Botticelli

He was the son of a citizen in comfortable circumstances, and had been, in Vasari's words, "e;instructed in all such things as children are usually taught before they choose a calling."e; However, he refused to give his attention to reading, writing and accounts, continues Vasari, so that his father, despairing of his ever becoming a scholar, apprenticed him to the goldsmith Botticello: wh...