358 ARIADNE FLORENTINA. 



of the various foreshortenings, all which are designed in a 

 very good manner. 



" About this time Sandro received a commission to paint a 

 small picture with figures three parts of a braccio high, the 

 subject an Adoration of the Magi. 



" It is indeed a most admirable work : the composition, the 

 design, and the colouring are so beautiful that every artist 

 who examines it is astonished ; and, at the time, it obtained 

 so great a name in Florence, and other places, for the master, 

 that Pope Sixtus IV. having erected the chapel built by him in 

 his palace at Home, and desiring to have it adorned with paint- 

 ings, commanded that Sandro Botticelli should be appointed 

 Superintendent of the work." 



12. Vasari's words, " about this time," are evidently wrong. 

 It must have been many and many a day after he painted 

 Matteo's picture that he took such high standing in Florence 

 as to receive the mastership of the works in the Pope's chapel 

 at Rome. Of his position and doings there, I will tell you 

 presently ; meantime, let us complete the story of his life. 



"By these works Botticelli obtained great honour and 

 reputation among the many competitors who were labouring 

 with him, whether Florentines or natives of other cities, and 

 received from the Pope a considerable sum of money ; but 

 this he consumed and squandered totally, during his resi- 

 dence in Home, where he lived without due care, as was his 

 habit." 



13. Well, but one would have liked to hear how he squan- 

 dered his money, and whether he was without care of other 

 things than money. 



It is just possible, Master Vasari, that Botticelli may have 

 laid out his money at higher interest than you know of ; mean- 

 time, he is advancing in life and thought, and becoming less 

 and less comprehensible to his biographer. And at length, 

 having got rid, somehow, of the money he received from the 

 Pope ; and finished the work he had to do, and uncovered ii^ 

 free in conscience, and empty in purse, he returned to Flor- 

 ence, where, " being a sophistical person, he made a comment 

 on a part of Dante, and drew the Inferno, and put it in en- 



