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
The Story of Lucretia (Botticelli) The Story of Lucretia (Botticelli) The Tragedy of Lucretia is a tempera and oil painting on a wood "cassone" or "spalliera" panel by the Italian Renaissance master Sandro Botticelli, painted between 1496 and 1504. Known less formally as the Botticelli Lucretia, it is housed in the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum of Boston, Massachusetts, having been owned by Isabella Stewart Gardner in her lifetime. The picture is a syncretion of scenes from different legendary themes in different time periods that Botticelli considered related. The topic is revolt against tyranny, a popular one in the volatile Italian republics. The main scene is