Alessandro,** an Italian painter, born at Florence in 1437, was a pupil of Filippo Lippi. He executed several pictures for Pope Sixtus IV, and for the city of Florence, for which he received large sums of money; but he expended all his acquisitions in thoughtless extravagance, and at last died in great distress aged seventy-eight. He was not only a painter, but a man of letters. Baldini, according to the general report, communicated to him the secret of engraving, then newly discovered by Finiguerra, their townsman. The famous edition of Dante's *Inferno*, printed at Florence by Niccolo Lorenzo della Magna in 1481, and to which, according to some authors, Botticelli undertook to write notes, was intended to have been ornamented with prints, one for each canto; and of these prints, as many as were finished were designed, if not engraved by Botticelli. It is remarkable that the first two plates only were printed upon the leaves of the book; and, for want of a blank space at the head of the first canto, the plate belonging to it is placed at the bottom of the page. Blank spaces are left for the rest, that as many of them as were finished might be pasted on. The first two, as usual, are printed on the leaves; while the others, seventeen in number, which follow regularly, are pasted on the blank spaces; and these, apparently, were all that Botticelli ever executed. About the year 1460 he is said to have engraved a set of plates, representing the *Prophets* and *Sibyls*. Basan tells us that he marked these plates with a monogram composed of the first two letters of the alphabet joined together.
**BOTTLE.** The first bottles were probably made of the skins of animals. In the Iliad (iii. 247), the attendants are represented as bearing wine for use in a bottle made of goat's skin, *Aσκός & αλεύριον*. The ancient Egyptians used skins for this purpose, and from the language employed by Herodotus (ii. 121), it appears that a bottle was formed by sewing up the skin and leaving the projection of the leg and foot to serve as a cock; hence it was termed *ποδόκαλον*. This aperture was closed with a plug or a string. Skin-bottles of various forms occur on Egyptian monuments. The Greeks and Romans also were accustomed to use bottles made of skins; and in the southern parts of Europe they are still used for the transport of wine. The first clear notice of them in Scripture occurs in Joshua (ix. 4), where it is said that the Gibeonites took "old sacks upon their asses, and wine-bottles old and rent and bound up." Our Saviour's language is thus clearly explained: "Men do not put new wine into old bottles, else the bottles break." Skins are still most extensively used throughout Western Asia for water.
It is an error to represent bottles as being made exclusively of skins among the ancient Hebrews (Jones, *Biblical Cyclopedia*, in voc.). The Egyptians possessed vases, bottles, &c., of hard stone, alabaster, glass, ivory, bone, porcelain, bronze, silver, or gold; and also, for the use of the people generally, of glazed pottery or common earthenware. As early as Thothmes III, assumed to be the Pharaoh of the Exodus, B.C. 1490, vases existed of a shape so elegant and of workmanship so superior, as to show that the art was not, even then, in its infancy. The British Museum contains a fine collection of these articles. The process of making glass bottles is described under the head Glass. Perhaps the largest manufacture of wine bottles in the world is at Folembourg in France, which is said to produce no fewer than eight millions annually. See Glass.
**BOTTOM,** in mercantile language, is a familiar expression for a ship; as in the phrase to *ship goods in foreign bottoms*.
**BOTTOMRY,** a maritime contract, by which a ship (or bottom) is hypothecated in security for money borrowed for the purposes of her voyage, under the condition, that if the ship arrive at her port of destination, the borrower personally, as well as the ship, shall be liable for the repayment of the loan, together with such premium thereon as may have been agreed on; but that if the ship be lost, the lender shall have no claim against the borrower, either for the sum advanced, or for the premium. In consideration of the risk thus incurred by the lender, the premium (which is sometimes termed *maritime interest*) is usually high: it may range from ten to twenty-five per cent., or even more, according to the nature of the risk, or the difficulty of procuring the necessary funds. The freight may be pledged as well as the ship, and, if necessary, the cargo also. When money is borrowed on the security of the cargo, it is said to be taken up at *respondentia*, a term which seems to have been introduced from the circumstance of the borrower engaging to *answer* for the repayment of the loan on the arrival of the goods. But though the terms are distinctive, there is no essential difference in the nature of bottomry and respondentia contracts, and both are regulated by the same principles of maritime law. Indeed the contract of respondentia is now seldom or never entered into unless in conjunction with that of bottomry.
A bottomry contract may be written out in any form which sufficiently shows the conditions agreed on between the parties; but it is usually drawn up in the form of a bond. The document must show, either by express terms or from its general tenor, that the risk of loss is assumed by the lender; this being the consideration for which the high premium is conceded. The lender may transfer the bond by indorsement, in the same manner as a bill of exchange or bill of lading, and the right to recover its value becomes vested in the indorsers.
