The painter and the humanist scholars who probably advised him would have recalled that Pliny the Elder had mentioned a lost masterpiece of the celebrated artist, Apelles, representing Venus Anadyomene ( Venus Rising from the Sea ).

: 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.

Many of his anecdotes have the ring of truth, while others are inventions or generic fictions, such as the tale of young Giotto painting a fly on the surface of a painting by Cimabue that the older master repeatedly tried to brush away, a genre tale that echoes anecdotes told of the Greek painter Apelles.

The mural of Venus from Pompeii was never seen by Botticelli, the painter of The Birth of Venus, but may have been a Roman copy of the then famous painting by Apelles which Lucian mentioned.

When Protogenes returned, and the old woman explained what had taken place, he examined the line and pronounced that only Apelles could have done so perfect a piece of work ; Protogenes then dipped a brush into another colour and drew a still finer line above the first one, and asked his servant to show this to the visitor should he return.

Apelles is said to have been working on a painting of Aphrodite of Kos when he died, and the painting was left unfinished for no one could be found with skill enough to complete it.

The story occasioning the painting was alleged to have been false accusations by a rival artist that Apelles took part in a conspiracy against Ptolemy.

But a great wealth of stories, true or invented, clung to Apelles in antiquity ; and modern archaeologists have naturally tried to discover what they indicate.

Apelles is said to have treated his rival with generosity, for he increased the value of his pictures by spreading a report that he meant to buy them and sell them as his own.

Apelles allowed the superiority of some of his contemporaries in particular matters: according to Pliny he admired the dispositio of Melanthius, i. e. the way in which he spaced his figures, and the mensurae of Asclepiodorus, who must have been a great master of symmetry and proportion.

Raphael may have portrayed himself as Apelles in The School of Athens and Sandro Botticelli based two paintings — The Birth of Venus and Calumny of Apelles — on his works.

The experience was said to have fallen on the painter Apelles who was trying to paint the foamy saliva of a horse.

When he had considered the delicate precision of the line he at once declared that his visitor had been Apelles, for no one else could have drawn anything so perfect.

He would then have been about seventy years of age, and had enjoyed for about twenty years a reputation next only to that of Apelles, his friend and benefactor.

Apelles wrote a book entitled Syllogisms (' reasonings ') though the word itself suggests that Apelles may have intended to oppose Marcion's Antitheses, which set the Old Testament and the New Testament against each other.

Thus he was a contemporary of Apelles, whose rival he is said to have been, but he seems to have worked in quite another style.

It had been written by Leonardo's contemporary Agostino Vespucci and likened Leonardo to Apelles, who is mentioned in the text.

According to Pliny, Alexander the Great offered his mistress, Pankaspe, as the model for the nude Venus and later, realizing that Apelles had fallen in love with the girl, gave her to the artist in a gesture of extreme magnanimity.

Pliny also noted a second painting by Apelles of Venus " superior even to his earlier one ," that had been begun by artist but left unfinished.

He dated Apelles to the 112th Olympiad ( 332 – 329 BC ), possibly because he had produced a portrait of Alexander the Great.

Ptolemy demanded to know who had given Apelles the invitation, and with a piece of charcoal from the fireplace Apelles drew a likeness on the wall, which Ptolemy recognized as his jester in the first strokes of the sketch.

Pliny also recorded an anecdote that was making the rounds among Hellenistic connoisseurs of the first century CE: Apelles travelled to Protogenes ' home in Rhodes to make the acquaintance of this painter he had heard so much about.

Observing in the studio a panel Protogenes had prepared for a painting, Apelles walked over to the easel, and taking up a brush told the servant to tell Protogenes " this came from me ," and drew in colour an extremely fine line across the panel.

It was an illustration of this practice when Apelles, finding in the house of Protogenes a large panel ready prepared for a picture, drew upon it with a brush a very fine line which he said would tell sufficiently who had called.

Tertullian tells us that this was because he had become intimate with a woman named Philumena who claimed to be possessed by an angel, who gave her ' revelations ' which Apelles read out in public.

Thus, in Botticelli's interpretation, Pankaspe ( the ancient living prototype of Simonetta ), the mistress of Alexander the Great ( the Laurentian predecessor ), becomes the lovely model for the lost Venus executed by the legendary Apelles ( reborn through the recreative talents of Botticelli ), which ended up in Rome, installed by Emperor Augustus in the temple dedicated to Florence's supposed founder Julius Caesar.

When Apelles returned, and was shown Protogenes ' response, ashamed that he might be bettered, he drew in a third colour an even finer line between the first two, leaving no room for another display of craftsmanship.

The renowned work of Apelles provided several exemplars for the narrative realism admired by Greco-Roman connoisseurs, succinctly expressed in Horace's words ut pictura poesis, " as is painting so is poetry.

" Apelles was also reportedly asked why he touched and retouched his paintings so continually, trying to achieve perfection ( at least in his own mind ); to which he replied, " I paint for eternity.

Pliny states that Apelles made a number of useful innovations to the art of painting, but his recipe for a black varnish, called by Pliny atramentum — which served both to preserve his paintings and to soften their colour, and created an effect that Pliny praises to no end — Apelles kept secret and was lost with his death.

Apelles is described as the greatest painter of Antiquity for perfect technique in drawing, brilliant color and modeling.

On the occasion of a festival of Poseidon at Eleusis, she laid aside her garments, let down her hair, and stepped naked into the sea in the sight of the people, thus suggesting to the painter Apelles his great picture of Ἀφροδίτη Ἀναδυομένη Aphrodite Anadyomene ( also portrayed at times as this Venus Anadyomene ), for which Phryne herself sat as model.

It fell out as he expected ; Apelles did return, and, ashamed to be beaten, drew a third line of another colour cutting the two first down their length and leaving no room for any further refinement.

" In the Renaissance the exemplar of the poetic painting which was invariably cited whenever the art-poetry question was discussed was the Calumny of Apelles, known through Lucian's description.

Apelles ' paintings ( none of which survive ) included:

Pliny connects a number of sayings to Apelles, which may come from Apelles ' lost treatise on the art of painting.

The painting represents seventy-five great artists of all ages, in conversation, assembled in groups on either hand of a central elevation of white marble steps, on the topmost of which are three thrones filled by the creators of the Parthenon: architect Phidias, sculptor Ictinus, and painter Apelles, symbolizing the unity of these arts.

This fresco is probably a Pompeian copy of the famous Apelles ' work, depicting the mistress of Alexander the Great Campaspe as Venus, a work which was held in the Temple of Divus Iulius after the dedication of this work to the shrine of Caesar by Augustus.

His praise of the Calumny of Apelles led to several attempts to emulate it, including paintings by Botticelli and Signorelli.

Another picture in the same collection appears to be a replica of his painting of the " Allegory of Calumny ", as suggested by Lucian's description of a celebrated work by Apelles ; the satire in the original painting, directed against some of his courtier enemies, was the immediate cause of Zuccari's temporary exile from Rome.

" Sandro Botticelli's panel of Calumny of Apelles was painted in conscious striving to equal the painting in Lucian's ekphrasis.