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BOTTICELLISANDRO

Frank Zöllner

PrestelMunich · London · New York


I Early Work 9

II Initial Success in Florence 29

III Botticelli as Portraitist 47

IV Primavera and her Counterpart: Camilla and the Centaur 65

V Botticelli as Frescoist in Rome:The Sistine Chapel 85

Contents

Foreword 6


VI Violence against Woman: The Tale of Nastagio degli Onesti 101

VII The Later Mythology Paintings 119

VIII Late Altarpieces 143

IX The Late Work: The End of Time and the End of Art? 161

Catalogue of Paintings 182

The Drawings 281

Bibliographical Credits 297

Bibliography 299

Index of Works 309

Index 312


When this book was first published in 2005, it was aimed primarily at

emphasizing the genre-specific and socio-historical approaches in the study of

Sandro Botticelli’s oeuvre. It also took a closer look at Botticelli in relation to

the prevailing art theories of his day and the religious upheavals of the late

fifteenth century. For these reasons, special consideration was given not only to

the widely analysed mythology paintings, but also to Botticelli’s achievements

as a creator of portraits and altarpieces. Moreover, the publication was intended

to shed light on the specific visual intelligence of Botticelli’s works.

Some of the issues addressed in the book have since been further

elucidated by other scholars. Damian Dombrowski, for instance, has published

an essay on the Lamentation of Christ in S. Paolino (cat. 68) that supports the

findings outlined in chapter VIII regarding Botticelli’s significance as an inno -

vative force in Florentine altarpiece painting. He proposes that the Lamentation

of Christ was actually painted as early as the 1480s as a high-altar sacramental

altarpiece and that the Annunciation (cat. 60), now in New York, originally

formed part of the predella.

Furthermore, substantial new research on Botticelli has recently been

published in a conference transcript edited by Rab Hatfield. The papers include

Jonathan Nelson’s exploration of Botticelli’s authorship of a Madonna currently

in the Uffizi (inv. 1898, no. 504), with a frame still bearing the heraldic device of

the Arte del Cambio. Another paper by Barbara Deimling posits that the

painting widely known as Minerva and the Centaur (cat. 38) is more likely a

depiction of "Camilla and the Centaur", based on the specifically Medicean-

Tuscan nuptial iconography of the painting and its appeal to virtue. In yet

another noteworthy contribution, Louis Waldman examines a late altarpiece

from the workshop of Botticelli and presents archival evidence that not only

dates the large-scale Pentecost (cat. 71) to the year 1505 but also identifies the

patron as the Compagnia dello Spirito Santo di Montelupo. Such a precise

revision of the dating of a major altarpiece is of considerable significance to our

understanding of Botticelli’s later work, especially given the dearth of other

reliably dated paintings or contracts from the artist’s final years.

Recent research into new sources also forms the core of an essay by Gert

Jan van der Sman on the Villa Tornabuoni frescoes (cat. 49). Based on a 1498

inventory of the Villa, together with other source material, the author has been

able to demonstrate definitively that the frescoes in question were indeed

commissioned by Giovanni Tornabuoni to mark the marriage of his son

Lorenzo Tornabuoni to Giovanna degli Albizzi in September 1486. What still

remains unclear, however, is why there is such a discrepancy between Botticelli’s

portrayal of Giovanna and the portrait of her painted by Domenico Ghirlandaio

(Madrid, Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection).

Forewordto the revised new edition


The essay about the Villa Tornabuoni frescoes also points out the limited

methodological value of a purely philological interpretation of Botticelli’s

mythology paintings.

One of the main theses in the present, revised publication is that social

mobility, genealogical disadvantage, dynastic hierarchies and the violation of

established norms are key elements in the interpretation of non-religious

Renaissance paintings. A similar approach is taken by Bettina Uppenkamp in

her essay on the panels depicting The Tale of Nastagio degli Onesti (cat. 47).

Another interesting essay relating to the non-religious paintings is one by

Jonathan Nelson, who notes that the Botticelli paintings intended as spalliere, to

be integrated into the wooden panelling of a secular room (cats. 37–38, 47,

86–87), were specifically composed to be viewed from below.

Finally, a number of monographic studies of Botticelli have been

published in recent months. Hans Körner draws similar conclusions in his

comprehensive treatment of a broad range of issues in the study of Botticelli and

the key themes of Renaissance art. The methodologically narrower approach

taken by Alessandro Cecchi in his sumptuous publication, on the other hand,

presents new archival material pertaining to the circle around Botticelli that

sheds some light on the artists in his workshop and on his role as a draftsman for

other artists. Unfortunately, his book is, at best, selective in its treatment of

recent interpretations of Botticelli’s paintings. That is regrettable, for it is, above

all, the visually innovative way in which Botticelli’s works convey their subject

matter that has made them a cornerstone of the art historical canon.

Frank Zöllner · Leipzig, May 2009

Alessandro Cecchi, Botticelli, Milan 2005.

Damian Dombrowski, ‘Botticellis ‘Beweinung Christi’ in der Alten Pinakothek. Aufgabe, Kontext und

Rekons truktion eines Florentiner Altarretabels zur Zeit Savonarolas’, in Wallraf-Richartz-Jahrbuch 69,

2008, pp. 169–210.

Rab Hatfield (ed.), Botticelli Studies, Florence 2009 (including essays by Deimling, Nelson, Waldman).

Hans Körner, Botticelli, Cologne 2006.

Jonathan K. Nelson, ‘Putting Botticelli and Filippino in their Place: the Intended Height of Spalliera Paintings

and Tondi’, in Invisible agli occhi. Atti della giornata di studio in ricordo di Lisa Venturini, edited by Nicoletta

Baldini, Florence 2007, pp. 53–63.

