Alessandro di Mariano di Vanni Filipepi, nicknamed Sandro Botticelli (Florence, March 1, 1445 - Florence, May 17, 1510), was a painter of the Italian Quattrocento. He belongs, in turn, to the third generation of the Quattrocento, headed by Lorenzo de' Medici the Magnificent and Angelo Poliziano. Giorgio Vasari narrates, in his Vita de Botticelli, from his childhood to his death.
This work belongs to Le vite de' più eccellenti pittori, scultori e architettori. Less than a hundred years later, this period, under the patronage of Lorenzo de' Medici, was considered by Giorgio Vasari as a "golden age". This is due to the artistic splendor reached in Florence at the end of the 15th century.
The artist's posthumous reputation declined markedly in the following centuries, but was recovered at the end of the nineteenth century; since then, his work has been considered the ultimate exponent of the linear grace of early Renaissance painting.
The Birth of Venus and The Spring are, today, two of the best known Florentine masterpieces. They were first exhibited at the Uffizi Gallery, Florence, in 1815.
Sandro Botticelli's Biography and works
Youth
He was born in Florence, in a working class neighborhood in the suburb of Solferino. To this same parish of Solferino or All Saints belonged the Vespucci, allies of the Medici, and from whom he would receive commissions.
He was the youngest of four children born to Mariano di Vanni di Amedeo Filipepi, a tanner, and his wife Smeralda. When he was born, his older brother Giovanni was 25 years old, and it is believed that he adopted and educated him. Giovanni had the nickname Botticello, it is not known whether he received the nickname because of his fatness or because he was a heavy drinker;
other sources indicate that it was his brother Antonio who had this nickname. From him derives the nickname Botticelli. In 1458, they acquired a country villa in Careggi, since their father's business was prospering. It was there that the Florentine Platonic Academy was established. Botticelli would receive from this later influences.
The family came into contact with Giovanni di Paolo, for whom Leon Battista Alberti designed the Rucellai palace, the Holy Sepulchre in the Rucellai chapel and the façade of the church of Santa Maria Novella. Because of Alberti's importance, Sandro read his treatise De Pictura (1436) in detail.
In many cases, he followed his recommendations. He did not become an apprentice until he reached the age of fourteen, which would indicate that he received a more complete education than other Renaissance artists. According to Vasari, he was first apprenticed to his brother Antonio as a goldsmith in 1458. In accordance with the child's wishes, his father sent him to the workshop of Friar Filippo Lippi in Prato (from 1464 to 1467).
From this painter Botticelli received his greatest influences: the synthesis between the new control of three-dimensional forms, the expressive delicacy in faces and gestures, the decorative details (inherited from the late Gothic style) and an intimate style. Many of Botticelli's early works have been attributed to his master, and even today the authorship remains uncertain. Interestingly, years later, Botticelli ended up being master, and having Filippo's son, Filippino Lippi, in his workshop.
To a lesser extent, he was influenced by the monumentality of Masaccio. In 1467 Sandro returned to Florence, frequenting the workshop of Andrea del Verrocchio, where he worked alongside Leonardo da Vinci. From this period dates a whole series of Madonnas influenced by Lippi.
Early works
By 1470 Botticelli had his own workshop. Already then his work is characterized by a conception of the figure as seen in bas-relief, painted with clear contours, and minimizing the strong contrasts of light and shadow that would indicate fully modeled forms. In the same year he painted La Virgen con el Niño y dos ángeles (The Virgin and Child with two angels).
It is the first altarpiece he made that has been preserved. With this work he creates a kind of stage-theater that shows the historical context of the Renaissance.
The Medici soon became aware of his talent, and he received numerous commissions from them. But his closeness to the family is earlier. He was recommended to Pedro de Cosimo de Medici, Lorenzo's father, by Filippo Lippi, and from this period dates the Portrait of a Man with the Medal of Cosimo the Elder (1474).
