"In the same time with the illustrious Lorenzo de Medici, the elder," Vasari writes, "which was truly an age of gold for men of talent, there flourished a certain Alessandro, called after our custom Sandro, and further named di Botticello, for a reason which we shall presently see. His father, Mariano Filipepi, a Florentine citizen, brought him up with care; but although the boy readily acquired whatever he had a mind to learn, [Illustration: PLATE III.--SANDRO BOTTICELLI PORTRAIT OF A YOUNG MAN _National Gallery, London_] yet he was always discontented, nor would he take any pleasure in reading, writing, or accounts; so that his father turned him over in despair to a friend of his called Botticello, who was a goldsmith. "There was at that time a close connection and almost constant intercourse between the goldsmiths and the painters, wherefore Sandro, who had remarkable talent and was strongly disposed to the arts of design, became enamoured of painting and resolved to devote himself entirely to that vocation. He acknowledged his purpose forthwith to his father, who accordingly took him to Fra Filippo. Devoting himself entirely to the vocation he had chosen, Sandro so closely followed the directions and imitated the manner of his master, that Filippo conceived a great love for him, and instructed him so effectually that Sandro rapidly attained a degree in art that none could have predicted for him." The influence of the Giottesque tradition which was thus handed on to the youthful Botticelli by Filippo Lippi is traceable in the beautiful little _Adoration of the Magi_--the oblong, not the _tondo_--in the National Gallery (No. 592). This was formerly attributed to Filippino Lippi, but is now universally recognised as one of Sandro's very earliest productions, when still under the immediate influence of Filippo, and prior to the _Fortitude_, painted before 1470, which is now in the Uffizi, and is the first picture mentioned by Vasari, thus--"While still a youth he painted the figure of Fortitude among those pictures of the virtues which Antonio and Pietro Pollaiuolo were executing in the Mercatanzia or Tribunal of Commerce in Florence. In Santo Spirito (Vasari continues, naming a picture which is probably _The Virgin Enthroned_, now at Berlin (No. 106)), he painted a picture for the Bardi family; this work he executed with great diligence, and finished it very successfully, depicting the olive and palm trees with extraordinary care." The influence of Pollaiuolo is more evident in his two next productions, the two small panels of _Holofernes_ and the _Portrait of a Man with a Medal_, in the Uffizi, and again in the _S. Sebastian_ now at Berlin, which was painted in 1473.