nor can be, without didactic purpose. The leaders of the strong schools
are, and must be always, either teachers of theology, or preachers of
the moral law. I need not tell you that it was as teachers of theology
on the walls of the Vatican that the masters with whose names you are
most familiar obtained their perpetual fame. But however great their
fame, you have not practically, I imagine, ever been materially assisted
in your preparation for the schools either of philosophy or divinity by
Raphael's 'School of Athens,' by Raphael's 'Theology,'--or by Michael
Angelo's 'Judgment.' My task, to-day, is to set before you some part of
the design of the first Master of the works in the Sistine Chapel; and I
believe that, from his teaching, you will, even in the hour which I ask
you now to give, learn what may be of true use to you in all your future
labor, whether in Oxford or elsewhere.
183. You have doubtless, in the course of these lectures, been
occasionally surprised by my speaking of Holbein and Sandro Botticelli,
as Reformers, in the same tone of respect, and with the same implied
assertion of their intellectual power and agency, with which it is usual
to speak of Luther and Savonarola. You have been accustomed, indeed, to
hear painting and sculpture spoken of as supporting or enforcing Church
doctrine; but never as reforming or chastising it. Whether Protestant or
Roman Catholic, you have admitted what in the one case you held to be
the abuse of painting in the furtherance of idolatry,--in the other, its
amiable and exalting ministry to the feebleness of faith. But neither
has recognized,--the Protestant his ally,--or the Catholic his enemy, in
the far more earnest work of the great painters of the fifteenth
century. The Protestant was, in most cases, too vulgar to understand the
aid offered to him by painting; and in all cases too terrified to
believe in it. He drove the gift-bringing Greek with imprecations from
his sectarian fortress, or received him within it only on the condition
that he should speak no word of religion there.
184. On the other hand, the Catholic, in most cases too indolent to
read, and, in all, too proud to dread, the rebuke of the reforming
painters, confused them with the crowd of his old flatterers, and little
noticed their altered language or their graver brow. In a little while,
finding they had ceased to be amusing, he effaced their works, not as
dangerous, but as dull; and recognized only thenceforward, as art, the
innocuous bombast of Michael Angelo, and fluent efflorescence of
Bernini. But when you become more intimately and impartially acquainted
with the history of the Reformation, you will find that, as surely and
earnestly as Memling and Giotto strove in the north and south to set
forth and exalt the Catholic faith, so surely and earnestly did Holbein
and Botticelli strive, in the north, to chastise, and, in the south, to
revive it. In what manner, I will try to-day briefly to show you.
185. I name these two men as the reforming leaders: there were many,
rank and file, who worked in alliance with Holbein; with Botticelli, two
great ones, Lippi and Perugino. But both of these had so much pleasure
in their own pictorial faculty, that they strove to keep quiet, and out
of harm's way,--involuntarily manifesting themselves sometimes, however;
and not in the wisest manner. Lippi's running away with a novice was not
likely to be understood as a step in Church reformation correspondent to
Luther's marriage.[AS] Nor have Protestant divines, even to this day,
recognized the real meaning of the reports of Perugino's 'infidelity.'
Botticelli, the pupil of the one, and the companion of the other, held
the truths they taught him through sorrow as well as joy; and he is the
greatest of the reformers, because he preached without blame; though the
least known, because he died without victory.
I had hoped to be able to lay before you some better biography of him
than the traditions of Vasari, of which I gave a short abstract some
time back in Fors Clavigera (Letter XXII.); but as yet I have only added
internal evidence to the popular story, the more important points of
which I must review briefly. It will not waste your time if I
read,--instead of merely giving you reference to,--the passages on which
I must comment.
186. "His father, Mariano Filipepi, a Florentine citizen, brought him up
with care, and caused him to be instructed in all such things as are
usually taught to children before they choose a calling. But although
the boy readily acquired whatever he wished to learn, yet was he
constantly discontented; neither would he take any pleasure in reading,
writing, or accounts, insomuch that the father, disturbed by the
eccentric habits of his son, turned him over in despair to a gossip of
his, called Botticello, who was a goldsmith, and considered a very
competent master of his art, to the intent that the boy might learn the
same."
