these troubled
angels and shadowed saints.

Savonarola was hanged and burned in 1498, and Botticelli paid
a last tribute to his friend in the picture in this room called
"The Calumny". Under the pretence of merely illustrating a passage
in Lucian, who was one of his favourite authors, Botticelli has
represented the campaign against the great reformer. The hall
represents Florence; the judge (with the ears of an ass) the
Signoria and the Pope. Into these ears Ignorance and Suspicion
are whispering. Calumny, with Envy at her side and tended by Fraud
and Deception, holds a torch in one hand and with the other drags
her victim, who personifies (but with no attempt at a likeness)
Savonarola. Behind are the figures of Remorse, cloaked and miserable,
and Truth, naked and unafraid. The statues in the niches ironically
represent abstract virtues. Everything in the decoration of the palace
points to enlightenment and content; and beyond is the calmest and
greenest of seas.

One more picture was Botticelli to paint, and this also was to
the glory of Savonarola. By good fortune it belongs to the English
people and is No. 1034 in the National Gallery. It has upon it a
Greek inscription in the painter's own hand which runs in English
as follows: "This picture I, Alessandro, painted at the end of the
year 1500, in the troubles of Italy, in the half-time after the time
during the fulfilment of the eleventh of St. John, in the second
woe of the Apocalypse, in the loosing of the devil for three years
and a half. Afterwards he shall be confined, and we shall see him
trodden down, as in this picture." The loosing of the devil was the
three years and a half after Savonarola's execution on May 23rd,
1498, when Florence was mad with reaction from the severity of his
discipline. S. John says, "I will give power unto my two witnesses,
and they shall prophesy"; the painter makes three, Savonarola having
had two comrades with him. The picture was intended to give heart to
the followers of Savonarola and bring promise of ultimate triumph.

After the death of Savonarola, Botticelli became both poor and
infirm. He had saved no money and all his friends were dead--Piero de'
Medici, Lorenzo, Giuliano, Lucrezia, Simonetta, Filippino Lippi, and
Savonarola. He hobbled about on crutches for a while, a pensioner of
the Medici family, and dying at the age of seventy-eight was buried
in Ognissanti, but without a tombstone for fear of desecration by
the