Page:The painters of Florence from the thirteenth to the sixteenth century (1915).djvu/235

1446-1510] sympathy. This rare union of gifts made Botticelli during his life-time, not only the favourite painter of the Magnifico, but the most popular master in Florence. The extraordinary demand which sprung up for his works towards the close of the century is shown by the immense number of Madonnas, bearing the stamp of his invention, but executed by imitators and assistants, which may be seen in every gallery. And although his fame died away in the blaze of Michelangelo's renown, and his works were not held worthy of preservation by the art-loving Grand-dukes of the seventeenth century, the present generation has witnessed a curious revival of Botticelli's popularity. Perhaps no painter of the Renaissance has so peculiar a fascination for modern minds. Some of us are charmed by his wonderful sense of life and movement, by his mastery of line and decorative design. Others are moved by the poetry of his imagination, by his strong human emotion and mystic, feeling. Alessandro Filipepi was the youngest child of a prosperous tanner named Mariano, who lived in the parish of Ognissanti, and had four sons. The eldest of these, Giovanni, was a broker by trade, and the surname of Botticello—which he acquired from the barrel that was the sign of his shop—clung to the younger members of his family. Born in 1444, Sandro was first apprenticed to a goldsmith, but soon began to paint, and worked under Fra Filippo Lippi both at Florence and Prato. When, in 1467, the Carmelite went to Spoleto, Botticelli was already an independent master, and Vasari tells us that after Lippi's death, two years later, his scholar was held to be the best painter in Florence.

The earliest works we have from his hand are two