Portrait of a Young Man, c.1480-1485
The Trials of Moses, c.1481-1482
The Temptations of Christ, c.1481-1482
Adoration of the Magi, c.1475
Spring (Primavera), c.1482
Portrait of a Young Woman, c.1482
Calumny of Apelles, c.1495
The Birth of Venus, c.1485
art history meme : 3/8 artists
Sandro Botticelli (1445 - 1510)
In 1481, Pope Sixtus IV summoned Botticelli and other prominent Florentine and Umbrian artists to fresco the walls of the Sistine Chapel. The iconological program was the supremacy of the Papacy. Sandro’s contribution included the Temptations of Christ, the Punishment of the Rebels and Trial of Moses. He returned to Florence, and “being of a sophistical turn of mind, he there wrote a commentary on a portion of Dante and illustrated the Inferno which he printed, spending much time over it, and this abstention from work led to serious disorders in his living." Thus Vasari characterized the first printed Dante (1481) with Botticelli’s decorations; he could not imagine that the new art of printing might occupy an artist. The masterpieces Primavera (c. 1482) and The Birth of Venus (c. 1485) were both seen by Vasari at the villa of Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de’ Medici at Castello in the mid-16th century, and until recently, it was assumed that both works were painted specifically for the villa. Recent scholarship suggests otherwise: the Primavera was painted for Lorenzo’s townhouse in Florence, and The Birth of Venus was commissioned by someone else for a different site. By 1499, both had been installed at Castello.
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