 
 that men were less ready then to blame 
 than to admire, and the best feeling of the 
 time was that of reverent wonder. It is 
 this which, more than any other painter, 
 Botticelli has expressed for us. His pic- 
 tures are living witnesses to the reverence 
 which, in his day, the mystery of human 
 life evoked in spirits such as his. 
 
 But while this is true, and true in the 
 first degree of Sandro and his work, they 
 express besides other moods, and betray 
 other influences. The later quatrocento 
 was the time not only of Lorenzo and the 
 Platonists, but of Savonarola also, the last 
 
i6 BOTTICELLI 
 
 great figure of the Middle Ages, strangely 
 proclaiming the new days; and with him, 
 of foreign incursions into Italy and Florence, 
 of violence and all the black-brood of reli- 
 gious and civil strife. And at the end of 
 those days came Michael Angelo, whose 
 sombre masculine genius stands in such 
 striking contrast to all the subtle grace and 
 wistful gladness of Botticelli. 
 
 But Botticelli, who was of the circle of 
 the neo-Platonists, was also among those 
 who loved the friar of Ferrara; if he was 
 the friend of Leonardo da Vinci he was 
 associated also with Michael Angelo. In 
 his life, and in the work which is the ex- 
 pression of that life, we can read plainly 
 the perplexity and the discords, as well as 
 the new and arresting harmonies of that 
 time. His wonder is not all a glad rever- 
 ence; it is sometimes, and increasingly, a 
 poignant questioning of the sibyls. 
 
BOTTICELLI 17 
 
 I 
 
 The life of the painter appears to have 
 been uneventful, and all that is known of 
 him can be told in little space. His father 
 was a Florentine tanner, and his elder 
 brother followed the same trade, and was 
 nicknamed Botticello, "little barrel." The 
 family patronymic was dei Filipepi, but the 
 painter signed himself " Sandro di Mariano," 
 the latter being his father's name. Sandro 
 (Alexander) was, perhaps, the son of a 
 second marriage, for he was young enough 
 to have been the child of his brother 
 Giovanni, the tanner, whose nickname be- 
 came affixed to him. He was probably 
 born in 1444, in a house close to All Saints 
 (Ognissanti) Cemetery in the present Via 
 della Porcellana. His father was now in 
 middle life, and a prosperous man. The 
 lad was delicate, quick and wilful, perhaps 
 a spoilt child. He was older than usual 
 
 B 
 
i8 BOTTICELLI 
 
 when he went at about fifteen into a gold- 
 smith's shop, doubtless that of Antonio his 
 second brother. But he was not long con- 
 tented there. A year or two later he was 
 studying painting under that famous friar, 
 Fra Filippo Lippi. Unless Browning has 
 misunderstood the Carmelite Brother, the 
 worship of beauty was his real religion; 
 and, mere child of nature as he was, he 
 sought to tell the significance which he 
 found in her face — not indeed by the mere 
 illustration of theological doctrine and 
 pietistic conception, but by the transcrip- 
 tion in pure line and perfect colour of a 
 language that had for him no other words. 
 The friar was living in the neighbouring 
 city of Prato, painting frescoes in the 
 Cathedral, when Sandro joined him and 
 became his favourite pupil. How long he 
 remained with his master is uncertain, but 
 it is probable that the fruitful relationship 
 continued until after he came of age. 
 
BOTTICELLI 19 
 
 Perhaps he was twenty-four when he re- 
 turned to Florence, and became associated 
 with the brothers Pollajuolo, for whom, in 
 1470, he executed the first commission of 
 which we have record. But as he was 
 now twenty-six, this cannot be his earliest 
 work. There is a hillside shrine near 
 Settignano, which contains a Madonna — 
 Madonna della Vannella — formerly ascribed 
 to the friar, but which is now believed to 
 be one of the earliest efforts of his pupil. 
 And in the National Gallery the long 
 panel of the " Adoration " officially ascribed 
 to " Filippino Lippi " has by general consent 
 been transferred to Sandro, and assigned 
 to the period before his association with 
 the Pollajuoli. 
 
 Here it should be said that none of Botti- 
 celli's paintings is clearly signed and dated ; 
 and even indirect documentary proofs are 
 wanting in the case of the majority of his 
 works. Much has therefore to be decided 
 
20 BOTTICELLI 
 
 by the doubtful and highly technical tests 
 of internal evidence. These are rendered 
 more difficult by the receptivity of this 
 artist, who came late to maturity and was 
 throughout his life profoundly affected by 
 external influence; but on the other hand, 
 his work has certain mannerisms as well 
 as excellences special to it, which even 
 his imitators and students failed to re- 
 >^ produce. 
 
 The brothers Piero and Antonio PoUa- 
 juolo exercised a profound influence over 
 the young artist. Filippo had taught him 
 to paint emotion — the Pollajuoli were 
 masters in another school, and sought to 
 delineate physical force. There is a little 
 panel by Antonio in the Uffizi, of Hercules 
 and the Hydra, in which every line is 
 almost incredibly tense with the expression 
 of energy — the fierce muscular swing and 
 clutch of struggle. To some extent Sandro 
 was already a man standing upon his own 
 
BOTTICELLI 21 
 
 feet ; and the scientific studies of anatomy 
 and perspective in which he was now en- 
 couraged, increased his power of expression 
 without distracting it from its proper pur- 
 pose. 
 
 In 1469 Fra Filippo died, and three years 
 later his son Filippino, then fourteen years 
 old, became Sandro's pupil. From this it 
 would appear that by 1472, when he was 
 twenty-eight years of age, Botticelli had 
 left the Pollajuoli, and had a workshop, 
 or bottega, of his own, in the family house 
 where the income-tax returns of 1480 
 describe him as still working. Here in 
 1473 Lorenzo the Magnificent, who four / 
 years earlier had become master of Florence, 
 commissioned him to paint a St. Sebastian ; 
 and from this time forward the Medici gave 
 him frequent proofs of their appreciation. 
 In the following year he went to Pisa, where 
 he had some prospect of a large commission. 
 This, however, fell through ; he failed, Vasari 
 
