If I asked you to picture the Italian Renaissance,
what's the first thing that springs to mind?
Oh, that's a great question. For a lot of you,
I bet it's a specific kind of image. You're probably
thinking of figures in these impossible flowing
fabrics, hair catching a sort of stylized breeze.
A sense of melancholy beauty, maybe? Exactly.
And almost certainly, a goddess emerging from
the sea on a giant seashell. There's no escaping
that one. We are, of course, talking about...
the man who really defined the look of the Florentine
Quattrocento, Sandro Botticelli. Indeed we are.
Though, to be absolutely precise, we're diving
into the life and work of Alessandro di Mariano
di Vanni Filipepi. That is a magnificent mouthful
of a name. It is, isn't it? But history, thankfully,
shortened it to his nickname. Botticelli. And
the funny thing is, that nickname literally translates
to little barrel. A little barrel. And that name
didn't even come from him, right? It came from
his older brother, Gianni, who was maybe a bit
on the rounder side. Exactly. The name just sort
of stuck to Sandro, which, you know, it just
goes to show you how randomly history brands
its geniuses. But Botticelli, the genius behind
the birth of Venus and Primavera, he's so much
more than a name. He's an absolute icon. He is,
undeniably. He's the visual symbol. of that entire
golden age in Florence. But that brings us to
this huge, huge historical paradox we're going
to try and solve today. Which is? How can an
artist of this monumental stature, I mean, someone
whose work is instantly recognizable all over
the world, have been almost completely forgotten?
for 400 years after he died. That long, deep
eclipse of his reputation, that's the real mystery
at the heart of this deep dive. It is. So our
sources, everything from the earliest, and let's
be honest, often biased biographies like Fazari's,
all the way up to modern art historical scholarship,
they let us trace the full, really surprising,
and often dramatic arc of his career. We're going
to try and move beyond just the famous mythological
paintings to understand the whole complex man.
We're talking his intricate political entanglements,
his... really dramatic stylistic shifts and that
long, dark shadow that fell over his legacy right
up until the Victorian era. Our mission is to
give you that comprehensive, detailed understanding
of Botticelli, the artist, the man, the political
player that, you know, most art history textbooks
just don't give you in one go. OK, let's get
into it. And we have to start where his story
begins. In Florence. Right. And Botticelli was
fundamentally. A local artist. This wasn't a
man who traveled all over Italy, which many of
his contemporaries did. No, his entire universe
was centered on Florence and specifically on
the Borgo Ognissanti neighborhood. It's truly
remarkable how localized his whole life was.
He was born, he lived, he worked, and he died
almost entirely within the confines of that one
district. I mean, we know he spent his whole
life there, and his final resting place just
underlines that loyalty. He's buried in his parish
church, Ognissanti, which means All Saints. That's
about as deep as local roots get. And his family
context seems pretty modest, which makes his
eventual success all the more impressive. His
father, Mariano Divani de Medio Filipepi, he
started out as a tanner. But later he shifted
into a much more refined and probably more lucrative
craft, gold beading. And that shift to gold beading
is absolutely crucial for his career. Why is
that? Well, because it brought the family into
direct contact with two things. An aspiring artist
in the Renaissance absolutely needed, first,
the materials themselves, but maybe more importantly,
the wealthy clients, the people who could actually
afford gilded artwork and commissioned painting.
Precisely. Vasari, the 16th century chronicler,
even notes that Botticelli's first training wasn't
with the paintbrush. It was as a goldsmith. Which
was a very common starting point for so many
masters in Florence, wasn't it? It wasn't about
the painting itself, not yet. It was about precision.
Exactly. And that goldsmith training. It instills
this dedication to line and to clear contours,
this ability to execute these finely wrought
details. All the hallmarks of his mature style,
the fact that the line, the contour, always seems
more important than shadow or volume in his work.
You can trace that right back to this early training.
