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The Forgotten Florentine
Botticelli is now one of the most popular artists of the Italian Renaissance. But his work suffered centuries of neglect before it was rediscovered by the Victorians.
Sandro Botticelli, one of the most popular artists of the Renaissance, spent almost all his life in his native Florence. At the peak of his career, Botticelli was the most sought-after painter in the city and head of a thriving workshop. His only important journey outside Florence was made when he was one of the artists chosen to decorate the Sistine Chapel in Rome - the most prestigious commission of the day.
Sandro Botticelli, one of the most popular artists of the Renaissance, spent almost all his life in his native Florence. At the peak of his career, Botticelli was the most sought-after painter in the city and head of a thriving workshop. His only important journey outside Florence was made when he was one of the artists chosen to decorate the Sistine Chapel in Rome - the most prestigious commission of the day.
Late in Botticelli's career, his work gained a new emotional intensity, and it is possible that he was affected by the disturbing atmosphere in Florence when Savonarola was virtual ruler in the city. His work fell out of favour to such an extent that he was almost forgotten for centuries, and it was only in the late 19th century that he was 'rediscovered' and recognised as one of the greatest artists of his age.
Allessandro di Moriano di Vanni Filipepi was born in 1445, the youngest sun of a Florentine tanner called Mariano Filipepi. The Florentines were very fond of nicknames, and Allessandro's eldest brother, Giovanni, was known as 'Il Botticello', meaning 'little barrel' presumably because of his rounded shape. Allessandro (shortened to Sandro for convenience) assumed the nickname some time before 1470, and it eventually became the family surname.
Mariano Filipepi was a humble artisan who lived in the Ognissanti quarter of Florence, which was a somewhat poor working class area of tanners and weavers, but the cloths woven there were the pride of Florence and were in great demand all over northern Europe. In spite of Botticelli’s own success, he never deserted the area, and the house that his father bought in the Via Nuova in 1464 remained a lifelong family home that he shared with his brothers.
These premises in Florence's weaving district also housed Botticelli's workshop from about 1470, a fact that had amusing repercussions: the 16th century biographer, Giorgio Vasari, relates how Botticelli's nextdoor neighbour set up eight massive looms, whose thunderous noise and vibration so distracted the painter that he could not work. Botticelli begged the fellow to be more considerate, but to no avail. So in desperation, he balanced an enormous stone on the wall dividing their houses, which threatened to topple and destroy the weaver's property at the slightest disturbance. Botticelli's ingenuity won the argument.
Botticelli was born in the Via Borgo, the street running in front of the church
Few facts are known about Botticelli's early career, but it seems probable that at 13 he was apprenticed to a goldsmith. But he soon decided that he wanted to paint, and about 1461 or 1462 his father sent him to the workshop of Filippo Lippi, a renowned Florentine master who was then working on a fresco cycle in the cathedral of Prato just outside Florence.
Lippi, who specialised in religious paintings of graceful piety and sweet-faced Madonnas was also notorious as the seducer of the nun Lucrezia Buti. The product of their unholy alliance was a son, Filippino Lippi; who in turn became Botticelli's pupil after Philippo's death in 1469.
Philippo Lippi Self-Portrait
It was at about this time that Botticelli set up on his own, and in 1470 he received his first documented commission. This was for a figure of Fortitude, one of the seven Virtues commissioned by the Merchants' Guild for their Council Chamber. The commission had originally been given to the painter Piero del Pollaiuolo, who had already completed some of the figures. But Fortitude was taken from him and given to Botticelli at the intervention of an influential patron with Medici connections.
Botticelli: Fortitude
By 1472 Botticelli had become a member of the Compagnia di San Luca, a charitable confraternity for artists. And by the end of 1493, his reputation had reached Pisa, where he was summoned to paint a fresco in the Cathedral. This project was later aborted but, back in Florence, he continued to consolidate his reputation with such masterpieces as The Adoration of the Magi, painted c. 1475 for St Maria Novella and commissioned by the banker Zanobi del Lama. He had also won the patronage of Lorenzo de' Medici's wealthy cousin, Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de' Medici, for whom he may have painted Primavera in about 1478.
