The Birth of Venus
The Birth of Venus (Italian: Nascita di Venere) is a painting by the Italian artist Sandro Botticelli, probably executed in the mid 1480s. It depicts the goddess Venus arriving at the shore after her birth, when she had emerged from the sea fully-grown (called Venus Anadyomene and often depicted in art). The painting is in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, Italy.
‘Botticelli’ was not his name
One of the most famous artists of all time has gone down in history not with his birth name, Alessandro Filipepi, but with a playful nickname. There are two theories on how this happened. The first claims that ‘Botticello’ was the nickname of his brother Antonio, who was as short and squat as a barrel (‘botticello’ means small barrel in Italian). The other has it that he was called Botticelli because his other brother Giovanni was a goldsmith. (Goldsmiths in Florence are called ‘battigello’.)
The Collection
