of the Madonna with singing angels in the
Uffizi, known, from the text written in the open choir-book, as the
"Magnificat." Somewhere near this must be placed the beautiful and
highly finished drawing of "Abundance," which has passed through the
Rogers, Morris Moore and Malcolm collections into the British Museum, as
well as a small Madonna in the Poldi-Pezzoli collection at Milan, and
the fine full-faced portrait of a young man, probably some pupil or
apprentice in the studio, at the National Gallery (No. 626). For the
marriage of Antonio Pucci to Lucrezia Dini in 1483 Botticelli designed,
and his pupils or assistants carried out, the interesting and dramatic
set of four panels illustrating Boccaccio's tale of Nastagio
degl'Onesti, which were formerly in the collection of Mr Barker and are
now dispersed. His magnificent and perfectly preserved altar-piece of
the Madonna between the two saints John, now in the Berlin gallery, was
painted for the Bardi chapel in the church of San Spirito in 1486. In
the same year he helped to celebrate the marriage of Lorenzo Tornabuoni
with Giovanna degli Albizzi by an exquisite pair of symbolical frescoes,
the remains of which, after they had been brought to light from under a
coat of whitewash on the walls of the Villa Lemmi, were removed in 1882
to the Louvre. Within a few years of the same date (1485-1488) should
apparently be placed that second masterpiece of fanciful classicism done
for Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco's villa at Castello, the "Birth of Venus,"
now in the Uffizi, the design of which seems to have been chiefly
inspired by the "Stanze" of Poliziano, perhaps also by the _Pervigilium
Veneris_; together with the scarcely less admirable "Mars and Venus" of
the National Gallery, conceived in the master's peculiar vein of virile
sanity mingled with exquisite caprice; and the most beautiful and
characteristic of all his Madonnas, the round of the "Virgin with the
Pomegranate" (Uffizi). The fine picture of "Pallas and the Centaur,"
rediscovered after an occultation of many years in the private
apartments of the Pitti Palace, would seem to belong to about 1488, and
to celebrate the security of Florentine affairs and the quelling of the
spirit of tumult in the last years of the power of the great Lorenzo
(1488-1490). "The Annunciation" from the convent of Cestello, now in the
Uffizi, shows a design adapted from Donatello, and expressive, in its
bending movements and vehement gestures,