Botticelli: Detail from Primavera
The Medici link had been forged in good time. In 1478, political events swept Botticelli into the limelight. With the guidance of Lorenzo de' Medici, - known as 'the Magnificent' - Florence was both a thriving and influential centre of international business and politics. But there were warring factions and rival families eager for positions of power within the city itself. On 26 April, during the celebration of High Mass in the Cathedral, conspirators employed by one such rival family - the Bazzi - attacked Lorenzo and Giuliano de' Medici, with the approval of Pope Sixtus IV. Guiliano died, but Lorenzo escaped and the Pazzi attempts to rally support for their cause floundered. The conspirators were captured and hanged from the windows of the Palazzo Vecchio.
Stefano Ussi: The Pazzi Conspiracy
But Botticelli profited from the event, as he was asked to paint the effigies of the dead men. It was a macabre, but highly prestigious commission, and no doubt it helped to secure for him what every artist dreamed off - a summons to Rome to work for the Pope.
Pope Sixtus (whose part in the Pazzi conspiracy was judiciously forgotten) was assembling the greatest artists of the day to decorate the newly built Sistine Chapel in the Vatican with portraits of previous popes and scenes from the lives of Moses and Christ. Botticelli arrived in Rome in the summer of 1481 and executed three frescos in the Chapel for which he was handsomely paid.
Botticelli: Scene from the Life of Moses
While Botticelli was away, his father died, and after only one year in Rome, the son returned to Florence and the home his brother, Giovanni, had inherited. Botticelli was now at the height of his powers and demands flooded in for paintings of religious and secular subjects, banners, wedding chests, and portraits. His Madonna and Child paintings were particularly popular, and many imitators - as well as his own workshop - were churning out copies.
Botticelli: Madonna and Child
He employed three assistants at this time, and there was plenty of work to keep them occupied. But one acid contemporary roat that his workshop was 'an academy for idlers with nothing better to do'. Botticelli encouraged a genial atmosphere in the workshop, and even enjoyed practical jokes at the expense of his assistants.
Vasari relates how he arranged the sale of a painting of the Madonna surrounded by angels, which was a copy of one of his own commissions by a pupil called Biagio. Having told Biagio to hang the painting in good light for the perusal of the prospective buyer, Botticelli then made some red paper hats, of the type worn by the councillors of Florence, and stuck them onto the angels' heads with wax. Having fetched the buyer, the bemused Biagio was on the point of exploding with rage at the sight of his 'Madonna and Councillors' when he realised that the buyer (whom Botticelli had informed of the joke) had apparently noticed nothing strange and was happy to conclude the deal. Biagio left with him to fetch the money, and by the time he returned, Botticelli had removed the paper hats. The poor pupil was persuaded that his vision had been an aberration of the mind.
The Council of Florence - and their hats!
In the 1480s, Botticelli's reputation was at its peak. So when the Duke of Milan requested an account of the most prestigious painters of the day from his agent in Florence, Botticelli topped the list as 'A most excellent painter, both on panel and wall. His works have a virile air and are done with the best judgement and perfect proportion'. He had few serious rivals in Florence at this time: Leonardo had left for Mila, the Pollaiuoto brothers were working in Rome, and Verrocchio had gone to Venice to execute the equestrian statue, the Collioni Monument.
Verrocchio: Collioni Monument
During the 1490s the fortunes of Florence changed. The explosive Prior of San Marco, Girolamo Savonarola, had been delivering sermons in heady rhetoric that denounced the corruption of the city and foretold its imminent destruction. In 1492, Lorenzo the Magnificent died, and his son, Piero took over the government of the city, but proved to be politically inept.
Charles VIII of France was threatening an invasion to claim the Kingdom of Naples, and when he actually landed in Italy and moved south in the autumn of 1494, Piero ceded to him the port of Pisa and other vital Florentine strongholds. The city was enraged, and Piero was forced to flee.
Francesco Granacci: French troops entering Florence, 1494
For Savonarola, the invasion of Charles VIII could fortuitously be interpreted as the Divine Retribution he had prophesised, and when Charles camped outside Florence, Savonarola was sent to mediate and prevent the city's destruction. This accomplished, he was heralded as a Saviour, and established a theocracy in Florence.
Botticelli, whose life embraced little outside of Florence, could not fail to be shaken by these events. He was reputedly a keen follower of Savonarola's sermons, and his work certainly changed stylistically during the period. It became far more emotionally charged and imbued with a sort of religious angst.
Botticelli: Christ Crowned with Thorns c. 1900
To add to his many personal worries, Botticelli's brother Giovanni died in 1493, and in 1497 Botticelli's lifelong benefactor, Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco was forced to leave Florence for political reasons. Botticelli had been working on a set of drawings to illustrate Dante's Divine Comedy for Lorenzo, but the series was never finished, and there were to be now more Medici commissions.
