Sandro Botticelli

Alessandro di Mariano di Vanni Filipepi was an Italian painter of the Early Renaissance. Botticelli's posthumous reputation suffered until the late 19th century, when he was rediscovered by the Pre-Raphaelites who stimulated a reappraisal of his work. In addition to the mythological subjects for which he is best known today, Botticelli painted a wide range of religious subjects and also some portraits. The 1480s were his most successful decade, the one in which his large mythological paintings were completed along with many of his most famous Madonnas. By the 1490s his style became more personal and to some extent mannered.