FLORENTINE SCHOOLS OF ENGRAVING. 365 



in the midst of them, the building of the Mount of Pity : in 

 the distance lies Italy, mapped in cape and bay, with the cities 

 which had founded mounts of pity, Venice in the distance, 

 chief. Little seen, but engraved with the master's loveliest 

 care, in the background there is a group of two small figures 

 the Franciscan brother kneeling, and an angel of Victory 

 crowning him. 



25. I call it an angel of Victory, observe, with assurance ; 

 although there is no legend claiming victory, or distinguish- 

 ing this angel from any other of those which adorn with crowns 

 of flowers the nameless crowds of the blessed. For Botticelli 

 has other ways of speaking than by written legends. I know 

 by a glance at this angel that he has taken the action of it 

 from a Greek coin ; and I know also that he had not, in his 

 own exuberant fancy, the least need to copy the action of any 

 %ure whatever. So I understand, as well as if he spoke to 

 me, that he expects me, if I am an educated gentleman, to 

 recognize this particular action as a Greek angel's ; and to 

 know that it is a temporal victory which it crowns. 



26. And now farther, observe, that this classical learning of 

 Botticelli's, received by him, as I told you, as a native element 

 of his being, gives not only greater dignity and gentleness, 

 but far wider range, to his thoughts of Reformation. As he 

 asks for pity from the cruel Jew to the poor Gentile, so he asks 

 for pity from the proud Christian to the untaught Gentile. 

 Nay, for more than pity, for fellowship, and acknowledgment 

 of equality before God. The learned men of his age in gen- 

 eral brought back the Greek mythology as anti-Christian. 

 But Botticelli and Perugino, as pre-Christian ; nor only as 

 pre-Christian, but as the foundation of Christianity. But 

 chiefly Botticelli, with perfect grasp of the Mosaic and classic 

 theology, thought over and seized the harmonies of both ; and 

 he it was who gave the conception of that great choir of the 

 prophets and sibyls, of which Michael Angelo, more or less 

 ignorantly borrowing it in the Sistine Chapel, in great part 

 lost the meaning, while he magnified the aspect. 



27. For, indeed, all Christian and heathen mythology had 

 alike become to Michael Angelo only a vehicle for the display 



