What is the peculiar sensation, what is the peculiar quality
of pleasure, which 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.
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