Botticelli, Sandro, originally Alessandro Filipepi 1445-1510
Florentine painter

Born in Florence, he learned his distinctive linear style from Fra Filippo Lippi, with whom he studied, but added to it something very personal and graceful. By 1480 he had his own workshop and was responsible for frescoes which form part of the 1482 scheme of decoration of the Sistine Chapel. He produced mostly religious works but is best known for his treatment of mythological subjects, The Birth of Venus (c.1482-84) and the Primavera (c.1478), both of which are in the Uffizi, Florence. During the last decade of the 15th century, under the influence of Girolamo Savonarola, his style became more severe and emotional, eg his Mystic Nativity (1500, National Gallery, London). His work includes the illustrations for Dante's Divina Commedia, which he executed in pen and ink and silverpoint. By the time of his death, his linear style was out of fashion, but during the Victorian period it became a source of inspiration for the Pre-Raphaelite movement and Art Nouveau.

Bibliography: C J Argan, Botticelli (1957)