The Botticelli Secret

11

1492


HISTORICAL NOTE

Italy was eventually unified in 1870. At the turn of the century, a modern monument called the Altar of the Nation was constructed in the heart of the new country’s capital, Rome.

It is a marble monstrosity, which neatly obscures the views of the Capitoline Hill.


AUTHOR’S NOTE

The Primavera by Sandro Botticelli enjoys more interpretations than perhaps any other picture in art history. A number of them are examined at differing depths in this story. I am indebted to Charles Dempsey’s scholarly interpretation of the painting in his work The Portrayal of Love: Botticelli’s Primavera and Humanist Culture at the Time of Lorenzo the Magnificent and Mirella Levi D’Ancona’s incredibly detailed botanical reading of the picture in her book Botticelli’s Primavera: A Botanical Interpretation Including Astrology, Alchemy and the Medici. How-ever, this book owes the most to the work of Professor Enrico Guidoni of the University of Rome. It was he who posited the idea that the figures represent Italian cities and suggested the painting concealed a Medici design to unify Italy. The professor’s arguments can be fully explored in his work La Prima-vera di Botticelli: L’armonia tra le città nell’Italia di Lorenzo il Magnifico. I have respectfully named my most learned character, Guido, after him.

It should be emphasized, however, that this novel is a work of fiction, and that, with respect to the work of the scholars here named, any additions, omissions, or alterations of characters, events, or places are my own.