BORN ALESSANDRO Di Mariano dei Filipepi, he
acquired his nickname Botticelli (‘little barrel’) from his
brother Giovanni, who raised him and who was himself thus named. From
1458 to 1467 he worked in the studio of Fra Lippo Lippi before
branching out on his own. By 1480 he was working on the frescoes for
the Sistine Chapel and his lesser works consist mainly of religious
paintings, although it is for his treatment of allegorical and
mythological subjects that he is best remembered. Outstanding in this
group are his paintings Primavera (1477) and The Birth of Venus (1485),
both now in the Uffizi. He also excelled as a portraitist, and provided
the illustrations for Dante’s Divine Comedy, which he executed in
pen and ink and silverpoint (1402–5).
Excerpt from Art. The World of Art, from
Aboriginal to American Pop, Renaissance Masters to Postmodernism.
