beyond, leading to a distant walled city. In the foreground, a swarm of wasps hovers around Mars' head, possibly as a symbol that love is often accompanied by pain. Another explanation, first suggested by Ernst Gombrich, is that the wasps represent the Vespucci family that may have commissioned the painting. They had been neighbours of Botticelli since his childhood, and had commissioned his Saint Augustine in His Study for the Ognissanti church in 1480, probably in addition to other commissions. Their coat of arms included wasps, as their name means "little wasps" in Italian, and the wasps' nest, in a hollow in the tree in the top right corner, is exactly in the place in the panel where the coat of arms of a patron was often painted. The painting is thought originally to have been set into panelling as a spalliera, or part of furniture such as a bed, the back of a lettuccio, a wooden sofa, or a similar piece. Ronald Lightbown describes Mars as "Botticelli's most perfect male nude", though there are not really a large number of these; he was less interested in perfecting the anatomy of his figures than many of his Florentine contemporaries, but seems to have paid special attention to it here. The Venus here, unlike in the artist's Birth of Venus, is fully clothed, as she is in marital mode. This despite Venus being the wife of Vulcan, making the relationship adulterous by normal human standards. In Greek Neoplatonism, Harmony was the daughter of their union. Other late classical sources regarded Cupid as a child of the union. Interpretation The usual view of scholars is that the painting was commissioned to celebrate a marriage, and is a relatively uncomplicated representation of sensual pleasure, with an added meaning of love conquering or outlasting war. This was a commonplace in Renaissance thinking, which might be elaborated in terms of Renaissance Neoplatonism. As with the other mythologies, Ernst Gombrich and Edgar Wind were the first to analyse the painting in these terms. The couple's relationship could also be considered in terms of astrology, in which Mars is, according to Marsilio Ficino, "outstanding in strength among the planets, because he makes men stronger, but Venus masters him ...she seems to master Mars, but Mars never masters Venus". The Victorian critic John Addington Symonds, without disagreeing with that interpretation, thought the newly fashionable Botticelli overrated and "harboured