Category Archives: Sandro Botticelli

The Denunciation?

Posted on by

This is the right hand of God that appears in Fra Filippo Lippi’s painting of The Annunciation (London version) sending forth the Holy Spirit to overshadow the Virgin Mary so she may conceive and bear a son to be named Jesus.

In Leonardo da Vinci’s version of The Annunciation, the hand of God is also indicated, but visibly absent, and for a specific reason.

It was the finger of God that inscribed the two tablets of stone setting out his Law – The Decalogue, or Ten Commandments – for the people to live by, an event disguised by Leonardo as the window above the Virgin’s head.

The window frame can also be visualised in another way: The two tablets as representing the Old and New Testaments, and the scroll with its wing-shaped edge, as a roll cloud. The ledge above can be understood as another cloud formation, a ledge cloud. Both clouds can sometimes hint at a coming thunderstorm in their wake.

When Moses responded to God’s call from within a cloud on Mount Sinai he spent 40 days and nights on the mountain in the cloud and was eventually given the two stone tablets. After descending from Sinai he witnessed the people he had led out of Egypt dancing and worshiping a calf made of gold. In anger, Moses smashed the tablets on the ground. The thunderstorm had broken and descended from the cloud. The dark area alongside the tablets in the window, and the unfurling shadow under the ledge represent the storm.

So the window is a cloud motif, and its connection to a storm and darkness points to an episode in Leonardo’s early life when, in April 1476, he was denounced to the Florentine authorities with four other men, accused of sodomy. 

The letter of denunciation had been deposited in one of the city’s post boxes known as tambouri (drums). These holes in the wall or “holes of truth” were designed for the purpose of reporting misdemeanours and crimes. 

The charge against Leonardo and the other men was eventually dropped, principally because the accuser had not signed the letter and remained anonymous.

Along with Leonardo, four other men were named: Bartolomeo di Pasquino, a goldsmith; Lionardo Tornabuoni, from a noble family connected to the Medici; a tailor named Baccino; and a young man said to be a male prostitute, Jacopo Saltarelli.

Two months later another anonymous accusation against Leonardo was posted in a tamburo, and again, the charge was dropped for the same reason as previous.

Now Leonardo’s window takes on a new identity. It becomes a “hole of truth”, a tamburo, The two tablets represent the two denunciations, unsigned; the scroll, the written accusation. Hence the reason for the absent visible hand of God in the painting.

That the last charge was not made until June 1476 is helpful in dating Leonardo’s Annunciation painting. It could not have been started until at the earliest later in the same year.

Having shone the light on the accusations, Leonardo proceeded to identify in his painting those who were charged with sodomy – and also the two men he considered were responsible for writing and placing the accusation in the tamburo  – two notable artists, Domenico Ghirlandaio and Sandro Botticelli.

Not knowing at the time of the charges who his accuser was, the cloud can be referred to as “The Cloud of Unknowing” an anonymous work of Christian mysticism written in the 14th century. It’s another book Leonardo has placed in the window and paired with an earlier work from the late fourth century penned by Augustine of Hippo and generally referred to as “Confessions”. Augustine also wrote on a similar theme of unknowing as in The Cloud.

A final link to Leonardo’s cloud can be recognised in the artist’s biography written by Charles Nicholl: Leonardo da Vinci, The Flights of the Mind.

When introducing Leonardo’s father Piero, an established notary in Florence, Nicholl describes Piero’s notarial insignia as “a kind of trademark – not unlike a printer’s device – can be seen on a contract dated November 1458. It is hand drawn, and shows a cloud with a letter P in it…”

The window scroll is the reference to notary, while Leonardo has utilised the left side and bottom edges of the window to represent the letter L and the first letter of his full name which was Lionardo di ser Piero da Vinci (Leonardo, son of ser Piero da Vinci).

It is here that Leonardo laid the ground to reference the Trinity, Father Son and Holy Spirit (the Spirit being the winged edge of the scroll) to make a connection to Sandro Botticelli and another painting by Fra Filippo Lippi, The Vision of St Augustine. Botticelli served as an apprentice under Fra Filippo.

Like his father, a notary, Leonardo recorded in notebooks many of his observations and discoveries, a type of biography or confession of his life. The two stones in the window are a reference to his early notebooks.

While Leonardo may never have made any handwritten record of his dark times being brought before the courts accused of sodomy, or if he did, they are are either lost or still to be discovered, his painting of The Annunciation paradoxically records his Denunciation, and is a visible record to his accusers and one which both Botticelli and Ghirlandaio parodied in later paintings of their own. 

Botticelli, in particular, went on to further suggest that Leonardo may have fallen from grace again a few years later, but in different circumstances, before he left Florence and moved to Milan.

• My next post will deal with the identity of the four men accused alongside Leonardo. 

An annunciation

Posted on by

In an earlier post I explained that Giorgio Vasari, in his painting of the Battle of Marciano, portrayed Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo as two musketeers standing side by side.

I revealed in another post how Vasari placed references in the scene to Leonardo’s painting, Lady with an Ermine, and also intimated that other works attributed to Leonardo were referenced, namely the Mona Lisa and the Salvatore Mundi.

One painting for sure that Vasari utilised in the battle scene was Leonardo’s Annunciation.

Detail of the Angel Gabriel from The Annunciation, by Leonardo da Vinci, Uffizi, Florence

I was intending to use this post to explain the connections Vasari made to The Annunciation, but having examined Leonardo’s painting in more detail, I shall delay on that and instead reveal some surprising embedded elements not normally recognised with what is said to be the earliest extant painting produced by Leonardo. 

Botticelli had knowledge of the underlying detail. He made reference to it in the Uffizi version of The Adoration of the Magi. So did Vasari in the Battle of Marciano.

Look-a-likes and the Big Reveal

Posted on by
Battle of Marciano by Giorgio Vasari, Palazzo Vecchio, Florence

Just why did Giorgio Vasari embed so many bearded look-a-likes in his Battle of Marciano fresco in the Palazzo Vecchio? A clue can be found in a similar motif, the rows of round-helmeted soldiers lined up as peas in a pod, appearing to be cast from the same mould. Musket balls, maybe?

The musket-ball motif can link to the two men firing muskets in the section of the painting I pointed out in my previous post, the “Sons of Thunder”, Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo Buonarroti. Leonardo is depicted as one of the many bearded look-a-likes.

That Leonardo is placed shoulder-to-shoulder with Michelangelo is for a reason. Vasari has utilised a similar motif from one of the most famous fresco scenes in the world – The Creation of Adam – that forms part of the Sistine Chapel ceiling painted by Michelangelo.

Creation of Adam, Sistine Chapel, Michelangelo

In making this connection Vasari revealed, quite intentionally, and confirmed in another section of the Marciano fresco, that Michelangelo’s portrayal of God is, in fact, Leonardo da Vinci!

The angel portrayed behind God’s right shoulder is Michelangelo. Another artist portrayed in the “pod” is Sandro Botticelli. Here, Michelangelo, like Vasari, referenced paintings by Botticelli and Leonardo to create this scene, and I shall explain more about this in a future post.

“God created Man in the image of himself, in the image of God he created him, male and female he created them.…” (Genesis 1 : 27), which explains the bearded men motif in the Vasari fresco, all made in the image of God.

But was Vasari pointing to another scenario, and two more famous paintings associated with Leonardo: the Mona Lisa, and the portrait of Christ known as Salvatore Mundi?

Some art researchers have hypothesised that Leonardo is the model for both paintings – “male and female he created them.”

The Mona Lisa (Louvre) and the portrait known as Salvatore Mundi

What ‘Robert Langdon’ failed to see…

Posted on by

In Dan Brown’s Inferno novel the fictional character Robert Langdon, a Harvard University professor of history of art and “symbology”, is tasked with deciphering clues embedded in the works of Sandro Botticelli, Giorgio Vasari and the first part of Dante Alighieri’s poem Divine Comedy (Inferno).

