Alessandro di Mariano di Vanni Filipepi (Sandro Botticelli)

Sandro Botticelli (1445–1510) was trained in the workshop of Fra Filippo Lippi and enjoyed the intimate patronage of the Medici family, particularly Lorenzo the Magnificent and his circle of Neoplatonic humanist philosophers like Marsilio Ficino and Poliziano.

Botticelli's art is celebrated for its rhythmic, musical linear contours, decorative delicacy, and ethereal melancholic beauty. In Primavera (c. 1482) and The Birth of Venus (c. 1485), he revived pagan classical mythology on a grand scale, depicting physical and spiritual love. In his later years, moved by the fiery sermons of Girolamo Savonarola, his art turned toward austere, emotional religious devotion.