Sandro Botticelli

Life and legacy

Alessandro di Mariano di Vanni Filipepi, known to the world as Sandro Botticelli, was born in Florence around 1445. The nickname "Botticelli," meaning "little barrel," was originally his older brother's and was later adopted by the whole family. He was apprenticed to the painter Fra Filippo Lippi, from whom he absorbed a love of line, decorative detail, and luminous color that would define his mature style.

By the early 1470s, Botticelli had established his own workshop and attracted the attention of the Medici family, the de facto rulers of Florence. Under the patronage of Lorenzo de' Medici and his circle of Neoplatonic philosophers, Botticelli produced his most celebrated works. "Primavera" (c. 1482) and "The Birth of Venus" (c. 1485) are unprecedented in Renaissance art for their monumental treatment of mythological subjects, their sinuous linear rhythms, and their idealized vision of beauty drawn from both classical antiquity and contemporary Neoplatonic philosophy.

Botticelli's talents extended well beyond mythology. In 1481, Pope Sixtus IV summoned him to Rome to help decorate the walls of the newly built Sistine Chapel alongside Perugino, Ghirlandaio, and Cosimo Rosselli. Botticelli contributed three large frescoes - "The Temptations of Christ," "The Punishment of the Rebels," and "Scenes from the Life of Moses" - demonstrating his mastery of complex narrative composition on a monumental scale.

The 1490s brought upheaval to Florence. The death of Lorenzo de' Medici in 1492 and the rise of the fiery Dominican preacher Girolamo Savonarola, who condemned secular art and luxury, deeply affected Botticelli. According to Giorgio Vasari, Botticelli became a follower of Savonarola and may have destroyed some of his own works in the "Bonfire of the Vanities" in 1497. His late paintings took on a more intensely devotional, emotionally charged quality.

Botticelli spent his final years in relative obscurity, overshadowed by the rising generation of Leonardo, Michelangelo, and Raphael. He died in 1510 and was buried in the Church of Ognissanti in Florence. His reputation languished for centuries until the Pre-Raphaelites and Walter Pater rediscovered him in the nineteenth century, and today "The Birth of Venus" stands as one of the most iconic images in all of Western art.

Key accomplishments

• Painted "The Birth of Venus" (c. 1485), one of the most iconic works in Western art
• Created "Primavera" (c. 1482), a landmark of Renaissance mythological painting
• Contributed frescoes to the Sistine Chapel in Rome (1481-1482)
• Pioneered large-scale mythological painting in the Renaissance
• Produced a celebrated series of illustrations for Dante's "Divine Comedy"

Quotes

Botticelli told him that such a study was vain, for after having thrown a sponge full of diverse colors at a wall, it left a stain on the wall where one could see a fine landscape.

Leonardo da Vinci, recounting a conversation with Botticelli, from Leonardo's notebooks

Related figures