 The iconography of "The Birth of Venus" is similar to a description of a relief of the event in Poliziano's poem the "Stanze per la giostra", commemorating a Medici joust in 1475, which may also have influenced Botticelli, although there are many differences.For example Poliziano talks of multiple Horae and zephyrs.Older writers, following Horne, posited that "his patron Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco asked him to paint a subject illustrating the lines", and that remains a possibility, though one difficult to maintain so confidently today.