Note 1 — Front matter
Reading edition
Though his contemporaries were beginning to use the new medium of oil for their easel paintings, Botticelli adhered to tempera, or distemper, in which yolk of egg was generally the vehicle employed. Nearly all his pictures, except, of course, his frescoes, are upon wood. The "Pallas and the Centaur," "Venus," and "Nativity" of 1500, are however on prepared canvas.