Botero, Giovanni (1544–1617) Italian political theorist
Botero was born in Cuneo, Piedmont, and was sent to a
Jesuit seminary in Palermo, from which he joined the
order. While a Jesuit he pursued his studies in a number
of centers, including Paris, but in 1580 he left the order to
take service with Cardinal (later St) CHARLES BORROMEO.
After the latter’s death (1584), Botero was secretary to
Cardinal Federico Borromeo, but from 1599 he was tutor
and adviser at the Turin court of Carlo Emanuele I, duke
of Savoy.
Botero’s reputation as a political consultant was made
by the publication of two works: Cause della grandezza...
delle città (1588) and Della ragion di stato (1589). The for-
mer broke new ground with its analysis of factors deter-
mining the growth and prosperity of cities, and the latter
argues, against MACHIAVELLI, for Christian ethics as a vi-
able component in political life. Relazioni universali
(1596) expands his views on population studies, a field in
which he often anticipates the English theorist Thomas
Malthus.
Botticelli, Alessandro di Mariano Filipepi (1444–
1510) Italian painter
Botticelli was born into the family of a poor Florentine
tanner and was apprenticed first to a goldsmith before be-
coming (1458/59) the pupil of Filippo LIPPI, whose assis-
tant he seems to have remained until 1467. The influence
of VERROCCHIO, who also ran an important workshop in
Florence at this time, is less definite but is perhaps visible
in the earliest dated work by Botticelli, the figure of Forti-
tude from a series representing the Virtues (1470; Uffizi,
Florence). The socalled Madonna of the Rose-bush (Uffizi)
also dates from this early period.
In the 1470s Botticelli attracted the patronage of the
Medici; portraits of family members and their adherents
(with Botticelli himself on the extreme right) feature
prominantly in the Uffizi Adoration of the Magi (c. 1477).
Moving in the circles surrounding Lorenzo de’ MEDICI
(“the Magnificent”), Botticelli became imbued with their
brand of PLATONISMand created for the first time in Re-
naissance art a series of paintings in which pagan mytho-
logical subjects embody profound philosophical and even
spiritual truths. There is doubt about the exact dates of
these allegories, but at least two—LA PRIMAVERAand The
Birth of Venus (both Uffizi; see Plate III)—were painted for
the Villa di Castello on the outskirts of Florence, which
was acquired by Lorenzo the Magnificent in 1477; the
man who commissioned them was probably Lorenzo di
Pierfrancesco de’ Medici, a second cousin and ward of
Lorenzo the Magnificent, for whom Botticelli certainly ex-
ecuted in the early 1490s a famous set of drawings illus-
trating Dante’s Divine Comedy. Minerva and the Centaur
(Uffizi) and Mars and Venus (National Gallery, London)
are the other two mythological paintings in which decora-
tive and allegorical elements perfectly combine to epito-
mize Platonic theory on the ideal relationship between
beauty of form and truth.
Botticelli also continued a steady output of religious
subjects, notable among which is the powerful fresco of
St. Augustine in his study (1480; Ognissanti, Florence). In
1481–82 he was in Rome, his only significant sojourn
away from Florence; while there he was employed on the
frescoes of the Sistine Chapel. Another venture at this
time was the series of small illustrations to LANDINO’s e d i -
tion of the Divine Comedy (1481). In the later 1480s he ex-
ecuted several altarpieces and the tondi known as the
Madonna of the Magnificat and the Madonna with a Pome-
granate (both Uffizi). The Calumny of Apelles (Uffizi),
which tells a story taken from Lucian, is a conscious exer-
cise in the revival of the antique. He also painted frescoes
in the Villa Lemmi (1486; Louvre, Paris) and a number of
accomplished portraits.
According to VASARI, Botticelli was profoundly influ-
enced by SAVONAROLA; certainly Botticelli’s brother Si-
mone, who shared the artist’s house from 1493, was one of
the friar’s most devout disciples. After 1498 there is no
further record of any relationship between Botticelli and
the Medici, and his latest works are all religious in char-
acter. Ecstatic religious feeling informs such works as the
Munich Pietà and the London Mystic Nativity (1500).
Later records show him on the committee of artists con-
vened (1503–04) to decide the placing of Michelangelo’s
colossal David and finally note his burial in the garden of
Ognissanti, Florence.
Further reading: R. W. Lightbown, Sandro Botticelli,
Life and Work (New York: Abbeville, 1989); Leopold D.
and Helen S. Ettlinger, Botticelli (London: Thames & Hud-
son and New York: W. W. Norton, 1977).Bourgeois, Louyse (1563–1636) French midwife
Her barber-surgeon husband trained her in obstetric tech-
niques. Dispossessed after the siege of Paris in 1590, the
couple lived in poverty, but their fortunes changed in
1601 when Bourgeois, now a member of the Guild of Mid-
wives, was summoned to deliver the first child of Queen
Marie de’ Medici. Royal patronage brought her status and
rich clients, until the duchesse d’Orléans died from puer-
peral fever, after which Bourgeois came under attack. She
defended her methods, in 1609 publishing a treatise on
midwifery, in which she criticized the manhandling of
women in labor by incompetent practitioners and empha-
sized the importance of cleanliness. With diagrams and
detailed observations based on some 2,000 deliveries, Ob-
servations diverses sur la stérilité, perte de fruict, fécondité,
accouchements et maladies des femmes et enfants nouveaux
naîz proved a landmark study. Translated into Dutch, Eng-
lish, French, German, and Latin, it was influential on
practitioners throughout Europe. Despite her accomplish-
ments, Bourgeois was forced to abandon her practice in- She also published Recit véritable de la naissance des
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