He painted many works for Lorenzo de' Medici in the Medici house. In the characters of the Adoration of the Magi (1475), "are portrayed Cosimo the Elder, kneeling before the Child, his son Peter of Cosimo de Medici below in the center, Julian of Medici and Lorenzo de Medici in the group on the left, next to him Poliziano and Pico della Mirandola and, on the far right, looking at the viewer, what is considered a self-portrait of Botticelli," according to Vasari in his Vita de Botticelli.
This work, which he painted for the church of Santa Maria Novella, caught the attention of the Medici. He began working for them by painting a banner for the tournament of Julian de Medici (1475), praised by Poliziano in his Stanze. His repeated contacts with this family were undoubtedly useful in guaranteeing him political protection and creating the ideal conditions for the production of his numerous masterpieces.
In 1470 he received an important commission: The Fortress. One of the paintings on Virtues for the Hall of the Court of the Merchants, for the series of the Virtues executed by Piero Pollaiuolo. This indicates that by then, at about 30 years of age, he must have already executed outstanding works. That same year he was commissioned to paint two small works, Stories of Judith. This story was one of the most widely used during the quattrocento. Giovanni Boccaccio includes it in his History of Famous Women.
In 1472 he joined the Company of St. Luke, a painters' guild. In the following years Botticelli became very famous, to the point of being called to Pisa to paint a fresco in its cathedral, now lost.
Around 1474 he painted the San Sebastiano, to decorate a column of the Florentine church of Santa Maria Maggiore.
Mature works
In 1478 the Pazzi Plot (1478) took place, in which Lorenzo the Magnificent's brother, Julian of Medici, was assassinated. Sandro frescoed the portraits of the conspirators Jacopo, Francesco and Renato de Pazzi and the archbishop Salviati, who were hanged and erased in 1494.
Several commemorative portraits of the late Julian de Medici date from this period. Because of Lorenzo's close relationship with Botticelli, Botticelli commissioned two political works from him. He executed Pallas and the Centaur to commemorate the triumph of the Medici faction over the Pazzi faction.
This painting is mentioned by Vasari in his life of Botticelli. After these political paintings Botticelli went on to Rome to decorate the then newly built Sistine Chapel. In 1481, Pope Sixtus IV called upon a number of prominent Florentine and Umbrian artists, including Botticelli, to paint frescoes on the walls of the Sistine Chapel.
According to Vasari, Botticelli was in charge of directing and coordinating the set of fresco paintings in the Sistine Chapel. The iconological program was the supremacy of the papacy. To carry out the work, the painters had to accept common representational conventions, so that the final work would be homogeneous:
they used the same scale of dimensions, the same rhythmic structure and landscape representation, a single chromatic range with gold ornaments that would make the paintings shine with the illumination of torches and candles. In this common work Sandro's contribution was moderately successful, realizing three paintings:
Punishment of Core, Datan and Abiram, Acts from the Life of Moses and The Temptation of Christ (1481-1482). Most of the figures of pontiffs located in the niches belong to his workshop. Although only three of the stories are his. After his stay in Rome (1481-1482), Botticelli returned to Florence and continued his career as a court painter.
He took a liking to reading Dante. "Being of sophisticated mind, there he wrote a commentary on a passage of Dante and illustrated the Inferno which he himself printed, devoting much time to it, and this abstention to work led to serious disorders in his life."
Thus Vasari spoke of the first printed Dante (1481) with Botticelli's decorations, not imagining that the new art of printing could interest an artist. Botticelli as a draftsman offers a personal interpretation that transcends humanism.
The four panels of The Story of Nastagio degli Onesti (1483) were commissioned by Lorenzo the Magnificent. They were a wedding gift from Lorenzo to Giannozzo Pucci, on the occasion of his marriage to Lucrezia Bini. They narrated the legend taken from Giovanni Boccaccio's Decameron.
Between 1478 and 1486, he painted the frescoes of Villa Lemmi. They were discovered in 1873. It collects Ficino's neoplatonic ideas on Love. In the mid 1480s Botticelli worked on a large cycle of frescoes with Perugino, Ghirlandaio and Filippino Lippi for the villa of Lorenzo the Magnificent near Volterra; he also painted many frescoes in Florentine churches.
