When you think about Italy’s most beautiful - and, in this case, most famous - paintings, Sandro Botticelli’s Birth of Venus is one of the first to come to mind. Painted around 1485, this icon of the Italian Renaissance is on display inside the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, where it stars as a must-see of the museum’s visit (which means you can usually just get a glimpse of it because the crowds in front of it are so thick).

The painting depicts the landing of newly-born Venus, goddess of love and beauty, on the island of Cyprus, driven forward by the winds Zephyr and, possibly, Aura. The goddess stands on top of the valve of a shell, looking pure and perfect. A young woman, sometimes identified as one of the Three Graces, welcomes her, handing her a mantle sprinkled with flowers; the roses carried by the winds also recall the spring season.