them. He engraves the design which, of all his work, must have
cost him hardest toil in its execution,--the Virgin praying to her Son
in heaven for pity upon the poor: "For these are also my children."[AZ]
Underneath, are the seven works of Mercy; and in the midst of them, the
building of the Mount of Pity: in the distance lies Italy, mapped in
cape and bay, with the cities which had founded mounts of pity,--Venice
in the distance, chief. Little seen, but engraved with the master's
loveliest care, in the background there is a group of two small
figures--the Franciscan brother kneeling, and an angel of Victory
crowning him.

205. I call it an angel of Victory, observe, with assurance; although
there is no legend claiming victory, or distinguishing this angel from
any other of those which adorn with crowns of flowers the nameless
crowds of the blessed. For Botticelli has other ways of speaking than by
written legends. I know by a glance at this angel that he has taken the
action of it from a Greek coin; and I know also that he had not, in his
own exuberant fancy, the least need to copy the action of any figure
whatever. So I understand, as well as if he spoke to me, that he expects
me, if I am an educated gentleman, to recognize this particular action
as a Greek angel's; and to know that it is a temporal victory which it
crowns.

206. And now farther, observe, that this classical learning of
Botticelli's, received by him, as I told you, as a native element of his
being, gives not only greater dignity and gentleness, but far wider
range, to his thoughts of Reformation. As he asks for pity from the
cruel Jew to the _poor_ Gentile, so he asks for pity from the proud
Christian to the _untaught_ Gentile. Nay, for more than pity, for
fellowship, and acknowledgment of equality before God. The learned men
of his age in general brought back the Greek mythology as
anti-Christian. But Botticelli and Perugino, as pre-Christian; nor only
as pre-Christian, but as the foundation of Christianity. But chiefly
Botticelli, with perfect grasp of the Mosaic and classic theology,
thought over and seized the harmonies of both; and he it was who gave
the conception of that great choir of the prophets and sibyls, of which
Michael Angelo, more or less ignorantly borrowing it in the Sistine
Chapel, in great part lost the meaning, while he magnified the aspect.

207. For, indeed, all Christian and heathen mythology had alike become
to Michael Ang