Oil Painting

Botticelli” redirects here. For the game, see Botticelli (game).
Sandro Botticelli
 
Probable self-portrait of Botticelli, in his Adoration of the Magi. Uffizi, Florence.
Birth name Alessandro di Mariano Filipepi
Born c. 1445[1]
Florence, Italy
Died May 17, 1510 (aged 64–65)
Florence, Italy
Nationality Italian
Field Painting
Training Filippo Lippi
Andrea del Verrocchio
Movement Italian Renaissance
Works Primavera
The Birth of Venus
The Adoration of the Magi
Alessandro di Mariano di Vanni Filipepi, better known as Sandro Botticelli or Il Botticello (“The Little Barrel”; c. 1445[1] – May 17, 1510) was an Italian painter of the Florentine school during the Early Renaissance (Quattrocento). Less than a hundred years later, this movement, under the patronage of Lorenzo de’ Medici, was characterized by Giorgio Vasari as a “golden age”, a thought, suitably enough, he expressed at the head of his Vita of Botticelli. His posthumous reputation suffered until the late 19th century; since then his work has been seen to represent the linear grace of Early Renaissance painting, and The Birth of Venus and Primavera rank now among the most familiar masterpieces of Florentine art.{citation needed}

The Adoration of the Magi for Santa Maria Novella (c. 1475-1476, now at the Uffizi) contains the portraits of Cosimo de’ Medici (“the finest of all that are now extant for its life and vigour”),[5] his grandson Giuliano de’ Medici, and Cosimo’s son Giovanni. The quality of the scene was hailed by Vasari as one of Botticelli’s pinnacles.

In 1481, Pope Sixtus IV summoned Botticelli and other prominent Florentine and Umbrian artists to fresco the walls of the Sistine Chapel. The iconological program was the supremacy of the Papacy. Sandro’s contribution was moderately successful. He returned to Florence, and “being of a sophistical turn of mind, he there wrote a commentary on a portion of Dante and illustrated the Inferno which he printed, spending much time over it, and this abstention from work led to serious disorders in his living.” Thus Vasari characterized the first printed Dante (1481) with Botticelli’s decorations; he could not imagine that the new art of printing might occupy an artist.

In the mid-1480s Botticelli worked on a major fresco cycle with Perugino, Ghirlandaio, and Filippino Lippi, for Lorenzo the Magnificent’s villa near Volterra; in addition he painted many frescoes in Florentine churches.

In 1491 Botticelli served on a committee to decide upon a facade for the Florence Duomo. In 1502 he was accused of sodomy, though charges were later dropped. In 1504 he was a member of the committee appointed to decide where Michelangelo’s David would be placed. His later work, especially as seen in a series on the life of St. Zenobius, witnessed a diminution of scale, expressively distorted figures, and a non-naturalistic use of colour reminiscent of the work of Fra Angelico nearly a century earlier.