I stated in my last post that there was more to Botticelli’s Primavera other than being a presentation of Greco-Roman mythology and its poetic influences. However, the translation of mythological identities from Greek to Roman is a key to understanding the major narrative in the painting.

The mergence of the figure of Chloris with Flora, her Roman counterpart, is an example of this, brought together by Zephyrus the Greek god of the east wind, or his Roman equivalent, a favourable wind called Favonius.

The scene is an allegory of Greco-Roman coalescence, Greek language and Latin language, Orthodox Catholic Church and Roman Catholic Church, a marriage or unification of the Catholic Church following its several schisms during previous centuries, including the Great East-West Schism that happened during the eleventh century.

It points to the Council of Florence, the seventeenth ecumenical council between the “two lungs” of the Church that began in Basel (Switzerland) in 1431, reconvened at Ferrara (Italy) in 1438 and then moved to Florence in 1439, concluding in 1445.

Among many of the issues under discussion by the Council was papal primacy and the jurisdiction of bishop of Rome over the whole Church. This was resolved and agreed when a final decree, a papal Bull of Union with the Greeks, was issued in July, 1439. It officially reunited the Roman Catholic Church with the Eastern Orthodox Churches, so ending the East-West Schism (until the next time).

Papal primacy and authority is also expressed in another sense in the Primavera. The painting makes reference to the reconciliation of Lorenzo de’Medici and the city of Florence with Pope Sixtus IV following what is known as the Pazzi Conspiracy, as mentioned in the previous post.

Eastern Orthodox Christianity is characterised by the term Byzantium. Although centred on Constantinople which was considered the “cradle of Orthodox Christianity”, “it orientated towards Greek rather than Latin culture”, hence the papal bull reference to “Union with the Greeks”.

The most familiar Byzantine reference to be seen in the Primavera are the orange balls that appear as fruit of the orange trees. In heraldic terms they are known as roundels, depicting gold bezants, the currency associated with the Byzantine Empire. They can also be understood as the orange balls that appear on the coat of arms or “stemma” associated with the Medici banking family. A mythological representation is that they are the golden apples in the Garden of Hesperides given as a wedding gift to Hera, wife of Zeus, and Queen of the gods, and of marriage, family and childbirth, Juno being her Roman equivalent.

So what appears on the surface to be oranges can also be a lead into other themes embedded in the painting. For instance, understood in terms of being associated with the Medici coat of arms, the word “stemma” can be linked to the positioning of the stem-like arms of the figures in the painting. Generally they act as pointers to other narratives and an aid to identification.

In an earlier post I mentioned that the twelve signs of the Zodiac can be identified in the painting. For example the left arm of the VirginMary, fragmented in places and its hand showing three fingers, is meant to represent a crab’s leg and so the sign of Cancer. Her right hand is also a telling pointer which I shall explain at a later stage.

The lonic image of Flora is symbolic of Florence’s heraldic lion, the Marzocco. Her left thigh is shaped as the shield that Donatello’s famous lion rests one of its paws on, except in Flora’s portrayal the flower on the shield is a rose and not the “Fleur de Lys”. There is a reason why Botticelli has used a rose which connects to another narrative in the painting and I shall explain in a future post.

The Primavera is saturated with symbols.

“The term symbolism is derived from the word ‘symbol’ which derives from the Latin symbolum, a symbol of faith, and symbolus, a sign of recognition, in turn from classical Greek σύμβολον symbolon, an object cut in half constituting a sign of recognition when the carriers were able to reassemble the two-halves…” (wikipedia)

Reassembling two halves reconnects to earlier mention of the Council of Florence and the “two lungs” of the Church coming together. And if we take a fresh look at the arch formation of trees behind Mary, the Mother of the Church, we can see they are shaped and presented as two lungs, left and right. This leads on to other Church connections in the painting, particularly Pope Sixtus IV, which I shall explain in a future post.