Painting

• Assisi.
  
  • S. Francesco. Altar-frontal embroidered probably from designs by Piero.
• Florence.
  
  • Bargello. Bust of Young Warrior (Terra-cotta). Hercules and Antæus (Bronze).
  • Opera del Duomo. Enamels in Pedestal of Silver Crucifix. Finished 1459. Birth of Baptist (Relief in Silver).
    

This was literally the case with the oldest among the leaders of the new generation, Alessio Baldovinetti, in whose scanty remaining works no trace of purely artistic feeling or interest can be discerned; and it is only less true of Alessio’s somewhat younger, but far more gifted contemporaries, Antonio Pollaiuolo and Andrea Verrocchio.

Never pretty, scarcely ever charming or even attractive; rarely correct in drawing, and seldom satisfactory in colour; in types, ill-favoured; in feeling acutely intense and even dolorous—what is it then that makes Sandro Botticelli so irresistible that nowadays we may have no alternative but to worship or abhor him? The secret is this, that in European painting there has never again been an artist so indifferent to representation and so intent upon presentation.