Part 24

In 1490 Botticelli was called to take part with other artists in a consultation as to the completion of the facade of the Duomo, and to bear a share with Alessio Baldovinetti and others in the mosaic decorations of the chapel of San Zenobio in the same church. The death of Lorenzo Il Magnifico in 1492, and the accession to chief power of his worthless son Piero, soon plunged Florence into political troubles, to which were by and by added the profound spiritual agitation consequent upon the preaching and influence of Savonarola. Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de' Medici, who with his brother Giovanni was in a position of political rivalry against their cousin Piero, continued his patronage of Botticelli; and it was for him, apparently chiefly between the years 1492 and 1495, that the master undertook to execute a set of drawings in illustration of Dante on a far more elaborate and ambitious plan than the little designs for the engraver which had been interrupted in 1481. Eighty-five of these drawings are in the famous manuscript acquired for the Berlin museum at the sale of the Hamilton Palace collection in 1882, and eleven more in the Vatican library at Rome. The series is one of the most interesting that has been preserved by any ancient master; revealing an intimate knowledge of and profound sympathy with the text; full of Botticelli's characteristic poetic yearning and vehemence of expression, his half-childish intensity of vision; exquisite in lightness of touch and in swaying, rhythmical grace of linear composition and design. These gifts were less suited on the whole to the illustration of the Hell than of the later parts of the poem, and in the fiercer episodes there is often some puerility and inadequacy of invention. Throughout the Hell and Purgatory Botticelli maintains a careful adherence to the text, illustrating the several progressive incidents of each canto on a single page in the old-fashioned way. In the Paradise he gives a freer rein to his invention, and his designs become less a literal illustration of the text than an imaginative commentary on it. Almost all interest is centred on the persons of Dante and Beatrice, who are shown us again and again in various phases of ascending progress and rapt contemplation, often with little more than a bare symbolical suggestion of the beatific visions presented to them. Most of the drawings remain in pen outline only over a light preliminary sketch with the lead stylus; all were probably intended to be finished in colour, as a few actually are. To the period of these drawings (1492-1497) would seem to belong the fine and finely preserved small round of the "Virgin and Child with Angels" at the Ambrosiana, Milan, and the famous "Calumny of Apelles" at the Uffizi, inspired no doubt by some contemporary translation of the text by Lucian, and equally remarkable by a certain feverish energy in its sentiment and composition, and by its exquisite finish and richness of execution and detail. Probably the small "St Augustine" in the Uffizi, the injured "Judith with the head of Holofernes" in the Kaufmann collection at Berlin, and the "Virgin and Child with St John," belonging to Mr Heseltine in London, are works of the same period.

