Bibliography.—Vasari, Le Opere (ed. Milanesi), vol. iii.; Crowe-Cavalcaselle, Hist. of Painting in Italy, vol. ii.; Fr. Lippmann, Botticellis Zeichnungen zu Dantes Göttlicher Komödie; Dr Karl Woermann, “Sandro Botticelli” (in Dohme, Kunst u. Künstler); Dr Hermann Ulmann, Sandro Botticelli; Dr E. Steinmann, Sandro Botticelli (in Knackfuss series, valuable for the author’s elucidation of the Sixtine frescoes); I.B. Supino, Sandro Botticelli; Bernhard Berenson, The Drawings of Florentine Painters; The Florentine Painters of the Renaissance (2nd ed.); The Study and Criticism of Italian Art; papers in the Burlington Magazine, the Gazette des Beaux-Arts (to this critic is due the first systematic attempt to discriminate between the original work of Botticelli and that of his various pupils); J. Mesnil, Miscellanea d’Arte and papers in the Rivista d’Arte, &c.; W. Warburg, Sandro Botticelli’s “Geburt der Venus” and “Frühling”; Julia Cartwright (Mrs Ady), The Life and Art of Sandro Botticelli (1904); F. Wickhoff in the Jahrbuch der k. Preussischen Kunstsammlungen (1906); Herbert P. Horne, Alessandro Filipepi commonly called Sandro Botticelli (1908); this last authority practically supersedes all others.
(S. C.)
BÖTTIGER, KARL AUGUST (1760-1835), German archaeologist, was born at Reichenbach on the 8th of June 1760. He was educated at the school of Pforta, and the university of Leipzig. After holding minor educational posts, he obtained in 1791, through the influence of Herder, the appointment of rector of the gymnasium at Weimar, where he entered into a circle of literary men, including Wieland, Schiller, and Goethe. He published in 1803 a learned work, Sabina, oder Morgenszenen im Putzzimmer einer reichen Römerin, a description of a wealthy Roman lady’s toilette, and a work on ancient art, Griechische Vasengemälde. At the same time he assisted in editing the Journal des Luxus und der Moden, the Deutsche Merkur, and the London and Paris. In 1804 he was called to Dresden as superintendent of the studies of the court pages, and received the rank of privy councillor. In 1814 he was made director of studies at the court academy, and inspector of the Museum of Antiquities. He died at Dresden on the 17th of November 1835. His chief works are:—Ideen zur Archäologie der Malerei, i. (1811) (no more published); Kunstmythologie (1811); Vorlesungen und Aufsätze zur Alterthumskunde (1817); Amalthea (1821-1825); Ideen zur Kunstmythologie (1826-1836). The Opuscula et Carmina Latina were published separately in 1837; with a collection of his smaller pieces, Kleine Schriften (1837-1838), including a complete list of his works (56 pages). His biography was written by his son Karl Wilhelm Böttiger (1790-1862), for some time professor of history at Erlangen, and author of several valuable histories (History of Germany, History of Saxony, History of Bavaria, Universal History of Biographies).
| Roman Skin Bottles, from specimens at Pompeii and Herculaneum. |
BOTTLE (Fr. bouteille, from a diminutive of the Lat. butta, a flask; cf. Eng. “butt”), a vessel for containing liquids, generally as opposed to one for drinking from (though this probably is not excluded), and with a narrow neck to facilitate closing and pouring. The first bottles were probably made of the skins of animals. In the Iliad (iii. 247) the attendants are represented as bearing wine for use in a bottle made of goat’s skin. The ancient Egyptians used skins for this purpose, and from the language employed by Herodotus (ii. 121), it appears that a bottle was formed by sewing up the skin and leaving the projection of the leg and foot to serve as a vent, which was hence termed ποδεών. The aperture was closed with a plug or a string. Skin bottles of various forms occur on Egyptian monuments. The Greeks and Romans also were accustomed to use bottles made of skins; and in the southern parts Europe they are still used for the transport of wine. The first of explicit reference to bottles of skin in Scripture occurs in Joshua (ix. 4), where it is said that the Gibeonites took “old sacks upon their asses, and wine-bottles old and rent and bound up.” The objection to putting “new wine into old bottles” (Matt. ix. 17) is that the skin, already stretched and weakened by use, is liable to burst under the pressure of the gas from new wine. Skins are still most extensively used throughout western Asia for the conveyance and storage of water. It is an error to represent the bottles of the ancient Hebrews as being made exclusively of skins. In Jer. xix. 1 the prophet speaks of “a potter’s earthen vessel.” The Egyptians (see [Egypt]: Art and Archaeology) possessed vases and bottles of hard stone, alabaster, glass, ivory, bone, porcelain, bronze, silver and gold, and also of glazed pottery or common earthenware. In modern times bottles are usually made of glass (q.v.), or occasionally of earthenware. The glass bottle industry has attained enormous dimensions, whether for wine, beer, &c., or mineral waters; and labour-saving machinery for filling the bottles has been introduced, as well as for corking or stoppering, for labelling and for washing them.
BOTTLE-BRUSH PLANTS, a genus of Australian plants, known botanically as Callistemon, and belongiug to the myrtle family (Myrtaceae). They take their name from the resemblance of the head of flowers to a bottle-brush. They are well known in cultivation as greenhouse shrubs; the flower owes its beauty to the numerous long thread-like stamens which far exceed the small petals. Callistemon salignus is a valuable hard wood.