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Flora
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 Sandro Botticelli (detail)
Spring
1482
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 Sandro Botticelli (detail)
Spring
1482
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Flora is smiling. Smiling figures are a rarity in Renaissance
painting. Flora's manner is confident and full of natural charm,
possibly resembling that of the young women who posed as the goddess
on carnival floats. Perhaps Botticelli was inspired by a spring
festival in which the figure of Love was celebrated with dancing,
jousting and banquets in the streets. The festival is supposed to
have lasted two months.
Festivals were especially frequent in Florence under the Medicis.
Craftsmen had previously been responsible for large festivals in the
town, but now the new rulers footed the bill. Tournaments in
medieval style were highly popular, giving an otherwise unwarlike
class of merchants the opportunity to show off their strength and
skills, as well as demonstrate their adoration of women by
performing various acts of chivalry. A tournament of this kind, in
honour of Lorenzo the Magnificent, took place in 1469. Its motto was
"The Return of Time": an allusion to the return of spring. This was
followed in 1475 by a famous tournament in honour of Lorenzo's
brother Giuliano. This time the motto was "She is Incomparable";
"she" was in fact Simonetta Cattaneo, wife of Vespucci. Naturally,
it was Botticelli who painted Giuliano's standards, and Poliziano
who composed a poem to celebrate the event!
There are good reasons for the festive spirit which flourished under
Medici rule: firstly, there was the more general mood of revival,
the sense of vision that existed throughout the Renaissance;
secondly, the success, as well as youth, of the ruling family.
Botticelli was 30 at the time of the 1475 tournament, Lorenzo the
Magnificant 25, his brother Giuliano 21, Giuliano's lady Si-monetta
22, Poliziano 21, while Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco was only 12 years
old.
Simonetta died a year after the tournament. Giuliano was murdered,
and Lorenzo the Magnificent wrote: "How sweet is youth, how swift
its flight!" Ovid says much the same thing. Flora advises us to
"pluck's life's beauty while it blooms".
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The brooch
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 Sandro Botticelli (detail)
Spring
1482
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Botticelli's painting displays several examples of the
goldsmith's art: Mercury's helmet and sword hilt, for example, or
the brooches and necklaces of the Graces. Botticelli, once
apprenticed to a goldsmith himself, was well acquainted with the
craft.
This was not unusual at the time; several Florentine artists began
their careers as goldsmiths. Painting pictures was considered the
work of a craftsman - no different in status from the work of a
smith. The term "art" had not yet gained currency. During the 15th
century the Italian word "arte" connoted manual skill, a trade, a
guild.
But the Renaissance changed all that. The rediscovery of Classical
antiquity drew the attention of Botticelli's contemporaries to the
enormous respect accorded artists during antiquity. They recalled
that the Muses inspired artists, but not artisans. Artists gradually
received a more privileged position and, as a consequence, better
pay. Michelangelo, a generation after Botticelli, was the first
artist to leap to fame
and riches. Pointing out that artists do not merely work with their
hands, but also with their heads, Michelangelo set himself apart
from the class of artisans.
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Mercury
|
 Sandro Botticelli (detail)
Spring
1482
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 Sandro Botticelli (detail)
Spring
1482
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Botticelli "uses his head" in a distinctive manner. Well
acquainted with the theoretical trends and rediscovered myths of his
day, he incorporates ideas -some veiled, some self-evident — into
his paintings: he encourages his spectators to think. Paintings, in
the Middle Ages, were the object of contemplation. Their new role
was to provoke thought.
One theoretical trend dominant at the Medici court, for example,
attempted to bring Christian ideas into line with those of Greek
philosophers. Botticelli allows this project to enter the picture in
the shape of Venus, who bears a striking resemblance to the Virgin
Mary. The figure's head is surrounded by a halo which can equally be
seen as a space between branches.
Besides Cupid and the Graces, Venus' entourage also includes
Mercury. He wears his traditionally winged shoes, and carries a wand
with which to ward off clouds that might otherwise disturb eternal
spring.
Contemporary symbolism made an upward gaze the sign of relations to
the Beyond. This is congruent with the mythological attributes of
Mercury, who acted as a messenger between humans and the gods and
who guided the dead to the realm of shadows. Perhaps he signifies
the transience of spring, the fugitive nature of youth, as lamented
in Lorenzo's poem.
But Mercury was also the god of merchants, and was therefore hardly
out of place at a wedding with a commercial background. Besides
this, he - together with the goddess Flora and countless painted
flowers - provides a further allusion to the wedding month:
Mercury's day in the Roman calendar was 15th May; his mother was
Maia who gave the month its name.
The artist speculated on his contemporaries' ability to recognize
such allusions. He played cat and mouse with the spectators of his
painting, refusing to commit himself. Here, too, Botticelli is in
tune with contemporary theorists, one of whom wrote: "Divine things
must be concealed under enigmatic veils and poetic dissimulation."
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