In 1491 Botticelli was part of a committee to decide the façade of the cathedral of Florence.
The last works so far known by Botticelli are Stories of Lucretia, Stories of Virginia and Life of St. Cenobius (1500-1504). The first two were, according to Giorgio Vasari, intended for the palace of Giovanni Vespucci.
Sandro Botticelli's Last years
It is said that he fell into poverty, and that he would have starved to death had it not been for the diligent help of his former patrons. What is certain is that he continued to produce works, albeit in a more dramatic tone and with a conscious stylistic regression towards ancient models, as can be seen in the series on the Life of St. Cenobius and the Mystical Nativity (1501), considered his last works.
Botticelli created the Florentine type of woman. But Botticelli's love is not known, nor is there any allusion to sentimental excesses; he had a "horror of marriage". He never married. He does seem to have had a close relationship with Simonetta Vespucci, who is portrayed in several of his works and seems to have been the inspiration for many of the female figures in the artist's paintings.
Vasari says that he was an active piagnone ('weeper'; so were called those who had given themselves body and soul to the purifying movement of Girolamo Savonarola); however, despite what Vasari says, he was able to remain in Florence and none of his possessions were confiscated after the fall of the religious leader.
In 1502 he was anonymously denounced for sodomy with one of his assistants, but the charges were later dismissed. In 1502-1505 he appeared as a member of the committee, with Lorenzo di Credi, that was to decide the location of Michelangelo's David.
Of 1502 is his famous writing concerning the realization of a kind of newspaper known as beceri, of a satirical nature, intended for the most part to enliven the reading of the nobles of Renaissance society. Such a project, however, remained just that, never being brought to completion.
He died on May 17, 1510 and was buried in his parish, the church of Ognissanti, in Florence, for which he had realized in 1480 one of his great works, the fresco of St. Augustine. At his death, the only true heir to his art was Filippino Lippi, who shares with him the restlessness present in his last works.
Masterpieces of Sandro Botticelli
He based the themes of his allegorical paintings on the Neoplatonist idealism of the Medici. An example is The Spring, a mature work made around 1478 for the house of Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de Medici, a disciple of Poliziano and Marsilio Ficino, in the city of Florence. It has classical inspiration. But the characters present the reinterpretation of Renaissance thought.
One of his most famous paintings is The Birth of Venus, (1484) with a mythological theme, which is part of the same series made for the Medici, along with The Spring and Pallas and the Centaur. In this work, Botticelli manages to put an end to the problem of how to distribute the figures.
This problem is due to the concept of making the painting a mirror of reality. Botticelli solves it by taking liberties with Nature, in order to give beauty and harmony to the work. This can be seen in the unnatural size of Venus' neck, in the pronounced drop of her shoulders and in the strange way in which her left arm hangs. Thus, Botticelli's art reaches its fullness with The Birth of Venus.
Spring and The Birth of Venus gave Botticelli prestige as an artist. But the most profitable works were his Madonnas. He obtained great wealth thanks to his work.
Sandro Botticelli's Religion
At the end of the 15th century, the Florentine atmosphere changed. Savonarola is the best personification of this change in the atmosphere of the time. This preacher, who in a previous stay had not made an impression on the Florentines,
returned to the city in 1490, and this time his tremendous preaching on the Last Judgment was successful due to a series of circumstances, such as the loss of power suffered by the Medicis due to the Franco-Italian wars, the spread of syphilis, called "French disease", and the atmosphere of millenarianism as the year 1500 approached.
Savonarola, departing from Florence as the New Jerusalem, advocated a sinless humanity, which influenced Florentine painters. Due to his attacks against paganism, the mythological theme practically disappeared.
In 1492 Lorenzo de Medici the Magnificent died. King Charles VIII of France invaded Florence in 1494, expelling Peter de Medici. Savonarola became the leader of the city, establishing a Republic that abhorred all that the Medici represented, such as luxury objects and the pictures painted by Botticelli.
