50 Fun Facts About The Birth of Venus

Who painted The Birth of Venus?

He probably executed it in the mid-1480s, his most successful decade.

In which city does The Birth of Venus hang?

It hangs in the Uffizi, having arrived from a Medici country villa in the 19th century.

What is Venus standing in as she arrives at the shore?

The impossible size of the shell was borrowed from classical depictions of the same subject.

Which wind god blows Venus toward the shore from the left of the picture?

Lines radiating from his mouth show the wind; he carries a lighter breeze, probably Aura, who blows too.

The woman holding out a cloak on the right is one of which group of minor goddesses?

The flowers on her dress suggest she is the Hour of Spring.

Which land is Venus probably arriving at in the painting?

Both islands were regarded by the Greeks as territories of Venus.

When was the title 'The Birth of Venus' first given to the painting?

Strictly it shows the next scene in the story, the goddess arriving on land, blown by the wind.

What support is the painting on, unusually for Botticelli?

Canvas was cheaper and increasingly popular for secular pictures destined for country villas.

How many pieces of cloth were sewn together to make the painting's support?

They were sewn together before work began, over a gesso ground tinted blue.

What pigment was heavily used for the highlights on hair, wings and the shell?

It seems to have been applied after the painting was already framed.

What was probably used to make the 'cool gray varnish' that finished the painting?

Modern testing also revealed pentimenti: the Hora originally wore low classical sandals.

Which pigment in the painting has darkened badly over time?

The wings and orange-tree leaves are affected; corners hidden by the frame have fared better.

Which classical sculpture type gave the goddess her pose, hands covering breasts and groin?

In ancient art that modest pose was never used for the newborn goddess rising from the sea.

Where was the Venus de' Medici, a marble Botticelli may have studied, recorded by 1559?

It is a first-century BC copy following the Praxitelean type and now stands in the Uffizi too.

Which art historian wrote that Venus's body 'follows the curve of a Gothic ivory'?

He noted she lacks classical aplomb: her weight is not balanced either side of a plumb line, so she floats.

What is anatomically odd about the painted Venus?

Her weight also sits too far over the left leg for the pose to be held, and no figure casts a shadow.

Which freshwater plants in the left foreground are out of place on a sea shore?

Botticelli never painted landscape with much realism, and the trees have gilded highlights.

Which Medici was long thought to have commissioned the painting for the Villa di Castello?

Herbert Horne proposed it in 1908; the theory is now widely doubted.

What discovery, published in 1975, undermined the Medici-commission theory?

Unlike the Primavera, the Birth is absent from the apparently complete list of that branch's art.

Who first mentioned the painting, having seen it at Castello before 1550?

He was himself painting in the villa in 1550 but had very possibly visited it earlier.

In what year were the Birth and the Primavera moved from Castello to the Uffizi?

They had stayed together at the villa ever since they were first united there.

Which trees at the right, echoed in the Hora's wreath, pun on the name Lorenzo?

The airborne flowers evoke the name of the city in the same punning way.

Which ancient text is generally agreed to be the closest precedent for the scene?

It was published in the city in 1488 by the Greek refugee Demetrios Chalkokondyles.

Whose poem Stanze per la giostra, on a Medici joust of 1475, describes a similar scene?

He was Lorenzo de' Medici's court poet; his version has multiple Horae and zephyrs.

Which lost ancient Greek painter's Venus, described by Pliny, was Botticelli emulating?

A 1488 poem by Ugolino Verino hailed Botticelli as a reborn Apelles.

Whom did Alexander the Great supposedly give to the painter who fell for his model?

Pliny records the gift as a gesture of extreme magnanimity.

Which emperor did Pliny say dedicated the lost ancient Venus in the shrine of Julius Caesar?

By Nero's day the picture had rotted and was replaced by one from Dorotheus.

Which Christian scene does the composition of central figure and raised arm echo?

The echo marks the start of Venus's 'ministry' of love, as baptism marked the start of Christ's.

Which Florentine beauty is traditionally, if doubtfully, said to be the model for Venus?

She died aged about 22 in 1476 and was carried through the city in an open coffin.

In which Ligurian town, 'the port of Venus', was Botticelli's supposed model possibly born?

Poliziano wrote that, like Venus, she was born among the waves.

In which Florentine church did Botticelli ask to be buried?

His wish was carried out in 1510; some take it as evidence he had loved Simonetta.

What does the nickname 'Botticelli' mean?

It came from his round-bellied brother Giovanni, called Botticello, and Sandro adopted it by 1470.

To which Florentine painter was Botticelli apprenticed around 1461?

From him he learned intimate compositions with beautiful, melancholic figures.

Where was Botticelli working in 1481-82, his only long spell away from home?

Pope Sixtus IV summoned him and other Florentine and Umbrian artists to fresco the new chapel's walls.

Which friar's followers, the 'piagnoni', did Botticelli reportedly join in the 1490s?

Vasari says he gave up painting as a result; workshop Venuses were probably burned in the Bonfire of the Vanities.

Which 19th-century movement rediscovered Botticelli after centuries of neglect?

His reputation had suffered until the late 1800s.

What is Botticelli's only painting bearing a date, 1501?

It hangs in London's National Gallery.

The Primavera, often paired with the Birth, is painted in which medium on panel?

About 500 plant species have been identified in its meadow, including some 190 flowers.

According to Hesiod, Aphrodite was born from foam produced by whose severed genitals?

Cronus had cut them off and thrown them into the sea off Cythera.

Which courtesan, says Athenaeus, inspired the image of Aphrodite rising from the sea?

She swam nude in the sea during the festivals of the Eleusinia and Poseidonia.

What does the name 'Uffizi' mean, reflecting the building's original purpose?

Vasari began it in 1560 for Cosimo I to house the city's administration; the courtyard is called Europe's first regularised streetscape.

A detail of Venus's face has appeared on which Italian euro coin since 2002?

The coin shows her face and neck ringed by twelve stars.

Which software's splash screen used a stylised detail of Venus's face from 1986 to 2003?

Andy Warhol also screenprinted the image in his Details of Renaissance Paintings series.

Which 2013 pop album used parts of the painting on its cover?

The video for its lead single 'Applause' shows the singer in a blonde wig wearing only shells.

Which 1988 Terry Gilliam film recreates the painting in one scene?

Uma Thurman rose from the shell as Venus in the sequence.

Which pop artist reproduced the painting in his 1984 series Details of Renaissance Paintings?

The portfolio consists of four screenprints in editions of 70, each signed and numbered.

More than a decade later, Botticelli reused the Venus figure as a nude personification of what?

In the Calumny of Apelles the figure points to heaven and gazes upward, giving a very different effect from the goddess on her shell.

Which philosophical school has traditionally dominated scholarly interpretations of the painting?

Plato had argued that contemplating physical beauty helps the mind grasp spiritual beauty; more recent scholars read it as a wedding picture instead.

Some scholars have come to read the painting and the Primavera as what kind of pictures?

On that reading the two works suggest appropriate behaviour for brides and grooms rather than illustrating Neoplatonic doctrine.

Which science-fiction novel by Philip José Farmer takes its title and cover from the painting?

The book was originally published under the name Kilgore Trout, the fictional author invented by Kurt Vonnegut.