Absolutely. And, you know, while the Agassati
neighborhood was home to workmen and weavers,
it also housed the powerful families who were
essentially fueling the Renaissance. So his family
rented from the Ruchelai, a major... banking
and merchant dynasty. And critically, they lived
right next door to the Vespucci family. That
Vespucci connection is just vital. They were
staunch allies of the ruling Medici family, and
they immediately became these regular, powerful
patrons for the young Botticelli. Just think
about that. One of his neighbors was Amerigo
Vespucci, the explorer. The man the Americas
were named after. He was literally rubbing shoulders
with the financial, political, and exploratory
elite of Florence right outside his childhood
home. He was in the perfect spot for advancement.
So he's in the right place, he has this foundational
skill, and then he lands the perfect mentor.
Around 1461 or 1462, he gets apprenticed to the
great Fra Filippo Lippi. And Lippi was the ideal
teacher, not just for his skill, but because
he was already a huge favorite of the Medici
family. So this apprenticeship gives Botticelli
an invaluable entry point into the most powerful
artistic patronage network in the entire city.
And you can see the stylistic influence so clearly.
Botticelli's early work just soaks up Lippi's
distinct characteristics, that intimate composition,
those incredibly clear outlines and the development
of figures that are beautiful, but have the certain
almost poetic melancholy. The DNA of Lippi is
in the faces Botticelli painted for decades.
By 1467, he'd left Lippi's workshop and within
just a couple of years, he had his own shop and
was getting major independent work. Which led
to this crucial early commission in 1469 for
the painting of Fortitude. And this was a huge
moment for him because it threw him into direct,
very high stakes competition with an established
artist, Piero del Palo Olo. Right. The commission
was for a set of seven virtues for the Merchant's
Tribunal. And Pagliolo had already started the
series. Botticelli was brought in to finish it.
So this was a clear professional challenge. And
Botticelli just rose to the occasion, showcasing
his technical superiority. Our sources from the
time, they emphasize that Botticelli's figure
of fortitude was just so much more elegant. artfully
designed than Puliolos. One account even mentions
fanciful enrichments so as to show up Piero's
poverty of ornamental invention. Yeah, it is
basically a historical burn. He didn't just meet
the standard. He elevated the whole project and
made his competitor look old -fashioned. It was
a clear declaration of his independent genius.
And by 1472, he cements his new status by taking
on his first apprentice, Filippino Lippi, the
son of his late master. which shows loyalty but
also professional standing. Their works from
this period, especially all the Madonna and Child
paintings, are so similar that scholars still
find them hard to tell apart. His fame was now
starting to spread beyond Florence. In 1474,
he was briefly summoned to Pisa to fresco the
Camposanto there. And even though those specific
works don't survive, the simple fact that a city
like Pisa was willing to pull him away from local
projects, it just speaks volumes about his growing
reputation. But the real climax of his early
style. The work that truly exploded his profile
within Florence was the Adoration of the Magi
from around 1475. This is a masterpiece that
works on two levels, isn't it? It's religious
art, but it's also political portraiture. Exactly.
It was placed in the very public, widely visited
church of Santa Maria Novella, which guaranteed
maximum exposure. And while it was commissioned
by a money changer, it really served as this
monument to the most powerful family in Florence.
Of course. The cast of characters is just incredible.
You've got the deceased patriarch, Cosimo de'
Medici, as the oldest magus, with his sons, Piero
and Giovanni, right there. And then the next
generation, the current rulers, Lorenzo Magnifico
and his brother Giuliano. It's a stunning visual
roll call of Medici power, seamlessly woven into
a devotional scene. And contemporaries just celebrated
it for the sheer variety of facial angles and
expressions Botticelli captured. It proved he
was a master of psychological depth, not just
beautiful lines. And if you look closely, he
even put himself in the painting. He did. Standing
prominently on the far right, making eye contact
directly with you, the viewer. He was literally
placing himself, the successful artist, right
inside the orbit of the city's rulers. And his
immersion in that Medici orbit was total. He
wasn't just hired to paint beautiful family portraits.
He became this integral part of their political
propaganda machine. And that meant getting his
hands dirty. This is where the story gets really
dramatic. And where Botticelli proved he was
ready to take huge political risks for his patrons.