"He took no pleasure in reading, writing, nor accounts"! You will find
the same thing recorded of Cimabue; but it is more curious when stated
of a man whom I cite to you as typically a gentleman and a scholar. But
remember, in those days, though there were not so many entirely correct
books issued by the Religious Tract Society for boys to read, there were
a great many more pretty things in the world for boys to see. The Val
d'Arno was Pater-noster Row to purpose; their Father's Row, with books
of His writing on the mountain shelves. And the lad takes to looking at
things, and thinking about them, instead of reading about them,--which I
commend to you also, as much the more scholarly practice of the two. To
the end, though he knows all about the celestial hierarchies, he is not
strong in his letters, nor in his dialect. I asked Mr. Tyrwhitt to help
me through with a bit of his Italian the other day. Mr. Tyrwhitt could
only help me by suggesting that it was "Botticelli for so-and-so." And
one of the minor reasons which induced me so boldly to attribute these
sibyls to him, instead of Bandini, is that the lettering is so ill done.
The engraver would assuredly have had his lettering all right,--or at
least neat. Botticelli blunders through it, scratches impatiently out
when he goes wrong: and as I told you there's no repentance in the
engraver's trade, leaves all the blunders visible.
187. I may add one fact bearing on this question lately communicated to
me.[AT] In the autumn of 1872 I possessed myself of an Italian book of
pen drawings, some, I have no doubt, by Mantegna in his youth, others by
Sandro himself. In examining these, I was continually struck by the
comparatively feeble and blundering way in which the titles were
written, while all the rest of the handling was really superb; and still
more surprised when, on the sleeves and hem of the robe of one of the
principal figures of women, ("Helena rapita da Paris,") I found what
seemed to be meant for inscriptions, intricately embroidered; which
nevertheless, though beautifully drawn, I could not read. In copying
Botticelli's Zipporah this spring, I found the border of her robe
wrought with characters of the same kind, which a young painter, working
with me, who already knows the minor secrets of Italian art better than
I,[AU] assures me are letters,--and letters of a language hitherto
undeciphered.
188. "There was at that time a close connection and almost constant
intercourse between the goldsmiths and the painters, wherefore Sandro,
who possessed considerable ingenuity, and was strongly disposed to the
arts of design, became enamored of painting, and resolved to devote
himself entirely to that vocation. He acknowledged his purpose at once
to his father; and the latter, who knew the force of his inclination,
took him accordingly to the Carmelite monk, Fra Filippo, who was a most
excellent painter of that time, with whom he placed him to study the
art, as Sandro himself had desired. Devoting himself thereupon entirely
to the vocation he had chosen, Sandro so closely followed the
directions, and imitated the manner, of his master, that Fra Filippo
conceived a great love for him, and instructed him so effectually, that
Sandro rapidly attained to such a degree in art as none would have
predicted for him."
I have before pointed out to you the importance of training by the
goldsmith. Sandro got more good of it, however, than any of the other
painters so educated,--being enabled by it to use gold for light to
color, in a glowing harmony never reached with equal perfection, and
rarely attempted, in the later schools. To the last, his paintings are
partly treated as work in niello; and he names himself, in perpetual
gratitude, from this first artisan master. Nevertheless, the fortunate
fellow finds, at the right moment, another, even more to his mind, and
is obedient to him through his youth, as to the other through his
childhood. And this master loves him; and instructs him 'so
effectually,'--in grinding colors, do you suppose, only; or in laying of
lines only; or in anything more than these?
189. I will tell you what Lippi must have taught any boy whom he loved.
First, humility, and to live in joy and peace, injuring no man--if such
innocence might be. Nothing is so manifest in every face by him, as its
gentleness and rest. Secondly, to finish his work perfectly, and in such
temper that the angels might say of it--not he himself--'Iste perfecit
opus.' Do you remember what I told you in the Eagle's Nest (Sec. 53), that
true humility was in hoping that angels might sometimes admire _our_
work; not in hoping that we should ever be able to admire _theirs_?
