The lists have been thoroughly revised, and some of them considerably
increased. Botticini, Pier Francesco Fiorentino, and Amico di Sandro
have been added, partly for the intrinsic value of their work, and
partly because so many of their pictures are exposed to public
admiration under greater names. Botticini sounds too much like
Botticelli not to have been confounded with him, and Pier Francesco has
similarly been confused with Piero della Francesca. Thus, Botticini's
famous "Assumption," painted for Matteo Palmieri, and now in the
National Gallery, already passed in Vasari's time for a Botticelli, and
the attribution at Karlsruhe of the quaint and winning "Nativity" to the
sublime, unyielding Piero della Francesca is surely nothing more than
the echo of the real author's name.
Most inadequate accounts, yet more than can be given here, of Pier
Francesco, as well as of Botticini, will be found in the Italian edition
of Cavalcaselle's _Storia della Pittura in Italia_, Vol. VII. The latter
painter will doubtless be dealt with fully and ably in Mr. Herbert P.
Horne's forthcoming book on Botticelli, and in this connection I am
happy to acknowledge my indebtedness to Mr. Horne for having persuaded
me to study Botticini. Of Amico di Sandro I have written at length in
the _Gazette des Beaux Arts_, June and July, 1899.
FIESOLE, November, 1899.