DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.61902#0393
TSE MAKERS OF FLORENCE.
373
ing for that eminence, there is a depth of melancholy sug-
gestiveness in it which is infinitely touching, and which
gives by times a means of relief and expression to the
oppressed and burdened soul which Raphael on his
heavenly heights of calm cannot supply.
To say how unlike the sentiment of the painter’s life
was to this which breathes from all his work is scarcely
possible. The one is the antipodes of the other, for a
personage more jovial and insouciant could scarcely be
found in history. Sandro, who was the son of Mariano
Filipepi, was one of the perverse lads whose abundant
energy will never work in the legitimate channels, and
who rend the souls of all belonging to them before they
find any congenial method of employing themselves. He
was educated, or at least an unsuccessful attempt was made
to educate him, “in all,” Vasari tells us, “which it is
usual to teach to children before they are old enough for
the shop but Sandro loved neither reading nor writing,
and had a head si stravagante that his father at last,
giving up his own plans, whatever they were, yielded to
the boy in desperation, and apprenticed him to a gold-
smith called Botticello, from whom, according to the
fantastic custom of the time, he has taken his surname.
The goldsmiths of those days were artists, some of them,
like Francia, painters in their own person, and Sandio
speedily developed an inclination for the higher art. He
was then placed in the school or shop of Fra Lippo Lippi,
where he worked so well as soon to rival his master. The
picture of which we have spoken was painted while he was
still a young man and under these early influences, and his
reputation soon spread so widely that he was called by the
pope to work in the Sistine Chapel. Here, Vasari tells us
he earned a great deal of money, but living hand to mouth,
as was his custom, brought none of it back with him.
“With one hand he received his gains and with the other
373
ing for that eminence, there is a depth of melancholy sug-
gestiveness in it which is infinitely touching, and which
gives by times a means of relief and expression to the
oppressed and burdened soul which Raphael on his
heavenly heights of calm cannot supply.
To say how unlike the sentiment of the painter’s life
was to this which breathes from all his work is scarcely
possible. The one is the antipodes of the other, for a
personage more jovial and insouciant could scarcely be
found in history. Sandro, who was the son of Mariano
Filipepi, was one of the perverse lads whose abundant
energy will never work in the legitimate channels, and
who rend the souls of all belonging to them before they
find any congenial method of employing themselves. He
was educated, or at least an unsuccessful attempt was made
to educate him, “in all,” Vasari tells us, “which it is
usual to teach to children before they are old enough for
the shop but Sandro loved neither reading nor writing,
and had a head si stravagante that his father at last,
giving up his own plans, whatever they were, yielded to
the boy in desperation, and apprenticed him to a gold-
smith called Botticello, from whom, according to the
fantastic custom of the time, he has taken his surname.
The goldsmiths of those days were artists, some of them,
like Francia, painters in their own person, and Sandio
speedily developed an inclination for the higher art. He
was then placed in the school or shop of Fra Lippo Lippi,
where he worked so well as soon to rival his master. The
picture of which we have spoken was painted while he was
still a young man and under these early influences, and his
reputation soon spread so widely that he was called by the
pope to work in the Sistine Chapel. Here, Vasari tells us
he earned a great deal of money, but living hand to mouth,
as was his custom, brought none of it back with him.
“With one hand he received his gains and with the other