Thirdly,--a little thing it seems, but was a great one,--love of
flowers. No one draws such lilies or such daisies as Lippi. Botticelli
beat him afterwards in roses, but never in lilies. Fourthly, due honor
for classical tradition. Lippi is the only religious painter who dresses
John Baptist in the camelskin, as the Greeks dressed Heracles in the
lion's--over the head. Lastly, and chiefly of all,--Le Pere Hyacinthe
taught his pupil certain views about the doctrine of the Church, which
the boy thought of more deeply than his tutor, and that by a great deal;
and Master Sandro presently got himself into such question for painting
heresy, that if he had been as hot-headed as he was true-hearted, he
would soon have come to bad end by the tar-barrel. But he is so sweet
and so modest, that nobody is frightened; so clever, that everybody is
pleased: and at last, actually the Pope sends for him to paint his own
private chapel,--where the first thing my young gentleman does, mind
you, is to paint the devil in a monk's dress, tempting Christ! The
sauciest thing, out and out, done in the history of the Reformation, it
seems to me; yet so wisely done, and with such true respect otherwise
shown for what was sacred in the Church, that the Pope didn't mind: and
all went on as merrily as marriage bells.
190. I have anticipated, however, in telling you this, the proper course
of his biography, to which I now return.
"While still a youth he painted the figure of Fortitude, among those
pictures of the Virtues which Antonio and Pietro Pollaiuolo were
executing in the Mercatanzia, or Tribunal of Commerce, in Florence. In
Santo Spirito, a church of the same city, he painted a picture for the
chapel of the Bardi family: this work he executed with great diligence,
and finished it very successfully, depicting certain olive and palm
trees therein with extraordinary care."
It is by a beautiful chance that the first work of his, specified by his
Italian biographer, should be the Fortitude.[AV] Note also what is said
of his tree drawing.
"Having, in consequence of this work, obtained much credit and
reputation, Sandro was appointed by the Guild of Porta Santa Maria to
paint a picture in San Marco, the subject of which is the Coronation of
Our Lady, who is surrounded by a choir of angels--the whole extremely
well designed, and finished by the artist with infinite care. He
executed various works in the Medici Palace for the elder Lorenzo, more
particularly a figure of Pallas on a shield wreathed with vine branches,
whence flames are proceeding: this he painted of the size of life. A San
Sebastiano was also among the most remarkable of the works executed for
Lorenzo. In the church of Santa Maria Maggiore, in Florence, is a Pieta,
with small figures, by this master: this is a very beautiful work. For
different houses in various parts of the city Sandro painted many
pictures of a round form, with numerous figures of women undraped. Of
these there are still two examples at Castello, a villa of the Duke
Cosimo,--one representing the birth of Venus, who is borne to earth by
the Loves and Zephyrs; the second also presenting the figure of Venus
crowned with flowers by the Graces: she is here intended to denote the
Spring, and the allegory is expressed by the painter with extraordinary
grace."
Our young Reformer enters, it seems, on a very miscellaneous course of
study; the Coronation of Our Lady; St. Sebastian; Pallas in
vine-leaves; and Venus,--without fig-leaves. Not wholly Calvinistic, Fra
Filippo's teaching seems to have been! All the better for the boy--being
such a boy as he was: but I cannot in this lecture enter farther into my
reasons for saying so.
191. Vasari, however, has shot far ahead in telling us of this picture
of the Spring, which is one of Botticelli's completest works. Long
before he was able to paint Greek nymphs, he had done his best in
idealism of greater spirits; and, while yet quite a youth, painted, at
Castello, the Assumption of Our Lady, with "the patriarchs, the
prophets, the apostles, the evangelists, the martyrs, the confessors,
the doctors, the virgins, and the hierarchies!"
Imagine this subject proposed to a young, (or even old) British Artist,
for his next appeal to public sensation at the Academy! But do you
suppose that the young British artist is wiser and more civilized than
Lippi's scholar, because his only idea of a patriarch is of a man with a
long beard; of a doctor, the M.D. with the brass plate over the way; and
of a virgin, Miss ---- of the ---- theater?
Not that even Sandro was able, according to Vasari's report, to conduct
the entire design himself. The proposer of the subject assisted him; and
they made some modifications in the theology, which brought them both
into trouble--so early did Sandro's innovating work begin, into which
subjects our gossiping friend waives unnecessary inquiry, as follows.
