Knights of Art: Stories of the Italian PaintersSteedman, Amy
General
Knights of Art: Stories of the Italian Painters
Steedman, Amy
Art -- Juvenile literature; Painters -- Italy
As soon as he could, he rushed back to the studio to look again at that
picture, and then he found that the red-capped citizens had
disappeared, and his eight angels were there instead. This of course
was not surprising, as Sandro and his pupils had quickly removed the
wax and taken off the scarlet caps.
'Master, master,' cried the astonished pupil, 'tell me if I am
dreaming, or if I have lost my wits? When I came in just now, these
angels were Florentine citizens with red caps on their heads, and now
they are angels once more. What may this mean?'
'I think, Biagio, that this money must have turned thy brain round,'
said Botticelli gravely. 'If the angels had looked as thou sayest, dost
thou think the citizen would have bought the picture?'
'That is true,' said Biagio, shaking his head solemnly; 'and yet I
swear I never saw anything more clearly.'
And the poor boy, for many a long day, was afraid to trust his own
eyes, since they had so basely deceived him.
But the next thing that happened at the studio did not seem like a joke
to the master, for a weaver of cloth came to live close by, and his
looms made such a noise and such a shaking that Sandro was deafened,
and the house shook so greatly that it was impossible to paint.
But though Botticelli went to the weaver and explained all this most
courteously, the man answered roughly, 'Can I not do what I like with
my own house?' So Sandro was angry, and went away and immediately
ordered a great square of stone to be brought, so big that it filled a
waggon. This he had placed on the top of his wall nearest to the
weaver's house, in such a way that the least shake would bring it
crashing down into the enemy's workshop.
When the weaver saw this he was terrified, and came round at once to
the studio.
'Take down that great stone at once,' he shouted. 'Do you not see that
it would crush me and my workshop if it fell?'
'Not at all,' said Botticelli. 'Why should I take it down? Can I not do
as I like with my own house?'
And this taught the weaver a lesson, so that he made less noise and
shaking, and Sandro had the best of the joke after all.
There were no idle days of dreaming now for Sandro. As soon as one
picture was finished another was wanted. Money flowed in, and his purse
was always full of gold, though he emptied it almost as fast as it was
filled. His work for the Pope at Rome alone was so well paid that the
money should have lasted him for many a long day, but in his usual
careless way he spent it all before he returned to Florence.
Perhaps it was the gay life at Lorenzo's splendid court that had taught
him to spend money so carelessly, and to have no thought but to eat,
drink, and be merry. But very soon a change began to steal over his
life.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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