352 ARIADNE FLORENTINA. 



olic faith, so surely and earnestly did Holbein and Botticelli 

 strive, in the north, to chastise, and, in the south, to revive it. 

 In what manner, I will try to-day briefly to show you. 



5. I name these two men as the reforming leaders ; there 

 were many, rank and file, who worked in alliance with Hol- 

 bein ; with Botticelli, two great ones, Lippi and Perugino. 

 But both of these had so much pleasure in their own pictorial 

 faculty, that they strove to keep quiet, and out of harm's way, 

 involuntarily manifesting themselves sometimes, however ; 

 and not in the wisest manner. Lippi's running away with a 

 novice was not likely to be understood as a step in Church 

 reformation correspondent to Luther's marriage.* Nor have 

 Protestant divines, even to this day, recognized the real mean- 

 ing of the reports of Perugino's 'infidelity.' Botticelli, the 

 pupil of the one, and the companion of the other, held the 

 truths they taught him through sorrow as well as joy ; and 

 he is the greatest of the reformers, because he preathed with- 

 out blame ; though the least known, because he died without 

 victory. 



I had hoped to be able to lay before you some better biogra- 

 phy of him than the traditions of Vasari, of which I gave a short 

 abstract some time back in Fors Clavigera ; but as yet I have 

 only added internal evidence to the popular story, the more 

 important points of which I must review briefly. It will not 

 waste your time if I read, instead of merely giving you refer- 

 ence to, the passages on which I must comment. 



6. "His father, Mariano Filipepi, a Florentine citizen, 

 brought him up with care, and caused him to be instructed 

 in all such things as are usually taught to children before 

 they choose a calling. But although the boy readily acquired 

 whatever he wished to learn, yet was he constantly discon- 



* The world was not then ready for Le Pere Hyacinthe ; but the real 

 gist of the matter is that Lippi did, openly and bravely, what the high- 

 est prelates in the Church did basely and in secret ; also he loved, 

 where they only lusted ; and he has been proclaimed therefore by them 

 and too foolishly believed by us to have been a shameful person. 

 Of his true life, and the colours given to it, we will try to learn some' 

 thing tenable, before we end our work in Florence. 



