50 Fun Facts About Botticelli

In which Italian city was Botticelli born, and where did he live all his life?

His only long spells away were months in Pisa in 1474 and Rome in 1481–82.

Which Florentine gallery holds both The Birth of Venus and Primavera?

It holds many of his works; Venus and Mars is the only big mythology elsewhere.

What does the nickname Botticelli mean?

It was first applied to his round-figured brother Giovanni, called Botticello.

What was Botticelli's real surname?

He was born Alessandro di Mariano di Vanni Filipepi, son of a tanner.

To which leading painter, a Medici favourite, was Botticelli apprenticed around 1461?

He later took on his master's son Filippino as his own first apprentice.

On what does Venus stand in The Birth of Venus?

Its size is imaginary; Zephyrus blows her toward the shore while a Hora holds out a cloak.

Which wind god blows Venus ashore in The Birth of Venus?

Lines radiate from his mouth; he carries a lighter breeze Vasari called Aura.

Unlike Primavera, The Birth of Venus was painted on which support?

Two pieces of cheaper canvas were sewn together over a blue-tinted gesso ground.

Which 'modest' antique statue type gave Botticelli's newborn goddess her hand positions?

Kenneth Clark noted her body otherwise follows 'the curve of a Gothic ivory'.

Which famous Florentine beauty is traditionally said to be the model for Venus?

She died at about 22 in 1476; Ruskin convinced himself she had posed nude, which scholars doubt.

Which Ligurian town, 'port of Venus', may be the birthplace of Botticelli's Venus model?

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

What does the title Primavera mean in English?

Vasari first used the name after seeing it at the Villa di Castello by 1550.

Roughly how many plant species have been identified in Primavera?

About 190 different flowers appear, at least 130 of them identifiable.

Which god raises his caduceus toward the clouds at the far left of Primavera?

He is clothed in red with a sword and helmet beside the dancing Three Graces.

In Primavera, which nymph is seized by the wind god and transformed into Flora?

Flowers pour from her mouth to signal the change, following Ovid's Fasti.

What hovers over Venus in the centre of Primavera?

He aims his bow to the left toward the Three Graces.

Which Medici house poet may have helped Botticelli devise Primavera?

The painting draws on Ovid and possibly Lucretius as well as his poem.

Which London institution has owned Venus and Mars since 1874?

It is the only one of his four big mythologies not in the Uffizi.

What insects buzz around the sleeping Mars in Venus and Mars?

Gombrich suggested they stand for the Vespucci, whose name means 'little wasps'.

What creatures play with Mars's armour in Venus and Mars?

One blows a conch shell in his ear, trying and failing to wake him.

What insignia decorates the dress of the female figure in Pallas and the Centaur?

A 1499 inventory listed it with Primavera in Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco's town palace.

What was the female figure in Pallas and the Centaur called in its earliest 1499 record?

A 1516 inventory renamed her Minerva; Frothingham thought she personified Florence.

Which pope summoned Botticelli to Rome in 1481 to fresco the Sistine Chapel?

The Florentine team was part of a peace deal after the Pazzi conspiracy.

How many of the original fourteen large Sistine Chapel scenes did Botticelli paint?

Temptations of Christ, Youth of Moses and Punishment of the Sons of Corah, plus papal portraits.

Which Roman monument is copied in Botticelli's Punishment of the Sons of Corah?

He reused it around 1500 in The Story of Lucretia; he rarely copied antiquities so closely.

Which artist was the first hired for the Sistine walls and probably in overall charge?

Vasari implied Botticelli led the project, but modern historians disagree.

The inscription on The Mystical Nativity places it at the end of which year?

It is his only signed work; he wrote that he painted it 'in the troubles of Italy'.

In what language is the apocalyptic inscription at the top of The Mystical Nativity?

He wrote that he painted it 'in the half-time after the time', expecting the devil to be bound.

Which museum holds The Mystical Nativity?

Seven small devils pierce themselves and sink into the underworld at its foot.

Which Dominican preacher influenced Botticelli's late, austere style?

Vasari claimed he gave up painting as a 'piagnone'; modern scholars do not accept this.

Which poet's work did Botticelli illustrate in a luxury parchment manuscript?

Its 93 surviving pages are split between the Vatican Library and Berlin.

Who engraved Botticelli's designs for the first printed Dante of 1481?

Only 19 of a planned 100 illustrations were engraved, and most copies have just two or three.

Which Florentine family, neighbours of Botticelli, gave their name to the Americas?

They were Medici allies and became regular patrons.

Whom did Botticelli fresco in 1480 for his parish church, facing Ghirlandaio's Jerome?

The open book above him contains scribbled dialogue about Brother Martino going out.

Which conspiracy's hanged leaders did Botticelli paint on the city customs house in 1478?

The 'pittura infamante' was destroyed after the Medici were expelled in 1494.

Which round picture format is especially associated with Botticelli's Madonnas?

He was one of the first to use it, usually painting tondo Madonnas himself.

Which Botticelli tondo shows Mary writing down a speech from the Gospel of Luke?

Her wingless angels look just like fashionably dressed Florentine youths.

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

His Madonnas were then forged on a considerable scale.

In which Adoration of the Magi (c. 1475) did Botticelli include the Medici and himself?

Cosimo, Piero, Giovanni, Lorenzo and Giuliano appear; he stands at front right.

Which Medici brother was assassinated in the 1478 Pazzi conspiracy?

Lorenzo narrowly escaped, saved by his bank manager.

Botticelli's earliest securely dated painting, of 1470, depicts which virtue?

It completed a set of Seven Virtues left unfinished by Piero del Pollaiuolo.

In 1504 Botticelli sat on a committee deciding where to place which sculpture?

Isabella d'Este's agent had found him 'free to start at once' two years earlier.

Which ancient Greek painter's lost allegory did Botticelli recreate around 1494?

The Calumny of Apelles may have been intended for his own use.

What did a fiery Dominican preacher say the Virgin looked like in Florentine churches?

The remark may have pushed Botticelli's late Madonnas toward austerity.

Where in Berlin were three Botticellis stored when they burned in May 1945?

Madonna and Child with Angels Carrying Candlesticks was among the losses.

Which Boccaccio story did Botticelli paint on four panels for a Pucci wedding in 1483?

It comes from the eighth novel of the fifth day of the Decameron.

Which Florentine church, his parish, was Botticelli buried beside?

He died in May 1510; Vasari claimed he was 78, but he was probably under 70.

Which younger rival 'scoffed at Botticelli's landscapes' and left for Milan in 1481?

Leonardo was seven years his junior; Botticelli's late style moved the opposite way.

What was Botticelli's father's trade?

He later became a gold-beater; Vasari said Sandro first trained as a goldsmith.

At the 1475 joust, a Botticelli banner showed la bella Simonetta as which figure?

The French motto beneath read La Sans Pareille, 'The Unparalleled One'.