Sandro Botticelli, c 1445–1510, was an Italian painter and draftsman born Alessandro di Mariano Filipepi in Florence. He trained with Fra Filippo Lippi and had established his own workshop by 1470. Filippino Lippi, the son of his teacher, became his apprentice.

Botticelli worked for the Medici family and other Florentine patrons, producing religious paintings, portraits and mythological subjects. In 1481 he went to Rome to paint frescoes for the Sistine Chapel. He returned to Florence the following year. His work combined linear drawing with tempera painting and included illustrations of Dante’s Divine Comedy.

Botticelli continued to paint religious subjects during his later years and died in Florence in 1510. Interest in his work revived during the nineteenth century. His paintings are held by the Uffizi Gallery, the National Gallery in London, the Gemäldegalerie in Berlin, the Louvre Museum and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

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