ime of this Pazzi commission may
be dated the evidences which are found in some of Botticelli's work of a
closer study than heretofore of the virile methods and energetic types
of Castagno. His frescoes of the hanged conspirators held their place
for sixteen years only, and were destroyed in 1494 in consequence of
another revolution in the city's politics. Two years later (1480) he
painted in rivalry with Ghirlandaio a grand figure of St Augustine on
the choir screen of the Ognissanti; now removed to another part of the
church. About the same time we find clear evidence of his contributing
designs to the workshops of the "fine-manner" engravers in the shape of
a beautiful print of the triumph of Bacchus and Ariadne adapted from an
antique sarcophagus (the only example known is in the British Museum),
as well as in nineteen small cuts executed for the edition of Dante with
the commentary of Landino printed at Florence in 1481 by Lorenzo della
Magna. This series of prints was discontinued after canto xix., perhaps
because of the material difficulties involved by the use of line
engravings for the decoration of a printed page, perhaps because the
artist was at this time called away to Rome to undertake the most
important commission of his life. Due possibly to the same call is the
unfinished condition of a much-damaged, crowded "Adoration of the Magi"
by Botticelli preserved in the Uffizi, the design of which seems to have
influenced Leonardo da Vinci in his own Adoration (which in like manner
remains unfinished) of nearly the same date, also at the Uffizi.

The task with which Botticelli was charged at Rome was to take part with
other leading artists of the time (Ghirlandaio, Cosimo Rosselli,
Perugino and Pinturicchio) in the decoration of Sixtus IV.'s chapel at
the Vatican, the ceiling of which was afterwards destined to be the
field of Michelangelo's noblest labours. Internal evidence shows that
Sandro and his assistants bore a chief share in the series of papal
portraits which decorate the niches between the windows. His share in
the decoration of the walls with subjects from the Old and the New
Testament consists of three frescoes, one illustrating the history of
Moses (several episodes of his early life arranged in a single
composition); another the destruction of Korah, Dathan and Abiram; a
third the temptation of Christ by Satan (in this case the main theme is
relegated to the background, while the foreground is fil