PRIMAVERA_ was commisioned by the Medici for the walls of the villa of Castello. Here Botticelli wandered in the gardens and meadows. Whatever the meaning of the allegory, "The Birth of Spring" expresses delight in living things_flowers in particular. Forty odd known species are included in the picture and can be identified. Botticeli may have come to know some of these flowers through discussions with humanists who had studied the works of Dioscorides and other classical botanists. Clotsfoot and hellebore, used as medicine, were known chiefly to scholars and physicians.

In the oil lunette, done in 1599 by the Flemish painter Justus Utens, the gardens appear on a grander scale than in Botticelli's day. Still the essential features are the same: symmetrical terracing, a central fountain, small "secret gardens" at either end of the house, and thick groves of evergreens for shading. flowers often grew wild; they were apparently of minor interest to Renaissance gardeners. They were concerned primarily with neat hedges and the ordering of space. Botticelli may have been as expert an amatueur botanist as anyone in Florence, the Athens of the early Rennaissance.