The Vasari work is the Battle of Marciano, frescoed on the south wall of the  Palazzo Vecchio’s Hall of Five Hundred. The wall is believed to cover over the surface on which Leonardo da Vinci began to paint the Battle of Anghiari.

Battle of Marciano by Giorgio Vasari, Palazzo Vecchio, Florence

What caught Langdon’s attention in the fresco was a green flag blazoned with the words Cerca Trova (Seek and Find). But other than that the Harvard professor “failed to see how Vasari’s Battaglia di Marciano could possibly relate to Dante’s Inferno…”.

The Green Flag detail from the Battle of Marciano by Giorgio Vasari, Palazzo Vecchio, Florence

Langdon and his colleague Sienna then moved on to seek out Dante Alighieri’s death mask, located elsewhere in the building. But when they reached the room where it was kept they discovered the mask had been stolen.

Had Langdon made a closer inspection of Vasari’s Battaglia di Marciano he might have spotted not only a reference to the Dante mask but probably also recognised characters and scenes associated with the poet’s journey through Hell as described in Inferno.

The “Harvard professor” would likely have understood as well how Vasari adapted elements from Leonardo’s Battle of Anghiari fresco to include in his “cover-up”.

The section of the battle scene shown below is where Dante and the Inferno references can be found. So let’s “seek and find” the man known as il Sommo Poeta – the Supreme Poet.

Detail from the Battle of Marciano by Giorgio Vasari, Palazzo Vecchio, Florence

Many associate the words “Seek and Find” with those recorded in the gospels of Matthew and Luke when Jesus taught his disciples how to pray, and said: “Search and you will find…”. But there is an earlier biblical reference to this instruction in the Book of Jeremiah. It is this particular mention that Vasari has flagged as a pointer to Dante Alighieri, linking the poet’s exile from Florence with the Jewish people’s exile from Jerusalem to Babylon.

Left: The prophet Jeremiah by Michelangelo, Sistine Chapel.
Right; Dante Alighieri by Sandro Botticelli, private collection.

The prophet Jeremiah was inspired by God to write a letter of encouragement and hope to the people carried off into exile by Nebuchadnezzar (Jeremiah 29 : 4-23) in which was said: “When you seek me you shall find me, when you seek me with all your heart, I shall let you find me – it is the Lord who speaks” (29 : 13-14).

And when Jeremiah was first called to his vocation as a prophet he complained to God that he was still a child and did not know how to speak. But God told Jeremiah not to fear and to say whatever he was commanded to say to the people he was sent to. Jeremiah wrote: “Then the Lord put out his hand and touched my mouth and said to me: ‘There! I am putting my words into your mouth…’” (1 : 6, 9)

Along with the quotation from Jeremiah’s letter to the exiles, Vasari also linked to the hand of God putting words into the prophet’s mouth to identify his portrayal of Dante.

Vasari made a third connection with Jeremiah and Dante’s identity in the Battle of Marciano. This time it referred to a verse by Dante in Canticle 20 when Dante wept with pity for the disfigured, weeping souls in the fourth trench of Hell. 

Truly I wept, leaning upon a peak
Of the hard crag, so that my Escort said
To me: “Art thou, too, of the other fools?”

Jeremiah wept much throughout his ministry for the people of Judah who refused to listen to his call for repentance, so much so that he became known as “the weeping prophet”.

The reason Vasari made three connections between Jeremiah and Dante was to correspond with the Divine Comedy’s structure based on the number 3 which threads throughout the poem as an acknowledgement to the Trinitarian nature of God.

Detail from the Battle of Marciano, representing Dante Alighieri and Cante Gabrielli di Gubbio
Death mask of Dante Alighieri, Palazzo Vecchio, Florence

Pictured above is detail from Vasari’s fresco and shows two cavalry men, similar in appearance, placed side by side. The head on the right side represents Dante Alighieri; the head on the left, Cante dei Gabrielli di Gubbio, the man who exiled Dante from Florence.

The face of each man does not reveal their identity, but their helmet does. The head shape on the peak of Dante’s helmet refers to the poet’s death mask. Its mouth is covered or ‘masked’ by a scroll. The scroll refers to both Dante as a writer and the prophet Jeremiah’s letter to the Jewish people in exile. The scroll also invokes the time when God touched Jeremiah’s mouth with his hand and said: ‘There! I am putting my words into your mouth…”

The scene also represents when Dante entered the fourth trench of hell and wept, while ‘leaning upon a peak’ when he saw the people there with their heads reversed on their bodies, unable to look forward and walking backwards.

And people saw I through the circular valley,
Silent and weeping, coming at the pace
Which in this world the Litanies assume.
As lower down my sight descended on them,
Wondrously each one seemed to be distorted
From chin to the beginning of the chest;
For tow’rds the reins the countenance was turned,
And backward it behoved them to advance,
As to look forward had been taken from them.
Perchance indeed by violence of palsy
Some one has been thus wholly turned awry;
But I ne’er saw it. nor believe it can be.
As God may let thee, Reader, gather fruit
From this thy reading, think now for thyself
How I could ever keep my face unmoistened,
When our own image near me I beheld
Distorted so, the weeping of the eyes
Along the fissure bathed the hinder parts.
Truly I wept, leaning upon a peak
Of the hard crag, so that my Escort said
To me: Art thou, too, of the other fools?

Canto 20 – WRITEWORDS.COM

Notice the Dante mask feature placed on the helmet’s peak, and then observe the shape and placement of the red plume on Cante dei Gabrielli’s helmet. The lion-head shape and colour represents Rubicante, one of the twelve Malebranche demons who guard Borgia Five of the Eighth Circle in Inferno. Rubicante represents Cante dei Gabrielli who cast Dante out of Florence, and so, in turn, the poet casts his accuser into Hell.

The lion also represents the symbol of Judah and its people who refused to listen to Jeremiah and the words God put into his mouth. The helmet’s peak is also an identifier as its crescent shape forms part of the Gabrielli coat of arms.

While Dante’s ‘Escort’ at this stage in his poem is the Roman poet Virgil, Vasari infers Cante is also an ‘Escort’ accusing Dante of being “of the other fools”, those other Florentines who found themselves on the wrong side of Cante’s position of power and judgement as mayor of Florence. 

Dante’s tears – another connection to Jeremiah who was known as the “weeping prophet” – can be understood as the three long streams which descend from the top of the sculpted head on the helmet’s peak. This is a pointer to the plume on the silver helmet and its embedded facial feature depicting a “man of sorrow”.

• More on this section of Vasari’s Battle of Marciano in a future post.

Clementines

Posted on by

Giorgio Vasari applied more than one identity – usually two or four – to most of the figures in his fresco depicting the Marriage of Henry, Duke of Orleans, and Catherine de’ Medici.

The marriage between Henry, Duke of Orleans and Catherine Medici, Giorgio Vasari, Palazzo Vecchio

In previous posts I revealed four identities to the moustached man placed at the shoulder of Pope Clement VII:
Galeazzo Maria Sforza, Duke of Milan
Giovanni Andrea Lampugnani, assassin of Galeazzo Maria Sforza
Alessandro de Medici, Duke of Florence
Gaston de Foix, Duke of Nemours, nicknamed The Thunderbolt of Italy

The central figure in the fresco, Pope Clement VII, bishop of Rome, is one of four identities. Not surprisingly two of them relate to previous popes: Clement I, and the anti-pope Clement VII (Robert of Geneva). The fourth identity connects to the two Roman mythology figures portrayed in the corner of the frame, Saturn and Ops. They parented five children, Jupiter being one of them, and it is Jupiter, representing the god of sky and thunder, who Vasari has embedded as the fourth identity.