Simone di Mariano, a brother of Botticelli long resident at Naples, returned to Florence in 1493 and shared Sandro's home in the Via Nuova. He soon became a devoted follower of Savonarola, and has left a manuscript chronicle which is one of the best sources for the history of the friar and of his movement. Sandro himself seems to have remained aloof from the movement almost until the date of the execution of Savonarola and his two followers in 1498. At least there is clear evidence of his being in the confidence and employ of Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco so late as 1496 and 1497, which he could not possibly have been had he then been an avowed member of the party of the Piagnoni. It was probably the enforced departure of Lorenzo from Florence in 1497 that brought to a premature end the master's great undertaking on the illustration of Dante. After Lorenzo's return, following on the overthrow and death of Savonarola in 1498, we find no trace of any further relations between him and Botticelli, who by that time would seem to have become a declared devotee of the friar's memory and an adherent, like his brother, of the defeated side. During these years of swift political and spiritual revolution in Florence, documents give some glimpses of him: in 1497 as painting in the monastery of Monticelli a fresco of St Francis which has perished; in the winter of the same year as bound over to keep the peace with, a neighbour living next to the small suburban villa which Sandro held jointly with his brother Simone in the parish of San Sepolcro; in 1499 as paying belated matriculation fees to the gild of doctors and druggists (of which the painters were a branch); and again in 1499 as carrying out some decorative paintings for a member of the Vespucci family. It has been suggested, probably with reason, that portions of these decorations are to be recognized in two panels of dramatic scenes from Roman history, one illustrating the story of Virginia, which has passed with the collection of Senatore Morelli into the gallery at Bergamo, the other a history of Lucretia formerly belonging to Lord Ashburnham, which passed into Mrs Gardner's collection at Boston. These and the few works still remaining to be mentioned are all strongly marked by the strained vehemence of design and feeling characteristic of the master's later years, when he dramatizes his own high-strung emotions in figures flung forward and swaying out of all balance in the vehemence of action, with looks cast agonizingly earthward or heavenward, and gestures of wild yearning or appeal. These characters prevail still more in a small Pieta at the Poldi-Pezzoli gallery, probably a contemporary copy of one which the master is recorded to have painted for the Panciatichi chapel in the church of Sta Maria Maggiore; they are present to a degree even of caricature in the larger and coarser painting of the same subject which bears the master's name in the Munich gallery, but is probably only a work of his school. The mystic vein of religious and political speculation into which Botticelli had by this time fallen has its finest illustration in the beautiful symbolic "Nativity" which passed in succession from the Aldobrandini, the Ottley, and the Fuller Maitland collections into the National Gallery in 1882, with the apocalyptic inscription in Greek which the master has added to make his meaning clear (No. 1034). In a kindred vein is a much-injured symbolic "Magdalene at the foot of the Cross" in private possession at Lyons. Among extant pictures those which from internal evidence we must put latest in the master's career are three panels illustrating the story of St Zenobius, of which one is at Dresden and the other two in the collection of Dr Mond in London. The documentary notices of him after 1500 are few. In 1502 he is mentioned in the correspondence of Isabella d'Este, marchioness of Gonzaga, and in a poem by Ugolino Verino. In 1503-1504 he served on the committee of artists appointed to decide where the colossal David of Michelangelo should be placed. In these and the following years we find him paying fees to the company of St Luke, and the next thing recorded of him is his death, followed by his burial in the Ortaccio or garden burial-ground of the Ognissanti, in May 1510.

The strong vein of poetical fantasy and mystical imagination in Botticelli, to which many of his paintings testify, and the capacity for religious conviction and emotional conversion which made of him an ardent, if belated, disciple of Savonarola, coexisted in him, according to all records, with a strong vein of the laughing humour and love of rough practical and verbal jesting which belonged to the Florentine character in his age. His studio in the Via Nuova is said to have been the resort, not only of pupils and assistants, of whom a number seem to have been at all times working for him, but of a company of more or less idle gossips with brains full of rumour and tongues always wagging. Vasari's account of the straits into which he was led by his absorption in the study of Dante and his adhesion to the sect of Savonarola are evidently much exaggerated, since there is proof that he lived and died, not rich indeed, but possessed of property enough to keep him from any real pinch of distress. The story of his work and life, after having been the subject in recent years of much half-informed study and speculation, has at length been fully elucidated in the work of Mr H.P. Horne cited below,--a masterpiece of documentary research and critical exposition.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.--Vasari, _Le Opere_ (ed. Milanesi), vol. iii.; Crowe-Cavalcaselle, _Hist. of Painting in Italy_, vol. ii.; Fr. Lippmann, _Botticellis Zeichnungen zu Dantes Gottlicher Komodie_; Dr Karl Woermann, "Sandro Botticelli" (in Dohme, _Kunst u. Kunstler_); Dr Hermann Ulmann, _Sandro Botticelli_; Dr E. Steinmann, _Sandro Botticelli_ (in Knackfuss series, valuable for the author's elucidation of the Sixtine frescoes); I.B. Supino, _Sandro Botticelli_; Bernhard Berenson, _The Drawings of Florentine Painters; The Florentine Painters of the Renaissance_ (2nd ed.); _The Study and Criticism of Italian Art_; papers in the _Burlington Magazine_, the _Gazette des Beaux-Arts_ (to this critic is due the first systematic attempt to discriminate between the original work of Botticelli and that of his various pupils); J. Mesnil, _Miscellanea d'Arte_ and papers in the _Rivista d'Arte_, &c.; W. Warburg, _Sandro Botticelli's "Geburt der Venus" and "Fruhling"_; Julia Cartwright (Mrs Ady), _The Life and Art of Sandro Botticelli_ (1904); F. Wickhoff in the _Jahrbuch der k. Preussischen Kunstsammlungen_ (1906); Herbert P. Horne, _Alessandro Filipepi commonly called Sandro Botticelli_ (1908); this last authority practically supersedes all others. (S. C.)

