Welcome to the Lonely Pallet, reads. An oral dive into classic works of art historical literature that never seemed interesting until they were read

out loud to you and you realize that gossip is gossip in every century.

Today, Georgia Vassari's The Lives of the Artists,

a 1991 translation by Julia Conaway Bondanella

and Peter Bondanella.

The Life of Sandra Botticelli, Florentine Painter, 1445 to 1510.

In the time of Lorenzo de Medici, El Magnifico, the elder, truly a golden age for men and

talent.

There flourished the artist named Alessandro, shortened to Sandro according to our custom, with the second name Botachelli for reasons we shall

soon discover.

He was the son of Mariano Philip Pepe, a Florentine citizen who raised him very conscientiously and had him instructed in all those things usually taught to young boys in the years before they were placed in the shops.

And although the boy learned everything he wanted to quite easily he was nevertheless restless

he was never satisfied in school with reading writing and arithmetic

disturbed by the boy's whimsical mind, his father in desperation placed him with a goldsmith,

a friend of his named Botachello, a quite competent master of that trait in those days.

In that period, very close relations and almost a constant intercourse existed between

goldsmiths and painters, and because of this, Sandro, who was a clever

boy and had taken a fancy to painting, turned completely to the art of design and decided

to devote himself to it. Thus he confided in his

father who recognized the boy's aptitude and took him to Fra Felipo, an illustrious

painter of the period at the Carmine, and arranged for him to an illustrious therefore put all of his energies into learning this craft.

He followed and imitated his master in such a way that Fra Falipo grew fond of him and taught

...