Page:The painters of Florence from the thirteenth to the sixteenth century (1915).djvu/328

282 This is the portrait of "la bella Simonetta," which hung in the Palazzo Vespucci in Florence until it was bought by M. Reiset, from whose collection it passed into that of the Duc d'Aumale at Chantilly. The fair Genoese maiden who wedded Giuliano Vespucci when she was sixteen, and was so sweet and charming that all men praised her and no women envied her, died of lingering consumption in April 1476, little more than a year after Giuliano de' Medici had chosen her to be the Queen of his Tournament. Lorenzo, who was absent at the time of her illness and loved her with brotherly affection, sent his own doctor to attend her, and received daily reports of her condition. When she was borne to her grave in Ognissanti, all Florence flocked to look once more on the lovely face that was even fairer in death than in life, and endless were the elegies and sonnets composed in her honour. The two portraits of Simonetta by Sandro Botticelli in the Medici collection, which Vasari mentions, have disappeared, and the bust in the Pitti, which Mr. Berenson ascribes to Amico di Sandro, does scanty justice to her beauty. Piero di Cosimo, who was a boy of fourteen when Simonetta died, must have painted her portrait from some medal or drawing, but he has succeeded in rendering the spiritual charm and vivacity of her countenance. A striped scarf is thrown over her shoulders, her golden hair is braided with pearls and rubies, and a jewel in the shape of a serpent with dark-green scales is twisted round her white neck, while the panel bears the inscription "Simonetta Januensis Vespuccia."

Several other portraits by Piero's hand, all marked with the same note of distinction, have been pre-