Botticelli: Likeness, Myth, Devotion

The art of Sandro Botticelli (1445-1510) remains the epitome of the Florentine accomplishment during the Quattrocento, under the golden age of the reign of Lorenzo di Medici. Painter of such classic Orphic allegories as "Primavera" (c. 1482), "Venus and Mars" (c. 1483) and "The Birth of Venus" (c. 1485), Botticelli is, like Vermeer, a relatively recent rediscovery for art history, having been elected to posthumous stardom by the Victorian Pre-Raphaelites only after several centuries of neglect. The first monograph on Botticelli was published in 1893, and between 1900 and 1920, more books were written on him than on any other painter; today his name is synonymous with the aspirations and feats of Renaissance painting at its finest. This massive and splendid volume celebrates the graceful beauty of his women and the courtly solemnity of his compositional sense. One focus here is Botticelli's portraits, particularly those that depict his circle of patrons, for whose palaces he in turn created his grand mythological vignettes. Emphasis is also placed upon Renaissance ideals of feminine beauty as expressed in so many of Botticelli's works, not only in his images of Roman deities and of the Virgin Mary, but also of contemporary Florentine courtiers. With nearly 200 color illustrations, this book sets a decisive new benchmark for monographs on Renaissance art and on this perennial master.Called "The Little Barrel" ("Il Botticello"), Alessandro di Mariano di Vanni Filipepi, today known as Sandro Botticelli was apprenticed to Fra Filippo Lippi in the early 1460s and had his own workshop by 1470. Ten years later he was among the artists commissioned by Pope Sixtus IV to produce frescos for the walls of the Sistine Chapel. By the time of his death in 1510 he was among Florence's most influential artists, yet it was not until the English art historian Walter Pater revived his name in the 1870s that his work began to receive the adulation it is now accorded.