22 BOTTICELLI 
 
 tells US, to satisfy himself in his trial picture 
 of the Assumption of the Virgin, a subject 
 not well suited to his mind. Instead he re- 
 turned home and painted a banner of Pallas, 
 for Lorenzo's younger brother Giuliano, the 
 idol of Florence, to carry in the magnificent 
 tournament of January 1475. The banner 
 has been lost, but it marks a point of 
 departure in Sandro's art; as a banner, it 
 recalls the fact that the artist was also a 
 craftsman, and introduced a new method 
 of making such things ; the new patron, too, 
 whose life and love were alike destined 
 to so brief a course, whose personality was 
 so vivid and so knightly, exercised no little 
 influence on the painter; but most of all 
 we note the changed theme, first among 
 those classical subjects which the artist 
 was in a special sense to make his own. 
 Botticelli painted portraits both of Giuliano 
 dei Medici and his adored lady, Simonetta, 
 the beautiful young wife of Marco Vespucci ; 
 
PLATE III.— PORTRAIT OF A MAN. (From the 
 panel in the Florence Academy) 
 
 This portrait of a young man holding a medal of Cosimo 
 dei Medici is interestingly related to the only other undisputed 
 separate portrait of Sandro's, that in the National Gallery. It is 
 supposed to represent Giovanni, younger son of Cosimo, who died 
 in 1461 : if this be correct the portrait cannot have been painted 
 by Botticelli for several years after its subject's death. There is 
 little convincing evidence on the matter. The panel measures 
 21 by 14 inches. 
 
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BOTTICELLI 25 
 
 and, though these are lost, it is generally 
 believed that Simonetta's lovely and inno- 
 cent charm of face and character inspired 
 many of his happiest fancies. She died in 
 1476, and two years later, Giuliano was 
 assassinated during Mass in the Duomo. 
 Sandro was employed by his brother— who 
 himself had narrowly escaped death on the 
 same occasion — to commemorate the assas- 
 sins' shame by painting their portraits on 
 the face of the Palazzo Publico. A task 
 more suited to his temper was the cele- 
 bration of Lorenzo's diplomatic success, 
 when in 1479 he succeeded in detaching 
 the King of Naples from a hostile alliance 
 against Florence. This occasioned the 
 painting of "Pallas and the Centaur," now on 
 the walls of the Pitti, one of Sandro's most 
 consummate pieces of decorative work. 
 
 The enumeration of these commissions 
 shows that the artist had become closely 
 associated with the Medici. Lorenzo's 
 
26 BOTTICELLI 
 
 palace and country villas were at this time 
 the centre of the most brilliant group of 
 scholars, philosophers, poets, and artists in 
 the world. In this atmosphere Botticelli's 
 genius came to flower. He appears, more- 
 over, to have enjoyed the friendship of 
 Leonardo da Vinci, a man eight years his 
 junior, who had been studying in Verocchio's 
 workshop, hard by that of the Pollajuoli. 
 His was a spirit yet more subtle than 
 Sandro's own — subtle even with the subtlety 
 of the serpent — and the two men must have 
 understood one another intimately. Botti- 
 celli himself was a pleasant, even a jovial 
 man, but a man of moods. Like Leonardo 
 he never married. 
 
 Another contemporary, very different from 
 Leonardo, with whom Sandro was brought 
 into frequent contact, was Ghirlandajo, the 
 dexterous genre illustrator, decorator, and 
 popular realist. Ghirlandajo's work is, in 
 its essentials, the antithesis of Sandro's, 
 
BOTTICELLI 27 
 
 but it is marked by great journalistic talent. 
 Crowded with interest for the Florentines, 
 it brought its author an immense success. 
 In 1480 both he and Botticelli were paint- 
 ing together in the Church of All Saints, 
 and at the close of the year they were both 
 invited to Rome by Pope Sixtus IV. to 
 decorate his new (Sixtine) Chapel. Thither 
 they repaired with their assistants and other 
 artists, probably remaining there during the 
 greater part of the next three years. Sandro 
 is believed to have had some general over- 
 sight or arrangement of the whole work, 
 while he himself contributed certain por- 
 traits of Popes, and three great frescoes 
 occupying nearly a thousand square feet 
 of the chapel walls. During his prolonged 
 stay in Rome he must also have painted 
 some easel pictures; one, an "Adoration of 
 the Magi," is now in St. Petersburg. This 
 Roman interlude in his Florentine life, 
 marked by direct rivalry and daily contact 
 
28 BOTTICELLI 
 
 with artists of genius different from his 
 own, is in every respect central in his 
 story. He was now in his maturity, a man 
 approaching forty years of age, working 
 on a conspicuous task, in that Eternal 
 City to which the greatest sons of Florence 
 were ever the foremost to offer spiritual 
 homage. 
 
 But it may be doubted whether the task 
 itself was calculated to evoke his highest 
 powers and most characteristic qualities. 
 Neither in its subjects, its scale, nor the 
 conditions under which it was accomplished, 
 was it well suited to Sandro's genius, and 
 while the frescoes contain noble passages 
 and inimitable illustrations of his art, they 
 cannot be regarded as among his master- 
 pieces. 
 
 The frescoes were completed and the 
 chapel opened in August 1483. Vasari tells 
 what great renown, above that of all his 
 fellows in the work, Sandro gained in 
 
BOTTICELLI 29 
 
 Rome, and what large sums he received 
 and squandered there. Before settling again 
 in his own city, he worked with Ghirlandajo 
 upon the decorations of the Medici Villa 
 at Volterra. 
 
 From 1480 to 1490 he was probably re- 
 garded as the greatest of living masters in 
 Florence, and was busy with many commis- 
 sions. To this period belong several of his 
 greatest works, probably the "Birth of 
 Venus," greatest of them all, with the 
 Madonnas of the Pomegranate and of St. 
 Barnabas, certainly the Lemmi frescoes and 
 the Bardi Madonna. Venus and the frescoes 
 are in the perfect manner which characterises 
 his classical subjects. The others are marked 
 by some decline in technical handling. 
 But in saying this, one must add that 
 Sandro's work is, in all periods, amazingly 
 unequal, alike in execution and conception. 
 One almost wishes indeed that Vasari's 
 dictum, that he worked **when he was 
 
30 BOTTICELLI 
 
 minded," was even more true than it 
 appears to be. For Sandro's subtle, wilful, 
 whimsical genius hardly ever expressed 
 its true nature in mere rivalry with other 
 artists, or in the service of ecclesiastical 
 patrons. Yet his undisputed works are 
 too few, hardly fifty in all, for us really to 
 wish any away. Even the panels of the 
 St. Barnabas predella, and the tondo of 
 the Ambrosiana Madonna can hardly be 
 spared. 
 
