Medici wing
Ghiberti: Baptistry doors at Firenze Duomo
Botticelli: Venus on the Half Shell
Botticelli: Madonna of the Magnificat Botticelli: Madonna of the Pomegranate
Botticelli: detail from Springtime
Botticelli: detail from Springtime
Botticelli: Madonna and Child, young Saint John, and two angels
Botticelli: Pallas and the Centaur
Botticelli: Slander
Titian: The Venus of Urbino
Lorenzo Ghiberti
The Fall of Jericho

East Doors of the Baptistry, Firenze (1424-1452)

Alessandro Filipelli (Botticelli)
The Birth of Venus (1484)

Galeria Uffizi, Firenze

Alessandro Filipelli (Botticelli)
Madonna of the Magnificat (1481-1485)

Galeria Uffizi, Firenze

Alessandro Filipelli (Botticelli)
Madonna of the Pomegranate (1487)

Galeria Uffizi, Firenze

Alessandro Filipelli (Botticelli)
Flora detail from Primavera (1482)

Galeria Uffizi, Firenze

Alessandro Filipelli (Botticelli)
Three Graces detail from Primavera (1482)

Galeria Uffizi, Firenze

Alessandro Filipelli (Botticelli)
Madonna and Child,
young Saint John,
and two angels
(circa 1468)

Galleria dell'Accademia, Firenze

Alessandro Filipelli (Botticelli)
Pallas and the Centaur (circa 1482)

Galeria Uffizi, Firenze

Alessandro Filipelli (Botticelli)
Calumny (1494)

Galeria Uffizi, Firenze

Tiziano Veccellio (Titian) 1445-1525
The Venus of Urbino 1538

Galeria Uffizi, Firenze


Since most everyone's seen Florence's treasures in photographs at least, I'm going to reverse the pattern and show the detail as the "main attraction" and the whole work down here. The Fall of Jericho panel is is second from the bottom on the right side, just about eye level when you're standing in front of the doors.
Sorry to give "Venus on the Half Shell" such short shrift. Standing in the Botticelli room of the Uffizi, even hemmed in by a throng of admirers, the painting is awesome. But there are other, less famous pictures in the room, and I was delighted to see that I liked them even better. It's sad when a great work like this one is so over-copied and otherwise used that it loses its power.
This painting captivated me. Botticelli's children are so lucid and alive! This painting is named for the word visible on the recto page of the open book. Mother and babe both have their hands on a pomegranate. The perspective here is unusual, appearing as if convex, reaching into the room.
Very similar in spirit as well as size and shape, this painting is named for the pomegranate the mother and babe both hold. The children may be a few years older. This painting is in its original frame, a work of art in itself, but of forgotten authorship. The other "pomegranate painting" is convex, but this one is painted with a concave perspective, as if the image recedes into the wall. Of the two perspectives, the convex is the more effective.

What Botticelli really meant by this painting is lost. The painting was rediscovered after having been kept privately and forgotten for nearly a hundred years.
Giorgio Vasari, among the first to see it upon its rediscovery, named it Primavera, but no one really knows what it was meant to represent, or even who it was painted for. Art historians, noting the similarity between the figures and sculptures shown in Firenze about the time Botticelli worked, conclude that our Sandro was an avid student of the work of others.
There are several viable explanations of the allegory. The standard explanation, based on Vasari's name for the painting, makes these the three Graces dancing together, while Flora, the Roman goddess of Spring, is the other detail.
This magnificently detailed painting isn't quite a meter across. It, too, is an allegory, and in this case the meaning is well understood because the painting is based on an earlier work painted in the 4th Century B.C. Among the players in this tableau (from the right): Suspicion and Ignorance whisper in the King's ear (he has donkey ears). Malice draws Calumny forward by the arm, dragging the poor victim (the fellow in the semi-Christlike pose at the bottom) by the hair while Envy and Deceit fiddle with her hair. The crone in black second from left is Penitence. If you've ever wondered what Naked Truth looks like, that's her on the far left. (I promise a better image of this painting as soon as I get home. It's brilliant, and, better yet, to me unknown before I saw it in the Uffizi.)
As you might expect, this painting represents another great breakthrough in the history of art. Botticelli's nudes are curiously unerotic, unaware of their nakedness, always glancing modestly away from the viewer. Titian's woman is very real, self-aware, and direct. While her maids scurry to find clothes to cover her, she lies in unabashed splendor.
In the art world, after this, there was an explosion of realism that blazed a trail to the art we today call modern.

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