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5Botticelli – Painter and Mystagogue
FIFTEENTH-CENTURY Florence teemed with extraordinary talent and pulsed with optimism, opportunity and a taste for innovation. When Popes Sixtus IV (1471-84) and Innocent VIII (1484-92) sought to make Rome a place worthy of the seat of Christianity and its imperial past, it was to Florence they turned for talent. Sixtus relied heavily on the skills of Botticelli, the Pollaiuolo brothers, Signorelli and Ghirlandaio, and also Perugino from Umbria. Later popes commissioned work from Raphael (School of Athens, 1510-11) and Michelangelo (Sistine Chapel ceiling, 1508-12).
The new classical learning, the celebration of man and the birth and exchange of literary and artistic ideas, in conjunction with competition for the most prestigious patrons and commiss
