National Geographic History - 07.2019 - 07.2019

ALESSANDRA PAGANO BOTTICELLI RENAISSANCE ICON Coming of age in 15th-century Italy, the son of a tanner became better known as Sa ...

LOVE AND BEAUTY Perhaps his most famous work, Botticelli’s “Birth of Venus” was painted circa 1485, at the height of his powers. ...

60 JULY/AUGUST 2019 in 1427, it is believed to be the first work to fully apply the laws of linear perspective. Many scholars be ...

POWER AND ART The tower of Florence’s 14th-century Palazzo Vecchio, once the seat of the Medici government, rises before the Uff ...

62 JULY/AUGUST 2019 During this time, Botticelli began a close working relationship with the Medici, who commissioned several pa ...

JEWEL OF FLORENCE The distinctive façade of Florence’s Basilica of Santa Maria Novella was completed around In addition to mast ...

POWERFUL PATRONS Botticelli needed patrons to fund his works, and he found financial backing among the pow- erful Medici family ...

“PORTRAIT OF GIULIANO DE’ MEDICI” (1478-80). ACADEMIA DE CARRARA, BERGAMO “ADORATION OF THE MAGI” (DETAIL) (1475). BASILICA OF S ...

“PORTRAIT OF A LADY” (CIRCA 1480). STÄDEL MUSEUM, FRANKFURT, GERMANY AKG/ALBUM ...

“PORTRAIT OF A YOUNG WOMAN IN PROFILE” (1475). GEMALDEGALERIE, STAATLICHE MUSEEN, BERLIN During her short life, Simonetta Cattan ...

Mercury, his right hand raised, waves his caduceus (staff with entwined serpents) to expel threatening clouds. The Graces, serva ...

Venus, goddess of love, surveys the action. Beside her stands a myrtle, the tree sacred to her. Flora, goddess of spring, is cov ...

an exaltation of Lorenzo the Magnificent, who had concluded a peace treaty with the bellicose kingdom of Naples. In this allegor ...

“PALLAS AND THE CENTAUR,” (1480- 85) UFFIZI GALLERY, FLORENCEMONDADORI/ALBUM ...

The Madonna and child was a popular subject for Botticelli from the beginning of his career. Some of his earliest recognized wor ...

“MADONNA OF THE MAGNIFICAT” (1483). UFFIZI GALLERY, FLORENCE ...

A TRAGIC TALE like many Botticelli works, “The Tragedy of Lu- cretia” was commissioned as a wedding gift. Cre- ated in the 1490s ...

SCALA, FIREN ZE king. Some art historians read Botticelli’s paint- ing as commentary on the Medicis’s recent loss of power in Fl ...

Stolen from home and forced on a dangerous voyage across the Atlantic, “20 and odd” African people set foot in British North Ame ...

TRADITIONS ENDURE Painted in the late 1700s, “The Old Plantation” reveals that enslaved communities maintained practices from th ...