Jupiter, the god of sky and thunder and protector of laws and the state

Two symbols associated with Jupiter are an eagle and a lightening bolt. The latter connects to the identity of the head on Jupiter’s shoulder, Gaston de Foix, the Thunderbolt of Italy. As for the eagle, noted for its large hooked beak, we can recognise this feature in another identity given to the head on Jupiter’s shoulder, Galeazzo Maria Sforza. 

The head of Jupiter can also be visualised as the head of a raptor, perhaps a bearded vulture, the red cape spread out like wings, and hands represented as claws digging into the arms of Henry and Catherine – or even the head of the bearded Jupiter as depicted in ancient statues of the chief deity of the Roman State religion.

Primavera by Sandro Botticelli, Uffizi, Florence

This figure represented as both a god of the sky and Pope Clement VII connects to the central figure in Botticelli’s Primavera representing the Assumption of the Virgin Mary into Heaven and to a lost fresco in the Sistine Chapel. The Chapel was dedicated to the Assumption of Mary by Pope Sixtus IV on her feast day of that name, August 15, 1483.

A drawing made by Pinturicchio, one of Perugini’s assistants, of the lost Assumption of the Virgin, the fresco covered by Michelangelo’s Last Judgment fresco.

Covering the whole wall behind the altar in the Sistine Chapel is a fresco illustrating the Last Judgement, painted by Michelangelo between 1535 and 1541. However, the wall was originally frescoed by Pietro Perugino in the early 1480s depicting the Assumption of the Virgin. 

The Last Judgement by Michelangelo, Sistine Chapel

It was Pope Clement VII who commissioned Michelangelo to overpaint or cover up Perugino’s Assumption fresco with the Last Judgment painting shortly before his death in September 1534, less than a year after attending the wedding of Catherine de’ Medici and Henry of Orleans at Marseille in France.

A 14th-century miniature symbolising the schism.
Grandes Chroniques de France, BnF, department of Manuscripts

The French connection introduces the anti-pope Clement VII (Robert of Geneva) who was elected pope in September 1378 by cardinals who opposed the return of the papacy from Avignon to Rome. His reign as anti-pope lasted until his death in September 1394, but what became known as the Papal Schism within the Catholic Church lasted until 1417. Robert of Geneva’s claim as pope was never recognised by the Church of Rome, hence Giulio de Medici taking the name Clement and listed as the legitimate Pope Clement VII. The irony is that Giulio himself was born illegitimate, the son of Fioretta Gorini. Illegitimacy is one of the themes iulioembedded in the Vasari fresco.

Giulio’s birth was legitimised with a papal dispensation issued by Pope Leo X in 1513 when it was declared that his parents, Giuliano de’ Medici and Fioretta had been “wed according to those present”. However, the declaration was made 35 years after Giulio was born and the witnesses were said to be two monks and a relation of Fioretta Gorini. Seemingly Fioretta had died by then and was not able to verify the witnesses evidence. So were the claims of the three witnesses legitimate? 

Close inspection of Pope Clement VII’s red bonnet, shows it partially covering another. This reflects the suppression of Robert of Geneva’s false claim to the papacy. It also refers to the covering up of Perugino’s Assumption fresco that showed Pope Sixtus IV kneeling among the group of the Twelve Apostles. It is said that Sixtus instigated the Pazzi Conspiracy which resulted in the assassination of Giuliano de’ Medici, considered to be the father of Clement VII, hence the reason for the Medici pope wanting Michelangelo to cover the scene with a new fresco.

Sixtus IV also makes a connection to Jupiter. His birth name was Francesco della Rovere. Rovere translates as “oak”, and the oak tree was another symbol associated with Jupiter the “sky god”. Sixtus incorporated the oak tree in his papal arms. Arms and armour is another embedded them in the Vasari painting.

Pope Clement I, and the coat of arms for Pope Sixtus IV

The iconography related to Clement I is the purse hanging from the side of the papal figure. Clement I was martyred by being thrown into the sea and weighed down by an anchor. He is usually portrayed with an anchor at his side. The purse feature relates to the anti-pope Clement VII, an ambitious and stubborn man who resorted to extortion and simony – “the act of selling church offices and roles or sacred things”. Simony relates to the account of Simon Magus (Acts of the Apostles), a magician whom the people considered a divine power and called Great (another connection to the Magnificat and its meaning of greatness as explained in the previous post).

Simon Magus offered the apostle Peter money to receive the power to be able to lay hands on people for them to receive the Holy Spirit. But Peter, who had ordained Clement I by laying hands on him, dismissed the offer of money by Simon Magus and said: “May your silver be lost forever, and you with it, for thinking that money could buy what God has given for nothing” (Acts 8  20). Then Simon, weighed down by guilt and fear, pleaded with Peter to pray for him. 

Clement VII was not without his faults in a manner that drained the Vatican treasury. He assigned positions in the Church, titles, land and money, in favour of his Medici relatives. This also makes a connection to Simon Magus as a magician. Note the proximity of Catherine de’ Medici’s dark right hand to Clement’s purse. It is claimed that Catherine was a practitioner of the dark arts, who relied on soothsayers, seers, mystics and astrologers to forecast her own and family’s future.

But this juxtaposition of hand and purse is another piece of iconography adapted from Botticelli’s Primavera. With Pope Clement substituted for the figure of Mary’s assumption (Venus), Catherine is a replacement for the figure of Botticelli’s Flora dispensing flowers from her apron purse.

So now the four identities associated with the central figure in the marriage scene are:
Pope Clement VII (Giulio de’ Medici)
Anti-pope Clement VII (Robert of Geneva)
Pope Clement I (Clement of Rome)
Jupiter, son of Saturn and Ops

• I hope to continue posting information about this Vasari fresco when I can source a higher resolution digital image of the work. The low-res version available on the internet lacks important visual detail to explain clearly some of the narratives embedded by the artist. If anyone out there has access to a better-quality version than I have used so far for my posts on this subject, please contact me.

Botticelli drawings head for San Francisco

Posted on by

The first major exhibition dedicated to the drawings of the Sandro Botticelli will open later this year at the Legion of Honor in San Francisco. The show will feature almost 60 works in total, including five newly attributed drawings by the Early Renaissance master. More details at this link.

Sandro Botticelli’s Study of the head of a woman in profile “La Bella Simonetta”(around 1485) was drawn using white gouache on light-brown prepared paper. © Ashmolean Museum

Heads, helmets, hats and caps

Posted on by

The Portrait of a Young Man in a Red Cap was painted by Jacopo Carucci (also known as Pontormo). It’s dated at 1529 and said to depict a young Florentine aristocrat named Carlo Neroni.

But I believe it to be someone else: Lorenzino de’ Medici, the man who claimed he assassinated his ‘friend’ and distant cousin Alessandro de’ Medici, Duke of Florence, on the eve of the Epiphany, January 6, 1537.

A few days later Lorenzino, who was a gifted writer and dramatist, declared openly the reason he murdered the duke was political, to free Florence from a tyrant and Medici rule and preserve the Republic of Florence. He compared his actions to those of the ancient Roman politician Brutus, famous as one of the assassins of Julius Caesar.

In my previous post about Giorgio Vasari’s painting of the marriage between Henry, Duke of Orleans, and Catherine de’ Medici, I explained how the head placed on the shoulder of Pope Clement VII represented three people: Alessandro de’ Medici (Duke of Florence), Galeazzo Maria Sforza (Duke of Milan), and one of the latter’s assassins, Giovanni Andrea Lampugnani. I made no mention of the name of Galeazzo’s assassin. But he is placed elsewhere in the picture, his head also on a shoulder, that of the French king Francis I (see image below).

Unfortunately, I haven’t yet been able to source a higher resolution of this painting, so the important detail embedded in this section of the picture is difficult to pick out. Nevertheless, this group of three men provides some clues to be able to identify Lorenzino as the head in the middle.

