 While Botticelli might well have been celebrated as a revivified Apelles, his "Birth of Venus" also testified to the special nature of Florence's chief citizen, Lorenzo de' Medici.Although it now seems that the painting was executed for another member of the Medici family, it likely was intended to celebrate and flatter its head, Lorenzo de' Medici.Tradition associates the image of Venus in Botticelli's painting with the famous beauty Simonetta Cattaneo Vespucci, of whom popular legend claims both Lorenzo and his younger brother, Giuliano, were great admirers.