Jan Gert van der Sman, ‘Sandro Botticelli at Villa Tornabuoni and a nuptial poem by Naldo Naldi’, in Mit -

teilungen des Kunsthistorischen Institutes in Florenz 51, 2007 (2008), pp. 159–186.

Bettina Uppenkamp, ‘Ein Alptraum von Liebe. Botticellis Bildtafeln zur Geschichte des Nastagio degli Onesti’,

in Hegener, Nicole /Lichte, Claudia /Marten, Bettina (eds.), Curiosa Poliphili. Festgabe für Horst Bredekamp

zum 60. Geburtstag, Leipzig 2007, pp. 230–238.


I Early Work


Alessandro di Mariano di Vanno Filipepi, better known as Sandro

Botticelli, was born in Florence in the year 1444 or 1445. As the youngest son of

a tanner called Mariano Filipepi, the artist came from a humble background and,

for him, like many others, the craft of painting offered an opportunity of

modest social improvement. Mariano Filipepi and his wife Smeralda had eight

children, only four of whom survived beyond childhood. One of them was the

young Alessandro. The family lived in the district of Santa Maria Novella,

where, in 1433, Alessandro’s father rented a house in the Borgo Ognissanti from

a cloth merchant called Durante. And so Sandro Botticelli spent his formative

years in a neighbourhood on the edge of town that was home to many cloth-

making and weaving workshops, and was the site of the Ognissanti convent run

by the Umiliati order.

In 1458 the family moved to the Via della Vigna Nuova nearby, where

Sandro was to live for the rest of his life. The artist’s relatively stable and

uneventful life is reflected in the fact that, throughout his career, his clientele

was predominantly from the area. Among his earliest patrons was the family of

the notary Ser Nastagio Vespucci – the very same family as that of the explorer

Amerigo Vespucci to whom America owes its name. Indeed, it may well have

been the Vespucci family who first introduced Botticelli to the city’s most

influential family, the Medici. Botticelli’s career, unlike that of the High

Renaissance artists Leonardo, Raphael or Michelangelo, was founded mainly on

commissions from local patrons. Of all the Florentine artists who worked only

in their home city, Botticelli was one of the very few, if not the only one, to

achieve lasting international fame.

Botticelli’s career began like that of many other

painters. After rudimentary schooling, he began an apprentice-

ship at the age of thirteen. According to his father’s income tax

statement, the young Sandro was a sickly lad. Moreover, as

Giorgio Vasari noted in his sixteenth-century Lives of the

Artists, he showed little interest in his lessons:

“He was the son of Mariano Filipepi, a Florentine citizen, who

raised him very conscientiously and had him instructed in all

those things usually taught to young boys during the years

before they were placed in the shops. And although the boy

learned everything he wanted to quite easily, he was never -

theless restless; he was never satisfied in school with reading,

writing and arithmetic. Disturbed by the boy’s whimsical

mind, his father in desperation placed him with a goldsmith, a

friend of his named Botticello, a quite competent master of

that trade in those days.”

Previous page

Virgin and Child with the Young John the Baptist,

detail, c. 1468 (cat. 3)

FEDERIGO FANTOZZI, Plan of Florence, 1841,

detail: Borgo Ognissanti and Via della Vigna Nuova

10 I Early Work


As Vasari’s biographies are not always to be taken too literally, it is quite

possible that he merely invented Botticelli’s early departure from school to

make the story a little more interesting. The suggestion that he abandoned his

regular studies is perfectly in keeping with a perception, already circulating

at that time, of artists as individuals who eschew conventional schooling and

indeed have no need of it because their innate talents have marked them out for

greater things. Generations of artists and art critics have continued to embrace

this cliché, more or less consciously, to this very day, by valuing natural talent

above academic training.

At any rate, it was probably some time around 1459, shortly after leav-

ing school, that Sandro Botticelli embarked on his apprenticeship as a goldsmith

– a craft that required neither mathematical skills nor any great degree of physi-

cal fitness. According to various sources, it was during his time among the gold-

smiths that he earned the nickname Botticelli, meaning ‘little barrel’. It may

originally have been applied to his brother Antonio, also a goldsmith, and then

passed on to the younger Sandro, but it is more likely that it was first attributed

to another brother, Giovanni.

Sandro’s initial training as a goldsmith was probably influenced by his

brother Antonio’s career choice. Goldsmithing was a highly-regarded craft in

the mid-fifteenth century, for it combined the use of the most precious of all

materials with a high degree of design skills and aesthetic appreciation. It was

therefore no coincidence that many leading architects, sculptors and painters of

the fifteenth century had begun by practising this prestigious craft – among

them the sculptor Lorenzo Ghiberti, the architect Michelozzo, and the painters

and sculptors Antonio del Pollaiuolo and Andrea del Verrocchio. This phenom-

enon applied mainly to the generation of artists born before the middle of the

century. After that, there seems to have been a decline in the number of gold-

smiths, as evidenced in a tax statement submitted by the painter and sculptor

Andrea del Verrocchio, who explains his change of profession by citing a lack of

business in his chosen trade. Another factor, perhaps more important still, may

have been the increasing prestige enjoyed at the time by the fine arts. The social

status of sculptors and painters had improved greatly since the beginning of the

fifteenth century, which surely facilitated the kind of career change made by

artists like Verrocchio. The enhanced status of painters and sculptors was due on

the one hand to the social demands formulated by the artists themselves in their

writings (as in Lorenzo Ghiberti’s Commentarii of the mid-century and

Leonardo da Vinci’s treatise on painting towards the end). On the other hand, it

stemmed from the humanist art theories that sought to accord a new and higher

value to the fine arts, especially since Leon Battista Alberti’s (1404–72) treatise

On Painting of 1435/36.