Sandro was intensely religious. In these last years of his life his production was characterized by "restlessness". Giorgio Vasari states that Botticelli was a piagnone ('weeper' or 'weepers'), the name given to the followers of Savonarola, and that he therefore abandoned painting as an earthly vanity.
Today this statement is very much in doubt, considering that he was not a true follower of Savonarola, unlike his brother Simone, with whom the painter lived. What can be affirmed is that in Botticelli's last works one can feel the influence of the climate of political and religious crisis.
His work The Slander of Apelles (1495), an allegorical painting taken from Luciano's De Calumnia and mentioned in Alberti's treatise, dates from the middle of the Republic. The work has been related to Savonarola's preaching. It does not show a composition belonging to the classical model, as it is more characteristic of the medieval past.
The calumny of Apelles shows the crisis present in Savonarola's Republic. This caused him to change his orientation in which he recreated elements of Gothic expressionism. An example of this is the mystical Nativity. This work is the only one signed and dated by Botticelli. He mentions in the inscription that he was inspired by chapter XI of the Apocalypse.
It also shows the change of style he experienced in the Annunciation of Cestello (1489). Work commissioned by Francesco Guardi. On February 7, 1497 Savonarola and his followers carried out the most famous Bonfire of the vanities (Falò delle vanità):
they gathered objects representing moral laxity in order to make them burn in the square of the Signoria. In this bonfire burned a few works by Botticelli. On May 4 of the same year, the papal army put an end to the rule of Savonarola, who died on the 23rd at the stake, surrendered by a large part of the citizens of Florence. However, the intellectual atmosphere had changed irrevocably.
Botticelli's biographer Ernst Steinman investigated the psychological development of the artist through his numerous Virgins. In the "deepening of understanding and expression in the interpretation of Mary's physiognomy," Steinman believes he sees evidence of Savonarola's influence on Botticelli.
This means that the biographer needed to alter the dates of a number of Virgins to support his theory; specifically, he dates them much later than traditionally considered. Steinman takes issue with Vasari's assertion that Botticelli produced nothing after coming under the influence of Savonarola. He believes that the spiritual and emotional Virgins depicted by Sandro come directly from the Dominican friar's preaching.
Vasari attributes to Botticelli a heretical painting of Gnostic character commissioned by Matteo Palmieri in a chapel in San Pietro Maggiore. It is a mistake of Vasari, because the painting, now part of the National Gallery in London, is by the artist Botticini, a mistake of Vasari himself who confused the names of two painters similar in surname.
Later recognition of Sandro Botticelli
He became the leading interpreter of Neoplatonism at the time, with his fusion of Christian and pagan themes and his elevation of aestheticism as a transcendental element in art. To give form to this new vision of the world, Botticelli opted for grace; that is, intellectual elegance and exquisite representation of feelings. In these works the influence of Gothic realism is tempered by Botticelli's study of Antiquity.
But although understandable from a pictorial point of view, the themes themselves remain fascinating in their ambiguity. The complex meanings of these paintings continue to receive scholarly attention, focusing primarily on the poetry and philosophy of the artist's contemporary humanists.
The works do not illustrate a particular text; rather, each draws on several texts for its meaning. About their beauty, characterized by Vasari as exemplifying "grace" and by John Ruskin as possessing linear rhythm, there can be no doubt. Ruskin (1890) considers Botticelli a clear exponent of Christian romanticism.
He is mentioned by Ugolino Verino (1503) in two of his poems dealing with the most illustrious Florentines. Apart from Botticelli, Leonardo da Vinci, Filippino Lippi, Giotto and Antonio Pollaiuolo are also mentioned.
He was forgotten for three centuries, or remembered as a second-rate artist, so he hardly had any influence. However, in the mid-19th century, the so-called Pre-Raphaelites recognized his work.
He began to gain wide acceptance and was recognized as an exceptional artist; inferior to Leonardo in depth of feeling, but not in intensity of expression. Some 19th century critics also felt great admiration for the rediscovered Botticelli, such as Walter Pater, who states that Botticelli "surpassed the limits of his generation by painting like a visionary", Edward Burne-Jones or Bernard Berenson, among others.