 We come now to the later and stormier 
 years of his life and work — years dominated 
 for him and for Florence by the figure of 
 the Dominican Prior of San Marco. Savon- 
 arola had already been for a time in the 
 city, but it was not till 1490 that he made 
 it his home, and began to fill it, as he was 
 soon to fill the whole world, with his pro- 
 phetic denunciations of corruption both in 
 the Republic and in the Church. The year 
 1492 saw not only the death of Lorenzo, 
 
BOTTICELLI 31 
 
 and with him of the golden age in Florence, 
 but the enthronement of a Borgia as Father 
 of the Church. It was the end of an epoch. 
 For a few years the prior held the city by 
 the power and fascination of his inspired 
 personality. He welcomed Charles VIII. 
 of France as a new Cyrus, the sword of 
 the Lord, restorer and protector of the 
 liberties of the Republic ; and when the king 
 and his army became a public menace, 
 it was he who bade them on their way. 
 In 1496 he was at grips with the Pope. 
 But two years later he had lost his 
 hold upon Florence, and died upon the 
 gallows amid the ferocious yells of the 
 populace. 
 
 Sandro, the poet-painter, was less happy 
 than Pico della Mirandola, the beautiful 
 marvellous youth, who had died at the 
 beginning of these troubles wrapped in a 
 friar's cloak, the beloved follower of the 
 lion-hearted preacher. His own brother 
 
32 BOTTICELLI 
 
 Simone, with whom he lived, was one of 
 the Prate's followers, and suffered exile for 
 his cause. There can be no doubt that 
 he himself was profoundly influenced by 
 Savonarola. After the tragedy of May 23, 
 1498, his workshop became a rendezvous 
 for the many unemployed artists who had 
 sympathised with the lost cause ; and during 
 the long evenings, those men would talk 
 together of the dead days when "Christ 
 was King of Florence." Sandro lived on 
 for more than a decade, through evil days. 
 Ghirlandajo had died in the same year as 
 Pico, when Charles had entered the city: 
 in 1504 his own pupil Pilippino preceded 
 him to the grave. The Pollajuoli were 
 dead ; Leonardo was but an occasional 
 visitor, while Michael Angelo was dividing 
 his time between Florence and Rome. In 
 1504 Botticelli was one of the artists con- 
 sulted as to the position which should be 
 allotted to the great sculptor's '' David." He 
 
PLATE IV.— THE MADONNA OF THE MAGNIFICAT, 
 KNOWN ALSO AS THE CORONATION OF THE 
 VIRGIN. (From the tondo in the Uffizi) 
 
 Probably painted about 1479, this is the most perfect example 
 of Botticelli's circular pictures. The lines of the composition have 
 been compared with those of the corolla of an open rose. The 
 colour is rich and harmonious, and every detail exquisitely finished. 
 The Virgin is still writing her song of the Magnificat, while the 
 Child handles a symbolic pomegranate. The tondo is 44 inches 
 in diameter. 
 
BOTTICELLI 35 
 
 still shared some small property with his 
 brother, but his principal patrons were 
 dead, the times were out of joint, and he 
 was seeking consolation in the study of 
 Dante. A folio volume of drawings by his 
 hand, illustrating the Divine Comedy, re- 
 mains uncompleted; whether owing to the 
 death of him for whom it was intended, 
 or of the artist himself, we cannot tell. 
 Sandro died on May 17, 1510, and was 
 buried in All Saints. 
 
 II 
 
 Botticelli was a Florentine in as intimate 
 a sense as was Dante himself, and nowhere 
 but in his native city can his work be fully 
 appreciated. It is true that notable ex- 
 amples of his art have been carried away 
 from time to time to other places, and that 
 pictures attributed to him are still more 
 
36 BOTTICELLI 
 
 widely scattered. Boston has one of his 
 most beautiful early works, the Madonna 
 formerly belonging to Prince Chigi, for the 
 sale of which to America the unpatriotic 
 Prince was heavily fined ; St. Petersburg 
 has an " Adoration of the Magi " belonging 
 to Sandro's years in Rome. The "St. 
 Sebastian" painted for Lorenzo has found 
 its way to Berlin, where there is besides 
 the Bardi Madonna; the badly damaged 
 frescoes celebrating the wedding of Lorenzo 
 Tornabuoni are at the head of a staircase 
 in the Louvre ; Rome has the Sixtine 
 frescoes; Milan has two Madonnas; Ber- 
 gamo has a panel ; while our own National 
 Gallery has five works, ranging from the 
 earliest to the latest period. 
 
 But it is in Florence that all but a small 
 minority of Sandro's masterpieces are to 
 be found, and it is in Florence that one 
 first really comes under the spell of the 
 magician. There, in the Uffizi, in the Sala 
 
BOTTICELLI 37 
 
 de Lorenzo Monaco, in the holy company 
 of Fra Angelico's saints and angels, is 
 Sandro's masterpiece, "The Birth of Venus." 
 It is a large canvas painted in tempera:^ 
 but a horizontal join just apparent and 
 running right across the picture, together 
 with the medium used, gives it at first sight 
 the appearance of being executed upon 
 wood. It is in the pale cool colours of 
 early morning, enriched by the heavy red 
 of the robe which is about to embrace the 
 wanderer's lovely form. There is a great 
 sense of space behind her, over the grey 
 sea. All about her the wind blows, making 
 the light very clean and clear. She stands 
 upon the edge of the great gleaming shell 
 which has carried her, tilting it down with 
 her weight as she leans forward to step 
 
 ^ Though his conteinporaries were beginning to use the nev7 
 medium of oil for their easel paintings, Botticelli adhered to tempera, 
 or distemper, in which yolk of egg was generally the vehicle em- 
 ployed. Nearly all his pictures, except, of course, his frescoes, are 
 upon wood. The " Pallas and the Centaur," " Venus," and '* Nativity " 
 (1500) are however on prepared canvas. 
 
38 BOTTICELLI 
 
 ashore. Her figure, tall, slender, and quite 
 central in the picture, feels the wind and 
 light about it, but not shrinkingly. It floats 
 and moves, yet without consciousness of 
 movement, as if it were a somnambulist 
 moving across the sea. The pearly luminous 
 quality of this living ethereal body, the heavy 
 golden tresses of the long hair that hang 
 heavily against the wind, which with one hand 
 she holds, while she lays the other dreamily 
 on her breast, — these are in the most per- 
 fect harmony with that flower-like immortal 
 wistfulness which Sandro has put into her 
 face. In striking contrast with this sea- 
 born vision of Love, this strange visitant 
 from an unknown world, stands the com- 
 paratively prosaic maiden who welcomes her 
 and is about to wrap her in a rich mantle. 
 This earth maiden, the representative of 
 the Spring, in her pale gown sprigged with 
 cornflowers, and her long plaits of dark hair, 
 is garlanded, like the goddess in ^'Pallas 
 
PLATE v.— THE MADONNA OF THE POME- 
 GRANATE. (From the tondo in the Uffizi) 
 
 A companion to the earlier tondo, this was probably not painted 
 before Sandro's return from Rome, about the same time as the 
 "Venus." It is broader in treatment and of more sombre colour 
 than the " Magnificat." The eyes of the Child, who raises his hand 
 in blessing, look straight out of the picture, in marked contrast to 
 the attitude of the earlier work. There is a striking resemblance 
 in many details, but the two pictures are quite distinct in character 
 and feeling. This tondo measures 56 inches. 
 
