Debenedetti presents in compact format a capsule survey of Botticellis entire career, from his first paintings in the 1460s to the intense and highly inventive late works of the 1490s and early 1500s . . . Botticelli, together with other Florentine artists of the period, ran an active and productive workshop, which produced designs in a wide variety of media. The study covers the shops practices in depth, including the use of drawings, replication of motifs and compositions, and collaboration between members of the shop on individual paintings. Contemporaneous Florentine philosophical debates are brought into play in the treatment of the artists famous series of mythological paintings. The study concludes with a discussion of Botticellis ability to adapt to a wide variety of commissions, as demonstrated in his participation in the frescoes executed in the Sistine Chapel in Rome, in the complex cycle of silverpoint drawings prepared for Dantes Divine Comedy, and in the late works responding to the Florentine wave of Savonarola piety. Recommended. * Choice * The great merit of this book is to re-contextualise Botticellis personality and oeuvre in his social and cultural milieu in a lively and captivating narrative, providing the reader with a detailed account of the latest scholarship on the subject with ease and clarity. * Alessandro Cecchi, art historian, director of the Casa Buonarroti Foundation and author of 'Botticelli' (2005) *
