Botticelli: Defining Grace
Dr. Rocky Ruggiero
Alessandro Filipepi, better known as “Botticelli,” was one of the most important painters of the Italian Renaissance. During his 40-year career, Botticelli imbued a wide variety of subjects with unparalleled grace. He also revolutionized traditional Renaissance iconography with the introduction of mythological subject matter. This monograph course will explore Botticelli’s career from his apprenticeship to the great Fra Lippo Lippi, through his association with the Medici family, his trip to Rome as an artistic ambassador, his groundbreaking mythological paintings, and to the final mysterious years of his life which may have been marked by a profound spiritual crisis brought on by the influence of Fra Girolamo Savonarola.
Course Objectives:
• To bring a historical figure to life through a “hands on” approach to the works produced by the artist throughout the entirety of his career.
• To understand the role that the historical context of Botticelli’s life had on his extraordinary artistic production.
• To learn to appreciate the rich and influential aspects of early Renaissance Italian painting at turn of the 15th and 16th centuries.
• To develop the fundamental skills of art historical analysis that include formal analysis and iconographic interpretation.
• To develop an ability to interact in a personal and intimate manner with works of art – which in the case of Botticelli are some of the most beautiful in history – and their surroundings.
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LECTURE 1 "Fra Lippo Lippi and the Young Botticelli"
Born in Florence around 1445, Botticelli was apprenticed to the painter Fra Lippo Lippi around 1461. It was from Lippi that Botticelli learned the art of graceful figures and intimate compositions. Lippi was so influential for Botticelli that it is often difficult to distinguish between them. Aft...
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LECTURE 2 "Medici, Magi and Madonnas"
Botticelli’s graceful treatment of the Virgin Mary in painting resulted in some of the most beautiful figures in the history of art. Often accompanied by equally beautiful angels or saints, Botticelli’s Madonnas are usually idealized and often painted in the tondo format. It may have been Bottice...
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LECTURE 3 "The Roman Sojourn and the Sistine Chapel"
In 1481, Botticelli was sent to Rome by Lorenzo “il Magnifico” de’ Medici to decorate the walls of Pope Sixtus IV’s new chapel, better known as the Sistine Chapel. Along with Perugino, Ghirlandaio, Rosselli, and Signorelli, Botticelli would produce one of the most important fresco cycles of the e...
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LECTURE 4 "The Mythologies"
When Botticelli painted the “Primavera” and “Birth of Venus” around 1480, he opened a veritable Pandora’s Box. No longer were Renaissance artists limited to simply dressing Christian saints in togas and sandals, they could now gradually introduce the very literature, philosophy, and religion of t...
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LECTURE 5 "Savonarola and the late Botticelli"
According to Vasari, “Botticelli was a follower of Savonarola, and this was why he gave up painting and then fell into considerable distress as he had no other source of income…so finally, as an old man, he found himself so poor that if Lorenzo de’Medici…had not come to his assistance, he would h...
