Ever-glorified, thy throne
Is where thy blessed Son
Doth reign: through him alone,

All pestilence shall cease,
And sin and strife decrease,

And the kingdom come of peace."
-Translated by R. R. Madden.

CHAPTER XII.

THE ARTIST OF THE MAGNIFICENT AND THE ARTIST OF THE MONK.

The influence on art of Lorenzo's Renaissance studies is seen first and foremost and most pronouncedly in Botticelli, a pupil of Fra Lippo Lippi, who more than any other artist heretofore, portrays classic subjects; his very famous Primavera, or Spring, now in the Accademia, being executed by special request of Lorenzo, as an illustration of one of his poems, and as a decoration for his villa at Castello.

As the central figure or Primavera, we see Simonetta de Vespucci, who was another brilliant star in the Platonic Academy and in the Medician firmament, being the wife of a near and dear friend of Lorenzo's brother, Giuliano, who also is introduced in the picture as Apollo, the god of fruition.

The picture is allegorical, and was readily understood by those imbued with the Renaissance spirit.

FOR SPRING.

BY SANDRO BOTTICELLI.

(In the Accademia of Florence.)

"What masque of what old wind-withered New Year

Honors this Lady? Flora, wanton-eyed

For birth, and with all flowrets prankt and pied: Aurora, Zephyrus, with mutual cheer

Of clasp and kiss: the Graces circling near, 'Neath bower-linked arch of white arms glori

fied;

And with those feathered feet which hovering

glide

O'er Spring's brief bloom, Hermes the harbinger.

Birth-bare, not death-bare yet, the young stems stand,

This Lady's temple-columns; o'er her head Love wings his shaft. What mystery here is read

Of homage or of hope? But how command Dead Springs to answer? And how question

here

These murmurs of that wind-withered New Year?"

-Dante Gabriel Rossetti.

Botticelli's Birth of Venus, in the Uffizi, portrays Simonetta as the title figure. In fact, Botticelli owes his great ability to the inspi