Sandro Botticelli
Alessandro de Mariano Filipepi, called Botticelli (from Botticello, "the keg"), born in 1445 in the family of a tanner, was one of the most demanded artists of the Medici from the young age. He became one of the great figures of the early Renaissance.
As a portrait artist, he represented the most famous Florentine grandees and created the image of Lorenzo the Magnificent. As a religious painter, he left wide-ranging legacy, but above all he was a pioneer of artistic allegory, famous for new presentation form of the female portraits, which were all created under the strive to find the "ideal image of a woman". For centuries his works were subject to different arguments. So the female characters in the works of Sandro Botticelli have one and the same real model: Simonetta Vespucci, the ideal of beauty in her time. The allusions to that woman are obvious in the "ideal image of a woman", and even in "The Birth of Venus" one can recognize her features.
As a portrait artist, he represented the most famous Florentine grandees and created the image of Lorenzo the Magnificent. As a religious painter, he left wide-ranging legacy, but above all he was a pioneer of artistic allegory, famous for new presentation form of the female portraits, which were all created under the strive to find the "ideal image of a woman". For centuries his works were subject to different arguments. So the female characters in the works of Sandro Botticelli have one and the same real model: Simonetta Vespucci, the ideal of beauty in her time. The allusions to that woman are obvious in the "ideal image of a woman", and even in "The Birth of Venus" one can recognize her features.
