Born about 1445 in Florence, Italy, painter to the powerful Florentine Medici family, who are thought to have commissioned ‘The Birth of Venus’. This painting can be viewed as an allegory on the birth of beauty in the mind of man. According to ancient myth, Venus was born from the sea, fertilised by the severed genitals of the God Saturn. Botticelli painted with depth of feeling and a delicate linear style, producing this magical investigation of the unreal. Died in Florence, 1510.
