Sandro Botticelli. By HERMANN ULMANN. 4to. 153 pp. (Munich Verlagsanstalt für Kunst and Wissenschaft. 1894.) -- There are few great painters of whom we know so little as of Sandro Botticelli. Contemporary documents yield but four or five notices, and these concern the mere existence of the man, bearing scarcely at all upon the artist. In ordinary cases his works themselves furnish the best data for the knowledge of a painter, but there must be no doubt about the authenticity of the pictures thus taken as points of departure. In the case of Botticelli, however, the perfectly undisputed pictures are a bare score, and two hundred, at the very least, are attributed to him. A critic who would treat of Botticelli has therefore three courses open to him: he can confine himself to the undisputed works, and with this scanty material reconstruct the artist, giving a portrait of him that may be incomplete, but cannot be false; or he can embrace most of the pictures ascribed to Botticelli, and give an account of the Botticellian, without attempting to be too nice in distinguishing between possibly authentic works and good imitations; or, finally, he can attempt to distinguish between Botticelli and the Botticellian. The first of these methods requires great and subtle powers of interpretation, and has therefore attracted Mr. Pater; the last can be followed only by a connoisseur possessed of the peculiar genius of the late Giovanni Morelli. The author of the monograph before us has chosen the last course, with what results we shall see.