The American Cyclopædia (1879)/Botticelli, Sandro

BOTTICELLI, Sandro, an Italian painter, born in Florence in 1437, died there in 1515. One of his earliest frescoes, “St. Augustine in Ecstasy,” is in one of the churches of Florence. He decorated for Sixtus IV. a chapel in the Vatican, and painted numerous figures of the popes and three large frescoes. Among his masterpieces are “The Birth of Christ,” now in a private collection in London, and a crowned Madonna in the gallery at Florence. He engraved the first 19 prints for the famous edition of Dante's Inferno printed at Florence in 1481. His devotion to Savonarola subjected him to much persecution.