his work has the property of exciting in us, and which we cannot
get elsewhere? For this, especially when he has to speak of a
comparatively unknown artist, is always the chief question which
a critic has to answer.

In an age when the lives of artists were full of adventure, his life
is almost colourless. Criticism indeed has cleared away much of
the gossip which Vasari accumulated, has touched the legend of
Lippo and Lucrezia, and rehabilitated the character of Andrea del
Castagno. But in Botticelli's case there is no legend to dissipate.
He did not even go by his true name: Sandro is a nickname, and
his true name is Filipepi, Botticelli being only the name of the
goldsmith who first taught him art. Only two things happened to
him, two things which he shared with other artists:--he was
invited to Rome to paint in the Sistine Chapel, and he fell in later
life under the influence of Savonarola, passing apparently almost
out of men's sight in a sort of religious melancholy, which lasted
till his death in 1515, according to the received date. Vasari says
that he plunged into the study of Dante, and even wrote a
comment on the Divine Comedy. But it seems strange that he
should have lived on inactive so long; and one almost wishes that
some document might come to light, which, fixing the date of his
death earlier, might relieve one, in thinking of him, of his
dejected old age.

[52] He is before all things a poetical painter, blending the charm
of story and sentiment, the medium of the art of poetry, with the
charm of line and colour, the medium of abstract painting. So he
becomes the illustrator of Dante. In a few rare examples of the
edition of 1481, the blank spaces, left at the beginning of every