Adoration of the Magi (del Lama Adoration),

detail with self-portrait of Botticelli, c. 1475

(cat. 23)

I Early Work 11


In the goldsmiths’ workshop, Botticelli learned the basics of drawing

and it may have been through this that he discovered his love of painting, which

he eventually chose to pursue instead. His change of career may also have

been linked to the fact that his brother Antonio had given up goldsmithing to

become a dealer in gold leaf and a gold-beater. Giorgio Vasari explained this

rather surprising change of direction as follows:

“In that period, very close relations and almost a constant intercourse existed

between goldsmiths and painters, and because of this, Sandro, who was a clever

boy and had taken a fancy to painting, turned completely to the art of design

and decided to devote himself to it. Thus, he confided in his father, who recog-

nized the boy’s aptitude and took him to Fra Filippo, an illustrious painter of

the period, at the Carmine, and arranged for him to teach Sandro, just as the boy

himself desired. Sandro therefore put all of his energies into learning this craft;

he followed and imitated his master in such a way that Fra Filippo grew fond of

him and taught him so thoroughly that he soon reached a level no one would

have expected.”

From Vasari’s biography and surviving contemporary documents we

know with some certainty that Botticelli entered the workshop of Filippo Lippi,

the leading Florentine painter of his day, in 1461 or 1462. There, he mainly

undertook small private commissions, such as small-scale Madonna portrayals

(left, and cat. nos. 1– 4) of the kind produced by Filippo and his workshop (see

pp. 14 and 17). Through his teacher, and undoubtedly aided by the neighbour-

hood contacts mentioned above, Botticelli was soon rubbing shoulders with the

city’s most important art patrons.

It must have been no later than 1467, when Filippo Lippi was called to

Prato, north of Florence, to paint a fresco in the cathedral with scenes from the

lives of St John and St Stephen, that the young Botticelli broke away from the

painterly style of his master’s workshop. By 1470, Botticelli was certainly run-

ning his own workshop in his father’s house, as documented in the Ricordanze

of the Florentine citizen Benedetto Dei. Finally, in 1472, Botticelli became a

member of the Compagnia di San Luca. Membership of this guild of painters

was indispensable for any painter wishing to practise his craft on a long-term

basis. As the owner of a workshop in which Filippino Lippi, the son of his for-

mer teacher, also took up work, Botticelli received his first major commission,

and the earliest that is securely documented, in June 1470: two panel paintings

of the Virtues for the meeting hall of the Florentine court of commerce, of

which Botticelli only painted one.

As with other artists of the quattrocento, there is little reliable infor-

mation available about the early work of Sandro Botticelli. There is no docu-

mentary evidence for his authorship of the works created before 1470 and their

attribution to him is based on their being recognisably in his personal style.

Individual style was gaining ground in the fifteenth century as an identifiable

Virgin and Child with an Angel, 1466/67 (cat. 1)

12 I Early Work


mode of personal composition. Artists and patrons alike appear to have been

becoming increasingly aware of this factor. The actual term ‘style’ (stilus, stile)

was not yet in use, but a number of other more or less interchangeable terms

meaning much the same thing were indeed applied, such as maniera, aria or

foggia. The first testament to this growing awareness of style in the early mod-

ern age to be penned by a practising artist was the Libro d’arte written around

1400 by the Tuscan painter Cennino Cennini. In his Libro dell’Arte, or Craft-

man’s Handbook, Cennini sets out guidelines for artistic training, developing

what might be described as a somewhat simplistic description of individual style

when he makes recommendations to apprentices on how to learn drawing from

the example of skilled masters:

“Having now practised drawing for a while as I have taught you above, that is,

on a little panel, take pains and pleasure in constantly copying the best things

which you can find done by the hand of great masters. And if you are in a place

where many good masters have been, so much the better for you. But I give you

this advice: take care to select the best one every time, and the one who has the

greatest reputation. And, as you go on from day to day, it will be against nature

if you do not get some grasp of his style and of his spirit. For if you undertake

to copy after one master today and after another one tomorrow, you will not

acquire the style of either one or the other, and you will inevitably, through

enthusiasm, become capricious, because each style will be distracting your

mind. You will try to work in this man’s way today, and in the other’s tomor-

row, and so you will not get either of them right. If you follow the course of one

man through constant practice, your intelligence would have to be crude indeed

for you not to get some nourishment from it. Then you will find, if nature has

granted you any imagination at all, that you will eventually acquire a style indi-

vidual to yourself, and it cannot help being good; because your hand and your

mind, being always accustomed to gather flowers, would ill know how to pluck

thorns.”

Cennini uses the words maniera and aria to describe what we would

now call individual style. While admitting that good style results from conscien-

tious emulation of skilled masters, he warns against the confusion that may be

caused by pursuing too many different styles. With a little imagination, he

points out, it is possible to develop one’s own maniera. Cennini uses the terms

maniera and aria fairly loosely, but a glance at their etymological development

indicates that aria was generally used to describe the overall nature of the work,

while maniera tended to describe the visible traces of the brushwork and the

artist’s technical approach.

The individual and the personal as elements constituting style are also

stressed by the sculptor Lorenzo Ghiberti (1378–1455) around 1450 when he

says that there are things one cannot learn – such as the gratiosa aria, or gracious

style, that is the natural talent of an artist. Style, then, is based on a natural talent

I Early Work 13


that needs some training, though the training should not impinge on the per-

sonal expression in the artwork.

