ANONYMOUS FLORENTINE, XV CENTURY. MERCURY
Size of the original engraving, 12¾ × 8½ inches
In the British Museum
ANONYMOUS FLORENTINE, XV CENTURY. LADY
WITH A UNICORN
Size of the original engraving, 6¼ inches in diameter
In the British Museum
To a slightly later date, 1465-1470, belong the group of Fine Manner prints, known as the Otto Prints, also emanating from the Finiguerra workshop. They are not a series, in any true sense, and owe their name—also their fortunate preservation—to the accidental circumstance of their having belonged at one time to Peter Ernst Otto, a merchant and collector of Leipzig. The purpose served by these prints—twenty-four in all—was the decoration of box lids, either as patterns to be copied, in the case of metal caskets, or to be colored and pasted on the lids of wooden boxes. The escutcheons are usually left blank, to be filled in by hand with the device of the donor or the recipient, or with some appropriate sentiment.
In the print entitled Two Heads in Medallions and Two Hunting Scenes we again meet with the animal motives taken from the Picture-Chronicle. One of the most charming is the Lady with a Unicorn (Chastity), in its arrangement suggestive of the beautiful drawing by Leonardo da Vinci in the British Museum; and its symbolic meaning is doubtless the same. “The unicorn,” writes Leonardo in his “Bestiarius,” “is distinguished for lack of moderation and self-control. His passionate love of young women makes him entirely forget his shyness and ferocity. Oblivious of all dangers, he comes straight to the seated maiden and falling asleep in her lap is then caught by the hunter.” The ermine, likewise a sign of chastity, is to be seen at the right, gazing upward into Marietta’s face.
Still later than the Otto prints, and greatly inferior to them in execution, are the three illustrations for Il Monte Sancto di Dio, of 1477; and the nineteen engravings for Dante’s Divina Commedia, with Landino’s Commentary, of 1481. Il Monte Sancto di Dio is the first book in Italy or in Germany in which there appear illustrations from engraved plates printed on the text page. This entailed much additional labor, and was soon discontinued in favor of the wood-block, which could be printed simultaneously with the letterpress, and was not taken up again until nearly the end of the sixteenth century.
Alike by tradition and internal evidence, Botticelli is unquestionably the author of the Dante designs; but no artist has been suggested as the probable designer of the three illustrations for Il Monte Sancto di Dio. In the first illustration the costume and general attitude of the young gallant to the left are strongly reminiscent of the Otto prints. The lower portion of the plate shows all the characteristics of the Fine Manner, but the angel heads are treated in a simpler and more open linear method. The Christian’s Ascent to the Glory of Paradise is allegorically represented by a ladder placed firmly in the ground of widespread Knowledge and Humility, and reaching up to the triple mountain of Faith, Hope, and Charity, on the summit of which stands the Saviour. This ladder is called Perseverance, one of its sides being Prayer, the other Sacrament. It has eleven steps: Prudence, Temperance, Fortitude, Justice, etc.