Pallas and the Centaur

Infobox Painting|

---

title=Pallas and the Centaur
artist=Sandro Botticelli
year=c. 1482
type=Tempera on canvas
height=204
width=147,5
city=Florence
museum=Uffizi

"Pallas and the Centaur" is a painting by the Italian Renaissance painter Sandro Botticelli, circa 1482. It is housed in the Uffizi of Florence. The painting was discovered in 1895,cite book
last =Streeter
first =A.
authorlink =
coauthors =
title =Botticelli
publisher =G. Bell and Sons
date =1903
location =Original from the University of California
pages =page 11
url =http://books.google.com/books?id=c_o_AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA11&dq=%22Pallas+and+the+Centaur%22+-wikipedia&as_brr=1&client=firefox-a
doi =
id = ]

An inventory dating from 1499, which was not discovered until 1975, lists the property of Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco and his brother Giovanni and states that in the 15th century the "Primavera" had been displayed in Florence's city palace, and that the painting of "Pallas and the Centaur" (though the title is conventional) was hung above a door in the same room as the former. The Medici commission is showed by the presence of three rings interwoven on the dress of Pallas.

The painting's bare landscape focuses one's gaze on the two figures. A centaur has trespassed on forbidden territory. This lusty being, half horse and half man, is being brought under control by a guard-nymph armed with a shield and halberd, and she has grabbed him by the hair. The woman has been identified both as the goddess Pallas Athena and the Amazon Camilla, chaste heroine of Virgil's "Aeneid". What is undisputed is the moral content of the painting, in which virtue is victorious over sensuality through the use of reason. The two parts of the human soul, reason and instinct fighting one another, are represented by the double nature of the centaur. The latter, whose classical epithet is Chiron was maybe inspired by some classic relief, though the pathetic expression is wholly by Botticelli.

This painting marks the end of Botticelli's Medicean period, from this point onwards the subject-matter of his paintings changes and becomes increasingly religious.

References