his case his patroness, Lucrezia Tornabuoni, Piero's wife--is the
"Madonna of the Magnificat," No. 1267, with its beautiful children and
sweet Madonna, its lovely landscape but not too attractive Child. The
two boys are Lorenzo, on the left, and Giuliano, in yellow. One
of their sisters leans over them. Here the boys are perhaps, in
Botticelli's way, typified rather than portrayed. Although this
picture came so early in his career Botticelli never excelled its
richness, beauty, and depth of feeling, nor its liquid delicacy of
treatment. Lucrezia Tornabuoni, for whom he painted it, was a very
remarkable woman, not only a good mother to her children and a good
wife to Piero, but a poet and exemplar. She survived Piero by thirteen
years and her son Giuliano by five. Botticelli painted her portrait,
which is now in Berlin.

These pictures are the principal work of Botticelli's first period,
which coincides with the five years of Piero's rule and the period
of mourning for him.

He next appears in what many of his admirers find his most fascinating
mood, as a joyous allegorist, the picture of Venus rising from
the sea in this room, the "Primavera" which we shall see at the
Accademia, and the "Mars and Venus" in our National Gallery,
belonging to this epoch. But in order to understand them we must
again go to history. Piero was succeeded in 1469 by his son Lorenzo
the Magnificent, who continued his father's friendship for the young
painter, now twenty-two years of age. In 1474 Lorenzo devised for his
brother Giuliano a tournament in the Piazza of S. Croce very like that
which Piero had given for Lorenzo on the occasion of his betrothal
in 1469; and Botticelli was commissioned by Lorenzo to make pictures
commemorating the event. Verrocchio again helped with the costumes;
Lucrezia Donati again was Queen of the Tournament; but the Queen of
Beauty was the sixteen-year-old bride of Marco Vespucci--the lovely
Simonetta Cattaneo, a lady greatly beloved by all and a close friend
both of Giuliano and Lorenzo.

The praises of Lorenzo's tournament had been sung by Luca Pulci:
Giuliano's were sung by Poliziano, under the title "La Giostra di
Giuliano de' Medici," and it is this poem which Botticelli may be
said to have illustrated, for both poet and artist employ the same
imagery. Thus Poliziano, or Politian (of whom we shall hear more in the
chapter on S. Marco) compares Simonetta to Venus, and in stanzas 100
and 101 speaks of her b