BOTTICELLI 41 
 
 and the Centaur," with olive branches. The 
 curves of the mantle, which she holds out 
 against the boisterous wind, make a delicious 
 line that balances that of the "Venus." 
 After the figure of the goddess, however, 
 who really is no Venus, but rather the 
 Muse of Sandro's art, the ideal of his 
 aspirations — after her figure, the interest of 
 the picture lies in the intricate whirl of 
 living lines, of dark wings, pale limbs, and 
 delicately coloured scarfs, with which Botti- 
 celli has symbolised the winds of Spring, 
 stirring up the water with their feet and 
 blowing the voyager on her way. 
 
 Any attempt to convey by description 
 the mystical significance of this decorative 
 design would obviously be idle. Yet to 
 miss that significance is to miss all. Re- 
 garded as the mere illustration of some 
 verse of Politian's, or of Homer's hymn, 
 the picture is open to endless criticism — 
 the figure of Venus is out of drawing ; the 
 
42 BOTTICELLI 
 
 promontories, waves, and laurel trees are 
 bare shorthand notes. It is when the spirit 
 in the onlooker responds to the spirit en- 
 tangled in the magical lines and tones and 
 colours of the painting, that its indefinable 
 beauty dawns upon him. You must love 
 Botticelli's drawing if you are to under- 
 stand it 
 
 In the same room hangs a smaller pic- 
 ture, very different in style, an " Adoration of 
 the Kings" — a masterpiece too, and worthy 
 of the closest study, but worlds removed 
 from the *' Venus." It is very highly and 
 deliberately finished, and unlike its com- 
 panion, belongs to the years before Sandro 
 worked in Rome. It contains portraits of 
 the Medicis and, more important to us, of 
 the painter himself.^ Detached from the 
 
 * There are two separate portraits by Sandro which are full of 
 character and interest : the portrait of a youth in our National Gallery, 
 and of a man holding; a medal in the Florence Academy. Other por- 
 traits, such as those of Giuliano dei Medici at Berlin and Berg-amo, 
 and of Simonetta, may have come from his workshop, but are not now 
 numbered among the master's own works. 
 
 I 
 
BOTTICELLI 43 
 
 others he stands in the right-hand corner, 
 under the peacock, wrapped in an orange 
 mantle, gazing at us over his shoulder — a 
 tall figure of a man with powerful enigmatic 
 face. The composition of this picture, with 
 its thirty figures and varied colouring, has 
 been often and rightly praised. In spite of 
 the clear individualisation of personalities 
 and the elaboration of magnificent acces- 
 sories, the unity and balance of design with 
 its semi-circular grouping and the nobility 
 and distinction of its lines, are well kept. 
 If it was painted in rivalry with Ghirlandajo, 
 for whose work it was at one time mistaken, 
 it is marked by an intensity of realisation 
 foreign to that worthy painter. 
 
 These two pictures of the Sala di Lorenzo 
 Monaco, the " Venus " and the " Adoration," 
 are representative of the two realms in which 
 Sandro worked ; the one, of pure imagina- 
 tion, wedding Platonic ideas with a new 
 conception of the possibilities of decorative 
 
44 BOTTICELLI 
 
 art; the other, of the patrons and atmos- 
 phere of fifteenth-century Florence. Very 
 few of his pictures belong exclusively to 
 the one realm or the other, but to one or 
 other belongs the influence which predomi- 
 nates in any one. Of the first class are 
 notably the remaining works painted with 
 classical motives. Foremost among these 
 is the "Spring" of the Florence Academy, 
 with its inimitable group of the Graces 
 dancing in a marvellous rhythm of flowing 
 intertwining lines, somewhat over-mannered, 
 it is true, and with feeling a little forced, 
 but yet of quite unique grace and intensity 
 of conception. Much wordy debate over 
 the literary signification of this painting 
 has come between the vital meaning of the 
 design and those who behold it. We may 
 find suggestions in Lucian or Alberti, in 
 Politian's or Lorenzo's verses, but as a work 
 of art it derives only secondarily from any 
 of these. It is a representation of beauty 
 
BOTTICELLI 45 
 
 in a whimsical and even bizarre group of 
 figures gleaming whitely under the dark 
 trees between whose trunks shines the 
 pale serene sky, while the grass through 
 which their delicately modelled feet are 
 moving is rich and full of flowers. This 
 picture, in which the figures are nearly 
 life size, while it has much in common 
 with the "Venus," belongs to an earlier 
 period, and is probably nearer in date to 
 the "Adoration" already described, painted 
 when the artist was about thirty-four years 
 old. 
 
 Some two years later he painted his 
 "Pallas and the Centaur." The figure of 
 the goddess, beautiful as it is, lacks some- 
 thing of the vitality and motion of the 
 "Spring" and the "Venus"; perhaps the 
 artist has given too much thought to the 
 lovely wreathing of the symbolic olive 
 boughs about her breast and arms and 
 head; but on the other hand, the melan- 
 
46 BOTTICELLI 
 
 choly Centaur whom she leads by his 
 heavy forelock is one of the most perfect 
 expressions of his art. It is among the 
 peculiar qualities of Sandro that he makes 
 one feel, in looking at this picture, that it 
 is one's own hand which grasps those dark 
 curling locks; just as in the *' Venus" one 
 is conscious of the light and the wind 
 falling upon one's own body. Behind the 
 Centaur rises a mass of sculptured over- 
 hanging rocks, beyond lies a boat in the 
 bay. Almost always there is some note 
 of vista and distance in Botticelli's pictures. 
 The colour of this large canvas is very 
 pleasing. Pallas is clad in a loose green 
 mantle and an under-robe of white adorned 
 with the triple rings of the Medici; she 
 is wreathed with olive, her auburn hair 
 blows out behind her, and her feet are 
 covered with a sort of orange buskin. 
 Nothing could be finer than the contrast 
 she presents with the dark, wild, pathetic 
 
BOTTICELLI 47 
 
 figure of "Chaos and Old Night" whom 
 she is leading captive. 
 
