"Oh, yes. His works were wrought in churches as well as in private
houses and palaces. He even received the honor of being summoned to Rome
by Pope Sixtus IV. to assist in the decoration of the Sistine Chapel of
the Vatican, where Michael Angelo afterward performed his greatest
work. There he painted three large religious frescoes--by the way,
Ghirlandajo painted there also. Now we must find what is the charm in
Botticelli's painting that accounts for the wonderful present interest
in his work. I think it is in a large degree his attempt to put
expression into faces. While Masaccio had taken a long step in advance
of other artists by making man himself, rather than events, the chief
interest in his pictures,--Botticelli, more imaginative and poetic,
painted man's moods,--his subtile feelings. You are all somewhat
familiar, through their reproductions, with his Madonna pictures. How do
these differ from those of other painters?"

"The faces are less pretty."

"They are sad instead of joyous."

"In some the little Christ looks as though he were trying to comfort his
mother."

"The angels look as if they longed to help both," were some of the quick
answers.

"Yes; _inner_ feelings, you see. Sometimes he put a crown of thorns
somewhere in a picture, as if to explain its expressions. His Madonna is
'pondering these things,' as Scripture says, and the Child-Christ and
angels are in intense sympathy with her. We long to look again and again