The year is 1478. The Pazzi conspiracy. The brutal
attempt by the rival Pazzi family to assassinate
the two key Medici brothers, Lorenzo and Giuliano.
Giuliano was killed. Lorenzo survived and just
unleashed this brutal retaliation. And Botticelli
was immediately commissioned to paint a huge
fresco on the wall of the customs house right
near the center of government. This was a form
of public shaming known as pittura infamante.
Which literally translates to painting of infamy.
It was a Florentine custom where traders were.
Conspirators who had fled or been executed would
be painted in a degrading position, usually hanging
by their heels, in a highly visible public place.
So it was a visual act of state -sanctioned humiliation,
a warning. A very powerful one. So Botticelli
was painting the execution of the leaders of
the Pazzi conspiracy. His artwork became this
massive, terrifying public billboard advertising
the absolute power of the surviving Medici. It
just confirms his deep, undeniable alliance with
the ruling faction. And that Fresco was so politically
inflammatory that the pope himself protested.
One of the figures depicted was an archbishop.
Eventually, the entire thing was destroyed in
1494 when the Medici were kicked out of Florence
for a while. But for 16 years, Botticelli's image
defined public justice in the city. It's such
a stark contrast to the grace of Venus, isn't
it? It is. He could do the idyllic, but he could
also do the ugly, necessary work of political
terror. His ability to handle that kind of high
-stakes competition was proven again in 1480
with the Ognissanti competition, right back in
his home parish. That's right. His neighbors,
the Visvucci family, commissioned him to paint
St. Augustine in his study. and they placed it
directly opposite a competing work, Saint Jerome,
by Domenico Ghirlandaio. And Ghirlandaio was
rapidly becoming Botticelli's main artistic rival
in the city. So that side -by -side rivalry must
have been intense. You had the city's two leading
masters competing for honor and patronage, knowing
their work would be permanently compared. One
art historian noted that this kind of direct
competition always pushed Botticelli to put out
all his powers. And his St. Augustine, his earliest
surviving fresco, is considered one of his finest
pieces. But we also get this wonderfully clear
glimpse of his famous wit in this piece, don't
we? We do. Vasari tells this story. If you look
at the open book above St. Augustine, there are
some what look like trivial scribbles. They're
actually a practical joke. A joke in a church
fresco. An inside joke, yeah. possibly aimed
at the religious order running the church. A
recognizable line reads, Where's Brother Martino?
He went out. And where did he go? He is outside
Porta El Prato. So it's a piece of overheard
everyday dialogue just scribbled into the painting.
Exactly. It suggests he had this sharp sense
of humor, maybe a little irreverence. He was
a master, but also a man of mischief. So he's
established himself as this dominant, politically
powerful and witty figure in Florence. And that
combination of skill and influence leads directly
to his greatest career milestone. The Summons
to Rome. The Sistine Chapel Commission in 1481.
And this wasn't just a prestigious job. It was
deeply political. It was. It was brokered as
part of a peace deal between Lorenzo de' Medici
and Pope Sixtus V, following all the hostilities
that erupted after the Pazzigi conspiracy. To
seal the deal, the Pope summoned Botticelli,
along with other top Florentine masters like
Irlandaio and Perugino, to fresco the newly completed
chapel walls. The logistics of that must have
been staggering. A massive, rapid endeavor. The
artists were on incredibly tight deadlines. Each
of the main narrative panels was enormous, about
three and a half by five and a half meters. And
they had to be done in a matter of months. Right,
which meant relying heavily on a skilled team
of assistants. Botticelli contributed three of
the large scenes to the paired cycles, illustrating
the life of Christ and the life of Moses. The
entire cycle was designed to assert papal supremacy,
wasn't it? It was. It was all about showing the
continuity and divine origin of the pope's authority.