 The most beautiful of Sandro's earlier 
 works, a little panel only lo inches by 
 8, representing the return of Judith to 
 Bethulia after the slaying of Holofernes, 
 is in the Uffizi. It has suffered from re- 
 painting, the figure of Judith having been 
 shortened and its movement limited by 
 the drawing back of the right foot at least 
 half an inch, so that it does not now corre- 
 spond with that of Abra following so close 
 behind with her horrid burden; but in 
 spite of this, it retains a wonderful joyous 
 serenity of light, line, and colour, and the 
 same windy clearness of air and buoyant 
 rhythmical movement as distinguishes the 
 ** Venus." The figure of Judith is so closely 
 related to that of the Fortezza, painted 
 for the Pollajuoli in 1470, and exhibited in 
 the same gallery, that it may well belong 
 to the years immediately succeeding it, 
 
48 BOTTICELLI 
 
 when Sandro was between twenty-six and 
 thirty years of age. The companion panel 
 of Holofernes, though interesting, is much 
 inferior as a design and is somewhat comic 
 in its frank and ghastly violence ; it was 
 evidently painted while the artist was 
 under the influence of the Pollajuoli. 
 
 There are two other masterpieces which 
 belong to this division of Sandro's work, 
 but they are neither of them in Florence. 
 The beautiful, but sadly mutilated fresco 
 of Giovanna Tornabuoni, with Venus and 
 the Graces, long hidden under coats of 
 whitewash in a villa near Fiesole, was 
 discovered in 1873 by Dr. Lemmi, then its 
 owner, and carefully cleaned and removed. 
 In 1882 it was acquired by the French govern- 
 ment. In spite of the blank patches, and 
 the great cracks which break its surface, 
 this remains one of the most gracious and 
 captivating of Sandro's works. It has the 
 joyousness of flower-like colour, the breadth 
 
PLATE VI.— THE ANNUNCIATION. (From the 
 panel in the UfHzi) 
 
 This interesting picture is probably only in part the work of 
 BotticeUi. It seems to have been produced in his workshop about 
 1490 for the monks of Cestello. It is less harmonious and con- 
 vincing in colour than Sandro's masterpieces, but is redeemed by 
 the living movement expressed in the figure of Gabriel, which is 
 usually regarded as his work. This figure is related to two others 
 of his angels, one in the Ambrosiana tondo, the other in the pre- 
 della of the "Coronation." 
 
 D 
 
BOTTICELLI 51 
 
 and simplicity of treatment, and witnal the 
 virginal quality which, in his best moments, 
 were characteristic of the artist. The 
 masterly contrast between the flowing 
 moving lines and strange symbolic faces 
 of the four visitors, and the upright demure 
 girl with the kerchief on her head who 
 receives them is very striking. The second 
 fresco, of Giovanna's husband, Lorenzo, intro- 
 duced into the company of the Liberal Arts 
 and Philosophy, is less interesting. A third 
 fell to pieces immediately after discovery. All 
 were painted about the year i486, probably 
 a little later than the "Venus." 
 
 The remaining picture of this group is 
 the so-called "Mars and Venus" in our 
 own National Gallery, a long panel designed 
 to stand above a doorway, and probably 
 painted about the same time as the more 
 famous " Spring." As in the case of that pic- 
 ture, its subject has been a matter of much 
 ingenious conjecture. Some commentators 
 
52 BOTTICELLI 
 
 see in the two figures portrait studies of 
 Giuliano dei Medici, and of Simonetta Ves- 
 pucci, and conceive that the sleeping GiuU- 
 ano is dreaming of his lady, formerly clad 
 in all the panoply of Pallas, but now dis- 
 armed by laughing loves. It is obvious, 
 however, that the armour belongs to the 
 man who lies asleep leaning upon some of 
 it. The little satyrs with their roguish 
 baby faces, curly goats' flanks, and budding 
 horns, who play with the warrior's lance 
 and helm, blow the conch in his ear, and 
 wriggle through his breastplate, seem to 
 have been suggested by a passage in Lucian 
 describing the marriage of Alexander. But 
 the subject of the picture need not now 
 detain us, nor need the long outstretched 
 figure of the dreaming warrior; its charm 
 is in the exquisitely realised youthful grace 
 of the lady in her long white robe, leaning 
 upon a crimson cushion with the dark grove 
 of laurels behind her. She is of the same 
 
BOTTICELLI 53 
 
 spiritual family as the Graces, and the cen- 
 tral figure of Venus in the "Spring." She 
 may indeed be Simonetta, perhaps Simon- 
 etta already deceased, of whom her lover 
 dreams; but, whatever her name, her face 
 and figure, and from her the whole picture, 
 is radiant with that singleness and intensity 
 of artistic conception, which gives to some 
 of Sandro's pictures the power of suggest- 
 ing a sort of immortality of life. And they 
 have a surcharge of meaning, an enigmatic 
 quality like that of life itself, which is seen 
 in no other pictures of the time with the 
 exception of Leonardo's— and in Sandro's 
 the enigma suggests no sinister solution. 
 His women are creations of passionate love 
 and human intimacy, but withal they have 
 an abiding quality which only a very reverent 
 and chaste lover, a lover not unlike Pico 
 della Mirandola, could have adored and 
 chosen. The date of this picture is not 
 quite certain, about 1478. The lady's face 
 
54 BOTTICELLI 
 
 is curiously related to the faces in the 
 Lemmi fresco described above. 
 
 Ill 
 
 We must turn to the principal pictures 
 in Botticelli's other, and as I think, inferior 
 manner, indicating first, however, the links 
 which exist between the two groups. 
 
 The first of these is the "Calumny," 
 painted according to the description given 
 in Alberti's Treatise on Painting of a picture 
 by Apelles. It is a comparatively small 
 panel, two feet by three, containing ten 
 figures, and an elaborate background of 
 sculptured marble arches, literally covered 
 with friezes and bas-reliefs. It belongs to 
 Sandro's later years, and is marred by a 
 busy and somewhat theatrical violence. 
 One can hardly look without laughing at 
 the helpless boyish figure of Innocence, 
 with crossed ankles and folded hands, 
 dragged along dancingly by the ladylike 
 
BOTTICELLI 55 
 
 Calumny; and unfortunately, these form the 
 central motive. Their poses mar a little 
 the detached nude figure of Truth, standing 
 on the extreme left with arm upraised and 
 noble face lifted to heaven. She is inti- 
 mately related to the figure of Venus 
 Anadyomene — but here she seems tragi- 
 cally out of place. The fancy lavished upon 
 the bas-reliefs bears witness to Sandro's 
 whimsical imagination even in the midst, 
 as we may suppose, of the dark days when 
 Florence was full of the false spirit sug- 
 gested in this panel. 
 