BOTTIGER, KARL AUGUST (1760-1835), German archaeologist, was born at Reichenbach on the 8th of June 1760. He was educated at the school of Pforta, and the university of Leipzig. After holding minor educational posts, he obtained in 1791, through the influence of Herder, the appointment of rector of the gymnasium at Weimar, where he entered into a circle of literary men, including Wieland, Schiller, and Goethe. He published in 1803 a learned work, _Sabina, oder Morgenszenen im Putzzimmer einer reichen Romerin_, a description of a wealthy Roman lady's toilette, and a work on ancient art, _Griechische Vasengemalde_. At the same time he assisted in editing the _Journal des Luxus und der Moden_, the _Deutsche Merkur_, and the _London and Paris_. In 1804 he was called to Dresden as superintendent of the studies of the court pages, and received the rank of privy councillor. In 1814 he was made director of studies at the court academy, and inspector of the Museum of Antiquities. He died at Dresden on the 17th of November 1835. His chief works are:--_Ideen zur Archaologie der Malerei_, i. (1811) (no more published); _Kunstmythologie_ (1811); _Vorlesungen und Aufsatze zur Alterthumskunde_ (1817); _Amalthea_ (1821-1825); _Ideen zur Kunstmythologie_ (1826-1836). The _Opuscula et Carmina Latina_ were published separately in 1837; with a collection of his smaller pieces, _Kleine Schriften_ (1837-1838), including a complete list of his works (56 pages). His biography was written by his son Karl Wilhelm Bottiger (1790-1862), for some time professor of history at Erlangen, and author of several valuable histories (_History of Germany_, _History of Saxony_, _History of Bavaria_, _Universal History of Biographies_).

BOTTLE (Fr. bouteille, from a diminutive of the Lat. _butta_, a flask; cf. Eng. "butt"), a vessel for containing liquids, generally as opposed to one for drinking from (though this probably is not excluded), and with a narrow neck to facilitate closing and pouring. The first bottles were probably made of the skins of animals. In the _Iliad_ (iii. 247) the attendants are represented as bearing wine for use in a bottle made of goat's skin. The ancient Egyptians used skins for this purpose, and from the language employed by Herodotus (ii. 121), it appears that a bottle was formed by sewing up the skin and leaving the projection of the leg and foot to serve as a vent, which was hence termed [Greek: podeon]. The aperture was closed with a plug or a string. Skin bottles of various forms occur on Egyptian monuments. The Greeks and Romans also were accustomed to use bottles made of skins; and in the southern parts Europe they are still used for the transport of wine. The first of explicit reference to bottles of skin in Scripture occurs in Joshua (ix. 4), where it is said that the Gibeonites took "old sacks upon their asses, and wine-bottles _old and rent and bound up_." The objection to putting "new wine into old bottles" (Matt. ix. 17) is that the skin, already stretched and weakened by use, is liable to burst under the pressure of the gas from new wine. Skins are still most extensively used throughout western Asia for the conveyance and storage of water. It is an error to represent the bottles of the ancient Hebrews as being made exclusively of skins. In Jer. xix. 1 the prophet speaks of "a potter's earthen vessel." The Egyptians (see EGYPT: _Art and Archaeology_) possessed vases and bottles of hard stone, alabaster, glass, ivory, bone, porcelain, bronze, silver and gold, and also of glazed pottery or common earthenware. In modern times bottles are usually made of glass (q.v.), or occasionally of earthenware. The glass bottle industry has attained enormous dimensions, whether for wine, beer, &c., or mineral waters; and labour-saving machinery for filling the bottles has been introduced, as well as for corking or stoppering, for labelling and for washing them.

