Editing Sandro Botticelli (section)

==Early life==
[[File:Via borgo ognissanti.JPG|thumb|Via Borgo Ognissanti in 2008, with the eponymous church halfway down on the right. Like the street, it has had a Baroque makeover since Botticelli's time.]]
Botticelli was born in the city of [[Florence]] in a house on the street still called Borgo Ognissanti. He lived in the same area all his life and was buried in his neighbourhood church called [[Ognissanti, Florence|Ognissanti]] ("All Saints"). Sandro was one of several children to the tanner Mariano di Vanni d'Amedeo Filipepi and his wife Smeralda Filipepi, and the youngest of the four who survived into adulthood.<ref>Lightbown, 17–19.</ref><ref name="National Gallery of Art-2003" /> The date of his birth is not known, but his father's tax returns in following years give his age as two in 1447 and thirteen in 1458, meaning he must have been born between 1444 and 1446.<ref name="auto8">Ettlingers, 7.</ref>

In 1460 Botticelli's father ceased his business as a tanner and became a gold-beater with his other son, Antonio. This profession would have brought the family into contact with a range of artists.<ref>Lightbown, 19.</ref> [[Giorgio Vasari]], in his ''[[Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects|Life]]'' of Botticelli, reported that Botticelli was initially trained as a [[goldsmith]].<ref>He was still in school in February 1458 (Lightbown, 19). According to Vasari, 147, he was an able pupil, but easily grew restless, and was initially apprenticed as a goldsmith.</ref>

The Ognissanti neighbourhood was "a modest one, inhabited by weavers and other workmen,"<ref name="auto1">Lightbown, 18.</ref> but there were some rich families, most notably the Rucellai, a wealthy clan of bankers and wool-merchants. The family's head, [[Giovanni di Paolo Rucellai]], commissioned the famous [[Palazzo Rucellai]], a landmark in [[Italian Renaissance architecture]], from [[Leon Battista Alberti]], between 1446 and 1451, Botticelli's earliest years. By 1458, Botticelli's family was renting their house from the Rucellai, which was just one of many dealings that involved the two families.<ref name="auto1"/>

In 1464, his father bought a house in the nearby Via Nuova (now called Via della Porcellana) in which Sandro lived from 1470 (if not earlier) until his death in 1510.<ref name="auto9">Lightbown, 18–19.</ref> Botticelli both lived and worked in the house (a rather unusual practice) despite his brothers Giovanni and Simone also being resident there.<ref>Ettlingers, 12.</ref> The family's most notable neighbours were the Vespucci, including [[Amerigo Vespucci]], after whom the Americas were named. The Vespucci were [[house of Medici|Medici]] allies and eventually regular patrons of Botticelli.<ref name="auto9"/>

The nickname Botticelli, meaning "little barrel", derives from the nickname of Sandro's brother, Giovanni, who was called Botticello apparently because of his round stature. A document of 1470 refers to Sandro as "Sandro Mariano Botticelli", meaning that he had fully adopted the name.<ref name="auto8" />