[217] Critics of the modern school assert that the picture was not executed by Botticelli, even if it was designed by him; it bears, they say, "no trace of his style" (see, e.g., Richter's Lectures and Frizzoni's Arte Italiana del Rinascimento). Ruskin was on the same side: "I hope you know Botticelli well enough," he wrote to Mr. Fairfax Murray (February 14, 1873), "not to think you'll have to copy stuff like that arms-akimbo thing. By the way, what have they all got, like truncheons? They look like a lot of opera-directors." Dr. Uhlmann in his work on Botticelli ascribes the picture to Botticini; Vasari, he thinks, confused the two painters,—a theory for which there is no sort of proof. There is only one work of Botticini which has been identified with certainty. It is at Empoli, and was executed in 1490, or fifteen years at least before this picture. Vasari's account is precise, and is confirmed, as we have seen, by historical records. Very convincing internal proofs are necessary to overthrow this external evidence. Where are such proofs? The idea of the picture is entirely in accordance with what we know of Botticelli. "The wonderful energy of the angels and the boldness of the design attest his invention" (Monkhouse's In the National Gallery, p. 64). The case in this sense is very well put by Mr. Maurice Hewlett in the Academy of January 9, 1892. He points out among other things that the picture agrees with the general spirit of Botticelli's designs for the "Paradiso."
[218] Some account of the poem is given in an appendix to vol. v. of Symonds's Renaissance in Italy.
[219] The traveller will find a convenient handbook to these frescoes in Mr. J. L. Bevir's Visitor's Guide to Orvieto.
[220] It came from the Hamilton sale (1882), and was bought for the small price of £157:10s.
[221] Owing to the similarity of initials IVO the picture was ascribed by its former owner to Isaac van Ostade, who, however, died in 1649.
[222] Materials for such comparison—which is not the least interesting of the many lines of study offered by a collection of pictures—are provided in Mrs. Jameson's books, or may be formed still better by every student for himself by a collection of photographs. A capital series of articles by Mr. Grant Allen in the Pall Mall Magazine of 1895 traced, in a few of the most popular subjects, the process of "Evolution in Early Italian Art."
[223] Visitors to Venice will remember a beautiful use of this arrangement on the southern side of the Rialto, the Dove forming the keystone of the arch.
[224] A piece of paper of the last century, glued to the back of this panel, contains a memorandum in now faded ink, in the handwriting of the great-grandfather of Signor G. Molfini (from whom the picture was bought in Genoa in 1883), to the following effect:—"Antonello of Messina, a city of Sicily, a famous painter.... And this is his portrait, painted by himself, as was to be seen by an inscription below it which I, in order to reduce it (i.e. the picture) to a better shape, sawed away." Some traces of further writing are now illegible.
[225] Ford Madox Brown, who was not one to be impressed by any authority, has some very scathing remarks on this picture: "Bad in colour, in drawing, in grouping, and in expression, with the figure of Jesus falling on its nose, this work seems to shine solely by reason of the varnish with which it has recently been so polished up" (Magazine of Art, 1890, p. 135).
[226] He enumerates them in an official return of his property: "Further, I have a monkey, moreover, a raven which can talk, and which I keep by me in order that he may teach from his cage a theological jackass also to speak. Item: an owl to frighten the witches, two peacocks, two dogs, a sparrow-hawk, and other birds of prey, six fowls, eighteen chickens, two moor-fowl, and many other birds, to name all of which would only cause confusion."