An episode in Lorenzino’s early life confirms his connection to the cardinal featured on the right. He is Ippolito de’ Medici, an illegitimate son of Giuliano di Lorenzo de’ Medici and therefore a distant cousin of Lorenzino. As can be seen by his attire he was a cardinal, though never an ordained priest. He was made Cardinal by another illegitimate cousin, Pope Clement VII, on January 10 1523. On the same day he was also appointed as Archbishop of the Avignon diocese in France, which explains one of the reasons Vasari has placed him on the French side of the marriage scene.

Another reason is that while he was serving in Rome he pleaded for Lorenzino who in 1538 upset Pope Clement VII by mutilating the heads of some of the statues on the Arch of Constantine. The outcome was that Lorenzino was expelled from Rome, a lighter punishment than the one the Pope had first threatened – execution. And so from this we have another ‘head’ connection.

Ippolito and Lorenzino also shared an interest in deposing Alessandro de’ Medici from his position as Governor and Duke of Florence. However, Ippolito wanted the title for himself and lobbied Clement VII for the position, but the Pope’s choice was his own son. Ippolito never tired of conspiring against Alessandro and seemingly paid the the price for his efforts when he became ill on a journey and died a few days later after claiming he had been poisoned on the orders of the Florentine duke. He was just 24 years old.

Vasari’s image of Cardinal Ippolito is probably based on his portrait painted by Titian in 1546.

It’s hardly apparent, but as in the Pontormo portrait, Lorenzino is wearing a red cap. Neither is his head completely visible. It is eclipsed by the head of Francis I.

Here, Vasari, has referenced the mythological “cap of invisibility” also known as the “cap of Hades” that turns the wearer invisible, a cunning devise to conceal their true nature – as in the perceived ‘friendship’ offered by the assassin Lorenzino to Ippolito.

Hades helmet of invisibility was also shared with the messenger god Hermes who wore the cap in his battle with Hippolytus the giant. And so this makes the connection with the name of Cardinal Ippolito, who wears a red biretta in the painting.

The cap or helmet of invisibility also features in Botticelli’s Primavera painting and in a section referencing Hades (god of the dead and the underworld) and the watchdog Cerebus. The symbolism also points to the Dominican Order of Preachers sometimes known as the “Hounds of the Lord” or “God’s Dogs”.

In the clip below (left) is the ‘shade’ of an ‘invisible’ monk’s cowl and hood; and (right) the outline of a hound’s head.

  • More on this in a future post.

When opposites attract

Posted on by

This post presents more details about Vasari’s marriage scene between Henry, Duke of Orleans, and Catherine de’ Medici, and how it was inspired by Sandro Botticelli’s Primavera painting. 

The male and female mythology figures, Saturn and his consort sister Ops, placed at the right edge of Vasari’s picture, simulate the pairing of Zephyr and Chloris in Primavera, with one head turned and another looking down, except the male and female roles are reversed. Their disguised identities in both paintings are Leonardo da Vinci and Fioretta Gorini. Yes, Fioretta appears more than once in each work, and there are several references to Leonardo embedded in both, too.

A third level of identities given to the pair is Adam and Eve. This introduces another painter into the scenario, Michelangelo, and is a pointer to one of the ceiling scenes he painted in the Sistine Chapel. I shall post about this connection at another time.

Michelangelo appears in Vasari’s marriage scene and is placed at the extreme left of the painting, depicted as the Archangel Michael – hence the arch shape of the frame next to the figure. Note also the frame’s arch connected to Saturn and Ops, and how it corresponds with the arched trees and figures of Zephyr and Chloris in Primavera.

That representations of Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci are placed at opposite walls of the frame is also a pointer to the occasion when both artists were commissioned to paint battle scenes on opposite walls in the Palazzo Vecchio’s Hall of Five Hundred which was later extended and decorated by Giorgio Vasari.

Hall of the Five Hundred, Palazzo Vecchio, Florence

Matching pairs

Posted on by
Galeazzo Maria Forza, Duke of Milan, by Piero Pollaiuolo c1471, Uffizi Gallery, Florence

This portrait is of Galeazzo Maria Sforza, the fifth Duke of Milan. It was painted c1471 by Piero Pollaiuolo (also known as Piero Benci) and one which Giorgio Vasari sourced as a reference for the duke’s profile featured in his marriage picture of Henry II and Catherine de’ Medici (see previous post).

Vasari also utilised the portrait to connect with the figure of Giuliano de’ Medici depicted in Botticelli’s Primavera painting, and incorporated some of the Florentine’s features to create the dwarf figure standing beside the groom in the marriage scene.

Vasari colour-matched the Galeazzo portrait to the dwarf’s clothes, red and green, and both men hold leather gloves in their right hand. 

Vasari’s dwarf wears boots and stands with a hand on hip, as does Botticelli’s figure of Giuliano. Both men look up, Giuliano at the cloud formation, the dwarf at the wool collar worn by the bridegroom intended to imitate the passing cloud, but also shaped to represent a sheep’s head and its horn. 

This was intended to echo a reference Botticelli made to John the Baptist in the Primavera painting. Vasari instead selected a biblical verse in which the Baptist points out Jesus as he ‘passed’ by at the river Jordan and says, “Look, there is the Lamb of God” (John 1 : 36).

The raising of the Eucharist (the Lamb of God) during Mass was the signal for the assassins to attack Lorenzo and Giuliano de Medici in Florence’s Duomo where Giuliano died from his wounds.

The passing cloud in Primavera is a reference to the Passover but in Vasari’s painting he translates this as a passing from one side to another, a crossover – for example, the figure of Galeazzo transitioning from the men’s section to the women’s.

There are other examples of change-over in Vasari’s painting and more narratives connected to the dwarf which I shall explain at another time.

Note also Galeazzo’s pointed forefinger (and his gloves), and its match to Giuliano’s pointed forefinger. Vasari links this feature by shaping the dwarf’s gloves to represent a serpent’s head to connect with the serpent features on the caduceus raised by Giuliano in the Primavera painting.

Every picture tells a story

Posted on by

It is said that “Every picture tells a story”. Some may want to qualify the idiom and add, “but it’s not always clear what story is being told.”

The marriage scene above presents several narratives and characters. It was painted by Giorgio Vasari sometime between 1559 and 1562 for the room in the Palazzo Vecchio dedicated to Pope Clement VII.

Notice that the picture is generally divided into two areas – men on the left, women on the right – except for the kneeling male figure at the right edge of the frame and for the man with the heavy moustache and hook nose behind the Pope’s shoulder and looking towards the group of women. 

The latter is Galeazzo Maria Sforza, Duke of Milan until his assassination on December 26 1476. From this it can be clearly understood that he was not present at the marriage of Henri and Catherine fifty-five years later. So why has he been given such an important place at the Pope’s shoulder in Vasari’s painting?

It is the first of many clues and links to the work that was the source of inspiration for Vasari, the painting by Botticelli known as Primavera.

Botticelli gave more than one identity to the figures he painted in Primavera. The figure referred to as Mars, has several identities, one of which is Giuliano de’ Medici who, like Galeazzo Sforza, was assassinated in a cathedral some sixteen months later.

Notice the Mars-Giuliano figure in Primavera stands in a contrapposto pose with his back to the women in the painting and facing the edge of the frame. Vasari places Galeazzo Sforza in an opposite direction facing the group of women. Unlike the Giuliano figure, only the head of Galeazzo is shown and is covered by a cloth cap similar to the one worn by the woman next to him, Fioretta Gorini, the mother of Pope Clement VII.

Galeazzo was the son of Francesco I Sforza, a condottiere who founded the Sforza dynasty in the duchy of Milan, hence the name given to Galeazzo (meaning ‘helmet’) and the helmet shape of the cloth. But there are other reasons why the head of Galeazzo is depicted in this way.

