Sandro Botticelli

Sandro Botticelli was born Alessandro di Mariano di Vanni Filipepi in Florence in 1445. He trained under Fra Filippo Lippi and became one of the most celebrated painters of the Florentine Renaissance under Medici patronage. His two great mythological paintings — Primavera and The Birth of Venus — were commissioned for the Villa of Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de' Medici. The Birth of Venus was the first large-scale nude on canvas since antiquity. The figure of Venus — elongated, otherworldly, her proportions deliberately departing from anatomical accuracy toward the ideal — established a template for the Western female nude that persisted for centuries. In the 1490s, Botticelli came under the influence of the friar Girolamo Savonarola, who preached against the paganism of Florentine culture. His late work turned sharply toward religious subjects and he produced little of the mythological painting that had made his reputation. He died in 1510, largely forgotten. He was rediscovered in the 19th century by the Pre-Raphaelites and has not been out of fashion since.

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