Sandro Botticelli
Botticelli Sandro, born Alessandro
Filipepi (c. 1445—1510). Italian painter. Born
in Florence, B. lived at the time of the city's
greatest intellectual and artistic flowering,
which coincides roughly with the reign of
Lorenzo the Magnificent (1449—92). He was
trained or influenced by Fra Filippo *Lippi and
by the two Pollaiuolo brothers. In 1470 he
painted the figure Fortitude, one of 7
'Virtues', commissioned from P. Pollaiuolo.
Another teacher of influence was unquestionably
Verrocchio. Thus B. was prepared for his career
by those masters who represented all that was
most vital in Florentine painting. To this he
brought a rare talent for draughtsmanship and a
very unusual temperament.
19th-c. writers on art have been responsible for
creating an almost legendary figure, making B.
the embodiment of the Renaissance painter: in
tact, he was by no means typical. The picture of
B. as a lyrical painter, bringing back to life
the myths of the Golden Age of Greece must also
be modified. It relies on those paintings B. was
commissioned to paint by patrons such as Lorenzo
the Magnificent, and his cousin, Lorenzo di Pier
Francesco de' Medici who set the subjects from
Poliziano, Marsiho Ficino and classical authors,
and who restrained B.'s natural temperament. The
most famous of these paintings of classical
myths are The Birth of Venus, the Primavera,
Pallas Subduing a Centaur and Venus and Mars.
Thoughtful, but serene, they have coloured men's
ideas about classical antiquity since they were
painted. With the madonnas and such large works
as The Adoration of the Magi, they are the best
known of 13.'s works. IB. probably reveals
himself more fully, however, in such paintings
as The (Jalumuy of Apelles, another classical
subject, where the story from l.ucian is told
with effects that are strained to the point of
frenzy. The drawn and troubled figure of the
Baptist m the St Barnabas Altarpiece is
obviously close in feeling to similar figures by
A. Castagno, but there is something about it
which disturbs the serenity of the whole
picture. Such elements are even more pronounced
in the Deposition and in the same subject in the
Alte Pina., Munich. We know that when Savonarola
proclaimed his religious crusade against the
vanities of Renaissance Florence at the end of
15. s life, IB. became one of his followers.
Very little is certain about his life that is
not based upon Vasari, but it seems likely that
in the Mystic Nativity which is dated 1500/1501,
and which has an inscription referring to the
Apocalypse and the 'troubles of Italy', the
reconciliation between the angels and the fallen
angels at the birth of Christ gives a
significant clue to the divisions in B.'s own
personality.
However great his inner turmoil, his life seems
to have been relatively tranquil for the times.
He won early recognition for his talent. Between
1481 and 1482 he was in Rome painting frescoes
in the Sistine Chapel with a number of the
leading painters. Vasari claims that he lost
much of the reputation he had built up after
this by taking time from painting to illustrate
Dante. These drawings show an incredible gift
for draughtmanship (Beatrice and Dante in
Paradise). B. was prosperous enough by the end
of the c. to be running a large workshop, but
with the revolutions in painting brought about
by Leonardo and Michelangelo, and his own
ill-health in old age, B.'s popularity appears
to have diminished. After his death he was often
forged but seldom imitated.