[Illustration: Roman Skin Bottles, from specimens at Pompeii and Herculaneum.]

BOTTLE-BRUSH PLANTS, a genus of Australian plants, known botanically as _Callistemon_, and belongiug to the myrtle family (Myrtaceae). They take their name from the resemblance of the head of flowers to a bottle-brush. They are well known in cultivation as greenhouse shrubs; the flower owes its beauty to the numerous long thread-like stamens which far exceed the small petals. _Callistemon salignus_ is a valuable hard wood.

BOTTLENOSE WHALE (_Hyperoodon rostratus_), a member of the sperm-whale family, which is an inhabitant of the North Atlantic, passing the summer in the Spitzbergen seas and going farther south in winter. It resembles the sperm-whale in possessing a large store of oil in the upper part of the head, which yields spermaceti when refined; on this account, and also for the sake of the blubber, which supplies an oil almost indistinguishable from sperm-oil, this whale became the object of a regular chase in the latter half of the 19th century. In length these whales vary between 20 ft. and 30 ft.; and in colour from black on the upper surface in the young to light brown in old animals, the under-parts being greyish white. There is no notch between the flukes, as in other whales, but the hinder part of the tail is rounded. Bottlenoses feed on cuttle-fishes and squills, and are practically toothless; the only teeth which exist in the adult being a small pair at the front of the lower jaw, concealed beneath the gum during life. Examples have frequently been recorded on the British coasts. In November 1904 a female, 24 ft. long, and a calf 15 ft. long were driven ashore at Whitstable. (See CETACEA.)

BOTTOMRY, a maritime contract by which a ship (or bottom) is hypothecated in security for money borrowed for expenses incurred in the course of her voyage, under the condition that if she arrive at her destination the ship shall be liable for repayment of the loan, together with such premium thereon as may have been agreed for; but that if the ship be lost, the lender shall have no claim against the borrower either for the sum advanced or for the premium. The freight may be pledged as well as the ship, and, if necessary, the cargo also. In some cases the personal obligation of the shipmaster is also included. When money is borrowed on the security of the cargo alone, it is said to be taken up at _respondentia_; but it is now only in rare and exceptional cases that it could be competent to the shipmaster to pledge the cargo, except under a general bottomry obligation, along with the ship and freight. In consideration of the risks assumed by the lender, the bottomry premium (sometimes termed _maritime interest_) is usually high, varying of course with the nature of the risk and the difficulty of procuring funds.

A bottomry contract may be written out in any form which sufficiently shows the conditions agreed on between the parties; but it is usually drawn up in the form of a _bond_ which confers a maritime lien (q.v.). The document must show, either by express terms or from its general tenor, that the risk of loss is assumed by the lender,--this being the consideration for which the high premium is conceded. The lender may transfer the bond by indorsation, in the same manner as a bill of exchange or bill of lading, and the right to recover its value becomes vested in the indorsees. (See BOND.)

According to the law of England, a bottomry contract remains in force so long as the ship exists _in the form of a ship_, whatever amount of damage she may have sustained. Consequently, the "constructive total loss" which is recognized in marine insurance, when the ship is damaged to such an extent that she is not worth repairing, is not recognized in reference to bottomry, and will not absolve the borrower from his obligation. But if the ship go to pieces, the borrower is freed from all liability under the bottomry contract; and the lender is not entitled to receive any share of the proceeds of such of the ship's stores or materials as may have been saved from the wreck. Money advanced on bottomry is not liable in England for general average losses. If the ship should _deviate_ from the voyage for which the funds were advanced, her subsequent loss will not discharge the obligation of the borrower under the bottomry contract. If she should not proceed at all on her intended voyage, the lender is not entitled to recover the bottomry premium in addition to his advance, but only the ordinary rate of interest for the temporary loan. As the bottomry premium is presumed, in every case, to cover the risks incurred by the lender, he is not entitled to charge the borrower with the premium which he may pay for _insurance_ of the sum advanced, in addition to that stipulated in the bond.