The significance of personal style as described by Cennino Cennini,

Lorenzo Ghiberti and later by other artists such as Filarete is particularly evi-

dent in the work of Botticelli. When Giovanni Morelli sought to establish

stylistic analysis as a scientific method of art history in the nineteenth century

and, with that, to rationalise the previously more ‘atmospherically’ justified

attributions of Renaissance paintings, it was surely no coincidence that he

should have taken Botticelli as his prime example in a critique of style. Of the

artists born around 1450, Botticelli seemed to him a particularly appropriate

model by which to elucidate the nature of personal style and demonstrate the

possibility of distinguishing the hand of a certain artist from another with a

close affinity.

The early Madonnas attributed to Botticelli do indeed reveal stylistic

elements that recall the compositional formulae of his teacher Filippo Lippi and

his workshop on the one hand, while differing from them on the other hand in

some details of formal vocabulary and, with that, in presenting a recognisable

individual style.

The development of individual stylistic elements in Botticelli’s paintings

can be discerned, for instance, in the facial types and shading. Reliably docu-

mented works such as Fortitudo (page 31) or those that have been uncontestably

ascribed to Botticelli, such as his Virgin and Child with Two Angels, known as

the Naples Madonna (opposite page, cat.15), show harsher shading that creates a

relievo effect distinct from comparable works by Filippo Lippi. The handling

of space is also noteworthy (cat. nos14–16), with that of Botticelli differing

clearly from that of his teacher.

The development of individual stylistic elements can also be seen in

Botticelli’s faces, which appear to be less squat or compact than those of his

teacher. Further obvious differences can be found in the portrayal of physiog-

nomic details. For example, whereas Filippo’s Madonnas (left) tend to have a

rosy complexion, those of Botticelli often possess a darker shading of the facial

flesh tones (opposite page), while the contours of the lower and upper lip are

both harder and more curvaceous than those of his teacher (page 16). There are

differences, too, in some of the smaller details: Botticelli gave the fingernails and

toenails of his figures a highly distinctive dark contour, and he tended to lend

the hair of the Virgin, the Christ Child and John the Baptist a firmer consistency

by bundling and thickening the strands (pages 8, 12). What is more, unlike

Filippo, Botticello did not apply delicate highlighting to the surface of the hair.

It is this obser vation, in particular, that leads us to surmise that the Virgin and

Child with an Angel in the Ospedale degli Innocenti in Florence (page 12, cat.1),

though closely related to a compositional formula of Filippo Lippi’s, is actually

by Botticelli.

Opposite page

Virgin and Child with Two Angels,

c. 1470–72 (cat. 15)

FILIPPO LIPPI, Virgin and Child, c. 1467–69,

tempera on panel, 76.3 x 54.2 cm,

Munich, Alte Pinakothek

14 I Early Work


I Early Work 15


We have a fairly precise idea of the function, dis -

tribution and presentation of Botticelli’s early Madonnas

and those by other artists. Detailed analyses of household

inventories tell us of villas and palazzi where at least one

and sometimes even several Madonnas were displayed in

almost each and every room. In terms of function, the many

Madonnas of the fifteenth century were domestic devo-

tional images intended to encourage the religious contem-

plation of the people who lived in the house. Judging by the

surviving works, we assume that the domestic devotional

painting enjoyed enormous popularity in the fifteenth cen-

tury, partly because of the continuing upsurge of Late

Mediaeval piety that saw the Virgin Mary as the intercessor

between the divine and the mortal, and partly because of the

building boom in the fifteenth century that fuelled a

demand for works of art as a prestigious statement of wealth

and status, which, in turn, had consequences for the criteria

by which their quality was appraised. Until the middle of

the century, for instance, Madonna portrayals and indeed

many other paintings often had sumptuous gilded back-

grounds. In the large-scale frescos of the fourteenth and

fifteenth centuries, an alternative to this expensive material

was sought on grounds of both cost and painterly tech-

nique. Instead of gold, there were landscape backgrounds

and architectural settings, both of which were already used

by Filippo Lippi, and had become standard practice in the

work of Botticelli. This change spawned new possibilities of

artistic composition and new criteria for evaluating art.

Whereas the gold ground had been appreciated primarily for its material value, a

well-painted landscape background was judged on the merits of its complexity

and the talent of the artist. Leon Battista Alberti responded to precisely this

situation in his treatise On Painting, in which he criticises the lavish use of gold

in the works of contemporary painters.

Filippo Lippi had fully exploited the various possibilities of background

composition in his works, but it was with some reservations that his pupil Bot-

ticelli followed him in this. In the earliest work attributed to Botticelli, the

young artist adopted the compositional formulae of his teacher only for the

foreground figures. This can be seen, for instance, in a comparison between the

Uffizi Madonna by Filippo Lippi (page 15) and the first Madonna paintings

(cat. nos 1, 2, 4, 6) by Botticelli (page 12): instead of a landscape, Botticelli has

chosen to paint an architectural background with a round-arched window

aperture flanked by columns. Botticelli may have observed the golden capitals

Madonna del Roseto (Virgin and Child), c. 1470

(cat. 12)

16 I Early Work


of the columns and the simple decor in the home of his patron and deliberately

introduced this into the painting. Similarly, the cushion at the lower edge of the

painting and the hint of an armrest on the chair of the Madonna, may also be a

reference to the real world of the beholder.

