Category Archives: Calumny of Apelles

Truth will out… all will be revealed

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Calumny of Apelles (1494), by Sandro Botticelli, Uffizi, Florence.

In my previous post I pointed out that the four satyrs in the Venus and Mars painting who are tormenting the sleeping figure of Mars represented Botticelli and his three brothers. A similar scene appears on a freize in another and earlier painitng by Sandro Botticelli, the Calumny of Apelles (1494). It depicts three winged cherubs tormenting a lion.

(Top) The old and revived versions of the Marzocco, symbol of Florence, aided by three cherubs.
(Above) And on a similar theme, satyrs attempt to revive Mars from his slumber

Below the panel is an alcove, one of many in the painting designed to display various statues. In this instance the niche is like a sentry box that houses a soldier in armour with his sword and shield. He keeps watch over the unfurling scene. The panel above the alcove can be understood in two ways – the lion as representing Leonardo, and also the Marzocco, the heraldic lion that is the symbol of Florence. These are characterised as the sentry statue representing the mythological figure of Mars, no longer naked as in Botticelli’s earlier painting.

Botticelli has linked the two paintings in this way to point to the identity of Mars and the sentry being one and the same person – Leonardo da Vinci.

Notice also the proximity of the shell features in the backgrounds serving as another link.

But why would Botticelli want to reference Leonardo in the Calumny of Apelles? The reason is this and points to another artist, the figure on the ground being dragged by his hair by Calumny. She is laying claim to Domenico Ghirlandaio and presenting him for judgement before the king, except that the man on the throne (Midas) is also a representation of Ghirlandaio, as is the other man, Rancour (Envy).

Self portrait of Domenico Ghirlandaio

Ghirlandaio was only 45 when he died in January 1494 of ‘pestilential fever’, probably a form of the ‘sweating sickness’ that gripped parts of Europe in the latter part of the 15th century. Ghirlandaio’s passion came sudden and lasted five days before he died.

Botticelli’s Calumny of Apelles, painted in 1494, is a pointer to Ghirlandaio’s death earlier that year and hints that Domenico was the person who annonymously notified the Florentine authorities in 1476, accusing Leonardo and three other men of sodomy (hinted at in the freize panel). But Botticelli suggests the reason for the slander was jealousy on the part of Ghirlandaio, hence his depiction as Rancour. Note also that the naked figure at the start of the line of events in the painting represents Truth. And so Ghirlandaio, shown naked in his passion except for his loin cloth, is exposed for his calumny against Leonardo.

• More on this in a future post…

Hair-raising terror

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Detail from Botticelli’s Calumny of Apelles, Uffizi, Florence

This detail from Botticelli’s Calumny of Apelles, shows the personification of Slander dragging Apelles by his hair and carrying a flaming torch in her left hand. The painting is dated to 1494.

An earlier painting by Botticelli, Pallas and the Centaur, c 1482, also depicts a female grabbing the head of a centaur by his hair. Instead of a flaming torch in her left hand she holds a halberd.

Are these similar actions meant to link the two paintings in some way?. Is there someone or a particular narrative that Botticelli has referred to in both works?

Detail from Botticelli’s Pallas and the Centaur, Uffizi, Florence

Offshoots of the Little Flower

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A couple of months ago I posted on the early Leonardo da Vinci painting known as Ginevra de’ Benci and mentioned that some historians identify the woman instead as Fioretta Gorini, the mistress of Giuliano de’ Medici and mother of his son Giulio who later became Pope Clement VII.

Little is known about Fioretta. Her real name was Antonia and she was the daughter of Antonio Gorini, a curaisser who lived on the Borgo Pinti in Florence. Fioretta supposedly gave birth to her son on May 26, 1478, just a month after the assassination of the child’s father on April 26, although it is also claimed that the boy named Giulio was born a year earlier. Nothing else is known about the mother except speculation that she conceived her child when she was fourteen years old and that Fioretta may have died soon after giving birth.

The Virin Mary, aka Fioretta Gorini, in Botticelli’s Adoration of the Magi.

However, there are paintings other than the one produced by Leonardo that possibly feature Fioretta and hint that she entered convent life soon after the death of Giuliano de’ Medici. It is known that the child was placed into the care of his godfather Antonio da Sangallo until the age of seven before his adoption by the Medici family.

The only woman featured among the thirty or so men in Botticelli’s Uffizi version of the Adoration of the Magi is the Virgin Mary, but what Botticelli is really trying to tell the world is that the woman portrayed as Mary is in fact Fioretta Gorini. More on this at another time.

Meanwhile, other images of Fioretta featured in the composite above are: (A) Leonardo’s portrait known as Ginevra de’ Benci – National Gallery of Art, Washington. (B) The woman portrayed as Ignorance in Botticelli’s Calumny of Apelles – Uffizi, Florence. (C) Another painting by Botticelli: The Virgin Adoring the Child. National Gallery of Art, Washington. (D) The Banquet in the Forest by Botticelli – Prado, Madrid. (E) Testament and Death of Moses, by Luca Signorelli or Bartolomeo della Gatta – Sistine Chapel. (F) Mariage of Nastagio degli Onesti by Botticelli – Palazzo Pucci, Florence.