• . FAMOUS WOMEN. OF FLORENCE-*
Rzennus of Mr. Edgcunibe Staley's interesting and valuable
bask, The Guilds of Florence, published about three years ago, will be at once attracted to his new work, Famous' Women of Florence. The one book, as be tells us, has grown out of the other. The author's minute study of the men who made
Florence, their arts and crafts. and. daily life, their laws and their religion, inspired him with a wish to write "the lianas tives of .their sweethearts and wives.". The present handsome book, with its portraits, in which we see theimpression made by some of these Florentine . women .on such' artists as Ghirlandajo, Botticelli, Leonardo da Vinci, and-others, is the result of. this :very natural desire.
There exists no authentic portrait of Beatrice de' Portinari so often idealised by painters in later years. Botticelli's fancy of her is to be found in his illustrations of the Ditina Commedia,. but she died, of course, a hundred and •fifty-years
before he was born. . Of Lucrezia de' Tornabuoni'als.ce-the "Mather of the Medici "—much painted in her- own' chiss.
seems that the only quite . certain likeness ,is to be =found on -a medal. Alessandra de' Machingi, the mother of the Strozzi, was nm:er painted at all; but Mr: Staley, who has
here done. much to. revive the memory of one of the best women of her time, finds a probable•likeness the bust•by
Andrea della Robbie,. called Una Santa," • in the Meseo di Santa Maria del Fiore: Most of the other heroines- of the book perhaps 'live- for us—though Mr. Staley; their miniintio champion, would not say so—as .models• beloved of Botticelli and da Vinci, rather than as women specially distinguished in life and character. This may certainly be said of the famous Simonetta Oattaneo, the lovely Genoese, immortalised as Venus in so ninny exquisite forms ; and of that wonderful Lisa de' Gherardini, La Gioconda, whose inscrutable smile so haunted Leonardo that he could hardly paint a face, of. Virgin or of Saint, without some shadow of it. With regard to her well-known portrait, •Mr. Staley tells a story new to us:— - "The Diike of Buckingham', sent to escort the Princess Henrietta Maria to England, expressed a wish to have Mone, Lisa,' and the King of France was quite disposed- to grant his requeit The Court and the artists of Paris rose en masse against the proposal, for they said it was 'the most precious picture in all France.'"
The book altogether is an attractive dream of the sunny side of the Renaissance. The seven typical beauties of Florence whom Mr. Staley has chosen to celebrate have certainly no reason to complain of his generous and flattering 'treatment. Even Bianca Cappello becomes as virtuous as she was beautifuL
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