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
Sandro Botticelli Pollaiuolo and others, although views on this differ. A Botticello who was probably Sandro's brother Giovanni was close to Lorenzo. Although the patrons of many works not for churches remain unclear, Botticelli seems to have been used more by Lorenzo il Magnifico's two young cousins, his younger brother Giuliano, and other families allied to the Medici. Tommaso Soderini, a close ally of Lorenzo, obtained the commission for the figure of "Fortitude" of 1470 which is Botticelli's earliest securely dated painting, completing a series of the "Seven Virtues" left unfinished by Piero Pollaiuolo. Possibly they had been introduced by a Vespucci