), long ascribed in error, like
the earlier oblong panel of the same subject, to Filippino Lippi. (To
about this date is assigned by some the well-known "Assumption of the
Virgin surrounded with the heavenly hierarchies," formerly at Hamilton
Palace and now in the National Gallery [No. 1126]; but recent criticism
has proved that the tradition is mistaken which since Vasari's time has
ascribed this picture to Botticelli, and that it is in reality the work
of a subordinate painter somewhat similarly named, Francesco Botticini.)

A more mature and more celebrated "Adoration of the Magi" than either of
those in the National Gallery is that now in the Uffizi, which
Botticelli painted for Giovanni Lami, probably in 1477, and which was
originally placed over an altar against the front wall of the church of
Sta Maria Novella to the right inside the main entrance. The scene is
here less crowded than in some other of the master's representations of
the subject, the conception entirely sane and masculine, with none of
those elements of bizarre fantasy and over-strained sentiment to which
he was sometimes addicted and which his imitators so much exaggerated;
the execution vigorous and masterly. The picture has, moreover, special
interest as containing lifelike portraits of some of the chief members
of the Medici family. Like other leading artists of his time in
Florence, Botticelli had already begun to profit by the patronage of
this family. For the house of Lorenzo Il Magnifico in the Via Larga he
painted a decorative piece of Pallas with lance and shield (not to be
confounded with the banner painted with a similar allegoric device of
Pallas by Verrocchio, to be carried by Giuliano de' Medici in the famous
tournament in 1475 in which he wore the favour of La Bella Simonetta,
the wife of his friend Marco Vespucci). This Pallas by Botticelli is now
lost, as are several other decorative works in fresco and panel recorded
to have been done by him for Lorenzo Il Magnifico between 1475 and
Lorenzo's death in 1492. But Sandro's more especial patron, for whom
were executed several of his most important still extant works, was
another Lorenzo, the son of Pierfrancesco de' Medici, grandson of a
natural brother of Cosimo _Pater Patriae_, and inheritor of a vast share
of the family estates and interests. For the villa of this younger
Lorenzo at Castello Botticelli painted about 1477-1478 the famous
picture of "Primavera" or Spring now in the A