my own house?' So Sandro was angry, and went away and immediately
ordered a great square of stone to be brought, so big that it filled a
waggon. This he had placed on the top of his wall nearest to the
weaver's house, in such a way that the least shake would bring it
crashing down into the enemy's workshop.

When the weaver saw this he was terrified, and came round at once to
the studio.

'Take down that great stone at once,' he shouted. 'Do you not see that
it would crush me and my workshop if it fell?'

'Not at all,' said Botticelli. 'Why should I take it down? Can I not do
as I like with my own house?'

And this taught the weaver a lesson, so that he made less noise and
shaking, and Sandro had the best of the joke after all.

There were no idle days of dreaming now for Sandro. As soon as one
picture was finished another was wanted. Money flowed in, and his purse
was always full of gold, though he emptied it almost as fast as it was
filled. His work for the Pope at Rome alone was so well paid that the
money should have lasted him for many a long day, but in his usual
careless way he spent it all before he returned to Florence.

Perhaps it was the gay life at Lorenzo's splendid court that had taught
him to spend money so carelessly, and to have no thought but to eat,
drink, and be merry. But very soon a change began to steal over his
life.

There was one man in Florence who looked with sad condemning eyes on
all the pleasure-loving crowd that thronged the court of Lorenzo the
Magnificent. In the peaceful convent of San Marco, whose walls the
angel-painter had covered with pictures 'like windows into heaven,' the
stern monk Savonarola was grieving over the sin and vanity that went on
around him. He loved Florence with all his heart, and he could not bear
the thought that she was forgetting, in the whirl of pleasure, all that
was good and pure and worth the winning.

Then, like a battle-cry, his voice sounded through the city, and roused
the people from their foolish dreams of ease and pleasure. Every one
flocked to the great cathedral to hear Savonarola preach, and Sandro
Botticelli left for a while his studio and his painting and became a
follower of the great preacher. Never again did he paint those pictures
of earthly subjects which had so delighted Lorenzo. When he once more
returned to his work, it was to paint his sad-eyed Madonnas; and the
music which still floated through his visions was now like the