FLORENTINE SCHOOLS OF ENGRA VINO. 359 



graving, in which he consumed much time ; and not working 

 for this reason, brought infinite disorder into his affairs." 



14. Unpaid work, this engraving of Dante, you perceive, 

 consuming much time also, and not appearing to Vasari to be 

 work at all. It is but a short sentence, gentlemen, this, in 

 the old edition of Vasari, and obscurely worded, a very fool- 

 ish person's contemptuous report of a thing to him totally in- 

 comprehensible. But the thing itself is out-and-out the most 

 important fact in the history of the religious art of Italy. I 

 can show you its significance in not many more words than 

 have served to record it. 



Botticelli had been painting in Borne ; and had expressly 

 chosen to represent there, being Master of Works, in the 

 presence of the Defender of the Faith, the foundation of 

 the Mosaic law ; to his mind the Eternal Law of God, that 

 law of which modern Evangelicals sing perpetually their own 

 original psalm, " Oh, how hate I Thy law ! it is my abomina- 

 tion all the day." Beturning to Florence, he reads Dante's 

 vision of the Hell created by its violation. He knows that 

 the pictures he has painted in Borne cannot be understood by 

 the people ; they are exclusively for the best trained scholars 

 in the Church. Dante, on the other hand, can only be read 

 in manuscript ; but the people could and would understand 

 his lessons, if they were pictured in accessible and enduring 

 form. He throws all his own lauded work aside, all for 

 which he is most honoured, and in which his now matured 

 and magnificent skill is as easy to him as singing to a per- 

 fect musician. And he sets himself to a servile and de- 

 spised labour, his friends mocking him, his resources fail- 

 ing him, infinite ' disorder ' getting into his affairs of this 

 world. 



15. Never such another thing happened in Italy any more. 

 Botticelli engraved her Pilgrim's Progress for her, putting 

 himself in prison to do it. She would not read it when done. 

 Baphael and Marc Antonio were the theologians for her 

 money. Pretty Madonnas, and satyrs with abundance of tail, 

 let our pilgrim's progress be in these directions, if you 

 please. 



