Nonot only for experts and enthusiasts, but for anyone on the hunt for true beauty, its forms, its representation, it is a must Botticelli and Florence. The birth of beautydocumentary film on the great Florentine artist, one of the greatest exponents of that magnificent period that was the Renaissance Italian. To the life of Botticellito his ability to man of great relationshipsto his worksand to that open-air museum that it is Florencethis must-see film is dedicated to cinema. Attention: available from today, November 28th, it will only be in theaters for three days, until November 30th. To accompany the viewer on this journey into timeless beauty is Jasmin Trincaactress who has the role of narrative voice.
Botticelli, the one who “invented” beauty (still so pop)
The birth of Venus And Spring are perhaps the works of Botticelli best known in the world. Immense and eternal masterpieces that have inspired, for example, Andy Warholthe visionary photographer David LaChapelle and even Lady Gaga. Artists who, in turn, contributed to making the Florentine painter a pop characterabsolutely contemporary.
Why absolutely contemporary (despite the more than five centuries that separate us from his works) is the ideal of beauty that Botticelli depicts. Women represented in a simple, unadorned way, which transmit purity, softness, typical Renaissance balance. Serenity and ecstasy.
But also the wonderful ones Madonnas from Botticelli they convey the same beauty. And also the pictures ofDante’s Inferno, the Compassionup to ancient gods of greek mythology and the superb frescoes of the Sistine Chapel.
The Birth of Venus, Sandro Botticelli, 1485-1486. (Getty Images)
In the documentary film Botticelli and Florence. The birth of beauty to help understand the secrets and genesis of these works there are the interventions of some of the leading experts in the sector. Alexander Cecchidirector of the Casa Buonarroti museum in Florence, a Ana Debenedetticurator of the drawings and paintings section of the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, Franco Cardiniprofessor of Medieval History at the University of Florence; Jonathan Nelsonprofessor of art history at Syracuse University in Florence, Marco CiattiDirector of the hard stones factory in Florence, Kate Bryanart historian, Clare Cappellettoassociate professor of aesthetics at the Philosophy Department of the University of Milan, Edward Buchanancreative director of Sansovino 6.
The power given (and received) by Lorenzo de’ Medici
Impossible to talk about Botticelli without talking about Lorenzo de’ Medici, banker and man of culture who understood the power of art and artists. With Lawrence the Magnificent indeed the union “art and power” explodes to the max. It manifests itself in every sphere: economic, political, social. And it takes the form of paintings, frescoes, palaces, churches, chapels. Lorenzo de’ Medici mostly relies on Botticelli who, by portraying power, in turn acquires more and more power.
Then, however, with the death of the “Magnificent” in 1492, the golden age ended. And the apocalyptic sermons of the Savonarola. The documentary film highlights the ability to Botticelliawake man, capable of weaving excellent and solid relationships, to adapt to new trends, modeling his art to the new, more severe sensibilities. We go from light to darkness. And the Florentine artist not only manages very well to stay afloat, but he forges other masterpieces such as the Lamentation over the dead Christ.
Lover of his muse Simonetta?
Who is the woman who inspires you Botticelli in his masterpieces? Or rather: was there a real woman who inspired the artist? Experts and historians have long wondered about this point and, sifting through documents and papers, it seems that some have managed to trace the famous and mysterious “muse” who would be depicted, for example, in The birth of Venus And Spring.
Flora in Botticelli’s Spring, 1477–1482. (Getty Images)
It would be about Simonetta Cattaneoa noblewoman who he married at 16 Mark Vespuccirelative of Amerigo Vespucci, discoverer of America. A woman of disruptive beauty, she seems to have ensnared everyone in Florence at the time. She, charming but composed, seems to have succumbed only to the courtship of Julian de’ Mediciyounger brother of Lawrence the Magnificent. Their love, and the life of the shining Simonetta it did not last long: she appears to have died at the age of only 23 of tuberculosis or plague on 26 April 1476 (two years after Julian also died at 25, murdered during the Conspiracy of the Pazzi to whom Botticelli dedicated a painting exhibited to Bergamoin a room of the Carrara Academy).
There were many artists, painters and poets of the time who tried to describe or depict Simonetta. Mashed potato Botticelli he would have been enraptured by her to the point of taking her as “muse” to depict Venus in his celebrated The birth of Venus And Flora in Spring (both works created after the woman’s death). It seems that the Florentine artist courted her in every way without ever being able to be reciprocated.
So much and such would have been his involvement for that woman, to get to ask for be buried at the woman’s feet. In fact, the painter’s tomb is located in the Church of Ognissanti in Florencein the chapel patronized by the Vespucci family where Simonetta is also buried.
Botticelli was just a nickname
The Florentine artist was actually called Alessandro di Mariano by Vanni Filipepi. Botticelli, the name by which the world knows him, is just a nickname. We don’t know for sure how it came about, but the most accredited thesis is that at the time it wasn’t such a “nice” name. In fact, it seems to derive from the nickname given to one of his four brothers, Anthonywhich was just said Botticelli for his robust and massive physique. By reflection he too, a corpulent man, it was said Botticelli.
The other hypothesis, less probable, is that it derives from an alteration of the name of the profession of another brother, John, who was a goldsmith. And in Florence, at the time, the goldsmith was called “Battiloro” or “Battigello”.
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