566 ARIADNE FLORENTINA. 



of his own powers of drawing limbs and trunks : and having 

 resolved, and made the world of his day believe, that all the 

 glory of design lay in variety of difficult attitude, he flings the 

 naked bodies about his ceiling with an upholsterer's ingenuity 

 of appliance to the corners they could fit, but with total ab- 

 sence of any legible meaning. Nor do I suppose that one 

 person in a million, even of those who have some acquaintance 

 with the earlier masters, takes patience in the Sistine Chapel 

 to conceive the original design. But Botticelli's mastership 

 of the works evidently was given to him as a theologian, even 

 more than as a painter ; aod the moment when he came to 

 Rome to receive it, you may hold for the crisis of the Refor- 

 mation in Italy. The main effort to save her priesthood was 

 about to be made by her wisest Reformer, face to face with 

 the head of her Church, not in contest with him, but in the 

 humblest subjection to him ; and in adornment of his o\m 

 chapel for his own delight, and more than delight, if it might 

 be. 



28. Sandro brings to work, not under him, but with him, 

 the three other strongest and worthiest men he knows, Peru- 

 gino, Ghirlandajo, and Luca Signorelli. There is evidently 

 entire fellowship in thought between Botticelli and Perugino. 

 They two together plan the whole ; and Botticelli, though the 

 master, yields to Perugino the principal place, the end of the 

 chapel, on which is to be the Assumption of the Virgin. It 

 was Perugino's favourite subject, done with his central 

 strength ; assuredly the crowning work of his life, and of 

 lovely Christian art in Europe. 



Michael Angelo painted it out, and drew devils and dead 

 bodies all over the wall instead. But there remains to us, 

 happily, the series of subjects designed by Botticelli to lead 

 up to this lost one. 



29. He came, I said, not to attack, but to restore the Papal 

 authority. To show the power of inherited honour, and uni- 

 versal claim of divine law, in the Jewish and Christian Church, 

 the law delivered first by Moses ; then, in final grace and 

 truth, by Christ. 



He designed twelve great pictures, each containing some 



