Alessandro di Mariano Filipepi, better known as
Sandro Botticelli ("little barrel") (
March 1,
1445[citation needed] –
May 17,
1510) was an
Italian painter of the Florentine school during the Early
Renaissance (
Quattrocento). Less than a hundred years later, this movement, under the patronage of
Lorenzo de' Medici, was characterized by
Giorgio Vasari as a "
golden age", a thought, suitably enough, he expressed at the head of his
Vita of Botticelli. His posthumous reputation suffered until the late 19th century; since then his work has been seen to represent the linear grace of Early Renaissance painting, and
The Birth of Venus and
Primavera rank now among the most familiar masterpieces of Florentine art.