But what's fascinating is how Botticelli approached
the composition. How so? Unlike his peers, who
sort of spread the narrative across the canvas,
Botticelli often imposed this triptych -like
structure. He'd divide each huge scene into a
distinct central group and two flanking groups,
often showing three different incidents within
the same panel. And that shows his learning,
his erudition. In The Punishment of the Sons
of Korah, he includes this really prominent copy
of the Arch of Constantine. Right, the great
Roman triumphal arch. And that wasn't just some
background detail. It shows that even when he
was painting religious stories, he was consciously
engaging with the language of classical antiquity
and imperial power. He also designed 10 of the
invented portraits of the earliest popes high
up on the chapel walls. But here's the critical
point. He was only in Rome for a very short time.
A very short time. From July 1481 to May 1482.
Then he went straight back to Florence. His heart
and his workshop always remained in his home
city. So the 1480s, right after he gets back
from Rome, that's undeniably his most successful,
his most creatively potent decade. Without a
doubt. This is the period that defined him for
all future generations, even if the works themselves
were kept in private hands for centuries. We
are talking, of course, about the monumental
mythological subjects. Primavera from about 1482
and the birth of Venus around 1485. And the scale
of these two works, I mean, depicting subjects
from classical mythology, it was truly revolutionary.
You just didn't see huge secular mythological
canvases in Western art on this scale since ancient
times. They are the very definition of Renaissance
humanism. And their aesthetic appeal is so immediate,
so profound. The figures have this quality of
idealized, dominant female beauty. Vasari famously
defined his style as having Grace, a kind of
lightness and elegance that was instantly recognizable.
And later in the 19th century, John Ruskin would
focus on their amazing linear rhythm, you know,
defined by those soft, continuous contours and
that delicate use of pastel colors. It's the
visual language that just grabs you. But beneath
that immediate beauty, there's a deep, complex,
philosophical layer. Largely revolving around
Renaissance Neoplatonism. This is a crucial concept
we have to unpack to really get these paintings.
Neoplatonism, as it was championed. by the Medici's
intellectual circle was this philosophical attempt
to reconcile classical pagan thought with Christian
devotion. The idea being that the earthly world
was just a reflection of the divine spiritual
world. Exactly. So how does that relate to a
nude Venus riding a seashell? Well, for the Neoplatonists,
Venus wasn't just the goddess of carnal love.
She became Venus Urania or Celestial Venus, the
personification of divine love, beauty, and charity.
Ideals that were entirely compatible with Christian
morality. Precisely. By depicting Venus, Botticelli
could explore these profound Christian -adjacent
concepts using the powerful visual language of
the ancient world. It justified the monumental
scale. So the scholars who commissioned these
could enjoy the classical nudity while reading
this deeply sophisticated philosophical meaning
into it. You got it. However, the exact commission
and the original location of these paintings,
that remains a subject of really intense scholarly
debate. Right, because Vasari saw them both together
at the Medici Villa di Castello in the mid -16th
century, but earlier evidence suggests they had
different origins. A Medici inventory from 1499,
for instance, suggests that Primavera was initially
painted for the townhouse of Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco
di Medici, Lorenzo il Magnifico's cousin. And
that inventory suggests it was displayed with
another mythological work, Pallas and the Centaur.
And the birth of Venus might have been commissioned
for a completely different patron or place altogether
and only later consolidated with the others at
the villa. So the idea that these two incredibly
famous pieces were conceived as a single pair
from the start is probably a later romantic interpretation.
Let's look closer at some of the mythological
works and the clues Botticelli embedded in them.
Take Venus and Mars from around 1485. Its long
rectangular shape strongly suggests It was a
spoliera, meaning it was designed to be fitted
into the wall paneling or furniture of a room.
And here we get a beautiful little piece of visual
detective work. If you look closely, you see
tiny wasps buzzing around the head of the sleeping
Mars. That's not just a random nature detail.
Why wasps? That is way too specific to be an
accident. Because the Vespucci family name, his
close neighbors and important patrons, literally
translates to... Little wasps in Italian. And
they featured wasps on their coat of arms. Exactly.
So since the painting shows Mars asleep after
lovemaking, being teased by these little infant
satyrs, it was almost certainly a celebratory
piece commissioned for a Vespucci marriage. It
just reinforces that family connection. It really
emphasizes how intertwined art and civic identity
were in Florence. These weren't just decorations.