 With the "Calumny" I must mention, 
 though only in passing, the several panels 
 of the life of Saint Zenobius, two of which 
 are in the collection of Dr. Ludwig Mond. 
 Less theatrical, but often more violent in 
 manner than the "Calumny," and not less 
 definitely of the genre character of illustra- 
 tion, they contain some pleasing colour, 
 geranium reds, soft greys, and mauves, 
 
56 BOTTICELLI 
 
 blues, and much white. These, with the 
 illustrative panels from the stories of Vir- 
 ginia and Lucretia, were probably painted 
 after 1490, for wedding chests. 
 
 A more important group of pictures com- 
 prises the six — including the "Adoration" 
 already described — which centre in the three 
 figures of the Holy Family, whether they 
 be called Adorations or Nativities; and the 
 Sixtine frescoes. All these pictures are full 
 of figures, most of them are set in large, 
 carefully studied landscapes, which seem to 
 challenge Leonardo's assertion that Botti- 
 celli was indifferent to this part of his art. 
 The two most pleasing compositions, after 
 the aforesaid " Adoration " — the " Adoration " 
 now in St. Petersburg, and the " Scenes from 
 the Life of Moses" in the Sixtine Chapel, 
 were painted about the same time in 
 Rome. In the former, the Holy Family 
 is housed, as in the tondo in the National 
 Gallery, under a wooden shed erected 
 
BOTTICELLI 57 
 
 between the ruined pillars of an older 
 order, a temple or perhaps a palace of 
 kings. It contains some forty figures, be- 
 sides horses, which Sandro loved to intro- 
 duce, not always very successfully, into his 
 pictures. Too often, like the charger of 
 Holofernes, they are studied not from life, 
 but from some other model : occasionally, 
 as for example in the Medicean "Adoration," 
 one recognises the real creature. This 
 St. Petersburg " Adoration " is broadly con- 
 ceived, and full of interest, but it suffers 
 from that conscious and obvious emotion 
 which belongs to Sandro's inferior work. 
 In his best, his figures are pure creations, 
 certain of their purpose, confident of con- 
 veying a sense of beauty transcending mere 
 subject-interest; they are not life-like, they 
 are ideas and symbols of life, and there- 
 fore able to convey the spiritual contact 
 of living forms. This is not the case in 
 any of the Adorations I am describing. 
 
\ 
 
 \ 
 
 58 BOTTICELLI 
 
 nor is it in any of the Sixtine frescoes if we 
 except that of " Moses at the Well." 
 
 But in this marvellous central scene of 
 a large fresco, the very sheep are so in- 
 tensely realised as to have an individuality 
 over and above their mere sheepiness. By 
 the well, under the great oak tree of the 
 Papal (Rovere) family, Moses is pouring 
 water into the troughs for Zipporah and her 
 sister. His long luxuriant hair falls about 
 a sensitive face. Behind and below him are 
 the sheep, so woolly that you can in fancy 
 pass your hand over their fleeces. On the 
 opposite side of the well are the two 
 Midianitish maidens, standing out, the bright 
 central motive of the whole design ; one 
 with her back turned and hands extended, 
 the other walking in a sort of dream, her 
 head drooping forward under the long thick 
 locks of its heavy hair. A skin full of fruit 
 is slung round her waist, and a distaff is 
 in her hand. About this group, whose lines 
 
PLATE VII.— THE VIRGIN AND CHILD WITH ST. 
 JOHN AND AN ANGEL. (From the panel in the National 
 Gallery) 
 
 This beautiful painting, ascribed to Botticelli, is obviously an 
 indirect, if not a direct, product of his genius. The name of Giuliano 
 da San Gallo, one of Sandro's friends, and a famous Florentine 
 architect, is written across the back of the picture. 
 
UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF 
 
BOTTICELLI 6i 
 
 follow those of the well-mouth, the painter 
 has contrived to introduce half-a-dozen other 
 incidents from Moses' life. It was of the 
 little terrier in this picture that Ruskin 
 wrote : " Without any doubt I can assert to 
 you that there is not any other such piece 
 of animal painting in the v/orld — so brief, 
 intense, vivid, and absolutely balanced in 
 truth : as tenderly drawn as if it had been 
 a saint, yet as humorously as Landseer*s 
 Lord Chancellor Poodle." He is sure that 
 the dog has been barking all the morning 
 at Moses. 
 
 I quote this because it is almost the 
 only passage of Ruskin's which is true to 
 BotticeUi's work. Sandro's "Venus" is a 
 creative spirit, she is not a mere individual, 
 but a living Platonic Idea ; and through 
 his power of realisation, this little terrier, 
 a mere accessory in the foreground of a 
 great fresco filled with details, has a life of 
 its own. Thus, at its best, his work is not 
 
62 BOTTICELLI 
 
 representation at all, nor mere illustration; 
 it is the re-creation in a new medium of 
 the creatures and ideas he has conceived, 
 even to their least characteristics. 
 
 The two other Sixtine frescoes represent 
 the " Punishment of Korah," painted in cele- 
 bration of the revolt and suicide of the 
 Archbishop of Krain ; and that known either 
 as the " Leper's Offering," or the " Tempta- 
 tion of Christ," which was also intended to 
 flatter the sensibilities of the Pope. 
 
