The Birth of Venus even surpassing him. Giving added support to this interpretation of Botticelli as a born-again Apelles is the fact that that very claim was voiced in 1488 by Ugolino Verino in a poem entitled "On Giving Praise to the History of Florence." While Botticelli might well have been celebrated as a revivified Apelles, his "Birth of Venus" also testified to the special nature of Florence's chief citizen, Lorenzo de' Medici. Although it now seems that the painting was executed for another member of the Medici family, it likely was intended to celebrate and flatter its head, Lorenzo de' Medici. Tradition associates
Fortitude (Botticelli) Fortitude (Botticelli) The Fortitude is a painting by the Italian Renaissance master Sandro Botticelli, finished in 1470. Housed in the Galleria degli Uffizi, in Florence, Italy, Fortitude was the first recorded masterpiece by Botticelli. This work originally belonged to a set of seven panels representing Virtues, intended to decorate the Tribunal Hall of Piazza della Signoria in Florence. The other six panels are painted by Pietro Pollaiolo's workshop. Unlike the other panels in the cycle, painted on cypress wood, the Fortitude is painted on poplar, a more commonly used wood for painting on panels in Tuscany. The 1.67 x 0.87-meter