"But although this picture is exceedingly beautiful, and ought to have
put envy to shame, yet there were found certain malevolent and
censorious persons who, not being able to affix any other blame to the
work, declared that Matteo and Sandro had erred gravely in that matter,
and had fallen into grievous heresy.
"Now, whether this be true or not, let none expect the judgment of that
question from me: it shall suffice me to note that the figures executed
by Sandro in that work are entirely worthy of praise; and that the pains
he took in depicting those circles of the heavens must have been very
great, to say nothing of the angels mingled with the other figures, or
of the various foreshortenings, all which are designed in a very good
manner.
"About this time Sandro received a commission to paint a small picture
with figures three parts of a braccio high,--the subject an Adoration of
the Magi.
"It is indeed a most admirable work; the composition, the design, and
the coloring are so beautiful that every artist who examines it is
astonished; and, at the time, it obtained so great a name in Florence,
and other places, for the master, that Pope Sixtus IV. having erected
the chapel built by him in his palace at Rome, and desiring to have it
adorned with paintings, commanded that Sandro Botticelli should be
appointed Superintendent of the work."
192. Vasari's words, "about this time," are evidently wrong. It must
have been many and many a day after he painted Matteo's picture that he
took such high standing in Florence as to receive the mastership of the
works in the Pope's chapel at Rome. Of his position and doings there, I
will tell you presently; meantime, let us complete the story of his
life.
"By these works Botticelli obtained great honor and reputation among the
many competitors who were laboring with him, whether Florentines or
natives of other cities, and received from the Pope a considerable sum
of money; but this he consumed and squandered totally, during his
residence in Rome, where he lived without due care, as was his habit."
193. Well, but one would have liked to hear _how_ he squandered his
money, and whether he was without care--of other things than money.
It is just possible, Master Vasari, that Botticelli may have laid out
his money at higher interest than you know of; meantime, he is advancing
in life and thought, and becoming less and less comprehensible to his
biographer. And at length, having got rid, somehow, of the money he
received from the Pope; and finished the work he had to do, and
uncovered it,--free in conscience, and empty in purse, he returned to
Florence, where, "being a sophistical person, he made a comment on a
part of Dante, and drew the Inferno, and put it in engraving, in which
he consumed much time; and not working for this reason, brought infinite
disorder into his affairs."
194. Unpaid work, this engraving of Dante, you perceive,--consuming much
time also, and not appearing to Vasari to be work at all. It is but a
short sentence, gentlemen,--this, in the old edition of Vasari, and
obscurely worded,--a very foolish person's contemptuous report of a
thing to him totally incomprehensible. But the thing itself is
out-and-out the most important fact in the history of the religious art
of Italy. I can show you its significance in not many more words than
have served to record it.
Botticelli had been painting in Rome; and had expressly chosen to
represent there,--being Master of Works, in the presence of the Defender
of the Faith,--the foundation of the Mosaic law; to his mind the Eternal
Law of God,--that law of which modern Evangelicals sing perpetually
their own original psalm, "Oh, how hate I Thy law! it is my abomination
all the day." Returning to Florence, he reads Dante's vision of the Hell
created by its violation. He knows that the pictures he has painted in
Rome cannot be understood by the people; they are exclusively for the
best trained scholars in the Church. Dante, on the other hand, can only
be read in manuscript; but the people could and would understand _his_
lessons, if they were pictured in accessible and enduring form. He
throws all his own lauded work aside,--all for which he is most honored,
and in which his now matured and magnificent skill is as easy to him as
singing to a perfect musician. And he sets himself to a servile and
despised labor,--his friends mocking him, his resources failing him,
infinite 'disorder' getting into his affairs--of this world.
195. Never such another thing happened in Italy any more. Botticelli
engraved her Pilgrim's Progress for her, putting himself in prison to
do it. She would not read it when done. Raphael and Marc Antonio were
the theologians for her money. Pretty Madonnas, and satyrs with
abundance of tail,--let our pilgrim's progress be in _these_ directions,
if you please.
Botticelli's own pilgrimage, however, was now to be accomplished
triumphantly, with such crowning blessings as Heaven might grant to him.
