A love for the magnificent, stimulated by the affluence of the new rich, provided a spirit of luxury, splendor, and power. A thirst for immortality in the arts inspired creative individuals to initiate daring innovations in form and content. The classical inspiration was all about them. Neoplatonism came to be a sophisticated medium by which values were arbitrated. The old gods of antiquity were reinstated in their places on Mount Olympus as generous euhemeristic figures (deified mortals) responsible for Western civilization; even Protestant reformer Huldrych Zwingli believed that the faithful would see Hercules and Theseus in heaven. It became fashionable for Franks, Scandinavians, Normans, Italians, and Spaniards to associate their history with the noble Trojan cycle. The order of the Golden Fleece was founded in 1430. Popularity of the astrological zodiac helped to keep alive the mythology of the heavens. Even ancient hieroglyphs elicited a lively interest.

In the arts, Christian and pagan themes were irreverently blended. Bas reliefs dared to display Adam and Hercules in alternate scenes. Pagan heroes, such as Jason, complemented biblical heroes, such as Gideon. Alongside traditional Christian portrayals of the Crucifixion, the Madonna, and the Nativity, painters set classical scenes featuring Jupiter (even as a monk), Apollo, Mercury, Venus, Juno, Diana, Mars, Narcissus, Saturn, Perseus, Bacchus, Vulcan, Cybele, Pan, and Eros, together with centaurs and other appropriate and familiar pagan figures. Allegorical paintings pictured the combat of Ratio and Libido, fitting symbols of the conflict of the Christian and the pagan ways of life.

All these classical themes of the neopagan Renaissance were depicted brilliantly with the aid of new techniques: brighter colors and attention to physical form, space, and perspective. The movement was facilitated by the rise of the affluent and generous patron, particularly conspicuous in the Medici family of Florence, the Athens of the Renaissance.

Typically representative of the painters who helped to revive the classical pagan themes was Alessandro di Mariano Filipepi, better known as Sandro Botticelli (little barrel), an artist who was important enough to receive recognition from Leonardo da Vinci in his Trattato della pittura (1651; A Treatise on Painting, 1721). Pupil of Fra Filippo Lippi, Botticelli lived in a circle of erudite antiquarians who treasured equally the cadences of Vergilian lines and the artistry of Ciceronian periods. Like his contemporaries, he worked to resuscitate ancient masterpieces by seeking inspiration from a Philostatus or a Lucian. In communication with the Neoplatonists Marsilio Ficino, Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, and Politian (Angelo Ambrogini), Botticelli created an art form that aptly expressed the philosophy and sentiment of the Platonic Academy by appealing to religious desires that transcended sect.

While it is true that later in his career, under the influence of Girolamo Savonarola, Botticelli reverted to religious themes, iconographers see in his secular works a tantalizing intertwining of Christian themes with the mythology of antiquity. His works suggested to many the conflict between the pagan ideal, with its vision of earthly beauty, and the Christian ideal of a heavenly, beatific vision. His three Venuses, Venus and Mars, the Birth of Venus, and the Primavera (or Allegory of Spring), along with his Pallas, conceal equally well allusions to private events in the lives of the Medici and invitations to dwell in ethereal fields of abstraction. His noble, sublime, delicate nudes symbolized to him the "naked truth." A critic of medieval inspirational art questioning the proper artistic role of ethics and religion, he was a bold challenger of methodology and content. In the name of beauty, he felt free to tamper with space and perspective and to mistrust form as a sheer representation of nature. He challenged history as the sole dramatic figuration of human action, seeing antiquity as an ideal rather than a historical period.

Significance
Through Botticelli, the Hellenic influences of the Renaissance penetrated the depths of Western art, leaving a lasting legacy. Along with Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci, Botticelli must be remembered for playing a significant role in the crystallization of the kind of art that is traditional in the West.

Dorothy Kinsella, updated by Ann Stewart Balakier