 IV 
 
 We now come to the second great 
 division of Sandro's pictures, his Madonnas 
 and Saints, tondos, panels, and altar-pieces, 
 painted for different patrons at intervals 
 during his lifetime. The most celebrated 
 of these are the two tondos, or round 
 panels, of Mary with the Child and several 
 
BOTTICELLI 63 
 
 young angels, hanging opposite to one 
 another in the Uffizi. Somewhat similar 
 in design, they are yet essentially different. 
 From its style, the first was probably 
 painted about 1479,^ and the second in the 
 same period as the "Venus," and the "Bardi 
 Madonna" (1484-1485); the two pictures 
 being thus separated by Sandro's sojourn // 
 in Rome. The earlier, that of the " Magni- 
 ficat," is more brilliant and varied in colour, 
 and of consummate finish : Mary's face is 
 related to that of the " Pallas " ; between her 
 and the group of angels on the left is a 
 distant landscape with curving river ; behind 
 her shoulder, supporting on one side the 
 celestial crown, which is so much too large 
 to rest upon her head, is a beautiful young 
 angel of a distinctive type which hardly 
 recurs in Sandro's work. This composi- 
 tion, with its intricately curved, and un- 
 obtrusively harmonious lines, so perfectly 
 adapted to the circular form, has often 
 
64 BOTTICELLI 
 
 been praised. In the later tondo, the 
 Madonna with the Pomegranate, there is 
 no distant scene, but the sense of infinite 
 vista is conveyed by the far-away, pensive 
 expression, not only of the central figure 
 with her slender drooping shoulders, but, 
 as I think, of the Child himself. The 
 grouping is simple, but less perfect than 
 in the earUer work; and there is a lack of 
 harmony between the secular little beings 
 with their wings, flowers, and singing 
 books, and the rapt Mother and Child, 
 which we did not feel in the other, where 
 Madonna herself, guided by the Babe, is 
 writing her song of praise. But here 
 Botticelli has concentrated the religious 
 feeling of the picture in Mary's face, and 
 in it he has struck again the mystical note 
 which vibrates through the whole of his 
 "Venus." Much has been said of the misery 
 of this Madonna ; for myself, I see in her 
 face far more of the rapt vision of one 
 
BOTTICELLI 65 
 
 who sees immortal things in a mystery. 
 She is not glad because of them, but her 
 whole thought and being is separated by 
 them from the things that change, being 
 set upon the things that endure. 
 
 With these two tondos, I must mention 
 for beauty and unity of conception the 
 "Chigi" Madonna and that in the Poldo- 
 Pezzoli Gallery at Milan. The former is 
 generally regarded as among his earlier 
 works. An open casement shows a river 
 winding among wooded hills, a church 
 steeple having been painted in as an after- 
 thought. Mary's attitude, as she fingers 
 the ears of corn thrust among the grapes 
 in the bowl presented by a mysterious 
 garlanded angel, is not unlike that of the 
 "Magnificat," to which the whole composi- 
 tion is related. But Mary herself is of a 
 very different type, more nearly related to 
 the Madonna at Milan of which I shall 
 nowj speak. She, also, is seated by a 
 
 E 
 
66 BOTTICELLI 
 
 window, and like her sister of the " Magni- 
 ficat" she is reading in a missal with de- 
 cipherable words. As in that picture too, 
 the Child looks up at her with his hand on 
 hers, a crown of thorns circling his chubby 
 wrist. The colour is rich and harmonious ; 
 Mary being magnificently coiffed and clad. 
 Another Madonna in Milan, that in the 
 Ambrosiana Gallery, bears some resem- 
 blance both to the Virgin just described, 
 and to her of the " Magnificat." As in the 
 Poldo - Pezzoli Madonna, the glories are 
 either repainted or unusually elaborate, and 
 Mary has a star embroidered on her left 
 shoulder. Here again is the open missal, 
 but now quite undecipherable, resting upon 
 a cushion. It is possible to conceive of the 
 Babe being another version of that in the 
 Poldo-Pezzoli picture. But this Ambrosiana 
 Madonna with her unimaginative face and 
 uncompromising attitude, this grotesquely 
 sentimental Child, these three spiritless atti- 
 
BOTTICELLI 67 
 
 tudinising angels prancing about on their 
 errands, is perhaps the least pleasing or 
 characteristic of all the works now attri- 
 buted to the master. The picture is con- 
 ventional to a degree; a great canopy 
 hangs in space over the Virgin, between 
 its curtains are seen the hills, towers, and 
 river of a distant scene.* 
 
 A somewhat similar canopy overhangs 
 the Virgin in the Madonna of St. Barnabas 
 in the Florentine Academy. Here, too, angels 
 are holding back the curtains, while others 
 display the crown of thorns and the nails. 
 Mary sits on a raised throne worked with 
 elaborate bas-reliefs. Before her, with their 
 backs to her and the Child, are six saints, 
 among them, with beautiful face, but rather 
 
 ^ The " Annunciation " in the Uffizi, is an interesting but doubtful 
 work. The figure of Gabriel is closely related to two others of 
 Sandro's ; one the angel supporting the Child in the Ambrosian 
 Madonna, the other the Gabriel in the Predella to the Coronation. 
 But in the larger work the angel is much more fully realised ; in face 
 he is nearest in type to the beautiful angel already noted ia the tondo 
 of the " Magnificat," but graver. The colour of the picture is hard, 
 crude, and unpleasing. It is supposed to have been painted about 1490. 
 
68 BOTTICELLI 
 
 bunchy figure, St. Catherine. Similarly 
 elaborate and enthroned, though this time 
 under a canopy of palm, is the Bardi 
 "Madonna with the two Saints John" at 
 Berlin. This, perhaps the most elaborately 
 detailed of all Sandro's pictures, measures 
 six feet by six. Like Augustine in the St. 
 Barnabas picture, the Evangelist is occupied 
 with his book and pen, while an eagle 
 stands behind him; the Baptist, carrying 
 his tall staff and banderole, ** Behold the 
 Lamb of God," is very nobly drawn, recall- 
 ing in handling the figure of the " Centaur." 
 But the picture is not a happy one; it is 
 set and conventional, the result of great 
 skill and labour, but little love. 
 
 The same must be said of the " Corona- 
 tion of the Virgin" in the Florence Aca- 
 demy, one of Sandro's largest tempera 
 works, an upright altar-piece measuring 12 
 feet by 8, commissioned by the guild of 
 gold-workers for Savonarola's Church of 
 
PLATE VIII. —JUDITH AND HOLOFERNES. 
 (In the UfEzi Gallery, Florence) 
 
 This famous little picture in the Uffizi shows Judith returning to 
 the Israelite's camp followed by her maid carrying the head of Holo- 
 femes. Judith's drapery is fluttering as though in a breeze, her 
 hand grasps the hilt of her sword— the pose is as graceful as any 
 that inspires Botticelli ; the face is full of character. This picture 
 has been highly praised by John Ruskin in his "Mornings in 
 Florence." He writes, "The conception of facts, and the idea of 
 Jewish womanhood, are there, grand and real as a marble statue, — 
 possession for all ages." 
 
BOTTICELLI 71 
 
 San Marco. It is painted in two sections 
 — like Titian's "Assumption" — the lower, 
 containing four too carefully posing saints; 
 the upper, a sort of tondo, with a golden 
 ground, in which the figures of the Virgin 
 and the Father are both obviously incom- 
 moded by the shape of the frame. But 
 the picture is notable for its ring of dancing 
 angels, and the plucked roses scattered 
 among them are like those in the "Birth of 
 Venus." 
 
