the stable, set within the old pagan order, which will crumble. Note the
extraordinary range of colors in this painting. Although this work is undated,
we can date it by the poses of the magi and the horses. These details suggest
that Botticelli had seen Leonardo da Vinci’s un¿ nished Adoration of the
Magi in Florence about 1482.
Botticelli’s Coronation of the Virgin (c. 1488–1490) was originally in the
Church of San Marco in Florence. This painting depicts the coronation of
the Virgin in the sky—Christ crowning his mother in heaven. Four saints are
pictured: John the Evangelist, Augustine, Ambrose, and Eligius. (Remember
the Lorenzo Monaco altarpiece with the same subject.) The composition is
divided into two tiers that show the subtlety with which the artist connects
the standing saints with the heavenly level, where Christ and the Virgin are
surrounded by angels. This design became
one of Raphael’s favorite compositions,
possibly with an eye to Botticelli’s example.
This painting is a splendid prototype for this
design and an inspiration for other artists,
including Titian, who used this type of
composition. The angels anticipate those in
one of Botticelli’s last paintings.
Our next image is the Calumny of Apelles
(c. 1490s). Calumny refers to a painting
by Apelles that no longer exists but was
described by an ancient writer. As he had
with The Birth of Venus, Botticelli based this
painting on a written description of a lost work of antiquity. Leon Battista
Alberti may have provided the impetus for this painting, because he advised
artists to paint subjects that were described by ancient writers. In the center of
the painting, an innocent man is dragged before an unjust judge, Midas. We
recognize Midas because he has the ears of an ass that were the punishment
for one of his previous sins. Midas’s advisors are whispering untruths into
his ears. Hatred, in black with a torch, leads the trio of women who represent
Calumny, Deceit, and Fraud. They drag the victim by his hair. At the left,
Penitence is shown as an old woman in black, and Truth, literally the naked
truth, proclaims the man’s innocence. Of the many ¿ ctive sculptures in
Venus, accompanied
by rose petals, is
moved toward the
shore by the wind and
water. She is taken
in by the allegorical
¿ gure of Land, who
clothes her.