When he was assassinated at the entrance to Milan Cathedral, three men took part in the attack, led by Giovanni Andrea Lampugnani who attempted to escape by crossing over to the seating in the cathedral reserved for women where he was caught and killed (see the red-handed figure fleeing towards the group of women in the illustration above). His head was cut off and with those of the other assassins displayed on the cathedral bell tower.

So now it can be understood why the Duke of Milan is partly disguised wearing a woman’s headdress, and why Vasari gave him a moustache to also identify him as a male with his head turned to the women’s side of the painting. The head placed on the Pope’s shoulder is also a pointer to the severed head of Lampugnani – a double-head feature borrowed from Primavera and located on the shoulder of the Flora figure.

The bell-shaped headdress refers to the bell-tower. Galeazzo is depicted in shade which indicates the dark side of his sadistic personality and the biblical reference to not hiding one’s light – or Lamp(pugnani) – under a bushel. That Galeazzo is portrayed as both a man and a woman refers to the claims of him being bisexual and who raped both women and men.

Galeazzo’s features are modelled on his portrait painted by Piero Benci which is now housed in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence. Vasari has also referenced and connected the portrait in another part of his painting which I will explain in future post.

Close encounter

Posted on by

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

My last post of 2022 compared two images of Fioretta Gorini, although one of the portraits is mistakingly identified as Ginevra de Benci by the National Gallery in London where the painting is housed. No matter. 

Two versions of Fioretta Gorini… (left) as painted by Leonardo da Vinci; (right) as painted by Giorgio Vasari and modelled on Leonardo’s version.

The source of this latest discovery is a painting displayed in the room dedicated to Pope Clement VII in the Palazzo Vecchio, the town hall of Florence. Clement was the name taken by Guilio de’ Medici when he was elected Pope in November 1523. He is said to be the son of Giuliano de’ Medici and his mistress Fioretta Gorini who gave birth a month after Giuliano was assassinated on April 26, 1474.

The painting is attributed to Giorgio Vasari but likely assisted by Giovanni Stradano. It depicts the marriage of Henry, the second son of the French king Francis I, and Catherine, the daughter of Lorenzo de’ Medici, Duke of Urbino. The wedding took place at Marseille on October 28, 1533, when the couple were just 14 years old. Pope Clement VII, the central figure in the painting, conducted the marriage ceremony.

The Palazzo Vecchio is known for the many paintings in the building produced by Vasari and his assistants and for his expansion of the room known as the Hall of the Five Hundred.

Just a minute walk from the Palazzo Vecchio is the famous Uffizi Gallery, originally designed by Giorgio Vasari as offices and constructed over two decades between 1560 and 1580. The two buildings are connected by a walkway known as the Vasari Corridor.

The Vasari Corridor between the Palazzo Vecchio and the Uffizi Gallery

Although the Uffizi houses several paintings by Giorgio Vasari, there is one famous painting in the Gallery that connects him in a way that has never come to light in modern times. For all that has been researched and known over the centuries about Sandro Botticelli’s Primavera painting, I don’t know of any study that has revealed its connection to Vasari’s painting of Pope Clement VII marrying Henry II and Catherine de Medici. Botticelli’s Primavera is a primary source of inspiration for the Vasari composition.

Primavera by Sandro Botticelli, Uffizi Gallery, Florence

Vasari mentioned the Primavera painting in his two-volume work of The Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors and Architects:

“For various houses throughout the city he [Botticelli] painted round pictures, and many female nudes, of which there are still two at Castello, a villa of Duke Cosimo’s; one representing the birth of Venus, with those Winds and Zephyrs that bring her to the earth, with the Cupids; and likewise another Venus, whom the Graces are covering with flowers as a symbol of spring; and all this he is seen to have expressed very gracefully.”

Vasari’s brief description gives no indication of any disguised narratives in the Primavera painting, so who was the source that later provided him or Stradano with an explanation to enable them to recycle various elements of the painting and present a new version of Springtime? Could it have been Michelangelo who was 35 years old when Botticelli died in 1510. Vasari was born a year later and Stradano first saw the light of day in Flanders in 1523.

I’m trying to source a high resolution of the Vasari painting to access more detail. The online versions are small, low resolution images and most of the detail is unclear. 

More on this in a future post.

Angels and Demons

Posted on by

So just how did Michelangelo translate features from Botticelli’s Venus and Mars painting to the ‘damned man’ in the Sistine Chapel’s Last Judgement fresco?

The four satyrs (Botticelli and his three brothers) teasing and tempting the sleeping figure of Mars – aka Leonardo da Vinci  – form the group of three demons clinging to the ‘damned man’ alongside the trumpeter in the purple drape.

Michelangelo mixed and matched the features. For instance, his ‘extra’ angel with the trumpet represents the satyr sounding the conch into Leonardo’s ear, except that in this instance the trumpet’s bell end is directed to an alternative orifice.

The recipient is the smirking grey-coloured demon poking out his tongue and with both arms wrapped around the legs of the ‘damned man’. As in the Venus and Mars painting, he represents the middle of the trio of satyrs with their arms wrapped around the lance.

The Botticelli conch is symbolic of female genitalia and so the satyr can be understood as blowing ‘sweet dreams’ into Leonardo’s ear, his head ‘buzzing’ with thoughts from the humming sound of the nearby wasps . The wasps are a symbol of the Vespucci family and the woman of his dreams facing Leonardo, Simonetta Vespucci. Michelangelo echoed the sound of the buzzing with the group of trumpeters. The golden hair of the ‘extra’ angel is shaped and coloured to represent a buzzing swarm of wasps. His trumpet extending into the rear end of the grey demon can be deduced as a sting-in-the-tail feature.

The ‘extra’ angel (notice the lion face impression on his back) represents Leonardo da Vinci, and the colour of his purple drape coordinates with the rose tinted blanket beneath the Leonardo figure in the Venus and Mars painting.

Leonardo wears a pink or rose colour cloak with a winged sleeve in another Botticelli painting, the Uffizi version of The Adoration of the Magi. Notice also Leonardo’s bird-like stance.

The purple drape is also shaped in the form of a bird with an extended wing. Michelangelo has paired this with the bird-shaped white cloth covering the sleeping Leonardo. Note the bolt pressing down on the fluted tail. This is a reference to Leonardo portrayed as a fallen angel, “like a bolt of lightening from heaven” (Luke 10:18), or perhaps from his failed attempt at flying that seemed like a bird falling out of the sky. A ‘fallen angel’ motif representing Leonardo can be found in another Botticelli painting, The Birth of Venus, and also as a winged Medusa-type face on the breastplate of the terracotta bust by Andrea del Verrocchio depicting Giuliano de’ Medici.

As explained in the previous post, Simonetta also represents Medusa, the woman whose gaze can turn people into stone. Has this happened to the sleeping Leonardo? Notice the head of the middle satyr supporting the lance is turned to gaze at the Medusa figure. This explains why the demon gripping the ‘damned man’s legs is the colour of stone, except that his right hand isn’t. Could this suggest the process is ongoing or possibly a device to question why? 

The answer can be found by looking at the demon from a different perspective. When rotated 90 degrees to the left, the hazy cloud which the demon is facing takes on a dreamy shape representing the head of Medusa in Botticelli’s painting. It’s also another pointer to Leonardo’s presence in the painting and the ‘sfumato’ technique he perfected in his own work, where tones and colours are blended to produce soft, vague edges and outlines.

Understanding Botticelli’s satyrs as creatures of temptation helps identify the green creature biting into the ‘damned man’s‘ thigh. It represents the Botticelli satyr whose face is hidden under the helmet and the serpent that tempted Adam and Eve to bite and eat the forbidden fruit from the tree of knowledge in the Garden of Eden.

The fruit is the circular shape formed behind the head of the serpent’s coiling body, similar to how the shield or buckle is formed out of the shaft of the lance. Truth is represented by the straight lance. The serpent’s lies and hidden deceit – represented by the helmet covering the satyr – is translated as the serpent’s twisting shaft behind the ‘damned man’. 

