Page:The painters of Florence from the thirteenth to the sixteenth century (1915).djvu/252

212 Woe of the Apocalypse, in the loosing of the devil for three years and a half. Afterwards, he shall be chained according to the Twelfth of John, and we shall see him trodden down as in this picture."

The Holy Family, as usual, form the central group, and the Shepherds and Magi kneel on either side. A troop of angels, clad in symbolic hues of red, white, and green, sing the Gloria in Excelsis, on the penthouse roof, and in the heavens above, twelve more seraphs dance hand-in-hand, swinging olive-boughs and dangling their golden crowns in an ecstacy of joy. In the foreground the devils are seen crawling away to hide under the rocks, while rejoicing angels fall on the necks of Savonarola and his martyred companions,—the witnesses slain for the word of their testimony, as told in the Revelation of St. John. So Botticelli would have us know that in these dark times when vice and wickedness ran riot in the streets of Florence, and contemporary writers tell us that there was "no reverence for holy things, nor fear of shame," his faith in the Friar never faltered, and that he still looked forward to a day when the prophet's word should be fulfilled and good triumph over evil.

Sandro's old connection with the Medici saved him from the persecution which overtook the leading piagnoni, and during his last years he was chiefly engaged in illustrating Dante's great poem. He had always been a student of the divine poet, and probably executed designs for the plates in the first printed edition of the Divina Commedia, published by Landino in 1481, while a line from the Paradiso:—

"Vergine madre, figlia del tuo figlio"—

is inscribed on the throne of the Madonna which he