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Botticelli's Secret: The Lost Drawings and the Rediscovery of the Renaissance
Botticelli's Secret: The Lost Drawings and the Rediscovery of the Renaissance | Joseph Luzzi
5 posts | 2 read | 3 to read
A New Yorker Best Book of 2022 Brilliantly conceived and executed, Botticelli's Secret is a riveting search for buried treasure. Stephen Greenblatt, author of The Swerve Some five hundred years ago, Sandro Botticelli, a painter of humble origin, created works of unearthly beauty. A star of Florences art world, he was commissioned by a member of the citys powerful Medici family to execute a near-impossible project: to illustrate all one hundred cantos of The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri, the ultimate visual homage to that divine poet. This sparked a gripping encounter between poet and artist, between the religious and the secular, between the earthly and the evanescent, recorded in exquisite drawings by Botticelli that now enchant audiences worldwide. Yet after a lifetime of creating masterpieces including Primavera and The Birth of Venus, Botticelli declined into poverty and obscurity. His Dante project remained unfinished. Then the drawings vanished for over four hundred years. The once famous Botticelli himself was forgotten. The nineteenth-century rediscovery of Botticellis Dante drawings brought scholars and art lovers to their knees: this work embodied everything the Renaissance had come to mean. From Botticellis metaphorical rise from the dead in Victorian England to the emergence of eagle-eyed connoisseurs like Bernard Berenson and Herbert Horne in the early twentieth century, and even the rescue of precious art during World War II and the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the posthumous story of Botticellis Dante drawings is, if anything, even more dramatic than their creation. A combination of artistic detective story and rich intellectual history, Botticellis Secret shows not only how the Renaissance came to life, but also how Botticellis art helped bring it aboutand, most important, why we need the Renaissance and all that it stands for today.
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This book is great if you want to learn a lot about the rise of the Renaissance (& why it‘s called the Renaissance) in Florence, the House of Medici‘s power and support for artists, and Sandro Botticelli & other artists like Dante, Petrarch, etc. It gave me a lot to think about for my trip to Rome and Florence. I also got a crash course in art history. It also describes the peril of the artwork during WWII, and how the Monuments Men (an ⬇️

Texreader excellent book!) saved so much Renaissance artwork. The book wasn‘t strictly chronological so I got lost here and there and some of it was, truthfully, boring. But I‘m glad I read it in preparation of my trip. (edited) 12mo
TheBookHippie Ooo this I love. Stacked although I minored in Art History and listen to in-depth things on paintings almost daily. 12mo
Texreader @TheBookHippie The book seems to assume the reader knows art history. Other than what I learned from Monuments Men, I don‘t have that background so I think that‘s why it was boring at times. I studied history and love art so it still worked for me. 12mo
TheBookHippie @Texreader it sounds so intriguing!!! 12mo
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The tagged book is about the discovery of Botticelli‘s 92 sketches depicting Dante‘s Divine Comedy. I‘d read Inferno in middle school and have been fascinated ever since. So I‘ve multiple reasons to enjoy this work. I found this artwork here:

https://www.openculture.com/2014/06/botticellis-92-illustrations-of-dantes-divin...

Vansa This is Lovely, thanks for sharing! 12mo
Texreader @Vansa Happy to share! If I could bring myself to read the Inferno again, I think it‘d be amazing to look at these drawings alongside reading it 12mo
33 likes2 comments
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I‘ve started this audiobook tonight. I‘m anxious to learn about the Renaissance since I‘m visiting its birthplace, Florence, in June and have tickets for the major sites.

BarbaraJean Enjoy!! I love Florence so much! I did a study abroad semester there in college and have such fond memories from that time. Have you read the tagged book? Fascinating reading about the Duomo and the construction of its dome! 12mo
Texreader @BarbaraJean Yay! Thanks for referring me to this book! I just stacked it! 12mo
BarbaraJean You're welcome! I hope you enjoy it! 12mo
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A few hours left to take advantage of this Audible special for $1.99. Sorry I‘m so late posting this but I just now saw it myself. Since I‘m going to Florence, Italy in June I figured I need to try to squeeze in this book beforehand.

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NotCool
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Mehso-so

I liked the way the author weaved around in different timelines and stories here: going from Dante, to Botticelli, to the 18th century and back the the Medics. It was wide ranging and ambitious. But I could use more background info for some of it…Darn it, I think I have to go find some books on the bonfire of the vanities now.