Just as domestic accessories or familiar architectural elements pointed to

the world beyond the painting, so too did the intermediary figures in the picture

create a form of contact with the viewer. Often, there is an angel or occasionally

a John the Baptist gazing directly at the believer who is looking at the picture

(page 11). So, apart from the Virgin Mary as the intercessor par excellence, there

are further compositional elements that underscore the function of the domestic

devotional image as a medium in the sense of its enabling an intimate approach

to the divine. Just how direct the relationship between the holy figure in the

painting and the spectator was meant to be is documented in an early fifteenth

century source. In his 1403 treatise on the education of children, Regola del gov-

erno di cura familiare, the Dominican preacher Giovanni Dominici wrote:

“As the first rule, you should take the following advice. Ensure that in your

house there are pictures of saintly youths or virgins. These should delight your

child, still in infancy, as much as any playmate, for in these pictures the child

will find an expression of his own needs. The picture as a whole should there-

fore be appropriate and appealing to a child of that age. . . . It would also be

advisable to have a portrayal of the Christ Child suckling at the mother’s breast

or asleep on her lap. Moreover, the Infant Jesus should be shown full of good-

ness and obedience towards His mother. Your child might also see itself in the

figure of John the Baptist going out into the desert as a child, in the rough cloak

of camel hair, . . . These and similar images would, with their mother’s milk,

instil in them [the children] love and virtue, devotion to Christ, a hatred of sins,

disdain for vanity and disgust for sad and bloody conflict, while leading them,

by example of looking at images of the saints, towards contemplation of the Sa -

viour. As you know, the images of angels and saints is conducive to the spiritual

edification of the young, who are at the very beginning of their education. [. . .]

If, however, you are unwilling or unable to obtain so many pictures as would

make your house seem like a church, then you should have the nursemaid take

the children frequently to church at a time when there are not too many people

there or when there is no mass being celebrated, to avoid the child’s attention

being drawn entirely to the crowds. But should you have images created for

your house for this purpose, then you ought to pay attention to the following:

leave aside the golden and silver ornamentation, for otherwise the little children

might become idolaters before they become familiar with the Christian faith.”

Botticelli’s Madonnas with their painstakingly rendered details are

exemplary illustrations of the direct impact of images as described by Dominici.

Even the lack of adornment demanded by Dominici can be found in the artist’s

early Madonnas.

FILIPPO LIPPI, Virgin and Child, c. 1465,

tempera on panel, 95 x 63.5 cm,

Florence, Galleria degli Uffizi

I Early Work 17


Botticelli’s early work quite clearly shows the process of his gradual

emancipation from his teacher’s visual formulae, though these still continue to

surface in his paintings until well into the 1470s. One example of this is the

Virgin and Child with Two Angels (page 15) now in Naples. As in Filippo’s

Madonna in the Uffizi (page 17) Botticelli, too, uses the figure of the angel to

vary the ways in which the Christ Child is presented. Moreover, as in Filippo’s

Munich Madonna (c. 1467– 69, page 14) there is also a little temple among the

rocky hills of the background that recalls the architectural design of the Floren-

tine proto-Renaissance (page 15, cat.10). Botticelli may have retained this type

partly because the temple in the mountains is a reference to the Old Testament

prophecy of Isaiah (2:2–4) that says: “And it shall come to pass in the last days,

that the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established in the top of the

mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow unto it.

And many people shall go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain

of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways,

and we will walk in his paths.”

While the Christ Child is presented in the foreground as the Redeemer,

the temple in the background points to a promise yet to be fulfilled. This is not

only a prophecy of righteousness, but also an illustration of the problem of

temporality.

The temple in the mountains represents the bygone age of the Old

Testament and is at the same time a pointer towards the future, whereas the

foreground, with the Redeemer, refers to the age of the New Testament. The

viewer standing in front of the painting can grasp his or her own reality as a

continuation of this temporal axis: the Old Testament Age in the background is

followed by the New Testament Age with the Redeemer, whose works ideally

continue into the present time. In this way, the painting constitutes the continu-

ity of the biblical age into the present time of the viewer’s own life. In otherAdoration of the Magi, c. 1470 (cat. 9)

18 I Early Work


words, the iconography, time structure and interaction with the viewer in Botti-

celli’s Madonnas are far more complex than one might suppose at first glance.

It is not difficult to grasp the religious function and cultic value of the

Madonnas in Botticelli’s early work. Yet these paintings, even in Botticelli’s own

day, were already appreciated as works of art that were considered a luxury or at

least a prestigious ornamentation. They represent a certain taste or expectation

on the part of the patron, who increasingly began to judge the artistic value of

a work according to the skill and judgment of the artist. This artistic value is

obvious in one painting that is rather untypical of Botticelli’s early work: the

unfinished Adoration of the Magi (opposite page) now in London. The painting

has an unusually broad format, and on the left we see the throng that forms the

entourage of the Three Magi, while the actual Adoration scene is pushed to the

right-hand edge. Apart from the sheer number of figures, one of the most

striking characteristics in this painting is the otherwise unassuming rock forma-

tion in the background, just to the right of centre. Its composition is inspired by

Jan van Eyck’s Saint Francis Receiving the Stigmata, which was held in a collec-

tion in Florence between 1470 and 1472. Variations on this painting are now in

museums in Turin and Philadelphia (right). In the painting by Jan van Eyck, the

rock at the right-hand edge of the picture had a specific meaning: Saint Francis

received the stigmata in 1224 in the remote mountains of Alverna or La Vernia

in Central Italy and in the face of cleft rocks. The clefts in the rocks are intended

as analogies with the wounds of Christ and, as such, with the stigmata of Saint

Francis. This, at least, is the traditional interpretation. In Botticelli’s painting the

rocks have no direct religious symbolism. For him, they were merely a compos -

itionally interesting piece of background decor whose significance was rooted in

the artistic value of van Eyck’s work. Flemish painting was held in high esteem

in Florence at this time and many artists looked to it as a source of inspiration.

