Birth of Venus

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The Birth of Venus
Sandro Botticelli, c. 1485–1486
tempera on canvas
172.5 × 278.5 cm
Uffizi, Florence
64 worlds greatest paintings

The Birth of Venus is a painting by Sandro Botticelli. It depicts the Goddess Venus, having emerged from the sea as a full grown woman, arriving at the sea-shore. The painting is currently in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence.

This large picture by Botticelli may have been, like the Primavera, painted for Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de' Medici's Villa di Castello, around 1483, or even before. Some scholars suggest that the Venus painted for Lorenzo and mentioned by Giorgio Vasari may have been a different work, now lost. Some experts believe it to be a celebration of the love of Giuliano di Piero de' Medici (who died in the Pazzi conspiracy in 1478) for Simonetta Cattaneo Vespucci, who lived in Portovenere, a town by the sea with a local tradition of being the birthplace of Venus. Whatever inspired the artist, there are clear similarities to Ovid's Metamorphoses and Fasti, as well as to Poliziano's Verses.

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