The next year Botticelli went to Rome to take charge of the decoration of the Sistine Chapel. We have already considered his best fresco there, Moses in Midian. Figure 114. Of the two others—the Temptation of Christ, and the Destruction of Korah—we need only add that they are immensely rich in details, effective as narratives, and as decorative arrangements surpassed on the Sistine walls only by Signorelli and Perugino. [Illustration: FIG. 134. Botticelli. St. Augustine. Fresco.—_Ognissanti._ ] [Illustration: FIG. 135. Botticelli. Madonna with six Angels.—_Uffizi._ ] There are rare moments of something like serenity in Botticelli’s troubled career. One was when he painted the Pallas and the Centaur, and another when he designed the loveliest of his round panels, the Madonna with Six Angels, in the Uffizi, Figure 135. Unlike the more famous and popular Magnificat, it is in immaculate preservation. The composition is subtler and less obvious, the worn and burdened look of the Madonna oppressed by her tragic fate, more specific and appealing. The late Herbert P. Horne, Botticelli’s best biographer, sets the picture about 1487. About the same time were done those nuptial frescoes for Lorenzo Tornabuoni and his bride, Giovanna degli Albizzi. Torn from the villa walls at Careggi, they are now among the treasures of the Louvre. Lorenzo is represented as received by the seven liberal arts, Giovanna as presented to Venus by the Graces. We have seen in the last chapter how these young people shared and illustrated the doom impending over Medicean Florence. Botticelli captures, if not their look, at least a fine symbol for their as yet unchallenged beauty and discretion. [Illustration: FIG. 136. Botticelli. Birth of Venus.—_Uffizi._ ] A little earlier perhaps he added to the Primavera at Castello the Birth of Venus, Figure 136. It is conceived in the same bold rhythms, which this time converge on the slight, smooth form of Venus and are steadied by the horizon and the trees. Compared with the Primavera, the whole thing is less rich, varied and naturalistic. Everything is more schematic and conventional; gold is freely used without realistic pretext. The wistful mood is still that of the Primavera. Venus comes to earth with no joyous expectation. She glimpses unfulfilled desires, the eternally deferred goal of earthly love. She obeys a destiny with resignation and a pensive humility—almost asks pardon for the confusion she is fated to produce among mortals. These involutions and refinements have nothing to do with the whole-souled sensuousness of classical antiquity, they have everything to do with that scrupulous balancing of divine and earthly love which was the standing problem of the Neo-Platonists surrounding Lorenzo the Magnificent. [Illustration: FIG. 137. Botticelli. Dante and Beatrice in Paradise.—_Print Room, Berlin._ ]