One of only two of Botticelli’s paintings of an isolated Venus will be on view for the first time in the United States in Botticelli and the Search for the Divine:  Florentine Painting Between the Medici and the Bonfires of the Vanities, a major international loanexhibition organized by the Muscarelle Museum of Art in Williamsburg, Va., in partnership with the Museum of Fine Art in Boston, and Italy’s Associazione Culturale Metamorfosi.  

The restless, prolific and original genius of Sandro Botticelli (1445-1510) will be explored in depth in this historic exhibition, which features sixteen of his paintings, most with life-size figures, from major museums and churches in six Italian cities, including Florence, Milan and Venice.  Every phase of the artist’s long, tumultuous career is represented in the selection, by far the largest and most important Botticelli exhibition ever staged in the United States.