Savonarola's fanatical dictatorship could not last. By 1498, he had made many enemies in Florence, and was excommunicated by Pope Alexander VI. Eventually he was tried by the Signoria, the councillors of Florence, for being a false prophet. On 23 May 1498 he was executed by hanging and burning.
Hanging and burning of Girolamo Savonarola in Florence 1498
After Savonarola's death, his followers, known as 'piagnori' (snivellers), had to meet in secret. Botticello's brother, Simone, was one of these piagnori and claimed in his diary that he was using Botticelli's workshop as a secret meeting place. It is not known weather this is true, or whether Botticelli himself was a piagnone.
During the next decade, Botticelli's personal fortunes declined still further. 1502 was a particularly bad year. Isabella Gonzaga had been seeking the services of a painter, and Botticelli was recommended to her as the other famous Florentine artists were 'too busy', but Isabella was not interested. And in November, the artist was denounced for sodomy (as Leonardo had been over 20 years before). Although sodomy was a grave offence, punishable in theory and sometimes in practice by burning at the stake, it was not a rare occurrence - particularly in Renaissance Florence, a city noted for its gaily dressed, slender young men. In any case, the charge against Botticelli was dropped, and it is still a matter of conjecture weather or not he was a homosexual: certainly he never married.
Botticelli: Three Miracles of St Zenobius Between 1500 and 1505
In 1503-5, he could not afford to pay his dues to the Compagnia di San Luca, but he was still working, and managed to pay off these debts in October 1505. He was not in demand as he had been two decades before, though in 1504 he was still considered sufficiently important to be on the committee deciding the site for Michelangelo's David. But this was an honorary position. In artistic matters, Florence had moved on to the progressive ideas and attitudes of Leonardo - who had returned from Milan in 1500 - and of Michelangelo himself.
Botticelli was out of sympathy with the new approach to antiquity. Even during his sojourn in Rome in 1481-2, he had remained curiously unaffected by his surroundings. What he absorbed from antiquity was the romance of its myth. He had mastered perspective and anatomy, but he had no wish to study them as sciences, and could not share Leonardo's attitude to reality. In fact, his later works betray a retreat into a more archaic and medieval manner of painting.
Vasari describes Botticelli in his last years as 'old and useless, unable to stand upright and moving about with the help of crutches'. And by the time he died, aged 65, in May 1510, he was both out of date and neglected. When he was buried in the churchyard of the Ognissanti, near the family home, his reputation was buried with him. He was not 'rediscovered' until the 19th century, when the artists of the Pre-Raphaelite movement found in him a kindred spirit.
Church of Ognissanti, Florence
Botticelli was the first Renaissance artist to paint mythologies with the seriousness traditionally reserved for religious themes. His classical goddesses are as grand and beautiful as his Madonnas.
By the standards of his time, Botticelli was both a versatile and a prolific artist. As with virtually all his contemporaries, the greater part of his output consisted of religious works, but he also painted portraits, allegories, mythologies and literary themes. Catalogues of his work list about 150 surviving paintings (plus many more from his studio), an exceptionally large number for a 15th century artist. Most of his paintings were on panel, but he was also a master of fresco and, unusually for the time, he made drawings as works of art in their own right.
Botticelli: Venus and Mars c. 1485
Botticelli signed and dated only one of his many paintings - The Mystic Nativity - and relatively few of his pictures are documented. Consequently there is often great scholarly dispute about the authenticity and dating of his works. His busy studio (and imitators outside it) produced numerous copies and variations of his originals, and the degree of Botticelli's personal participation in a painting no doubt depended on the importance of the commission. Some of his Madonna and Child were so popular that they may have been bought 'off the peg' from his workshop.
Although little is known of Botticelli's life and there is much controversy about individual pictures, it is clear that at the peak of his career he was the most sought-after painter in Florence. He must already have had a considerable reputation by 1481 when he was called to Rome to help decorate the Sistine Chapel, and when he returned to his native city in the following year, the departure of Leonardo da Vinci for Milan had cleared the path for his advancement. Botticelli's clientele was numerous and varied, including the greatest families in Florence, civic authorities and some of the city's finest churches.
