ent but more mysterious and seductive Milanese dy yonder, Lami painted a short time before she poisoned her lover for gor beHon her presence, and thereafter poisoned her husban More te langed it his rival's ignominious death. The beautif. Milane of the type of women who are not content with winning th. bodies of men, but must have their very souls also. Ah, Luini ar the Mar parters knew what beauty was!” "It is strange fi leavesmil 1 a Venetian! But doubtless you were a scholar, loved only what was remote. Ah! forgiv s a slip of the tongue! Yet surely the very rot, at its highest, Milanese, but Florenti: ? , the crown, the aloe-bloom of this kind of art, is Monna Lisa del Giocondo? Why, in your own de Arti in Venice there is a drawing by Leonard, a rh sidelong rippling hair, delicately crowned with vinethat enigmatical smile on her face and still more enigmatica r eyes, which is fer than this Milanese beauty! It is a type many men, but where its appeal is felt at all it not appe Flor. is teelch. poets. tious ". mese her his · If you s pictur Ch all the seduction of nameless peril in these apparently tell nothing, and yet are so full or spressed intensity."1 i am the Lo! she is la bella Simonetta,' as you say. There here. Giuliano de' Medici was not the man to s unless she were considered pre-eminently beautiful er before, may I ask?" Did not Piero di Cosimo paint her? Among th ging to a great French lord, the Duc d'Aumale, here is a Cleopatra which is supposed to be this very Simonetta you admire her greatly?' or this mysterious charm is the famous Wax Bust G tly always spol en of as by Raphael, but now recogeist teenth century An extraordinarily skilful reproduct "Frankly, no. But see, who is that strange man to whom she is speaking, and why does he turn away from her and every one else with so weary and distraught a look? Can that be Piero?" No; it is Alessandro Filipepi, who painted her the great artist whom doubtless you know better as Sandro Botticelli. You may not be aware that the divine Sandro became melancholy in his latter years, and would have nothing to do with Art, or Fair Women, or any of the shows and vanities of the world. La bella Simonetta can only remind him of a past he would fain forget. But see! Here is a letter. I may as well give it to you, so that it may be made known to men at last." As Parabosco spoke, he drew from his pocket an antique leathern case o'erfretted with thin silver traceries, and extracted from it a yellow sheet of paper, worn to the extreme of thinness. It was like the last leaf of a poplar against the last sunset of autumn. What is this that you entrust to me?" I asked eagerly. But this "It is a letter that was written by the Florentine painter, Cosimo Rosselli. Its companion has been lost to eternal fame because of a moth. which I give you has been seen of no man since myself, not even by that Vasari of whom we have heard so much. At Botticelli's death, in 1510, it came into the possession of Aretino, and was by him given to me in exchange for a little ivory group of Leda and the Swan. It is addressed to Cosimo's pupil and disciple (and, in time, surpassing master) Piero. It will reveal to you something of that sadness which came upon the great Botticelli." "He would be sadder still, my friend," I could not help saying, "if he knew how many fifth-rate pictures were now attributed to him, and how many pseudo-æsthetic puerilities have been solemnly uttered over his (or most often some one else's) work." But I had cause to lament my malappropriate remark as soon as it was made. With a look of anger and astonishment Parabosco faded. To my great joy the letter was not in his hand, and so did not fade also. I regret that I have no longer the original; it was too transparent, and the chemic action of the light caused it to crumble into dust. But I remembered it word for word; and have elsewhere given a literal translation.1 1 Vide The Scottish Art Review for January and March 1890. ("The Lost Journal of Piero di Cosimo.") Let me take this late opportunity of thanking the conscientious London critic who adjudged my "translation "as inadequate and poor, he having compared it throughout with the original! Thus doth the Lord sometimes deliver one's enemies into one's hand! |