The Birth of Venus of Venus" flatter not only the Medici and Botticelli but all of Florence, home to the worthy successors to some of the greatest figures of antiquity, both in governance and in the arts. These essentially pagan readings of Botticelli's "Birth of Venus" should not exclude a more purely Christian one, which may be derived from the Neoplatonic reading of the painting indicated above. Viewed from a religious standpoint, the nudity of Venus suggests that of Eve before the Fall as well as the pure love of Paradise. Once landed, the goddess of love will don the earthly garb of mortal
Calumny of Apelles (Botticelli) that of the friar's Dominican order. Savonarola was excommunicated on 12 May 1497, but continued to preach until the Florentine government pressured him to stop, ceasing on 18 March 1498. He was finally executed on 23 May 1498. Hartt notes "...no one seems to think the painting can be as late as 1497 or 1498. Why not?" It was later in the Medici collection in the Pitti Palace, and by 1773 in the Uffizi. Calumny of Apelles (Botticelli) The Calumny of Apelles is a tempera panel painting by the Italian Renaissance painter Sandro Botticelli. Based on the description of an