The Birth of Venus The Birth of Venus The Birth of Venus ( ) is a painting by the Italian artist Sandro Botticelli probably made in the mid 1480s. It depicts the goddess Venus arriving at the shore after her birth, when she had emerged from the sea fully-grown (called Venus Anadyomene and often depicted in art). The painting is in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, Italy. Although the two are not a pair, the painting is inevitably discussed with Botticelli's other very large mythological painting, the "Primavera", also in the Uffizi. They are among the most famous paintings in the world, and icons
Sandro Botticelli by Savonarola, almost all destroyed after his fall. The Medici family were effective rulers of Florence, which was nominally a republic, throughout Botticelli's lifetime up to 1494, when the main branch were expelled. Lorenzo il Magnifico became the head of the family in 1469, just around the time Botticelli started his own workshop. He was a great patron of both the visual and literary arts, and encouraged and financed the humanist and Neoplatonist circle from which much of the character of Botticelli's mythological painting seems to come. In general Lorenzo does not seem to have commissioned much from Botticelli, preferring