Florentine collectors delighted in the consummate rendering of natural detail by

the Northern Europeans. What is more, this imported art also reflected the

cosmopolitan trading connections of the wealthy Florentine merchants. So

when Botticelli copied a detail from one of these paintings, he was demonstrat-

ing his familiarity with the coveted products of the northern masters and his

knowledge of their artistic system of references. In other words, the inclusion of

this detail not only underscores the cultic value of the painting, but its artistic

merit as well.

Young artists often honed their skills on small-scale religious works.

They had clearly defined bounds of convention and could draw upon tried and

tested visual formulae. Things became a little more complicated when it came to

unusual formats such as the London Adoration (in which Botticelli clearly had

some problems getting the proportions of the figures right) or if the subject

matter was out of the ordinary. It was this latter factor that showed whether

an artist was ready and able to leave the well-trodden paths and invent new

JAN VAN EYCK, Saint Francis Receiving the Stigmata,

c. 1428/1429 (?), oil on panel 28 x 33 cm,

Turin, Galleria Sabauda

I Early Work 19


compositional formulae to convey new themes. Botticelli found himself facing

just such a challenge to his own powers of invention several times in the course

of his long career as an artist – for instance in his Dante illustrations and his

mythology paintings. A first glimpse of Botticelli’s innovative prowess can be

gleaned from his two panels depicting the story of Judith, now in the Uffizi in

Florence, which mark a high point in his early work (pages 24, 25). Instead of

looking to the example of, say, Donatello’s Judith (page 82) with its psycho -

machic formula, in which the heroine stands triumphant over the defeated foe,

Botticelli took two details from the story and portrayed them on two separate

panels. In fact, he left out the greater part of the story, which are briefly reiter-

ated here: The army of the Assyrian King Nebuchadnezzar and his military

leader Holofernes confronted the Israelites before the gates of the city of Bethu-

lia and threatened to destroy them. The beautiful and virtuous Jewish widow

Judith, determined to vanquish the enemy with the weapons of a woman and the

help of God, stole into the Assyrian camp, pretended she had defected to their

side, seduced Holofernes and then, while he lay in a drunken stupor, beheaded

him with his own sword. Botticelli does not actually portray any of this in the

two little paintings – one shows Judith on the way back to Bethulia, while the

other shows the body of Holofernes being discovered, as described in the Book

of Judith (14:14 –18)

“And Bagoas went in, and knocked at the outer door of the tent; for he sup-

posed that he [Holofernes] was sleeping with Judith.

15

But when none harkened to him, he opened it, and went into the bed chamber,

and found him cast upon the threshold dead, and his head had been taken from

him.

16

And he cried with a loud voice, with weeping and groaning and a mighty cry,

and rent his garments.

17

And he entered into the tent where Judith lodged: and he found her not, and

he leaped to the people, and cried aloud:

18

The slaves have dealt treacherously: one woman of the Hebrews hath brought

shame upon the house of King Nebuchadnezzar; for, behold, Holofernes lieth

upon the ground, and his head is not on him.”

With their leader decapitated, the Assyrian army lost its nerve and fled

in disarray, becoming easy prey for the Israelites, who now attacked (seen in the

background of the first panel) to destroy the enemy.

As the precise reason for the production of these two works is not

known, we may consider a number of possible interpretations. One might be

that they were intended to illustrate the Old Testament story in the light of

Pages 20/21, 22

Adoration of the Magi, detail, c. 1470 (cat.ž9)

Page 24

Return of Judith to Bethulia, c. 1469/70

(cat. 7a)

Page 25

Discovery of the Dead Holofernes, c. 1469/70

(cat. 7b)

I Early Work 23


24 I Early Work


I Early Work 25


the contemporary political situation, for Judith was a figure associated with

republican tendencies in Florence. She was regarded as a virtuous heroine,

victorious over the tyranny and arrogance personified by Holofernes. However,

it seems unlikely that two such small collectors’ panels as these would have been

seen as the most suitable medium for conveying a political message. Recent

sociological and art historical research findings propose a more plausible ex -

planation. They suggest that the virtuous heroine Judith was also regarded as an

image of female dominance in an otherwise thoroughly patriarchal society.

Portrayals of triumphant heroines illustrating a reversal of roles were indeed

widely associated with weddings, especially on the commemorative plates

presented to mothers shortly after the birth of a child. These gifts marked

pregnancy and birth as a sphere of female dominance and, with that, as a tempo-

rary role reversal in which male dominance was suspended. The stories of

Samson and Delilah or Aristotle and Phyllis, in which the woman completely

domi nates the man, were vehicles for the portrayal of this situation. In the

appropriate context, the story of Judith’s victory over Holofernes belongs in the

same category. Corresponding illustrations can be found on several copies of the

so-called ‘Otto Prints’. These were copperplate engravings produced to dec -

orate boxes or caskets that were presented as bridal gifts. One surviving example

of this genre (left) features a rather dreamy-looking Judith with the vanquished

Holofernes and a heraldic device. Botticelli’s panels may also have been

intended as just such portrayals of female dominance. His later painting of

Camilla and the Centaur was to fulfil the same role, as a pendant to the

Primavera.

