The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston is now showing the largest exhibition of works by Renaissance Master Sandro Botticelli ever assembled in the United States, including a version of his famous Venus. In our feature, we recount Botticelli's life and times, from his days as a favored painter of the Medicis, to his ultimate destitution, to his posthumous fame. In our featured News and Articles section, we bring you a selection of important upcoming auction lots for the week, as well as 10 recommended exhibitions opening around the world. And in this week's video, we learn more about the Birth of Venus, from none other than Sister Wendy. 

From Venus to the Virgin, Botticelli’s women are renowned as the embodiments of grace, elegance, and beauty. The unique style of the Italian painter—with his idealized, elongated, buoyant figures in flowing tresses and drapery—has become emblematic of the Italian Renaissance, and his works are among the most recognizable in the world. Less well known is the fact that Botticelli, while patronized by the Medicis and famous in his own time, fell out of favor late in his life, abandoned many of his own paintings, and was almost entirely forgotten. The ethereal, saintly calm and composure of his figures belie the tumultuous times in which they were painted. Botticelli and the Search for the Divine, a new exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (MFA), explores the changes in Botticelli’s style and subject matter in the context of the shifting political realities in Florence during his life, and the events that nearly wiped out his oeuvre.