The contract of bottomry seems to have arisen from the custom of permitting the master of a ship, when in a foreign country, to pledge the ship in order to raise money for repairs, or other extraordinary expenditures rendered necessary in the course of the voyage. Circumstances often arise, in which, without the exercise of this power on the part of the master, it would be impossible to provide means for accomplishing the voyage; and it is better that the master should have authority to burden the ship, and, if necessary, the freight and cargo also, in security for the money which has become requisite, than that the adventure should be defeated by inability to proceed. But the right of the master to pledge the ship or goods must always be created by necessity; if exercised without necessity the contract will be void. Accordingly, the master of a British ship has no power to grant a bottomry bond at a British port, or at any foreign port where he might raise funds on the personal credit of the shipowners. Neither has he any power to pledge the ship or goods for private debts of his own, but only for such supplies as are indispensable for the purposes of the voyage. And in all cases he ought, if possible, to communicate with the owners of the ship, and with the proprietor of the cargo before pledging their property ("The Bonaparte," 1853, 8 Moo. P.C. 473; "The Staffordshire," 1872, L.R. 4 P.C. 194). Increased facility of communication, by telegraph and otherwise, has given additional stringency to this rule, and caused a decline in the practice of giving bottomry bonds.

The bottomry lender must use reasonable diligence to ascertain that a real necessity exists for the loan; but he is not bound to see to the application of the money advanced. If the lender has originally advanced the funds on the personal credit of the owner he is not entitled to require a bottomry obligation. A bond procured from the shipmaster by improper compulsion would be void.

The power of the master to pledge the cargo depends upon there being some reasonable prospect of benefit to it by his so doing. He has no such power except in virtue of circumstances which may oblige him to assume the character of _agent for the cargo_, in the absence of any other party authorized to act on its behalf. Under ordinary circumstances he is not at liberty to pledge the cargo for repairs to the ship. If indeed the goods be of a perishable nature, and if it be impossible to get the ship repaired in sufficient time to obviate serious loss on them by delay, without including them under the bottomry contract, he has power to do so, because it may fairly be assumed, in the case supposed, that the cargo will be benefited by this procedure. The general principle is, that the master must act for the cargo, with a reasonable view to the interests of its proprietors, under the whole circumstances of the case. When he does this his proceedings will be sustained; but should he manifestly prejudice the interests of the cargo by including it under bottomry for the mere purpose of relieving the ship, or of earning the freight, the owners of the cargo will not be bound by the bottomry contract. Any bottomry or respondentia bond may be good in part or bad in part, according as the master may have acted _within_ or _beyond_ the scope of his legitimate authority in granting it. If two or more bottomry bonds have been granted at different stages of the voyage, and the value of the property be insufficient to discharge them all, the last-dated bond has the priority of payment, as having furnished the means of preserving the ship, and thereby preventing the total loss of the security for the previous bonds.

When the sum due under a bottomry bond over ship, freight and cargo is not paid at the stipulated time, proceedings may be taken by the bondholder for recovery of the freight and for the sale of the ship; and should the proceeds of these be insufficient to discharge the claim, a judicial sale of the cargo may be resorted to. As a general rule the value of the ship and freight must be exhausted before recourse can be taken against the cargo. A bottomry bond gives no remedy to the lenders against the owners of the ship or cargo personally. The whole liability under it may be met by the surrender of the property pledged, whether the value so surrendered covers the amount of the bond or not. But the owners of the ship, though not liable to the bondholder for more than the value of the ship and freight, may be further liable to the proprietors of the cargo for any sum in excess of the cargo's proper share of the expenses, taken by the bondholder out of the proceeds of the cargo to satisfy the bond after the ship and freight have been exhausted.