Botticelli: Temptation of Christ (in the Sistine Chapel)
The most remarkable of Botticelli's paintings - and now the most famous - are his mythologies, for he was the first artist since antiquity to paint mythological scenes on a large scale. Previously, such subjects had been of minor importance, most often featuring as furniture decorations. They were particularly popular as paintings on cassoni - the chests that were given as wedding presents or used for containing a bride's dowry.
Wedding chest with painted panel
Botticelli himself painted cassone panels, and his Mars and Venus was probably also originally part of a piece of furniture - very likely a headboard for a bed. His two most famous mythologies - Primavera and The Birth of Venus - are much more ambitious in scale than these paintings. Primavera is more than ten feet wide and The Birth of Venus is not much smaller.
Botticelli's mythologies were painted for a different kind of audience to that of his religious pictures. His altarpieces were public works and had to be instantly comprehensible to a large number of people, and though his smaller devotional pictures might be kept in private houses, they all followed traditional Christian formulae. The mythologies, by contrast, were painted for the private enjoyment of highly sophisticated literary-minded patrons, which explains why their symbolism can be so difficult to comprehend. A patron would tell the painter exactly what he wanted in the picture, and as there was no fixed pattern of thought in mythological symbolism as there was in orthodox Christian belief, critics and historians have had wide scope for interpretation.
Botticelli: St Barnaba Altarpiece (detail)
Although the 'content' of his portrayals of various subjects varied greatly, Botticelli did not show any clear divergence of style in treating religious and mythological themes. He may have revived antique subjects, but he did not, unlike some of his contemporaries, try to depict them through authentically antique forms. Indeed it is often pointed out that his pagan goddesses are from the same mould as his Madonnas - they have the same sad, sweet beauty and the same exquisite gracefulness.
Botticelli: Detail from The Birth of Venus
This gracefulness was a characteristic that Botticelli inherited from his master Fillipo Lippi, but he raised sensitivity of line to new heights, making it the most distinctive feature of his style. It characterises almost all his mature work, but is seen at its purest in his drawings illustrating Dante's Divine Comedy.
Botticelli: Dante's Divine Comedy
At this time printed books were still regarded by many connoisseurs as inferior to manuscripts and Botticelli's illustrations were for a luxurious handwritten edition of the poem done for his greatest patron, Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de' Medici, who may have commissioned Primavera and The Birth of Venus. The drawings are now divided among three museums, but originally each opening of the manuscript featured a full-page drawing facing the portion of the text it illustrated. Some of the drawings are unfinished and some are coloured, but most are pen-and-ink drawings of great subtlety and refinement. They are unique for their time.
Botticelli: Drawing for Illustration of Dante's Divine Comedy
The extreme linearity of Botticelli's style made his work seem increasingly old-fashioned and the last decade of his life was spent in comparative obscurity. It is not true, as his 16th century biographer Giorgio Vasari asserted, that he gave up painting under the influence of Savonarola, but after Leonardo's return to Florence in 1500 he must have seemed rather out-dated. He had no interest in the scientific investigation of the human body or the modelling through light and shade that characterised Leonardo's work, and his late masterpiece, The Mystic Nativity, shows an extraordinary indifference to all the advances in naturalistic representation that Italian - and particularly Florentine - artists had achieved in the course of the 15th century. He has even used the archaic artistic device of showing the Virgin as much bigger in scale than the accompanying adoring shepherds.
Botticelli: The Life of Moses (Sistine Chapel)
The eclipse of Botticelli's reputation was for centuries almost total. He was never completely forgotten because his biography was in Vasai's Lives and his largest paintings were in the Sistine Chapel, although then as now few of the tourists who went to gaze reverently at Michelangelo's ceiling paid much attention to the frescos on the walls. It was only in the second half of the 19th century that there was a renewed appreciation of Botticelli's genius.
Two of the foremost critics of the age - John Ruskin and Walter Pater - led the way, and as late as 1870 Pater referred to Botticelli as 'still a comparatively unknown painter'. Since then Botticelli's reputation has increased steadily and few Renaissance painters now have such widespread appeal. The Uffizi in Florence houses the world's greatest collection of Italian paintings, but even in competition with a galaxy of masterpieces it is usually the room containing Primavera and The Birth of Venus that is the most crowded in the museum.
Botticelli: Primavera c. 1478
By the standards of his time, Botticelli was both a versatile and a prolific artist. As with virtually all his contemporaries, the greater part of his output consisted of religious works, but he also painted portraits, allegories, mythologies and literary themes. Catalogues of his work list about 150 surviving paintings (plus many more from his studio), an exceptionally large number for a 15th century artist. Most of his paintings were on panel, but he was also a master of fresco and, unusually for the time, he made drawings as works of art in their own right.