In spite of his friends and his disordered affairs, he went his own
obstinate way; and found another man's words worth engraving as well as
Dante's; not without perpetuating, also, what he deemed worthy of his
own.
196. What would that be, think you? His chosen works before the Pope in
Rome?--his admired Madonnas in Florence?--his choirs of angels and
thickets of flowers? Some few of these yes, as you shall presently see;
but "the best attempt of this kind from his hand is the Triumph of
Faith, by Fra Girolamo Savonarola, of Ferrara, of whose sect our artist
was so zealous a partisan that he totally abandoned painting, and not
having any other means of living, he fell into very great difficulties.
But his attachment to the party he had adopted increased; he became what
was then called a Piagnone, or Mourner, and abandoned all labor;
insomuch that, finding himself at length become old, being also very
poor, he must have died of hunger had he not been supported by Lorenzo
de' Medici, for whom he had worked at the small hospital of Volterra and
other places, who assisted him while he lived, as did other friends and
admirers of his talents."
197. In such dignity and independence--having employed his talents not
wholly at the orders of the dealer--died, a poor bedesman of Lorenzo de'
Medici, the President of that high academy of art in Rome, whose
Academicians were Perugino, Ghirlandajo, Angelico, and Signorelli; and
whose students, Michael Angelo and Raphael.
'A worthless, ill-conducted fellow on the whole,' thinks Vasari, 'with a
crazy fancy for scratching on copper.'
Well, here are some of the scratches for you to see; only, first, I must
ask you seriously for a few moments to consider what the two powers
were, which, with this iron pen of his, he has set himself to reprove.
198. Two great forms of authority reigned over the entire civilized
world, confessedly, and by name, in the Middle Ages. They reign over it
still, and must forever, though at present very far from confessed; and,
in most places, ragingly denied.
The first power is that of the Teacher, or true Father; the Father 'in
God.' It may be--happy the children to whom it is--the actual father
also; and whose parents have been their tutors. But, for the most part,
it will be some one else who teaches them, and molds their minds and
brain. All such teaching, when true, being from above, and coming down
from the Father of Lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow
of turning, is properly that of the holy Catholic '[Greek: ekklesia],'
council, church, or papacy, of many fathers in God, not of one.
Eternally powerful and divine; reverenced of all humble and lowly
scholars, in Jewry, in Greece, in Rome, in Gaul, in England, and beyond
sea, from Arctic zone to zone.
The second authority is the power of National Law, enforcing justice in
conduct by due reward and punishment. Power vested necessarily in
magistrates capable of administering it with mercy and equity; whose
authority, be it of many or few, is again divine, as proceeding from the
King of kings, and was acknowledged, throughout civilized Christendom,
as the power of the Holy Empire, or Holy Roman Empire, because first
throned in Rome; but it is forever also acknowledged, namelessly, or by
name, by all loyal, obedient, just, and humble hearts, which truly
desire that, whether for them or against them, the eternal equities and
dooms of Heaven should be pronounced and executed; and as the wisdom or
word of their Father should be taught, so the will of their Father
should be done, on earth, as it is in heaven.
199. You all here know what contention, first, and then what corruption
and dishonor, had paralyzed these two powers before the days of which we
now speak. Reproof, and either reform or rebellion, became necessary
everywhere. The northern Reformers, Holbein, and Luther, and Henry, and
Cromwell, set themselves to their task rudely, and, it might seem,
carried it through. The southern Reformers, Dante, and Savonarola, and
Botticelli, set hand to their task reverently, and, it seemed, did not
by any means carry it through. But the end is not yet.
200. Now I shall endeavor to-day to set before you the art of
Botticelli, especially as exhibiting the modesty of great imagination
trained in reverence, which characterized the southern Reformers; and as
opposed to the immodesty of narrow imagination, trained in self-trust,
which characterized the northern Reformers.
'The modesty of great _imagination_;' that is to say, of the power which
conceives all things in true relation, and not only as they affect
ourselves. I can show you this most definitely by taking one example of
the modern, and unschooled temper, in Bewick;[AW] and setting it beside
Botticelli's treatment of the same subject of thought,--namely, the
meaning of war, and the reforms necessary in the carrying on of war.