Portrait of Simonetta Vespucci the age of 23. Sandro Botticelli was inspired by her features in "The Birth of Venus" and Piero di Cosimo was a passionate admirer. The subject is a young girl portrayed at half length in profile, facing left. Her breasts are bared and a small snake twines around the necklace she is wearing. In the background is an open landscape, arid on the left and lush on the right. The dark clouds are a symbol of her early death, as is the dead tree in the background. At the base of the painting is a border with an inscription that
Lamentation over the Dead Christ (Botticelli, Munich) Lamentation over the Dead Christ (Botticelli, Munich) The Lamentation over the Dead Christ, is a painting of the common subject of the Lamentation of Christ by the Italian Renaissance master Sandro Botticelli, finished around 1490-1492. It is now in the Alte Pinakothek, in Munich. The portrait shows the inert body of Christ surrounded by the Virgin, St. Peter, and Mary Magdalene, St. John the Evangelist, St. Jerome and St. Paul. The pathetic expressions of the characters were a novelty in Botticelli's art: under the spiritual influence of Savonarola's preachings in Florence, which began around the time the work was executed,