There is no direct precursor to the panel showing the discovery of

Holofernes’ decapitated body. For this portrayal, Botticelli combined several

well known scenes: the two groups of Assyrians in the background are related

to similar groups in Adoration scenes. However, whereas in the Adoration they

express astonishment at the birth of the Saviour, here they express astonishment

at the murder of their leader. The almost naked body of Holofernes recalls the

nude portrayals of classical tomb reliefs, though there is no single precise ex -

ample that could be cited here as a direct source. In the panel showing Judith

returning to Bethulia, Botticelli used another well-known classical type of

figure. Judith and her maid resemble the chaste and youthful nymphs dressed in

fluttering robes that are to be found in the reliefs of classical sarcophagi.

Nymphs were girl-like figures who lived in springs, rivers and grottoes, and

watched over the fertility and life spirits of nature. In the quattrocento they

became something of an obsession among painters and sculptors, and are

frequently found in both secular and religious paintings of the Florentine Ren-

aissance.

Apart from gracefulness, the nymphs had another quality. They were

also related to the maenads, young female followers of Bacchus, brimming with

ANON., print of Judith and Holofernes,

c. 1470, copperplate engraving

26 I Early Work


sacred ire, who tended to wreak violence, as they did on Orpheus and Pentheus.

The formal re-adoption of these violent young women into Christian iconogra-

phy can be traced back to Botticelli’s teacher Filippo Lippi, whose portrayal of

Salome in his frescos for Prato Cathedral uses a similar pattern of classical mae-

nads. The maenadic nymphs were ambiguous creatures: they radiated the life-

giving sensuality of goddesses of fertility on the one hand, while on the other

hand they possessed the menacing potential violence of the orgiastically unin-

hibited dominant female. This combination of grace and menace made the

nymphs, related to the maenads, an ideal symbol of role reversal by which to

convey female dominance. In such figures as Botticelli’s Judith and her maid, the

nymph appears as a woman who is both dominant and domesticated.

I Early Work 27


II Initial Success in Florence


30 II Initial Success in Florence

In 1470, Sandro Botticelli was declared a Master Painter in his own right for

the first time and, in the same year, he was commissioned to paint two panels

depicting the Virtues for the meeting hall of the Florentine court of commerce.

The seven paintings of the Virtues were originally meant to have been produced

by the Florentine painter Piero del Pollaiuolo. A design cartoon by Piero had

been displayed in the meeting hall to determine the effect that the finished

works would have and, once the design had been approved, Piero was duly

commissioned in August 1469 to begin painting the Virtue of Charity (caritas)

(left). On its completion in December 1469a discussion ensued as to how to

proceed.

Other artists were considered for the remaining paintings, but in the end

it was Piero alone who was commissioned to create two Virtues each quarter

year, starting on 1 January 1470, for a fee of twenty fiorini larghi each. When,

however, Piero failed to meet the deadline for the next two paintings, the

competition was re-opened. Through the intervention of Tommaso Soderini,

Botticelli was subsequently awarded the contract to paint two Virtues, of which

he actually painted only one – the figure of Fortitudo (opposite page), Piero del

Pollaiuolo ultimately executing a total of six panels.

The Virtues formed the upper part of the wooden wall panelling in the

meeting hall of the Florentine court of commerce. They are of the so-called spal-

liera type of painting, hung on the wall slightly above shoulder or head height.

For the six presiding judges of the court of commerce, they were intended as a

constant reminder of good and fair judgment, while at the same time they pro-

vided a moralistic backdrop. The paintings were also aimed at conveying a

message to those who brought their litigation before the court.

The court of commerce acted as an institution of arbitration and medi -

ation. Its six members, the Sei della Mercanzia, were elected from among the

five leading guilds (arti) of Florence. The court of commerce met in a room in

the Palazzo della Mercanzia not far from what is now the Palazzo Vecchio,

which at the time was known as the Palazzo della Signoria. The panels, now in

the Uffizi, show the three Christian Virtues of Faith (fides, fede), Hope (spes,

speranza) and Charity (caritas, carità) as well as the four cardinal or worldly

virtues of Temperance (temperantia, temperanza), Prudence (prudentia, pruden -

za), Fortitude (fortitudo, fortezza) and Justice (justitia, giustizia). Pollai uolo’s

personifications of the Christian Virtues were formally based on portrayals of

the Virgin Mary, while his Cardinal Virtues were characterised by more secular

attributes. For instance, Pollaiuolo’s Charity recalls a Madonna lactans, whereas

Botticelli’s Fortitudo (sometimes referred to as Courage) has a military mace as

an attribute and a pillar under the left arm.

PIERO DEL POLLAIUOLO, Caritas (Charity),

c. 1469/1470, tempera on panel, 167 x 88 cm,

Florence, Galleria degli Uffizi

Opposite page

Fortitudo (Fortitude), 1470/71 (cat. 13)

Previous page

Adoration of the Magi, detail, c. 1470–72 (?)

(cat. 17)


The differences between the portrayals by Piero del Pollaiuolo and

Botticelli have become even more obvious since the recent restoration of the

panels. Botticelli’s use of richer colours and more ornate decorative elements is

particularly striking. Indeed, not only the throne of Botticelli’s Fortitudo, but

also her diamond-studded metal breastplate, are far more ornamental than

anything in Pollaiuolo’s panels. Clearly, the artist, who originally had been the

second choice for the contractual work, had been highly motivated to surpass

his rival in the quality of his handling of colour and ornament. Further differ-

ences can be found in the use of space and in the movement of the figures. The

pictorial space in Botticelli’s Fortitudo panel is less stage-like than in the panels

by Piero del Pollaiuolo, whose use of central perspective is much more con -

sistent than that of his slightly younger colleague, who depicts a more steeply

inclined floor. Botticelli avoided the effect of this exaggerated central perspec-

tive by making the floor slope less obviously downwards at the front, while at

the same time leaving the definition of the background space quite literally in

the dark. In this way, he addressed one of the fundamental problems of central

perspective, which can create an unnaturally stage-like view of interior spaces if

applied too rigorously. Indeed, it was precisely because of this that, towards

the end of the fifteenth century, the use of central perspective was more

relaxed.