They were personalized symbols of lineage and
political alignment. And we see that political
alignment even more clearly in Palace and the
Centaur from 1482. The composition shows the
wild centaur representing untamed passion and
brute instinct being subdued by the goddess Pallas,
who embodies reason and wisdom. And Pallas's
dress is emblazoned with the interlocking rings
that were the specific symbol of the Medici family.
So the interpretation is almost unavoidable.
It's a clear statement favoring Medici, illustrating
the triumph of reason and civilization over chaos.
It's powerful visual messaging. Beyond these
huge mythologies, this era also saw him producing
major narrative works, which required a completely
different kind of storytelling skill. I'm thinking
of the four panels illustrating Boccaccio's story
of Nastagio degli Onesti. Commissioned in 1483
by Antonio Pucci for his son's wedding. And again,
the patronage is key. You can see the coats of
arms of the Medici and the families involved
right there in the third panel. These panels
really show Botticelli's versatility, moving
from the ethereal grace of Venus to this lively,
sequential, visual storytelling. This period
is Botticelli at the absolute height of his influence
and mastery. The 1480s were Botticelli's absolute
peak, financially and in terms of influence.
But the next decade, the 1490s, that brought
this massive political and religious upheaval
to Florence. And that in turn triggered a dramatic
and profound shift in his artistic style and
his focus. That's right. Although the mythological
masterpieces dominate his modern reputation,
his working catalog was always primarily focused
on religious commissions, especially after he
came back from Rome. And his reputation was so
strong by then that many of these commissions
were for larger more expensive altarpieces. So
let's look at how his technique and his style
began to evolve in these religious works, moving
away from that polished humanism of the mythological
era. We can start with the Bardi Altarpiece,
finished around 1484. Okay, so here we see the
Madonna and Child in a very traditional, quiet
setting. A hortus conclusus, a closed garden,
which symbolized the Virgin's purity. It's elegant,
it's detailed, but already Botticelli is starting
to play with the artistic conventions of the
day. How so? Well, you can see his very relaxed
approach to strict linear perspective, which
was all the rage with his contemporaries. Right.
The top ledge of the stone bench the Madonna
sits on is clearly viewed from above. But the
vases of lilies on it are shown as if you're
looking up at them from below. So it's a deliberate,
non -mathematical rendering. He's prioritizing
design over absolute naturalism. Exactly. And
that intentional deviation is important because
it really foreshadows his later, more radical
shifts. If we move to the San Barnabas Altarpiece
around 1487, we see the clear emergence of what
art historians call his emotional late style.
What does that mean, emotional late style? In
this work, the setting is much grander. a palatial
heavenly interior, which shows his new interest
in complex architecture. But the figures themselves
change dramatically. The heads are sometimes
larger, the expressions are varied and intense,
and the whole thing feels more crowded. So the
effortless grace of Venus is being replaced by
something else. It's being replaced by this palpable
sense of anxiety and fervent devotion. And that
intensity gets amplified in the works that follow,
like the Sestello Annunciation. That painting
has a really somber background and an exaggerated
expressiveness, especially in the dramatically
bending poses of the Virgin and the Angel. The
shift really culminates in works like the two
Lamentations from the early 1490s. In these,
the figures are crowded and tightly intertwined
around the body of Christ. They consume nearly
all the picture space. The visual language is
moving closer to an intense, almost gothic emotionalism.
Right, rather than the refined rationalism of
the high renaissance that was just getting started.
And you see a technical change in those Lamentation
paintings, too. In how he treats the halos, right?
Yes. In the Munich Lamentation, for example,
all the figures except Christ are given these
flat halos that are shown in perspective, a convention
he used consistently from then on. It's a move
toward a more symbolic, simpler... visual element
now we have to address the colossal influence
of jerome savonarola this moralistic dominican
friar who preached these fire and brimstone sermons
in florence from 1490 until he was executed in
1498 and his impact on florentine life and art
was just Vazari's account of Botticelli's devotion
to Savonarola is legendary. He claimed Botticelli
became a fanatical follower, one of the piagnoni,
meaning snivelers or weepers. Right. That was
the term for the friar's devoted followers. And
Vazari claimed this devotion was ruinous for
Botticelli's career. He says Botticelli gave
up painting entirely, fell into poverty, would
have starved if his friends hadn't helped him.
