Sandro Botticelli

Alessandro di Mariano di Vanni Filipepi, better known as Sandro Botticelli or Il Botticello"The Little Barrel"; (c. 1445^[1] – May 17, 1510) was an Italian painter of the Florentine schoolduring the Early Renaissance (Quattrocento). Less than a hundred years later, this movement, under the patronage of Lorenzo de' Medici, was characterized by Giorgio Vasari as a "golden age", a thought, suitably enough, he expressed at the head of his Vita of Botticelli. His posthumous reputation suffered until the late 19th century; since then his work has been seen to represent the linear grace of Early Renaissance painting. Among his best known works are The Birth of Venus and Primavera.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandro_Botticelli)