Botticelli signed and dated only one of his many paintings - The Mystic Nativity - and relatively few of his pictures are documented. Consequently there is often great scholarly dispute about the authenticity and dating of his works. His busy studio (and imitators outside it) produced numerous copies and variations of his originals, and the degree of Botticelli's personal participation in a painting no doubt depended on the importance of the commission. Some of his Madonna and Child were so popular that they may have been bought 'off the peg' from his workshop.
Although little is known of Botticelli's life and there is much controversy about individual pictures, it is clear that at the peak of his career he was the most sought-after painter in Florence. He must already have had a considerable reputation by 1481 when he was called to Rome to help decorate the Sistine Chapel, and when he returned to his native city in the following year, the departure of Leonardo da Vinci for Milan had cleared the path for his advancement. Botticelli's clientele was numerous and varied, including the greatest families in Florence, civic authorities and some of the city's finest churches.
The most remarkable of Botticelli's paintings - and now the most famous - are his mythologies, for he was the first artist since antiquity to paint mythological scenes on a large scale. Previously, such subjects had been of minor importance, most often featuring as furniture decorations. They were particularly popular as paintings on cassoni - the chests that were given as wedding presents or used for containing a bride's dowry.
Botticelli himself painted cassone panels, and his Mars and Venus was probably also originally part of a piece of furniture - very likely a headboard for a bed. His two most famous mythologies - Primavera and The Birth of Venus - are much more ambitious in scale than these paintings. Primavera is more than ten feet wide and The Birth of Venus is not much smaller.
Botticelli's mythologies were painted for a different kind of audience to that of his religious pictures. His altarpieces were public works and had to be instantly comprehensible to a large number of people, and though his smaller devotional pictures might be kept in private houses, they all followed traditional Christian formulae. The mythologies, by contrast, were painted for the private enjoyment of highly sophisticated literary-minded patrons, which explains why their symbolism can be so difficult to comprehend. A patron would tell the painter exactly what he wanted in the picture, and as there was no fixed pattern of thought in mythological symbolism as there was in orthodox Christian belief, critics and historians have had wide scope for interpretation.
Although the 'content' of his portrayals of various subjects varied greatly, Botticelli did not show any clear divergence of style in treating religious and mythological themes. He may have revived antique subjects, but he did not, unlike some of his contemporaries, try to depict them through authentically antique forms. Indeed it is often pointed out that his pagan goddesses are from the same mould as his Madonnas - they have the same sad, sweet beauty and the same exquisite gracefulness.
This gracefulness was a characteristic that Botticelli inherited from his master Fillipo Lippi, but he raised sensitivity of line to new heights, making it the most distinctive feature of his style. It characterises almost all his mature work, but is seen at its purest in his drawings illustrating Dante's Divine Comedy.
At this time printed books were still regarded by many connoisseurs as inferior to manuscripts and Botticelli's illustrations were for a luxurious handwritten edition of the poem done for his greatest patron, Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de' Medici, who may have commissioned Primavera and The Birth of Venus. The drawings are now divided among three museums, but originally each opening of the manuscript featured a full-page drawing facing the portion of the text it illustrated. Some of the drawings are unfinished and some are coloured, but most are pen-and-ink drawings of great subtlety and refinement. They are unique for their time.
The extreme linearity of Botticelli's style made his work seem increasingly old-fashioned and the last decade of his life was spent in comparative obscurity. It is not true, as his 16th century biographer Giorgio Vasari asserted, that he gave up painting under the influence of Savonarola, but after Leonardo's return to Florence in 1500 he must have seemed rather out-dated. He had no interest in the scientific investigation of the human body or the modelling through light and shade that characterised Leonardo's work, and his late masterpiece, The Mystic Nativity, shows an extraordinary indifference to all the advances in naturalistic representation that Italian - and particularly Florentine - artists had achieved in the course of the 15th century. He has even used the archaic artistic device of showing the Virgin as much bigger in scale than the accompanying adoring shepherds.
The eclipse of Botticelli's reputation was for centuries almost total. He was never completely forgotten because his biography was in Vasai's Lives and his largest paintings were in the Sistine Chapel, although then as now few of the tourists who went to gaze reverently at Michelangelo's ceiling paid much attention to the frescos on the walls. It was only in the second half of the 19th century that there was a renewed appreciation of Botticelli's genius.
