Chapter III

, Andrea Verocchio, for what has been said about Verocchio's "David."

[166] A drawing made in red chalk for this "Dream of Constantine" has been published in facsimile by Ottley, in his _Italian School of Design_. He wrongly attributes it, however, to Giorgione, and calls it a "Subject Unknown."

[167] The one in S. Francesco at Rimini, the other in the Uffizzi.

[168] Two angels have recently been published by the Arundel Society who have also copied Melozzo's wall-painting of Sixtus IV. in the Vatican. It is probable that the picture in the Royal Collection at Windsor, of Duke Frederick of Urbino listening to the lecture of a Humanist, is also a work of Melozzo's, much spoiled by re-painting. See Vol. II., _Revival of Learning_, p. 220.

[169] Muratori, vol. xxiv. 1181.

[170] For Ciriac of Ancona, see Vol. II., _Revival of Learning_, p. 113.

[171] The services rendered by Squarcione to art have been thoroughly discussed by Messrs. Crowe and Cavalcaselle, _Painting in North Italy_, vol. i. chap. 2. I cannot but think that they underrate the importance of his school.

[172] He was born between 1360 and 1370, and he settled at Florence about 1422, where he opened a _bottega_ in S. Trinità. In 1423 he painted his masterpiece, the "Adoration of the Magi," now exhibited in the Florentine Academy of Arts.

[173] See, for instance, the valuable portraits of the Medicean family with Picino and Poliziano, in the fresco of the "Tower of Babel" at Pisa.

[174] _L'Art Chrétien_, vol. ii. p. 397.

[175] The same remark might be made about the Venetian Bonifazio. It is remarkable that the "Adoration of the Magi" was always a favourite subject with painters of this calibre.

[176] I may refer to the picture of the hunters in the Taylor Gallery at Oxford, the "Vintage of Noah" at Pisa, the attendants of the Magi in the Riccardi Palace, and the _Carola_ in the "Marriage of Jacob and Rachel" at Pisa.

[177] "Stories of Isaac and Ishmael and of Jacob and Esau" at Pisa, and "Story of S. Augustine" at San Gemignano. Nothing can be prettier than the school children in the latter series. The group of the little boy, horsed upon a bigger boy's back for a whipping, is one of the most natural episodes in painting.

[178] Riccardi Chapel.

[179] For an example, the picture of Madonna worshipping the infant Christ upheld by two little angels in the Uffizzi.

[180] In the Academy of Fine Arts at Florence.

[181] Crowe and Cavalcaselle, vol. ii. chap. 19. Nothing was more common in the practice of Italian arts than for pupils to take their names from their masters, in the same way as they took them from their fathers, by the prefix _di_ or otherwise.

[182] The most simply beautiful of Filippino's pictures is the oil-painting in the Badia at Florence, which represents Madonna attended by angels dictating the story of her life to S. Bernard. In this most lovely religious picture Filippino comes into direct competition with Perugino (see the same subject at Munich), without suffering by the contrast. The type of Our lady, striven after by Botticelli and other masters of his way of feeling, seems to me more thoroughly attained by Filippino than by any of his fellow-workers. She is a woman acquainted with grief and nowise distinguished by the radiance of her beauty among the daughters of earth. It is measureless love for the mother of his Lord that makes S. Bernard bow before her with eyes of wistful adoration and hushed reverence.

[183] The study of the fine arts offers few subjects of more curious interest than the vicissitudes through which painters of the type of Botticelli, not absolutely and confessedly in the first rank, but attractive by reason of their relation to the spirit of their age, and of the seal of _intimité_ set upon their work have passed. In the last century and the beginning of this, our present preoccupation with Botticelli would have passed for a mild lunacy, because he has none of the qualities then most in vogue and most enthusiastically studied, and because the moment in the history of culture he so faithfully represents, was then but little understood. The prophecy of Mr. Ruskin, the tendencies of our best contemporary art in Mr. Burne Jones's painting, the specific note of our recent fashionable poetry, and, more than all, our delight in the delicately poised psychological problems of the middle Renaissance, have evoked a kind of hero-worship for this excellent artist and true poet.

[184] A friend, writing to me from Italy, speaks thus of Botticelli, and of the painters associated with him: "When I ask myself what it is I find fascinating in him--for instance, which of his pictures, or what element in them--I am forced to admit that it is the touch of paganism in him, the fairy-story element, _the echo of a beautiful lapsed mythology which he has found the means of transmitting._" The words I have printed in italics seem to me very true. At the same time we must bear in mind that the scientific investigation of nature had not in the fifteenth century begun to stand between the sympathetic intellect and the outer world. There was still the possibility of that "lapsed mythology," the dream of poets and the delight of artists, seeming positively the best form of expression for sentiments aroused by nature.

[185] _De Rerum Naturâ_, lib. v. 737.

[186] The rose-tree background in a Madonna belonging to Lord Elcho is a charming instance of the value given to flowers by careful treatment.

[187] I cannot bring myself to accept Mr. Pater's reading of the Madonna's expression. It seems to me that Botticelli meant to portray the mingled awe and tranquillity of a mortal mother chosen for the Son of God. He appears to have sometimes aimed at conveying more than painting can compass; and, since he had not Lionardo's genius, he gives sadness, mournfulness, or discontent, for some more subtle mood. Next to the Madonna of the Uffizzi, Botticelli's loveliest religious picture to my mind is the "Nativity" belonging to Mr. Fuller Maitland. Poetic imagination in a painter has produced nothing more graceful and more tender than the dance of angels in the air above, and the embracement of the angels and the shepherds on the lawns below.

[188] In the Academy of Fine Arts at Venice. I do not mention this picture as a complete pendant to Botticelli's famous _tondo_. The faces of S. Catherine and Madonna, however, have something of the rarity that is so striking in that work.

[189] I might mention stanzas 122-124 of Poliziano's _Giostra_, describing Venus in the lap of Mars; or stanzas 99-107, describing the birth of Venus; and from Boiardo's _Orlando Innamorato_, I might quote the episode of Rinaldo's punishment by Love (lib. ii. canto xv. 43), or the tale of Silvanella and Narcissus (lib. ii. canto xvii. 49).

[190] I hope to make use of this passage in a future section of my work on the Italian Poetry of the Renaissance. Therefore I pass by this portion of Piero's art-work now.

[191] Uffizzi Gallery.

[192] See the bas-relief upon the pedestal of his "Perseus" in the Loggia de' Lanzi.

[193] In the National Gallery.

[194] His family name was Domenico di Currado di Doffo Bigordi. He probably worked during his youth and early manhood as a goldsmith and got his artist's name from the trade of making golden chaplets for the Florentine women. See Vasari, vol. v. p. 66.

[195] What, after all, remains the grandest quality of Ghirlandajo is his powerful drawing of characteristic heads. They are as various as they are vigorous. What a nation of strong men must the Florentines have been, we feel while gazing at his frescoes.

[196] In many houses he painted roundels with his own hand, and of naked women plenty.

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