[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 Natura, 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.