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
Saint Augustine in His Study (Botticelli, Ognissanti) that this shows Botticelli thought "the example of Jerome and Augustine likely to be thrown away on the Umiliati as he knew them". Saint Augustine in His Study (Botticelli, Ognissanti) Saint Augustine in His Study is a painting of Augustine of Hippo executed in 1480 by the Italian Renaissance master Sandro Botticelli. It is in the church of Ognissanti in Florence. Botticelli was born in a house in the same street as the church, still called Via Borgo Ognissanti. He was to live within a minute or two's walk of this all his life, and to be buried in the