From this it can be determined that Michelangelo’s ‘damned man’ group also typifies the ‘Fall of Man’, the exit from Paradise into a world of lasting temptation and sin. So where is Eve, the woman who first conversed with the serpent? She can only be the dreamy cloud shape of Medusa, and the woman sat opposite Leonardo with snakes in her hair.

Michelangelo depicted the fourth satyr, Sandro Botticelli himself, as the horned demon with the walnut-shaped back, gripping the ankles of the ‘damned man’. In the Venus and Mars painting he is shown encased in a cuirass that serves as a cushion for the resting Leonardo.

Left: Leonardo da Vinci as a Fallen Hebrew and a Fallen Angel.
Right: Sandro Botticelli as a demon matched to the teasing satyr.

So what could be the reason for Michelangelo depicting the ‘extra angel’ as Leonardo, yet also doubling up as a tormentor – an angel in disguise perhaps, or even a possible falling angel? Another take on the four figures attached to the ‘damned man’ is they represent what is known as the Four Last Things in Christian eschatology – meditating on Death, Judgement, Heaven and Hell. This descending sequence is matched by Michelangelo’s placing of the four demons.

The green serpent represents the time in the Garden of Eden when Death came into the world; the stone-colour figure gazing at the faint and hazy Medusa represents Judgement – “Now we are seeing a dim reflection in a mirror, but then we shall be seeing face to face” (1 Cor 13:12);  The ‘extra’ angel attached to the trumpeters and set aside from the ‘damned man’ represents Heaven; and the horned demon that is ready to receive the ‘damned man’ represents Hell.

The Venus and Mars painting can also be considered from another religious viewpoint, a reference to the biblical and erotic Song of Songs. From a Christian perspective the poem reads as an allegory of Christ and his bride, the Church. Botticelli depicted the leaning figure of Venus in his painting of the Birth of Venus as Ecclesia (the Church) for which the model was Simonetta Vespucci.

Very likely,  Chapter 5 of the Song of Songs inspired some of the visuals in the Venus and Mars painting  … “I come into my garden, my sister my promised bride, […] I gather my honey and my honeycomb […] friends […] I sleep but my heart is awake […] my love, my dove, my perfect one […] I have taken off my tunic […] I have washed my feet […] Then I rose to open to my Beloved, myrrh ran off my hands, pure myrrh off my fingers, on to the handle of the bolt […] My soul failed at his flight […] I called to him but he did not answer […] My beloved is fresh and ruddy […] His head is golden, purest gold…

Two decades earlier Michelangelo made other references to Leonardo da Vinci when he painted the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. More about this in a future post.

Good vibrations

Posted on by
Detail from Michelangelo’s Last Judgement fresco in the Vatican’s Sistine Chapel

Art historians generally relate this group of figures portrayed in Michelangelo’s Last Testament fresco to the angels mentioned in the Book of Revelation, and “the seven trumpets given to the seven angels who stand in the presence of God” (Rev 8 : 2). 

However, for a particular reason, Michelangelo instead depicted eight angels with trumpets, the odd one out being the angel wearing the purple drape placed on the extreme right of the group. At first glance it appears that this angel has a violin tucked under his chin, but closer inspection reveals the instrument is a trumpet. The double-take was intentional on Michelangelo’s part and yet another reference to Leonardo da Vinci, said to have been an accomplished player of the “lira da brachia”, literally an “arm lyre”.

The sounds emanating from both instruments, the trumpet and lyre, are caused by vibration – a buzzing of lips on the trumpet and pulsating strings on the lyre. This connects to another distinct feature Michelangelo portrayed on his “extra angel” – his golden head of hair which is shaped and coloured to represent a buzzing swarm of wasps or bees. 

While none of Leonardo’s eight angels are shown to have any conventional wings to flap or vibrate, the purple wrap around this particular angel is meant to suggest the shape of a bird with one of its wings extended. 

The angel is placed facing the “damned man” and his demons with his focus on the horned devil. The angel’s trumpet-cum-horn is also positioned as a device to make a connection with the “damned man” feature.

In my previous post about Michelangelo’s Last Judgement I explained that the configuration of the “damned man” and attached demons was partly inspired by a scene featured in another Sistine Chapel fresco – The Trials of Moses painted by Sandro Botticelli.

However, the attributes mentioned about the trumpeting eighth angel, coupled with others found in the “damned man“ group, were all borrowed and recycled by Michelangelo from another painting by Sandro Botticelli – Venus and Mars, which is now housed in the National Gallery, London.

Venus and Mars, by Sandro Botticelli, National Gallery, London

The models for Venus and Mars are Simonetta Vespucci and Leonardo da Vinci, while the four young satyrs represent Sandro Botticelli and his three brothers, Giovanni, Simone and Antonio. Sandro is the satyr encased in the cuirass generally assumed to belong to the sleeping figure of Mars, the Roman god of war. But compare his chest size and it is very obvious the small, barrel-shaped cuirass was not designed to fit Mars but is a pointer to Sandro’s identity – Botticelli meaning “little barrel”.

Art historian Lightbown explains in his book, Sandro Botticelli Life and Work, that “The poses of  Mars and Venus were inspired directly or indirectly by a relief of Bacchus and Ariadne on an antique sarcophagus – one now in the Vatican has been claimed as their direct source.” (see image below)

Botticelli helped paint some of the Sistine Chapel frescoes in 1481, so was this a time and opportunity for him to observe the sarcophagus that would later inspire him to produce the Venus and Mars panel painting?

Another take on this is that his Mars figure may also represent Giuliano de’ Medici who was assassinated in the Duomo Cathedral of Florence on April 26, 1478 – two years to the day after Simonetta Vespucci died in 1476 at the young age of 22.

The relationship between Giuliano and Simonetta was said to have been platonic – a courtly love. On January 29, 1475, Giuliano entered a jousting tournament and carried a standard bearing the image of Simonetta portrayed as Pallas Athene which had been painted by Botticelli.

Lightbown describes the standard and its symbolism in great detail – his source being the Florentine court poet Angelo Poliziano and his poem La Giostra, written after Simonetta’s death – and which in part states that “beneath her helmet of burnished metal […] her hair, elaborately braided and ornamented, fluttered in the wind. She held a jousting lance in her right hand and the shield of Medusa in her left and gazed fixedly into the sun, which shone above her at the top of the banner.”

Lightbown adds that when Giuliano entered the tournament field he was followed by “a great troop of horsemen, friends, relatives, retainers, with three pipers, a trumpeter, and two drummers”. Seemingly this part of Poliziano’s poem was taken up by Botticelli and applied to the four satyrs who can be recognised as horsemen and relatives, even retainers working for the Medici family, as well as pipers and a trumpeter. The reference to two drummers is applied to the two hollow boughs of the tree that Mars rests against.

Simonetta’s “helmet of burnished metal” is worn by the satyr nearest her and tucked behind the lance’s buckle or shield. Notice the sun’s reflection in the helmet and the the gaze of Venus fixed on the highlight. Yes, Venus, aka, Simonetta, is also presented as Medusa whose gaze can turn men into stone. 

