The Birth of Venus sources and interpretations. Many art historians who specialize in the Italian Renaissance have found Neoplatonic interpretations, of which two different versions have been articulated by Edgar Wind and Ernst Gombrich, to be the key to understanding the painting. Botticelli represented the Neoplatonic idea of divine love in the form of a nude Venus. For Plato – and so for the members of the Florentine Platonic Academy – Venus had two aspects: she was an earthly goddess who aroused humans to physical love or she was a heavenly goddess who inspired intellectual love in them. Plato further argued that contemplation of
Madonna in Glory with Seraphim (Botticelli) Madonna in Glory with Seraphim (Botticelli) Madonna in Glory with Seraphim is a painting by the Italian Renaissance painter Sandro Botticelli, executed c. 1469-1470. It is housed in Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence. Some panel paintings of the Madonna by Botticelli remain from the years around 1470 which are striking expressions of Botticelli's stylistic development. Two full figure pictures of the Madonna - the "Madonna in Glory" and the "Madonna of the Rosegarden" - are in the Uffizi. They represent monumental seated figures filling the entire picture. Mary is enthroned on clouds in a glory of seraphim. The Christ Child, with