Sandro Botticelli was a Florentine master of the early Renaissance. A bit unusual is that he lived most of his life in teh same neighborhood of Florence, Italy. Working with and for the influential family of Lorenzo de Medici has earned Botticelli the reputation of one of the masters of the Golden Age. His use of color, line work, and the softness of the bodies set him apart from his contemporaries. “The Birth of Venus” and “Primavera” are the most famous examples of his depictions of mythological subjects, but he is also well known for his portraits and religious subjects – particularly the Madonna.
“Botticelli is one of the supreme masters of line in the history of painting. His art is the culmination of the linear tradition of the Quattrocento and brings it to a pinnacle of expressiveness.”
McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Art
- Read more about Botticelli’s life and see his works HERE and HERE
- Read more about the fascinating messages in Botticelli’s works HERE
A Gallery of Botticelli’s Work
Birth of Venus 
Primavera 
Portrait of a Young Man Holding a Medallion 
Adoration of the Magi 
Magnificat Madonna 
Calumny of Apelles 
Venus and Mars
Botticelli and Dante’s Inferno
Botticelli was said to have a lifelong fascination with Dante which led to his project of illustrating Dante’s Divine Comedy.
The Divine Comedy Illustrated by Botticelli is a manuscript of the Divine Comedy by Dante, illustrated by 92 full-page pictures by Sandro Botticelli that are considered masterpieces and amongst the best works of the Renaissance painter. The images are mostly not taken beyond silverpoint drawings, many worked over in ink, but four pages are fully coloured. The manuscript eventually disappeared and most of it was rediscovered in the late nineteenth century, having been detected in the collection of the Duke of Hamilton by Gustav Friedrich Waagen, with a few other pages being found in the Vatican Library. Botticelli had earlier produced drawings, now lost, to be turned into engravings for a printed edition, although only the first nineteen of the hundred cantos were illustrated. The Vatican Library has the drawing of the Map Of Hell, and the illustrations for cantos I, IX, X, XII, XIII, XV and XVI of the Inferno. The Map of Hell and the drawing for canto I are drawn on each side of the same goat-skin parchment. The drawings that were in the Berlin museum were separated post-war after the division of Germany, but the collection was re-integrated following reunification. The Berlin Museum houses the rest of the extant illustrations, including the drawing for canto VIII. The sequence of the Inferno drawings for cantos XVII to canto XXX for Paradiso is without gaps. The page for the drawing of canto XXXI appears blank, and the sequence ends with the unfinished drawing for canto XXXII.
Map of Hell 
Dante Alighieri 
Inferno XVIII
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