Botticelli also addressed problems of pictorial space and perspective in

his next major painting, the so-called Pala di Sant’ Ambrogio (left), probably

executed some time between 1470 and

1462. This was the first time in his career

as a painter that Botticelli had shown his

skills as a master of the most important

genre of the Late Middle Ages and early

modern period – the altarpiece. For this

almost square painting, he adopted the

widespread type of the sacra conver-

sazione: the Virgin Enthroned with the

Christ Child among saints. In Botticelli’s

altarpiece, profiled and coloured architec-

tural elements suggest a room enclosed on

three sides, with a niche in the back wall

creating a certain hierarchical structure

that emphasises the special significance of

the figure of the Virgin. The alignment of

the six saints is also broadly based on

hierarchical principles and thus follows

the then prevailing conventions for paint-

ings of this kind. Taking a place of honour


Virgin and Child with Saints Mary Magdalene,

John the Baptist, Cosmas, Damian, Francis of Assisi

and Catharine of Alexandria (Pala di Sant’ Ambrogio),

c. 1470–72 (cat. 18)



on the Virgin’s right (that is to say, on the left from the spectator’s point of view)

are Mary Magdalene and John the Baptist. Mary Magdalene is recognisable by

her attribute of the ointment jar, John the Baptist by his reed cross and coarse

hair garment. These two saints belong to the life and times of Christ: John the

Baptist as his precursor and Mary Magdalene, the penitent sinner, as witness of

His Resurrection. Their positions within the composition follow a specific

principle of order. John the Baptist, being the older of the two in historical

terms, stands closer to the Virgin than the younger Mary Magdalene, who may

also have been portrayed as secondary because she was female. This gender-

specific order is also echoed on the other side of the picture, where Saint Francis

of Assisi with the stigmata that show his proximity and similarity to Christ

(Christoformatis) appears directly beside the Virgin. Like the figure of John the

Baptist on the other side, he is holding a reed cross, by which Botticelli suggests

an ideal affinity between these two saints. Historically, of course, Francis,

founder of a reformed monastic order in the thirteenth century, has nothing to

do with John the Baptist, who was a contemporary of Christ. However, Francis

was regarded by his brethren monks as a new John the Baptist and thus as his

direct successor. The unknown patron of this altarpiece, who may possibly have

had some close connection with the Franciscan order, clearly intended that the

role of Francis as the new John the Baptist should be emphasised. At the far

right of the picture is Catherine of Alexandria with her attribute of the wheel on

which she was martyred. As an early fourth century martyr, chronology should

have dictated that she be placed closer to the Virgin than Saint Francis, but the

principle of order has been changed here – either on grounds of gender hierarchy

or in order to emphasise the correlation between Francis and John the Baptist.

Two other figures that are given a special emphasis in this painting are

the red-robed Cosmas and Damian kneeling before the throne of the Virgin. In

Florence, these two early Christian martyrs were associated with the Medici

family because one of the leading members of the family, Cosimo de’ Medici

(1389–1464), had a similar-sounding name and also because both these martyrs

had been physicians (medici in Italian). The presence of Cosmas and Damian

here suggests, though this has yet to be confirmed, that Botticelli’s altarpiece

was either commissioned by the Medici family or by the guild of physicians and

apothecaries. The foreground figures of Cosmas and Damian are not only pos -

sible figures of identification for the patrons of the altarpiece, but also mediate

between the picture space and the real church space directly in front of the

painting. In this way, Botticelli underscored a typical characteristic of the sacra

conversazione as a type of picture in which the choice of saints was used as a

vehicle for personal identification, thereby building up a close relationship

between the figures in the painting and the beholder. Just as the beholder could

gaze upon his or her ‘own’ saint or patron saint as namesake in the painting, so

too could the viewer contemplate the fictitious space occupied by that saint as



Saint Sebastian, 1474 (cat. 19)



his or her own real world. In this way, the artwork took on a very direct and

clearly defined relationship to the person looking at it.

The production of altarpieces for churches and chapels was one of the

most important tasks of any fifteenth-century artist. The many surviving works

from this period bear witness to the immense importance of the genre, which

spawned a number of distinct pictorial formulae. Botticelli tapped into this by

positioning Cosmas and Damian in the foreground as the main mediators and

protagonists in Florence, in reference to the altarpiece that Cosimo de Medici

had commissioned from Fra Angelico for the high altar of San Marco (below).

This similarity could either indicate that Botticelli’s altarpiece, too, was a Medici

contract, or perhaps that another patron had sought to emulate the pictorial for-

mula introduced by the Medici family. This brings us to another visual function

of the painting: in the altarpieces of the quattrocento, artists almost invariably

used certain formulae and types, referring explicitly to existing examples of the

genres and variations on them.

With his rendering of Fortitudo and with his Pala di Sant’ Ambrogio,

Botticelli presented his work to a wider audience than he had previously done in

his earlier works, most of which were destined for private use. His high-profile

presence in the public sphere was to continue in an impressive way with his

painting of the martyrdom of Saint Sebastian (opposite page) in 1474 for the

FRA ANGELICO, Altarpiece for San Marco,

c. 1438–40, tempera on panel, 220 x 227 cm,

Florence, Museo di San Marco


botticelli 001 027 e botticelli 001 027 e 07.05.15 10:22 ... · sandro botticelli’s oeuvre. it...

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