So he paints Botticelli as this tragic artist
whose talent was just abandoned because of religious
zealotry. That story is certainly compelling,
but modern scholarship provides a really crucial
counterpoint. So it's not the whole story? Not
at all. While Botticelli was undoubtedly moved
by Savonarola's messages, I mean, many Florentines
were, the idea that he quit painting and starved
is now seen as a huge exaggeration. Why would
Vasari exaggerate it? Because it makes for a
better story. It's a narrative about the perils
of religious fanaticism, which fit Vasari's own
intellectual outlook. While Botticelli's production
did slow down after the political chaos of 1495,
we have concrete evidence that he was still available
for work later. And what's that evidence? In
late 1502, four years after Savonarola's execution,
the powerful patron Isabella Desti was looking
for a Florentine painter. Her agent reported
back that Botticelli was free to start at once
and ready to oblige, which indicates he was actively
looking for work. But she didn't hire him. No,
she chose to wait for Perugino instead. Which
suggests Botticelli wasn't the first choice of
the most sophisticated patrons anymore, but he
was far from the starving hermit Vasari describes.
Even if he wasn't starving, his style certainly
underwent this radical, almost archaic transformation
that put him totally out of step with the new
high Renaissance. This is maybe the most fascinating
part of his late career. While Leonardo and the
young Michelangelo were obsessively perfecting
naturalism and perspective, Botticelli deliberately
moved backward. He embraced this simplified,
non -naturalistic visual language. And the prime
example of that is the Mystical Nativity from
around 1500. That's his only dated painting,
and it's cryptically inscribed with Greek text
that references the upheaval of the period. It's
very small, intensely personal, and highly idiosyncratic
work. The iconography is unique, packed with
details like these little devils hiding in the
rocks below the scene. And visually, it just
defies all the new rules of painting. The scale
is completely inconsistent. Precisely. The Holy
Family is painted much, much larger than the
surrounding figures, even the ones that are visually
closer to the viewer. This is a clear, conscious
return to the visual conventions of the earlier
Gothic period. It was a stylistic rejection of
the High Renaissance. A complete rejection. And
he also tackled powerful political allegory in
this archaic style. We have to talk about the
mystic crucifixion from around the same time.
This piece is a direct allegory of the political
and religious convulsions Florence was going
through. It shows Christ on the cross, but beside
him is the Marzocco Florence's heraldic lion.
The ultimate symbol of the Florentine Republic
and its liberty. Seeing it in a painting was
a direct representation of Florence itself. And
in Botticelli's painting, an angel is shown violently
whipping the lion. It's an incredibly powerful
and disturbing image. And for a contemporary
Florentine viewer, it would have directly represented
the divine judgment being passed upon Florence
for all its chaos. The expulsion of the Medici,
Savonarola's rule, the French invasions. The
whipping of the lion symbolized the suffering
of the Republic under divine punishment. Exactly.
His very last works, like the scenes from The
Life of Saint Zenobius, they push this expressive
distortion even further. He used non -naturalistic
colors and figures that appear intentionally
simplified and exaggerated in their emotion.
These final pieces are a real puzzle for art
historians. They are. Some compare them to the
intense, devout simplicity of the earlier master
for Angelico. Others see these tormented figures
as sort of anticipating the emotional exaggeration
of mannerism. It's a profoundly personal, often
troubled and visually confusing final phase that
ensured he was completely out of step with the
tastes of the new century. Okay, so moving away
from the grand altarpieces, we have to talk about
the economic backbone of Botticelli's workshop.
His steady income. Which came from producing
countless Madonna and Child paintings. Absolutely.
