402 ARIADNE FLORENT1NA. 



sumptuous and paltry technical skill. Foreshorten your 

 Christ, and paint him, if you can, half putrefied, that is the 

 scientific art of the Renaissance. 



It is impossible, however, in so vast a subject to distinguish 

 always the beginner of things from the establisher. To the 

 poulterer's son, Pollajuolo, remains the eternal shame of first 

 making insane contest the only subject of art ; but the two 

 establishes of anatomy were Lionardo and Michael Angelo. 

 You hear of Lionardo chiefly because of his Last Supper, but 

 Italy did not hear of him for that. This was not what brought 

 her to worship Lionardo but the Battle of the Standard. 



it. This for an entirely great painter is absolutely necessary ; but yet I 

 believe, in the case of Botticelli, it was nobly restricted. The following 

 note by Mr. Tyrwhitt contains, I think, the probable truth: 



"The facts relating to Sandro Botticelli's models, or rather to his 

 favourite model (as it appears to me), are but few ; and it is greatly to 

 be regretted that his pictures are seldom dated ; if it were certain in 

 what order they appeared, what follows here might approach moral cer- 

 tainty. 



" There is no doubt that he had great personal regard for Fra Filippo, 

 up to that painter's death in 1469, Sandro being then twenty-two years 

 old. He may probably have got only good from him ; anyhow he would 

 get a strong turn for Realism, i.e., the treatment of sacred and all 

 other subjects in a realistic manner. He is described in Crowe and 

 Cavalcaselle from Filippino Lippi's Martyrdom of St. Peter, as a sullen 

 and sensual man, with beetle brows, large fleshy mouth, etc., etc. 

 Probably he was a strong man, and intense in physical and intellectual 

 habit. 



" This man, then, begins to paint in his strength, with conviction 

 rather happy and innocent than not that it is right to paint any beau- 

 tiful thing, and best to paint the most beautiful, say in 1470, at twenty- 

 three years of age. The allegorical Spring and the Graces, and the 

 Aphrodite now in the Ufficii, were painted for Cosmo, and seem to be 

 taken by Vasari and others as early, or early-central, works in his life : 

 also the portrait of Simonetta Vespucei. ' He is known to have painted 

 much in early life for the Vespucei and the Medici ; and this daughter 

 of the former house seems to have been inamorata or mistress of Giuliano 

 de' Medici, murdered by the Pazzi in 1478. Now it seems agreed by 

 Crowe and Cavalcaselle, Pater, etc., (and I am quite sure of it myself 

 as to the pictures mentioned) first, that the same slender and long- 



' Pitti, Stanza di Prometeo, 848. 



