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of Renaissance ideals reflected by Alberti���s treatise On Painting. Moreover, Vasari writes that in the case of the Calumny Botticelli painted it of his volition and gave it to a friend.63 In addition, recent research has proposed that several paintings, including the Venus and Mars cassone panel (National Gallery, London), were painted around 1500 and not, as was earlier believed, in the 1480s.64 This proves Joannides is correct to surmise that much of Botticelli���s late production has been dated too early.65 Nonetheless, these exceptions do not contradict his preoccupation with religious subjects. Artists themselves rarely chose their subjects.66 The large panel onto which the fragments were attached cannot be thought of as an independent artwork, but rather as a commissioned altarpiece. In conjunction with the apocalyptic fears that characterised the Florentine public sphere at the turn of the century, it could be argued that the large number of religious paintings conform to patrons��� demands. The Last Communion of St Jerome of c. 1494 (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York), for example, is known to have belonged to the collection Francesco del Pugliese, a recognised piagnone.67 The fact that Botticelli���s pious clients ordered devotional paintings of selected themes, suggests that Botticelli might have been only indirectly influenced by Savonarola. The same painting is also evidence of the trend for buyers to demand smaller paintings during Botticelli���s late career. Although Alberti recommends ���not to paint on very small panels��� these paintings are all small.68 This has to be seen in connection with the HYLAND 24