These devotional images were enormously popular
and provided this reliable source of income for
his shop. They were the bread and butter of his
business. And he didn't just paint them, he pioneered
a specific format for them. The large round tondo.
Yes, the tondo format, this large circular painting
often over a meter. across was crucial to his
legacy. Before Botticelli, this shape was often
reserved for smaller decorative works. He elevated
the tondo to a prestigious major artistic statement,
usually reserved for the palaces of the ultra
-wealthy. And you can see his mastery of the
format in the Magnificat Madonna from about 1483.
It's a perfect example. Mary is writing down
the Magnifico, and she's surrounded by these
incredibly beautiful wingless angels who look
less like celestial beings and more like you
know, fashionable Florentine youths with perfect
hair and clothes. Which, of course, eventually
drew some fire. It did. Samarola was known to
complain bitterly that some church paintings
made the Virgin appear dressed as a whore. suggesting
Botticelli's high -fashion Madonnas were maybe
a little too secularly beautiful for devotional
use. His approach to secular portraits was equally
distinctive, though it's important to clarify
that he painted far fewer actual portraits than
have been attributed to him over the years. Right.
Many of those idealized female figures, the ones
often linked by romantic gossip, to the legendary
beauty Simonetta Vespucci. The uncrowned queen
of Florence. They probably don't represent specific
people. They're idealized concepts of beauty,
secular equivalents of his graceful Madonnas.
But when he did paint a portrait, he followed
specific conventions. Women almost always in
profile, men in the popular three -quarters pose.
And he favored very plain settings, often just
an open window showing the sky, avoiding the
detailed landscape backgrounds that other artists
loved. The famous portrait of a man with a medal
of Cosimo the Elder from 1474 is a great technical
example. What's so unique about that work is
that the medal the man is holding isn't just
painted. It's an actual inserted gesso cast of
a real commemorative medal of Cosimo de' Medici.
So he's integrating a sculptural element right
into the painting. It's a mark of his technical
ingenuity and his continued use of Medici iconography.
Beyond painting, Botticelli had this lifelong,
almost obsessive interest in the great Florentine
poet Dante Alighieri. He did. Not only is he
credited with perhaps the most famous imagined
portrait of Dante, but he also made this significant,
if commercially difficult, foray into printmaking.
He designed illustrations for the first printed
edition of Dante's Divine Comedy in 1481. That
print project, engraved by Baccio Baldini, was,
well, it was something of a failure, wasn't it?
It was. It was very ambitious. But only 19 of
the required 100 illustrations were actually
engraved and published. What was the problem?
It seems to have been technical. Baldini, the
engraver, just didn't have the skill to translate
the delicacy and intricate detail of Botticelli's
designs onto the copper plate. So he compensated
for the failure of the printed edition by launching
an even more luxurious, more ambitious project.
The luxury manuscript Dante project. This time
he illustrated the divine comedy on parchment,
creating these highly detailed, exquisite drawings.
And the 93 surviving pages now split between
the Vatican and Berlin represent the bulk of
his surviving graphic work. Even incomplete,
they're just astonishing. So let's quickly talk
about the man himself. Vasari gave us this impression
that Botticelli wasted it all through carelessness
after his religious conversion, implying severe
poverty. But that financial narrative seems largely
inaccurate. Right. He owned property, including
a small country villa, and he continued to live
and work in the family home right up until his
death in 1510. He seems to have been financially
comfortable, if not as business savvy as some
of his rivals. And he never married. No. And
he gave us that famous anecdote about his profound
dislike of the idea. When his patrons suggested
he marry, Botticelli recounted a dream where
he had married. He woke up struck with grief
and then claimed he walked the streets for two
days to stop the dream from restarting. That
is a remarkably visceral reaction to the idea
of marriage. It is. And this lack of marriage,
coupled with the tumultuous atmosphere in Florence,
inevitably led to speculation about his sexuality,
specifically concerning a charge found in the
Florentine archives from November 1502. The charge
simply reads, Botticelli keeps a boy, which was
an accusation of sodomy. It's a serious accusation,
but scholars are heavily divided on how to interpret
it. What are the two main arguments? Well, one
side argues it has to be dismissed as standard
Savonarola -era slander. Accusations of sodomy
were a common political weapon used to discredit
rivals during that religiously charged period.
