painter,' said his father, with a hopeless
sigh.

Truly this boy was more trouble than all the rest put together. Here he
had just settled down to learn how to become a good goldsmith, and now
he wished to try his hand at something else. Well, it was no use saying
'no.' The boy could never be made to do anything but what he wished.
There was the Carmelite monk Fra Filippo Lippi, of whom all, men were
talking. It was said he was the greatest painter in Florence. The boy
should have the best teaching it was possible to give him, and perhaps
this time he would stick to his work.

So Sandro was sent as a pupil to Fra Filippo, and he soon became a
great favourite with the happy, sunny-tempered master. The quick eye of
the painter soon saw that this was no ordinary pupil. There was
something about Sandro's drawing that was different to anything that
Filippo had ever seen before. His figures seemed to move, and one
almost heard the wind rustling in their flowing drapery. Instead of
walking, they seemed to be dancing lightly along with a swaying motion
as if to the rhythm of music. The very rose-leaves the boy loved to
paint, seemed to flutter down to the sound of a fairy song. Filippo was
proud of his pupil.

'The world will one day hear more of my Sandro Botticelli,' he said;
and, young though the boy was, he often took him to different places to
help him in his work.

So it happened that, in that wonderful spring of Filippo's life, Sandro
too was at Prato, and worked there with Fra Diamante. And in after
years when the master's little daughter was born, she was named
Alessandra, after the favourite pupil, to whom was also left the
training of little Filippino.

Now, indeed, Sandros good old father had no further cause to complain.
The boy had found the work he was most fitted for, and his name soon
became famous in Florence.

It was the reign of gaiety and pleasure in the city of Florence at that
time. Lorenzo the Magnificent, the son of Cosimo de Medici, was ruler
now, and his court was the centre of all that was most splendid and
beautiful. Rich dresses, dainty food, music, gay revels, everything
that could give pleasure, whether good or bad, was there.

Lorenzo, like his father, was always glad to discover a new painter,
and Botticelli soon became a great favourite at court.

But pictures of saints and angels were somewhat out of fashion at that
time, for people did not care to be reminded of anything but earth