the artist's ability and the labour he has bestowed on the
work."

It is in his superb rendering of the figure, especially in the nude,
that Antonio Pollaiuolo marks a decisive step in the progress of
painting, and is entitled to be regarded as "the first modern artist to
master expression of the human form, its spirit, and its action." But
for him we should miss much of the strength and vigour that
distinguishes the real from the false Botticelli.

"In the same time with the illustrious Lorenzo de Medici, the elder,"
Vasari writes, "which was truly an age of gold for men of talent, there
flourished a certain Alessandro, called after our custom Sandro, and
further named di Botticello, for a reason which we shall presently see.
His father, Mariano Filipepi, a Florentine citizen, brought him up with
care; but although the boy readily acquired whatever he had a mind to
learn,

[Illustration: PLATE III.--SANDRO BOTTICELLI

PORTRAIT OF A YOUNG MAN

_National Gallery, London_]

yet he was always discontented, nor would he take any pleasure in
reading, writing, or accounts; so that his father turned him over in
despair to a friend of his called Botticello, who was a goldsmith.

"There was at that time a close connection and almost constant
intercourse between the goldsmiths and the painters, wherefore Sandro,
who had remarkable talent and was strongly disposed to the arts of
design, became enamoured of painting and resolved to devote himself
entirely to that vocation. He acknowledged his purpose forthwith to his
father, who accordingly took him to Fra Filippo. Devoting himself
entirely to the vocation he had chosen, Sandro so closely followed the
directions and imitated the manner of his master, that Filippo conceived
a great love for him, and instructed him so effectually that Sandro
rapidly attained a degree in art that none could have predicted for
him."

The influence of the Giottesque tradition which was thus handed on to
the youthful Botticelli by Filippo Lippi is traceable in the beautiful
little _Adoration of the Magi_--the oblong, not the _tondo_--in the
National Gallery (No. 592). This was formerly attributed to Filippino
Lippi, but is now universally recognised as one of Sandro's very
earliest productions, when still under the immediate influence of
Filippo, and prior to the _Fortitude_, painted before 1470, which is now
in the Uffizi, and is the first picture mentioned by Vasari,
thus--"While still a yo