According to the law of this country, a bottomry contract remains in force so long as the ship remains in the form of a ship, whatever amount of the bond she may have sustained. Consequently, the "constructive total loss" which is recognized in marine insurance, when the ship is damaged to such an extent that she is not worth repairing, is not recognized in reference to bottomry, and will not absolve the borrower from his obligation. But if the ship go to pieces, the borrower is freed from all liability under the bottomry contract; and the lender is not entitled to receive any share of the proceeds of such of the ship's stores or materials as may have been saved from the wreck. Money advanced on bottomry is not liable, in this country, for general average losses.
If the ship should deviate from the voyage for which the funds were advanced, her subsequent loss will not discharge the obligation of the borrower under the bottomry contract. If she should not proceed at all on her intended voyage, the lender is not entitled to receive the bottomry premium in addition to his advance, but only the ordinary rate of interest for the temporary loan. As the bottomry premium is presumed, in every case, to cover the risks incurred by the lender, he is not entitled to charge the borrower with the premium which he may pay for insurances of the sum advanced, in addition to that stipulated in the bond.
The contract of bottomry seems to have arisen from the custom of permitting the master of a ship, when in a foreign country, to pledge the ship in order to raise money for repairs, or other extraordinary expenditures rendered necessary in the course of the voyage. Circumstances often arise, in which, without the exercise of this power on the part of the master, it would be impossible to provide means for accomplishing the object; and it is better that the master should have authority to burden the ship, and if necessary the freight and cargo also, in security for the money which has become requisite, than that the adventure should be defeated by inability to proceed. But the right of the master to pledge the ship or goods must always be created by necessity: if exercised without necessity the contract will be void. Accordingly the master of a British ship has no power to grant a bottomry bond at a British Bottrigari, port, or at any foreign port where he might have been able to raise funds on the personal credit of the shipowners. Neither has he any power to pledge the ship or goods for private debts of his own; but only for such supplies as are indispensable for the purposes of the voyage.
The bottomry lender must use reasonable diligence to ascertain that a real necessity exists for the loan; but he is not bound to see to the application of the money. If the lender have originally advanced the funds on the personal credit of the master or owners, or on any other security than that of bottomry, he is not entitled at a subsequent period to convert his claim into bottomry obligation; and although the master should grant him such obligation, it would not bind the owners. In every case a bond procured by compulsion would be void.
The power of the master to pledge the cargo depends upon there being some reasonable prospect of benefit to it by so doing. He has no such power except in virtue of circumstances which may oblige him to assume the character of agent for the cargo, in the absence of any other person to act on its behalf. Under ordinary circumstances he is not at liberty to pledge the cargo for repairs to the ship. If indeed, the bonds be of a valuable nature, and if it be impossible to get the ship repaired in sufficient time to obviate serious loss on them by delay, without including them under the bottomry contract, he has power to do so; because it may fairly be assumed, in the case supposed, that the cargo will be benefited by this procedure. But if there be time to communicate with the proprietors of the cargo, it is his duty to give them notice before resorting to this course. The general principle is, that the master must act for the cargo, with a reasonable view to the interests of its proprietors, and not for the whole circumstances of the case. When he does this his proceedings will be justifiable, but should he manifestly prejudice the interests of the cargo, by including it under bottomry for the mere purpose of relieving the ship, or of earning the freight, the owners of the cargo will not be bound by the bottomry contract. Any bottomry or respondendi bond may be good in part or bad in part, according as the master may have acted within or beyond the scope of his legitimate authority in granting it.
If two or more bottomry bonds have been granted at different stages of the voyage, and the value of the property be insufficient to discharge all, the latest dated bond has the priority of payment, as having furnished the means of preserving the ship, and thereby preventing the total loss of the security for the previous bonds.
In a recent case in the English Admiralty Court (the Cynthia, 20 L. 7, 54), it was decided that a bond granted by a British consul over a British ship, the master of which had been murdered in a mutiny by the crew, was valid, although the new master, appointed by the consul, had not been required to sign it.
When the sum due under a bottomry bond over ship, freight, and cargo, is not paid at the stipulated time, proceedings may be taken by the owner for recovery of the freight and for the sale of the ship; and should the proceeds of these be insufficient to discharge the claim, a judicial sale of the ship must be ordered. As a general rule the value of the ship and freight must be exhausted before recourse can be taken against the cargo.
The bottomry premium must be ultimately paid by the parties for whose especial benefit the advances were obtained, as ascertained on the final adjustment of the average expenditures at the port of destination.
For further information on this subject, the reader is referred to the cases of the Gratitudine, 2 Rob. A. R. 240, 272; the Lochiel, 3 Rob. 34; the Alexander, 1 Rob. 346; to Soares v. Rain, 3 E. F. Moore; Dobson v. Lyall, 8 Jurist 969; and especially to the cases of the Lord Cochran, 8 Jurist 714, and of Jacobsen v. Reinhardt, 22 Scottish Jurist 309. See also Marshall on Insurance, book 2; Park on Insurance, c. 21; Arnould on Insurance; Lord Tenterden on the Law of Merchant Ships, part 2, c. 3. (J. W.—K.)