DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.61542#0253
i5ioJ ALLEGORY OF CALUMNY 211
Botticelli’s last pictures, the Calumny—which he
painted towards the end of his life for his intimate
friend Antonio Segni—and the Nativity, in the
National Gallery. The subject of the former is
taken from Lucian’s account of the picture by
Apelles, which Alberti quoted in his “Treatise on
Painting,” but the fierce strife of factions in Florence,
and the tragedy of Savonarola’s end, may well have
stirred the master to paint this allegory of the
violence and injustice of man. The scene is laid
in a stately portico adorned with antique statues,
where King Midas, wearied by the importunities
of Suspicion and Ignorance, receives Calumny, a
richly-clad woman, who drags the prostrate youth
Innocence by the hair. Envy, Treachery, and
Intrigue attend her steps, and Remorse, an old
hag in ragged clothes, looks back regretfully at
Truth, who, standing deserted and alone, points
upwards in calm certainty that her mute appeal
will be heard in heaven. Through the pillars of
the open loggia we look out on a wide waste of
waters, bounded by no further shore, which gives
an indefinable sense of dreariness—the expression
of the painter’s conviction that truth and justice
were nowhere to be found on earth. The Nativity
was painted a few months after that November
evening when Sandro extorted Doffo Spini’s con-
fession of the martyred friar’s innocence, and a
Greek inscription on the panel explains its mystic
intention:
“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
Botticelli’s last pictures, the Calumny—which he
painted towards the end of his life for his intimate
friend Antonio Segni—and the Nativity, in the
National Gallery. The subject of the former is
taken from Lucian’s account of the picture by
Apelles, which Alberti quoted in his “Treatise on
Painting,” but the fierce strife of factions in Florence,
and the tragedy of Savonarola’s end, may well have
stirred the master to paint this allegory of the
violence and injustice of man. The scene is laid
in a stately portico adorned with antique statues,
where King Midas, wearied by the importunities
of Suspicion and Ignorance, receives Calumny, a
richly-clad woman, who drags the prostrate youth
Innocence by the hair. Envy, Treachery, and
Intrigue attend her steps, and Remorse, an old
hag in ragged clothes, looks back regretfully at
Truth, who, standing deserted and alone, points
upwards in calm certainty that her mute appeal
will be heard in heaven. Through the pillars of
the open loggia we look out on a wide waste of
waters, bounded by no further shore, which gives
an indefinable sense of dreariness—the expression
of the painter’s conviction that truth and justice
were nowhere to be found on earth. The Nativity
was painted a few months after that November
evening when Sandro extorted Doffo Spini’s con-
fession of the martyred friar’s innocence, and a
Greek inscription on the panel explains its mystic
intention:
“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