Tim Marlow TV - National Gallery online - BBC online - Empires Special: Medici TV -
Sandro Botticelli was a painter of cassone [marriage dowry chests], and also one of the most celebrated painters of classical myth. He was also a painter of altar-pieces too. Including this one, done in the early 1490s, when he was amongst the most prominent Florentine artists of his day, when he produced this image of the Trinity. (Art & Artists: Botticelli) Tim Marlow at the Courtauld 1/3, Sky Arts 2010
Botticelli’s star was in the ascendant. Such was his reputation that, in 1481, he was summoned by the Pope to Rome to help decorate the walls of the recently completed Sistine Chapel in the Vatican. He painted frescoes depicting scenes from the Life of Moses and the Temptations of Christ and was also responsible for a number of papal portraits. The nature of this task demonstrates how highly regarded he was around this time, and it was the only occasion he is known to have worked outside Florence.
A year later, Botticelli returned to Florence, to continue with the most prolific stage of his career.
The period from 1478-90 saw Botticelli at his most creative. This was the period during which he produced his famous mythological works, such as The Birth of Venus (in the Uffizi, Florence) and Venus and Mars. In these he successfully combined a decorative use of line (possibly owing much to his early training as a goldsmith) with elements of the classical tradition, seen in the harmony of his composition and the supple contours of his figures. National Gallery online
Sandro Botticelli was one of the Early Renaissance’s leading painters. But despite his success in his lifetime, his work became unfashionable for centuries. He was rediscovered in the 19th Century by the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. BBC online
[Sandro] Botticelli ... hurled his own paintings into the flames ... The Bonfire of the Vanities. Empires Special: Medici: Godfathers of the Renaissance II: The Magnificent Medici, PBS 2004