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
The Story of Virginia (Botticelli) The Story of Virginia (Botticelli) The Story of Virginia (Italian, Storie di Virginia), is a painting by the Italian Renaissance painter Sandro Botticelli. It is a tempera on panel and measures 86 cm tall and 165 cm wide. It is currently held by the Accademia Carrara in Bergamo, Italy. It is one of the last works that Botticelli made exemplifying virtue, like The Story of Lucretia. The painting has as a fundamental theme of violated honor and matrimonial fidelity. The combination of several scenes in a single image was common in the art of the early Renaissance. These are read