. Wilhelm Bode of
Berlin. Time has vindicated the Bergamese critic. Berenson will allow
only forty-five originals to Botticelli's credit. Furthermore, Gebhart
does not mention in his catalogue the two Botticellis belonging to
Mrs. Gardner of Boston, a lamentable oversight for a volume brought
out in 1907. Need we add that this French author by no means sees
Botticelli in the musical sense? He is chiefly concerned with his
historic environment. Gebhart's authorities are the Memoriale of
Francesco Albertini; Anonyme Gaddiano, the manuscript of the
Magliabecchiana, which precedes the Vasari edition; the Life of
Botticelli, by Vasari, and many later studies, the most complete, he
avers, being that of Hermann Ulmann of Munich, whose Sandro
Botticelli, which appeared in 1893, is rigorously critical.
Nevertheless, it is not as critical as Morelli's Italian Painters.
Details about the typical ears, hands, and noses of the painter may be
found therein. The last word concerning Botticelli will not be uttered
until his last line has vanished. And, even then, his archaic
harmonies may continue to sound in the ears of mankind.

VIII. SIX SPANIARDS

"EL GRECO"

Large or small, there has been a Greco cult ever since the
Greek-Spanish painter died, April 7, 1614, but during the last decade
it has grown into a species of worship. One hears the names of
Velasquez and El Greco coupled. His profound influence on the greatest
of the realists is blithely assumed, and for these worshippers,
Ribera, Zurbaran, Murillo are hardly to be ranked with the painter of
the Burial of the Count of Orgaz. While this undiscriminating
admiration may be deplored, there are reasons enough for the
canonisation of El Greco in the church of art. Violent to exaggeration
in composition, morbidly mystic, there are power and emotional quality
revealed in his work; above all else he anticipated Velasquez in his
use of cool gray tones, and as a pupil or at least a disciple of
Titian he is, as his latest biographer, Senor Manuel B. Cossio, names
him, "the last epigone of the Italian Renaissance." But of the man we
know almost nothing.

We read his exhaustive study, a big book of over seven hundred pages
fortified by a supplementary volume containing one hundred and
ninety-three illustrations, poor reproductions of El Greco's
accredited works (El Greco, por Manuel B. Cossio). Senor Cossio has so
well accomplished his task that his book may be set dow