XVII
SANDRO BOTTICELLI
1444-1510
The two separate tendencies which mark the course of Florentine art during the first half of the fifteenth century meet in the person of Sandro Botticelli. A pupil of Lippi and a fellow-workman of the Pollaiuoli, this most interesting master inherited the traditions of both schools, and combined the dramatic art of Masaccio's followers, and the goldsmith-painters' energy of line, with a feeling as human as that of Fra Filippo, as spiritual as that of Angelico. Botticelli is in an especial manner the representative of Lorenzo de' Medici's age. The range of his art is as wide as the culture of the Renaissance, and his work reflects the different currents of thought, the aspirations and ideals of his contemporaries, more fully than that of any other Florentine painter. But over all he throws the glamour of his own personality, the spell of a fine artistic nature and the passion of a profoundly sympathetic heart. Whether he paints Greek goddesses or Saints and Madonnas, it is the same intensely personal type, the same sad and wistful expression that meets our eyes and invites our
