Botticelli
Born into a period of greatness for Florentine art Botticelli flourished under the patronage of Lorenzo de’ Medici. Art historian Robert Henry Hobart Cust’s concise work uncovers the depth of Botticelli’s work. Cust provides an overview of Botticelli’s life in the context of Lorenzo de Medici’s patronage, Dante Alighieri’s friendship, Michelangelo’s competition and Girolamo Savonarola’s revolutionary sermons. But mostly the weight of this study is placed on Botticelli’s art; how his invention demonstrates itself, how his conception of the figure is demonstrated and how he created some of the most interesting paintings of the early Renaissance.