How Well Do You Know Botticelli?

Even if you’re not big on visual art, you’re likely familiar with the painting The Birth of Venus. It’s one of the most famous paintings in the world, and each year nearly two million people travel to Florence’s Uffizi Galleries to see it in person.

The man who painted it was named Sandro Botticelli. Today, he’s most famous not just for this, but for other pagan and mythological works such as La Primavera and Venus and Mars. 

But this wasn’t always the case. In Botticelli’s day, he was best known for his religious works, specifically his paintings of the Madonna. His non-religious works like Venus actually made up a small minority of his catalog. 

Today, we’ll take a look at Botticelli’s Madonnas to experience a side of the Renaissance master’s work that often gets overlooked.

What’s so interesting about these paintings?

They’re packed with the clever symbolism that made Botticelli one of the most profound painters of the Renaissance — and all time…

Madonna dell’Eucharistia (1470)

Our Lady of the Eucharist is one of Botticelli’s earlier Madonnas, and one of the few to reside in America instead of Europe. 

Boticelli’s hand is most evident in the smiling angel on the left, whose cheeks, nose, and facial structure are all typical of his style. What’s more interesting though is the symbolism behind the gifts that he presents to Jesus and Mary: the wheat and grapes symbolize the bread and wine of the Eucharist, and are the symbols from which the painting derives its name.

An even more overlooked theological symbol is found in the background of the painting, where the walls suggest that the scene takes place in a walled-off garden. In Latin, this would be called a hortus conclusus, an “enclosed garden.” This term hortus conclusus is found in the Bible’s Song of Songs, where the speaker declares:

“A garden enclosed is my sister, my spouse; a garden enclosed, a fountain sealed up.”

The phrase here indicates virginity, and would later be used to represent Mary’s virginity in Christian artwork. Botticelli incorporates the garden walls in his painting to pack in extra theological significance, just as his Florentine compatriot Fra Angelico did nearly 30 years earlier in his own Annunciation.

Madonna del Libro (1481)

Botticelli’s Madonna of the Book is just as rife with symbolism as his Madonna of the Eucharist. And at first glance, that symbolism is straightforward. Baby Jesus, for example, holds the three nails of the cross in his hand, and wears the crown of thorns on his arm. Additionally, both he and his mother hold up their right hands in a sign of blessing to the viewer.

But the symbolism grows slightly more obscure once you consider the bowl of fruit on the table:

Cherries represent the blood of Christ, while plums symbolize the tender connection between Jesus and his mother. While these symbols are now unrecognizable to us, they were more obvious to Botticelli’s contemporaries.

Nearly 400 years after its composition, the Madonna of the Book was used by Italian nationalists fighting for the unification of Italy: they admired and rallied behind its beauty, championing the painting of a symbol of Italian excellency and national identity…

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