Botticelli’s 92 Illustrations of Dante’s Divine Comedy — openculture.com

Every true Renaissance man needed a wealthy patron, and many Italian artist-inventor-scholar-poets found theirs in Lorenzo de’Medici, scion of a Florentine dynasty and himself a scholar and poet. Lorenzo either sponsored directly or helped secure commissions for such 15th century art stars as Michelangelo Buonaroti and Leonardo da Vinci. Among Lorenzo’s many artist friends was a painter who mostly disappeared from history until the late nineteenth century, when the rediscovery of his Primavera and Birth of Venus made him one of the most popular of Renaissance artists. I’m referring of course, to Sandro Botticelli, portraitist of Lorenzo de’Medici, his father, and grandfather and also, it turns out, illustrator of Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy.

Read More