 Much the same plan is adopted in the 
 last of Sandro's paintings, which is evidently 
 related to this one, the "Nativity" in the 
 National Gallery, already referred to. Here 
 again is an upper and a lower picture, and 
 in the upper, the dancing angels re-appear 
 against the " glory." Instead of roses, how- 
 ever, there are crowns and banderoles, and 
 the angels carry olive branches. At the 
 head of this picture is an inscription in 
 base Greek which has been thus translated : 
 
72 BOTTICELLI 
 
 **This picture was painted by me, Ales- 
 sandro, at the end of 1500, during the 
 troubles of Italy, in the half time after the 
 time which was prophesied in the eleventh 
 chapter of St. John the Evangelist, and the 
 Second Woe of the Apocalypse, and when 
 Satan shall be loosed on the earth for three 
 years and a half. After which the devil 
 shall be enchained, and we shall see him 
 trodden under foot as in this picture." It 
 indicates Sandro's belief in a final recon- 
 ciliation and justification, and refers plainly 
 to the execution of Savonarola which had 
 occurred just three and a half years before. 
 Thus it forms a kind of sequel to the 
 " Calumny." While the picture is somewhat 
 naively explanatory, it is filled with intense 
 feeling, and suggests the influence upon 
 Sandro of the Prate's favourite master, Fra 
 Angelico.^ 
 
 1 There are many other uncertain pictures which were formerly 
 credited to BotticelH ; and several of these still parade under the 
 master's name in our National Gallery. Neither Nos. 782 oor 1126 
 
BOTTICELLI 73 
 
 It is generally believed to be the last of 
 his paintings, but it seems probable that the 
 drawings to illustrate the Divine Comedy 
 may belong to an even later time. They 
 were made for a second-cousin and name- 
 sake of the Magnificent, Lorenzo di Pier 
 Francesco, who died in 1503 and was a 
 patron of Michael Angelo as well as of 
 Sandro. The original MS. was purchased 
 about the beginning of last century by the 
 then Duke of Hamilton, but was sold in 1882 
 to the Prussian Government. It is now in 
 the Berlin Museum, and contains eighty-five 
 
 is by Sandro. But the genuine works in London include the at- 
 tractive portrait of a young Florentine (No. 626) ; and the two 
 "Adorations" ascribed to his pupil Filippino Lippi (592, 1033). The 
 Print-Room in the British Museum has the exquisite drawing of the 
 "Abundance" (Silver-point). In the basement of the National Gallery 
 are copies (Arundel Society) of the Sixtine Frescoes, the " Birth of 
 Venus," "Spring," and the best of the Lemmi frescoes. Facsimiles 
 of the drawings for the Divine Comedy have been published. The 
 other London pictures usually accredited to Sandro are the " Madonna " 
 (partly by his hand) in Mr. Heseltine's collection and the panels al- 
 ready referred to in that of Dr. Mond, all belonging to his later 
 years. The former shows the use Botticelli made of gold to give a 
 sunny sheen between the spectator and distant hillside. 
 
74 BOTTICELLI 
 
 drawings in silver-point, finished with pen 
 and ink. Eight other drawings belonging 
 to the same series are in the Vatican 
 Library. As eight are still missing, the 
 complete series would have consisted of a 
 hundred, in addition to the chart of the 
 Inferno. 
 
 The drawings vary much in value and 
 interest. Many of them are deficient in both 
 respects ; but some are perfect examples of 
 his art. Such is the design for Paradiso I., 
 with its slender trees bowing their tops to 
 the morning breeze in the meadows watered 
 by the circling stream Eunoe, over which 
 Beatrice and Dante rise together against 
 the wind, lifted by the light of Divine Love. 
 It is full of aspiration and wide air, and 
 has a curious Japanese quality. Very dif- 
 ferent in suggestion is that of the Chained 
 Giants (Inferno XXXI.) which recalls some 
 early German work, and reminds us that 
 Sandro may have been influenced by the 
 
BOTTICELLI 75 
 
 drawings of Schongauer, and other Northern 
 artists and designers. Vasari says that 
 Botticelli was a prolific designer, and some 
 of his drawings, notably the exquisite 
 "Abundance," in the British Museum, are 
 among his finest works. 
 
 V 
 
 In reviewing the subjects chosen by 
 Sandro for his pictures, one is struck by 
 certain characteristic omissions. With the 
 exception of a most perfunctory and even 
 grotesque panel of Christ rising from the 
 Sepulchre, forming part of the S. Barnabas 
 predella, of the doubtful "Pieta" at Munich, 
 which may have been partially executed by 
 Sandro after Savonarola's great sermons 
 in Holy Week, and the figure of Christ 
 thrice introduced as an afterthought into 
 the first of the Sixtine frescoes ; Botticelli 
 
X 76 BOTTICELLI 
 
 has only painted the central figure of 
 Christian art as an infant. Twice only has 
 he introduced the figure of God the Father 
 into his work, and then without distinc- 
 tion. His devotional pictures represent a 
 very young Madonna, with a chubby but 
 thoughtful child, and, where there are other 
 figures, either an aged patriarchal Joseph, 
 or one or more attendant or messenger 
 angels, winged in the later work, and cer- 
 tain saints. His favourite amongst these 
 was Augustine. 
 
 Botticelli is at his best when he escapes 
 from conventionality of subject, and is able 
 to give wing to a lyrical imagination com- 
 parable to that of Shelley. He is one of 
 those who feel the wind of the spirit blowing 
 out toward new worlds. He loved the wind, 
 and all things that the wind caresses, trees, 
 draperies, floating hair, and the naked body. 
 Also he loved the light and hated darkness. 
 He had inspired moments when he beheld 
 
BOTTICELLI 77 
 
 that the old order of the mediaeval world 
 had already passed away, and the hearts of 
 men were turning to the pure worship of 
 living incarnate loveliness— the mystery of 
 a re-born and immortal pleasure, Venus 
 Anadyomene, beheld with mystic sight. 
 But in that age it was a prophetic vision, 
 and his own eyes failed him. He died in 
 a time of darkness. For four centuries his 
 visions were forgotten, to be beheld again 
 by us with a renewal of the wonder and 
 aspiration, the passionate desire for freedom 
 and for beauty, out of which they came. 
 
The platei are printed by Bkmrosk A* Sons, Ltd., Derby and l.onJoo 
 The text at the Ballamtvnb Prkss, Edinburgh 
 
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