_School of Botticelli_ (Florentine: 1447-1510). _See 1034._
_See also_ (p. xx)
The expression of melancholy characteristic of Botticelli's Madonnas
is not absent from his heathen goddesses either. Notice also the
roses--the painter's favourite flower (see 226). This picture is
probably only a work of his school; the figure of the goddess is a
not very successful repetition of the one in 915. The subject of the
picture recalls the description of Simonetta in Poliziano's poem:--
White is the maid, and white the robe around her,
With buds and roses and thin grasses pied;
Enwreathèd folds of golden tresses crowned her,
Shadowing her forehead fair with modest pride;
The wild wood smiled; the thicket, where he found her,
To ease his anguish, bloomed on every side:
Serene she sits, with gesture queenly mild,
And with her brow tempers the tempests wild.
SYMONDS's Translation.