The Birth of Venus to Botticelli's Florentine contemporary, and Lorenzo di Medici's court poet, Angelo Poliziano. The iconography of "The Birth of Venus" is similar to a description of a relief of the event in Poliziano's poem the "Stanze per la giostra", commemorating a Medici joust in 1475, which may also have influenced Botticelli, although there are many differences. For example Poliziano talks of multiple Horae and zephyrs. Older writers, following Horne, posited that "his patron Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco asked him to paint a subject illustrating the lines", and that remains a possibility, though one difficult to maintain so confidently today. Another poem by
Lamentation over the Dead Christ (Botticelli, Milan) He does not apply the rules of naturalism to the painting. Instead, he focuses on his own personal preference of geometry. This very style of geometry had an influence on third generation renaissance painters to come. Sandro Botticelli was a second generation renaissance painter born Allesandro di Mariano Filipepi in 1445. His nickname was Botticelli meaning little barrel. The renaissance began in fourteenth century Italy. Dramatic changes in art, architecture, and sculpture took place during this time. Botticelli has been noted as one of the most powerful painters of the lyrical current. In his later works, Botticelli developed a more