Later in Poliziano’s poem Mars, aka Giuliano, “sees in a dream his lady Simonetta wearing the armour of Pallas over a gown whose whiteness is itself a symbol of chastity, and protecting her breast against the arrows of love with the head of Medusa, With stern and angry face she binds Cupid to the olive tree of Pallas, plucks feathers from his wings and breaks his bows and arrows. Cupid in tears, calls on Giuliano for compassion and aid. But Giuliano answers that he can give no aid, for his lady wears the armour of Pallas, and his spirits are quelled by the terrible Gorgon head and by her countenance and helm and glittering lance. Then Cupid bids him lift up his eyes to the resplendent sun of Glory, which will kindle the courage in his breast and expel all cowardice from it. Glory descends, despoils his lady of the arms of Pallas, and clothes him in in them. Thus armed he wins the joust.”
(Ronald Lightbown, Botticelli Life and Work, pp 64-65)

Detail from Botticelli’s Primavera, Primaverai, Uffizi Gallery, Florence

There isn’t a Cupid in sight in the Venus and Mars painting but in actual fact Botticelli, punning on his identity as a satyr, is referring to the portrayal of himself as Cupid in another of his paintings, Primavera. It is said that Botticelli held an unrequited love for Simonetta. The Vespucci family were neighbours of his and may have even commissioned the Venus and Mars painting. Poliziano’s mention of Cupid calling on Giuliano for compassion and aid – for protection from the onslaught of Medusa from the fiery arrows of love despatched by Botticelli in the direction of Simonetta, explains why the artist has enclosed himself in the cuirass supposedly belonging to Giuliano.  

Notice Simonetta’s “stern and angry face” and the light shining on the face of Giuliano, his eyes lifted up to “the resplendent sun of Glory”.

The name Vespucci translates as “little wasps”, symbolised on the family’s “stemma” or coat of arms, hence the wasps featured buzzing around the head of the sleeping figure of Mars/Giuliano/Leonardo. Wasp motifs also feature on the figure of Venus/Pallas/Medusa/Simonetta as a hair braid and the plaited collar of her gown.  The Medusa attributes can be recognised in her hair’s snake tails, and the shield shape of the red cushion under her right arm, similar in shape to a snake head. The protective shield-cum-cushion mirrors the protective cuirass-cum-cushion in the opposite corner of the painting).

So why did Botticelli use the likeness of Leonardo da Vinci to portray the figure of Mars/Giuliano? A terracotta bust of Giuliano de Medici, sculpted by Andrea del Verrocchio, is kept at the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC. It shows Giuliano wearing body armour – a cuirass.

Giuliano de’ Medici by Andrea del Verrocchio, National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

The front displays a Medusa-type gorgon modelled on the face of a screaming Leonardo da Vinci. Instead of snakes protruding from the head it is encased by feathered wings. The NGA suggests that the bust may have been sculpted to celebrate the occasion of Giuliano’s victory in the joust of January 1475. If this was so, it may also explain one of the reasons why Botticelli modelled the figure of Mars/Giuliano on Leonardo da Vinci. 

The cuirass connection also points to another scenario – the assassination of Giuliano de Medici. On the day he was murdered in the Duomo on Easter Sunday, 1478, two of his assassins accompanied Giuliano to the Cathedral, supporting him on the way as he was suffering from a bout of sciatica. In reality, the two men with their arms around Giuliano, were checking to see if he was wearing a corset of any kind for protection. He wasn’t. Midway through Mass his assassins struck. Bandini Baroncelli plunged a dagger into Giuliano’s chest and Francesco de Pazzi continually stabbed him after he had fallen. Nineteen wounds were inflicted on Giuliano’s body.

• My next post will show how Michelangelo embedded features from Botticelli’s Venus and Mars painting in the Sistine Chapel’s Last Judgement fresco. 

Fresco feuds

Posted on by
Detail from the Trials of Moses, by Sandro Botticelli, Sistine Chapel

Moses, a man by now, set out at this time to visit his countrymen, and he saw what a hard life they were having; and he saw an Egyptian strike a Hebrew, one of his countrymen. Looking round he saw no one in sight, so he killed the Egyptian and hid him in the sand. On the following day he came back, and there were two Hebrews, fighting. He said to the man who was in the wrong, “What do you mean by hitting your fellow countryman?” “And who appointed you” the man retorted “to be prince over us, and judge?” Do you mean to kill me as you killed the Egyptian?” Moses was frightened. “Clearly this business has come to light” he thought. When Pharaoh heard of the matter he would have killed Moses, but Moses fled from Pharaoh and made for the land of Midian. And he sat down beside a well. 

This passage from Exodus 2 : 11-15 is referred to in a panel titled “The Trials of Moses” on the South Wall of the Sistine Chapel. It was frescoed by Sandro Botticelli and assistants sometime in 1481, about sixty years before Michelangelo completed The Last Judgement Painting on the Chapel’s altar wall.

Botticelli’s portrayal of the Exodus account highlights Moses overpowering the “man who was in the wrong” while the other fighting Hebrew is depicted being comforted and led away by the female figure dressed in blue. Moses is also featured fleeing for the land of Midian.

The Hebrew held down by Moses represents Leonardo da Vinci. His identity is explained at this link: When Leonardo was ‘murdered’ by Moses (and Botticelli) in the Sistine Chapel.

Michelangelo picked up on the Leonardo association in Botticelli’s fresco and recycled some characteristics to include in his own portrayal of the polymath in The Last Judgment painting – the figure generally referred to as the Damned Man. 

Although contemporaries, Leonardo and Michelangelo were far from being bosom pals. Michelangelo, apparently a more sensitive soul, reacted to any form of adverse criticism of his work, and Leonardo placed Michelangelo among the group of painters whose muscular figures he described as looking like a sack of walnuts or a bundle of radishes.

Seemingly, Michelangelo never forgot this slight against his work and some two decades later portrayed Leonardo as the Damned Man – inferring that misjudgment of others can lead to condemnation and downfall of oneself. 

In their studies of anatomy both artists dissected corpses to further their knowledge about the workings of the human body. Leonardo is particularly noted for his meticulous anatomical drawings of body parts. Late in his life, Leonardo claimed he had dissected more than thirty corpses.

Michelangelo’s self-portrait in the flayed skin of St Bartholomew.

The flayed skin associated with the martyrdom of St Bartholomew shown in the Last Judgment fresco, features a distorted self-portrait of Michelangelo looking down on the Damned Man. The carcass represents an empty sack, devoid of body parts, a sack empty of walnuts and radishes. Michelangelo has translated these body parts into the figure of Leonardo and the three demons dragging him down to Hell, along with some of the features Botticelli incorporated in his depiction of Moses and the two Hebrew men at odds with each other.

For instance, the green serpent coiled around the upper legs of the Damned Man and biting into his left thigh muscle is akin to some of the snake-like features embedded in the green cloak wrapped around the two figures of Moses.

The horned demon weighing down the Damned Man is meant to mirror Botticelli’s version of the Hebrew on his back, his cloak shaped to represent a shell (see here for explanation of shell connection). The back of Michelangelo’s demon is also shell-shaped and its wrinkled surface represents the shell of a walnut. 

The demon’s two horns mirror the horn-shape features protruding from the hair of the grounded Hebrew. The horns are also refer to the light that shone from the face of Moses (represented as horns) after he had received the Ten Commandments, most notable in the sculpture of Moses made by Michelangelo for the tomb of Pope Julius II and completed in 1545.

The Hebrew’s left foot and claw-shaped hands can be paired with the central demon’s extended leg and claw-shaped foot, coloured red to portray the toes as radishes.

The Damned Man, detail from the Last Judgement by Michelangelo, Sistine Chapel

The demon’s head looks down on the upended demon, as the head of Moses looks down on the upended Hebrew. However, the central demon’s arms are wrapped around the calves of the Damned Man in a similar way the figure of the woman wraps her arms around the upper body of the second Hebrew. Notice also how his left hand is raised to his head in a manner the Damned Man has raised his left hand – the difference being that the second Hebrew can see his opponent with both eyes while the Damned Man is portrayed seeing out of one eye only, perhaps indicating the limit he sets on judging the work of others.

Another incident between the two men also likely stayed with Michelangelo and probably explains the placing of the Damned Man figure in the Last Judgement painting. When Michelangelo had completed his famous giant sculpture of David, a committee was convened to decide on where the work should be placed. Several artists were part of the 30-man group, including Leonardo de Vinci and Sandro Botticelli.

