Sandro Botticelli at its most effective, emphasized by the soft continual contours and pastel colors. The "Primavera" and the "Birth" were both seen by Vasari in the mid-16th century at the Villa di Castello, owned from 1477 by Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de' Medici, and until the publication in 1975 of a Medici inventory of 1499, it was assumed that both works were painted specifically for the villa. Recent scholarship suggests otherwise: the "Primavera" was painted for Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco's townhouse in Florence, and "The Birth of Venus" was commissioned by someone else for a different site. Botticelli painted only a small number
Sandro Botticelli in 1481 for Milan, the Pollaiolo brothers in 1484 for Rome, and Andrea Verrochio in 1485 for Venice. The remaining leaders of Florentine painting, Botticelli, Domenico Ghirlandaio and Filippino Lippi, worked on a major fresco cycle with Perugino, for Lorenzo the Magnificent's villa at Spedalletto near Volterra. Botticelli painted many Madonnas, covered in a section below, and altarpieces and frescos in Florentine churches. In 1491 he served on a committee to decide upon a façade for the Cathedral of Florence, receiving the next year a small payment for a design for a scheme, eventually abortive, to put mosaics on some