The charge itself was likely never proven. And
the other side? The other side cautions against
dismissing it too quickly, noting that the allegation
exists regardless of the political climate. And
some also observe a certain homoerotic sensibility
in his religious works, particularly in the androgynous
grace of his nude young saints like St. Sebastian.
So he dies in 1510 and he's buried as he wished
in Ognissanti. And this brings us back full circle
to the central paradox of our deep dive. The
complete and utter eclipse of his reputation.
It's extraordinary. Botticelli's reputation suffered
longer and more thoroughly than virtually any
other major European artist of his stature. His
style, which was so personal and intentionally
archaic in his later years, it just fell completely
out of fashion as the high Renaissance masters
Leonardo Michelangelo. Raphael came to define
the new century. For centuries, his masterpieces,
Venus and Primavera, remained tucked away in
private Medici villas or obscure churches, overlooked,
ignored, or misattributed. His paintings were
truly ignored until the mid -19th century. They
just didn't fit the tastes of the Baroque, Rococo,
or neoclassical periods. They were seen as too
linear, too flat, too primitive. So what was
the spark? What ended 400 years of silence? The
pivotal moment seems to be 1857 in England. The
mystical nativity, that small, intensely personal,
archaic painting, was exhibited at the massive
Art Treasures exhibition in Manchester, where
it was seen by over a million people. A million
people saw this strange, slightly anti -modernist
relic, and that triggered an entire movement.
Exactly. The public visibility led directly to
artistic and literary reappraisal. The pre -Raphaelite
Brotherhood, who prized early pure Renaissance
styles, they embraced him immediately. And crucially,
the aesthetic movement, championed by the critic
Walter Pater, took up his cause. And Pater's
analysis captured that unique melancholic spirit
of Botticelli's work for a new generation. The
grace that Vasari sought was rediscovered, leading
to this absolute flood of books and exhibitions
between 1900 and 1920, solidifying his massive
modern reputation. The resurrection was complete.
From a man deemed obsolete and forgotten, he
became once again monumentally valued, a status
confirmed by that staggering 2021 sale of one
of his portraits for $92 .2 million. The little
barrel from Agnesanti is now one of the most
expensive artists in history. So we've journeyed
far beyond just the iconic image of Venus today.
We have. We've seen Botticelli as the complex,
deeply rooted Florentine figure he truly was.
Alessandro di Mariano di Vanni Filipepi, a master
goldsmith turned painter, completely entangled
in the political machinery of the Medici. Even
down to the level of public humiliation via Petura
and Famante. He was a visual genius. capable
of synthesizing complex pagan Neoplatonism with
profound Christian devotion, using the language
of mythology to talk about divine love. And yet
he also showed this radical willingness to just
abandon the aesthetic principles of the rising
high Renaissance, the principles his rivals were
perfecting in favor of a more expressive, emotional
and personal archaic style. A style clearly driven
by the turmoil of Savonarola's Florence. His
career arc from the height of the Sistine Chapel
and the mythological masterpieces to that profoundly
troubled final style. It gives us a complete
picture of an artist who was hypersensitive to
the political and religious currents swirling
around him. Currents that ultimately ensured
his immediate work just fell out of favor. So
what does this all mean for you grappling with
art history? Botticelli was incredibly prolific.
He produced dozens of popular devotional works
and these revolutionary mythological canvases.
And yet his reputation went completely dark for
four centuries. Considering that such a foundational
master of the Renaissance could be so thoroughly
ignored, it really compels us to consider the
sheer randomness of historical reputation. What
other great innovative artists, prolific and
successful in their own time, might currently
be in their eclipse phase? Their masterworks
gathering dust and overlooked collections, just
waiting for their own 19th century Walter Pater
or pre -Raphaelite moment of rediscovery. It
makes you wonder what truly great forgotten masterpieces
are simply waiting for history to finally decide
to care.