Page:The painters of Florence from the thirteenth to the sixteenth century (1915).djvu/240

202 white robe, represents the triumph of peace and wisdom.

The portraits of Lorenzo's mother, Lucrezia Tornabuoni, and of "la bella Simonetta" which Vasari tells us were both painted by Sandro, have disappeared, but his fine bust of Giovanni de' Medici, holding a medal of his father Cosimo, is preserved in the Uffizi, as well as the striking portrait of Giuliano in the Morelli collection. Three generations of the family are represented in the Adoration of the Magi which Lorenzo employed Botticelli to paint for Santa Maria Novella, as a thank-offering for his escape from the assassin's hand. We see a marked departure from old traditions in the way in which the religious significance of the subject is sacrificed, and the sacred story transformed into an apotheosis of the Medici. Cosimo, a venerable, white-headed form in green and gold mantle, kneels before the Child; his son Piero, in a scarlet robe, looks round at his brother Giovanni, and the lamented Giuliano stands behind them, clad all in black, with his thick, dark locks overshadowing his melancholy face. Lorenzo himself stands at his horse's side in the left-hand corner, where the donor is usually introduced, and on the opposite side, we recognise the portrait of the painter, wearing a long orange mantle and looking over his shoulder with a keen, thoughtful expression on his strong face. The picture is a masterpiece of grouping and modelling, and bears a close likeness to Leonardo's unfinished Adoration, in the Uffizi. Sandro had known the great master, who was but six years his junior, from his early days in Verrocchio's workshop, and is the only painter