Trinity
by Sandro Botticelli
Title
Trinity
Artist
Sandro Botticelli
Medium
Painting - Paint
Description
Botticelli was born in the city of Florence in a house in the street still called Via Borgo Ognissanti. He was to live within a minute or two's walk of this all his life, and to be buried in the Ognissanti ("All Saints") parish church. His father was Mariano di Vanni d'Amedeo Filipepi, and Sandro was the youngest of his four children to survive into adulthood, all boys.[5] The date of his birth is not known, but his father's tax returns in following years give his age as two in 1447 and thirteen in 1458 so, allowing for arguments as to what these statements really meant, dates between 1444 and 1446 are given.[6]
His father was a tanner until 1460, before joining his son Antonio in a new business as a beater-out of gold leaf, which would have brought them into contact with artists.[7] Giorgio Vasari reported that Botticelli was initially trained as a goldsmith.[8] He perhaps became an apprentice when he was about fourteen years old, which may indicate that he received a fuller education than many other Renaissance artists.
The Ognissanti neighbourhood was mostly "a modest one, inhabited by weavers and other workmen",[9] but there were some rich families, notably the very rich Rucellai, bankers and wool-merchants, headed by Giovanni di Paolo Rucellai, whose Palazzo Rucellai by Leon Battista Alberti, a landmark in Italian Renaissance architecture, was being built between about 1446 and 1451, Botticelli's earliest years. By 1458 Botticelli's family had moved to the same street as this, and were renting their house from another Rucellai, and there were other dealings involving the two families.[10]
In 1464 his father bought a house in Via Nuova nearby (modern Via della Porcellana), which Sandro returned to live in from 1470, if not before, and where he remained for the rest of his life.[11] He both lived and had his workshop in the house, by now a rather unusual practice, despite his brother Giovanni and his family also being in residence (and later another brother, Simone).[12] Here the notable family on the street were the Vespucci, including Amerigo Vespucci, born in 1454, after whom the Americas were named. The Vespucci were close Medici allies, and would become regular patrons of Botticelli.[13] The name Botticelli, meaning "little barrel" came from his brother Giovanni's nickname of "Botticello", "apparently from an unfortunate resemblance". By 1470 a document referred to the painter as "Sandro Mariano Botticelli", and it became his customary surname.[14]
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December 24th, 2018
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