BOTTICELLISANDRO
Frank Zöllner
PrestelMunich · London · New York
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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
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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
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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
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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.
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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
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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)
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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)
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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
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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
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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)
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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)
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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
32 II Initial Success in Florence
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)
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II Initial Success in Florence 33
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
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34 II Initial Success in Florence
Saint Sebastian, 1474 (cat. 19)
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II Initial Success in Florence 35
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
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