Sandro Botticelli was born Alessandro di Mariano Filipepi in Florence around 1445. He grew up in the city that would remain the center of his life and career.
Botticelli trained with Fra Filippo Lippi, one of the leading Florentine painters of the period. Lippi's graceful figures and tender treatments of the Virgin and Child had an important influence upon the younger artist.
By 1470 Botticelli had established his own workshop. He soon attracted important patrons and developed connections with members of the Medici family and their circle. His commissions included portraits, devotional paintings, altarpieces, and works based upon classical mythology.
Botticelli became especially successful as a painter of the Virgin and Child. His workshop produced numerous variations on the subject. Many were intended for private devotion rather than large public churches.
His reputation extended beyond Florence. In 1481 Pope Sixtus IV summoned Botticelli to Rome as part of the group of artists chosen to decorate the walls of the newly constructed Sistine Chapel. Botticelli worked alongside painters including Pietro Perugino, Domenico Ghirlandaio, and Cosimo Rosselli.
The Sistine Chapel project paired episodes from the life of Moses with events from the life of Christ. Botticelli contributed major frescoes to both sides of this program. His work included scenes concerning Moses as well as the Temptations of Christ.
After returning to Florence, Botticelli continued to receive important commissions. During the 1480s he produced some of the mythological paintings for which he later became especially famous. Religious subjects nevertheless remained central to his work.
Florence experienced considerable political and religious upheaval during Botticelli's later career. The Dominican preacher Girolamo Savonarola became an influential voice in the city during the 1490s. His preaching called for moral and religious reform and condemned what he regarded as Florentine corruption and excess.
Botticelli's later religious paintings often possess an emotional intensity different from the serenity of many earlier works. His Mystic Nativity combines the birth of Jesus with imagery connected to Revelation and contemporary expectations concerning judgment and spiritual renewal.
Botticelli remained in Florence during his final years and died there in 1510. His reputation declined for a long period after his death, but renewed interest during the nineteenth century eventually established him as one of the most widely recognized painters of the Renaissance.