Two of the foremost critics of the age - John Ruskin and Walter Pater - led the way, and as late as 1870 Pater referred to Botticelli as 'still a comparatively unknown painter'. Since then Botticelli's reputation has increased steadily and few Renaissance painters now have such widespread appeal. The Uffizi in Florence houses the world's greatest collection of Italian paintings, but even in competition with a galaxy of masterpieces it is usually the room containing Primavera and The Birth of Venus that is the most crowded in the museum.
The Making of a Masterpiece
The Birth of Venus
The Birth of Venus c. 1485
The work may have been painted for Botticelli's patron, Leonardo di Pierfrancesco de' Medici. Although it makes sense as a straightforward representation of classical myth, it is unthinkable - given the learned tastes of the patron - that it does not have some deeper meaning. In humanist thought, Venus was not an erotic symbol, but an embodiment of beauty that would be the inspiration for noble thoughts. To Plato - the Greek philosopher most revered in Lorenzo's circle - beauty was associated with truth.
Venus is blown ashore by Zephyr, the west wind (above), whose sweet breath begets flowers.
Floating on her seashell, Venus arrives at the island of Cyprus, where Flora, the goddess of flowers, prepares to cover her naked body with a richly patterned robe.
Picture Exhibition
Portrait of a Young Man 1480-90
This is one of Botticelli's most arresting portraits, startlingly direct and simple in conception, but it is a sign of the obscurity into which the artist had fallen that the painting was not recognized as being from his hand until 1881, even though it had been in the National Gallery of London for more than 20 years.
The medal that the young man holds is actually modelled in plaster, and is inserted in a hole in the panel. It represents Cosimo de' Medici, the founder of the Medici dynasty, and attempts have been made to identify the sitter with a member of the family. Botticelli's patron - Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de Medici - is one suggestion.
This altarpiece was commissioned by the wealthy merchant Giovani del Bardi for a chapel in the church of Santo Spirito. It shows Bardi's two name saints, John the Baptist and John the Evangelist, flanking the Virgin and Child. It was clearly a lavish commission: Botticelli never surpassed it for beauty or finish.
Botticelli painted this splendid altarpiece for the Florentine church of San Barnaba. The name saint of the church (Barnabas in English) stands directly on the Virgin's right - the most honoured position. The saints are characterised with great individuality, notably John the Baptist (on the Virgin's left), with his tense, nervous expression.
The Madonna of the Book c. 1480-81
The Virgin and Child is the most common theme in Christian art and Botticelli is one of the few artists who found continually fresh inspiration in the subject, never becoming hackneyed in his treatment of it. The Madonna of the Book is one of his most tender portrayals of the subject and shows his superb technical skills, for this is a luxurious creation entirely from the master's own hand.
Botticelli is highly varied in his treatment of haloes. Sometimes he used simple rays of golden light, but more often he used the halo as an excuse to display his exquisite brushwork in a delicate mesh of gold.
Botticelli was one of the finest portraitists of his time, his vigorous lines lending a sense of intense characterisation to his paintings.
This early painting of Smeralda Bandinelli, grandmother of the sculptor Baccio Bandinelli, was owned by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, one of the Pre-Raphaelite 'discoverers' of Botticelli.
The Madonna of the Magnificat c. 1840-85
This is generally believed to be Botticelli's most majestic portrayal of the Virgin and Child. It takes its name from the Latin hymn known as the Magnificat (from the first word of the text), which the Virgin is writing in the book: 'And Mary said My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord' (Luke I, 46).
The Annunciation 1489-90
This altarpiece, painted for the church of Santa Maria Maddelena de' Pazzi in Florence, shows the beginning of the graver, less decorative style that Botticelli developed in his later years. But the beautiful landscape background is warm in feeling and unusual for Botticelli.
The Lamentation c. 1490-1500
Botticelli's late religious works exhibit an intensity of sensation that contrasts vividly with the serene beauty of much of his earlier painting. The swooning, anguished figures, enclosed in a claustrophobically narrow space defined by the cold stone blocks, suggest a sense of high tragedy.
The Mystic Nativity 1500
This rapturous painting bears an enigmatic inscription in Greek referring to 'the troubles of Italy' and alluding to the Apocalypse (many people expected the world to end in 1500). The exact significance of the painting is impossible to unravel, but it expresses the peace and goodwill that will prevail after Christ's second coming.
Sandro Botticelli
1445-1510
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