Left: Michelangelo’s marble statue of David. Right: Andrea del Verrocchio’s bronze sculpture of David.

In his book, The Flights of Mind, Charles Nicholl states:

“Leonardo’s opinion about the placing of David is recorded in the minutes of the meeting. ‘I say that it should be placed in the Loggia’ – the Loggia dei Lanzi, opposite the Palazzo Vecchio – ‘as Giuliano has said, behind the low wall where the soldiers line up. It should be put there, with suitable ornaments, in such a way that it does not interfere with the ceremonies of state.’ This opinion, shared by Giuliano da Sangallo but counter to the general view, already expresses an antagonism, a deliberate refusal to be impressed. Let this oversized statue be sidelined in a corner where it won’t get in the way. The true wish expressed is the sidelining of the sculptor himself: this awkward, intrusive genius. Further nuances of umbrage may have arisen in relation to that earlier Florentine David, sculpted by his master Verrocchio, for which the teenage Leonardo is said to have been the model: now, forty years on, this new David outmodes that image of his own youthful promise.”

The Seven Deadly Sins, detail from the Last Judgement by Michelangelo, Sistine Chapel

The Damned Man is part of but set aside from a group of figures that represent the Seven Deadly Sins. In this group we can recognise the form of some of the angels striking down the deadly sinners in similar fashion to Botticelli’s Moses raising his sword and striking down the Hebrew “who was in the wrong”.

To the right of the Damned Man Michelangelo has portrayed a sinner with his back to the viewer akin to the figure of Moses fleeing to Midian after it became known he had murdered an Egyptian and attempted to cover up his crime by burying the corpse in sand.

So which deadly sin does the Damned Man represent? Most likely Envy, and perhaps even Sloth, as Leonardo had a reputation for not completing many of the works commissioned to him.

Both Botticelli and Michelangelo portray the two Hebrew men as two natures of man, or even Leonardo, as good and evil in conflict. Michelangelo’s Dammed Man is not shown beaten down by any heavenly angel as the sinners portrayed alongside, but instead is weighed down by a reflection of his misplaced judgement and envy of others.

More on this in a future post.

Clothing the naked

Posted on by

In a post I made some four months ago – More Hidden Gems – I explained how the figure of Mars in Botticelli’s Primavera painting also represented St Martin of Tours who, as a Roman soldier, once sliced his cloak in half to cover a naked beggar he met at the gates of Amiens.

A similar motif is presented in Botticelli’s Birth of Venus. A female figure steps toward the shoreline offering a cloak to cover and support the naked Venus as she disembarks from her sea journey. The figure of Venus also represents Ecclesia, the Church, and in this instance the Church in need.

The motifs connect in more than one way, but in a biblical sense they refer to the Last Judgment passage in Matthew’s gospel when Jesus said “I was naked and you clothed me.”

St Martin Dividing his Cloak, Anthony van Dyck, c 1618

Armistice Day and St Martin’s Day

Posted on by

Amistice Day, also known as Veterans Day, is commemorated every year on November 11 to mark the armistice signed between the Allies of World War 1 and German at Compiègne, France, at 5:45am for the cessation of hostilities on the Western Front of World War 1, which took effect at eleven in the morning – the “eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month. (Wikipedia)

The feast of St Martin of Tours is celebrated on this day also, and sometimes referred to as Martinmas or St Martin’s Day. The fourth century Roman soldier, who later became a bishop in Gaul, features in Botticelli’s famous Primavera painting. Details at this link.

Other viewpoints

Posted on by

A recent discovery that a painting by the Dutch abstract artist Piet Mondrian (1872-1944) has been exhibited upside down for 75 years has caused quite a stir in the art world. The Art, Law and More blog has details about the finding and artwork titled New York City 1.

New York City 1 (unfinished) by Piet Mondrian

I wonder if the detection will change any understanding or perception of the painting (or even the artist) now that it can be viewed from a different perspective?

Sometimes paintings require a degree of rotation, or to be mirrored, in order to convey further information.

Jan Van Eyck was not adverse to using this technique. Neither were Sandro Botticelli and Hugo Van der Goes. Even Rembrandt.

Examples of this approach can be seen at these links.

More on Rembrandt’s ‘turnaround’ etching.
Man in a Red Turban
Leaning towards Pisa

Magi on show in Minneapolis

Posted on by

I see that Sandro Botticelli’s Adoration of the Magi is currently on show at the Minneapolis Institute of Art. It forms part of an exhibition titled: Botticelli and Renaissance Florence: Masterworks from the Uffizi. The exhibition runs from October 16, 2022 to January 8, 2023.

Details about the exhibition can be found at this link, but it won’t give you the inside story about the painting and the disguised narrative embedded by Botticelli. For this information go here. 

Uncovering a conspiracy in Botticelli’s Birth of Venus

Posted on by

In 1475 Pope Sixtus IV nominated Francesco Salviati Riario as Archbishop of Pisa, the position left vacant following the death of Filippo de’ Medici in October 1474. The appointment did not meet with the approval of the Medici family in Florence who had earlier blocked Salviati’s attempt to become Archbishop of Florence in 1474.

The outcome was that Salviati, a known antagonist of the Medici, never occupied his diocesan chair in Pisa but remained in Rome even though he was the Church’s official choice as archbishop.

Some years later Salviati saw his opportunity for taking revenge against the Medici when he conspired with others to assassinate both Lorenzo de’ Medici and his brother Giuliano, in a plot that became known as the Pazzi Conspiracy.

Pope Sixtus IV

With the support of Pope Sixtus IV, who was sympathetic to replacing the control the Medici held over Florence, Salviati, was joined by Girolamo Riario and Francesco de’ Pazzi in planning the assassination of the two brothers.

Despite the best laid plans, the coup failed, even though Giuliano was murdered in the process. The attackers failed to see off Lorenzo and the alarm was raised, resulting in the plotters and their accomplices being captured and executed with haste and without trial or any mercy shown.

According to historian Harold Acton,“Francesco de’ Pazzi  was pulled bleeding and naked from his hiding place and hanged from a window of the city palace. The Archbishop of Pisa was hanged beside him and as he fell, he bit at the dead body of Francesco; the halter tightening round his throat, he held onto the corpse with his teeth.”

Girolamo Riario

Girolamo Riario, as a nephew of Pope Sixtus IV, was not at the scene on the day of slaughter, even though he was one of the main instigators of the plot. In January 1473 he had married Caterina Sforza the illegitimate daughter of Galeazzo Maria Sforza, duke of Milan. She was ten years old at the time. Ten years after the Pazzi Conspiracy, Girolamo himself was assassinated on April 14, 1488, by members of the Orsini family.

Girolamo Riario, Francesco de’ Pazzi, and Archbishop Francesco Salviati are all referenced in Botticelli’s Birth of Venus, as is Bernardo Bandini Baroncelli who struck the first blow against Giuliano de’ Medici.

The leaning figure of Ecclesia (Venus) is not only a pointer to the leaning Tower of Pisa and so to Archbishop Salviati, but also to the nepotism practiced by Pope Sixtus IV whose nominations and appointments leaned to those of his own friends and family.

The Birth of Venus, Sandro Botticelli, Uffizi, Florence

My next post will deal with uncovering the iconography that refers to the identities of the Pazzi conspirators Botticelli disguised in the Birth of Venus.

Botticelli’s ’Madonna of the Magnificat’ set for auction

Posted on by
Sandro Botticelli, Madonna of the Magnificat, ca. 1480s.Photo © Christie’s

A Sandro Botticelli painting of the Virgin Mary that was once owned by the late Microsoft cofounder Paul Allen will be auctioned Christie’s this November. The house expects that it will fetch more than $40 million, making it one of the most expensive works from Allen’s estate to head to sale. More details at this link.