124 Botticelli, Sandro
Times to the Present Day(London: Academic Press, 1981);
Karen Meier Reeds, Botany in Medieval and Renaissance
Universities(New York: Garland, 1991); Jerry Stannard,
Pristina Medicamenta: Ancient and Medieval Medical
Botany, ed. Katherine E. Stannard and Richard Kay
(Aldershot: Ashgate, 1999).
Botticelli, Sandro(Alessandro di Mariano Filipepi)
(1444–1510)Florentine painter
He was born in 1444 into a large family as Alessandro di
Mariano dei Filipepi. The name Botticelliwas derived
from a nickname of his elder brother and guardian,
Giovanni. For a brief time he worked with his brother
Antonio as a goldsmith’s apprentice, and later in the
workshop of Fra Filippo LIPPI. It was there that he
gained his training as a painter. His association with
Andrea del Verrocchio (ca. 1435–88) and the Pollaiuolo
brothers gave him a strong interest in ornamental
details, anatomy, and elegant figures. Working fre-
quently for the MEDICI family, he made numerous
portraits and paintings of classical subjects and earned
renown for skill as a draftsman. He solidified his
reputation in FLORENCE as a painter of great skill
through his fresco of Saint Augustine in the Church of
the Ognissanti. His mythological subjects for the private
residences of the Medici and other leading families,
such as the Primaverain the Uffizi, were influenced by a
contemporary interest in mythology and NEOPLATONISM.
He painted, along with other artists in the early 1480s,
scenes from the Old Testament on the lower walls of the
Sistine Chapel in the Vatican. On his return to Florence,
he produced numerous religious and secular paintings
and developed a large and skilled workshop. His private
devotional paintings were in great demand in the late
15th century because the popularity of the subject and
the fine skill he displayed.
In later life he completed an increasing number of
religious paintings marked by a deep emotionalism,
drama, and mysticism. His adherence to the teachings of
Girolamo SAVONAROLAin the 1490s influenced his con-
centration on religious subject matter in his paintings,
which lasted until the end of his life. He died in 1510,
spending his later years melancholically creating images
for Dante’s Commedia.
See alsoGHIRLANDAIO,DOMENICO.
Further reading: Rab Hatfield, Botticelli’s Uffizi
“Adoration”: A Study in Pictorial Content. (Princeton,
N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1976); Charles
Dempsey, The Portrayal of Love: Botticelli’s Primavera and
Humanist Culture at the Time of Lorenzo the Magnificent
(Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1992);
Ronald Lightbown, Sandro Botticelli,2 Vols. (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1978); Edward Wind,
Pagan Mysteries in the Renaissance(London: Faber and
Faber, 1958).Bouvines, Battle of The Battle of the Bouvines, on
July 27, 1214, was a decisive event in the war between
the French army of PHILIPII AUGUSTUSand the English
army of JOHNLACKLAND, which had begun in Normandy
in 1202. It also resulted in the end of the dispute
between FREDERICKII of HOHENSTAUFENand Otto IV of
Brunswick (d. 1218) over the imperial Crown. The
French defeated the army of King John on July 2 by
using their topographical position to win a decisive vic-
tory. This victory allowed them to finalize the conquests
of NORMANDY,ANJOU, and Touraine and led to domestic
difficulties for John in ENGLAND. Upon his return he
faced a rebellion by the barons and was compelled to
issue the MAGNACARTAin 1215. John’s nephew, Otto of
Brunswick, was dethroned; Phillip’s ally, Frederick II
from SICILY, inherited his father’s position and became
emperor.
Further reading:Georges Duby, The Legend of Bou-
vines: War, Religion, and Culture in the Middle Ages,trans.
Catherine Tihanyi (Berkeley: University of California
Press, 1990).Primavera,or Spring (detail), by Sandro Botticelli, Uffizi,
Florence, Italy (Scala / Art Resource)