First da Vinci: now they’re cracking the Botticelli code

[emad]

From Richard Owen in Rome



AN ITALIAN art expert claims that he has cracked the hidden code in one of the most most enigmatic Renaissance paintings, Sandro Botticelli’s Primavera.

Enrico Guidoni, Professor of the History of Art and Architecture at Rome University, said that scholars had sought for centuries to interpret Botticelli’s masterpiece, painted in or around 1482 for Lorenzo de Medici, better known as Lorenzo the Magnificent (1449-1492), the great ruler of Florence and patron of the arts.

The scholars, Professor Guidoni says, missed the real point of the masterpiece. It was a codified representation of Lorenzo’s ambitious, and abortive, plan for unifying Italy through a network of alliances between the warring city states. Lorenzo had thus anticipated Garibaldi’s struggle to unite Italy by almost 400 years.

Professor Guidoni said that there was general agreement that the flower-strewn orchard that formed the backdrop of Primavera (spring) represented the glittering Medici court at Florence. There was also little doubt that the central maternal figure stood either for Venus or the Virgin Mary, or both.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,175-1826035,00.html

[xchrom]

1. soooo cool!

love this stuff -- love italy and italian history.

[finecraft]

3. I just started reading "Angels and Demons"

by Dan Brown. I think it's just as good as The Da Vinci Code. Read them both if you haven't, its worth it if you like Italian history and art.:)

[xchrom]

4. cool, will do.

[WritingIsMyReligion]

12. A & D, IMHO, is

BETTER than THE DA VINCI CODE. Very, very, very good. :D :D

[Whoa_Nelly]

2. Here is "Primavera"

[xchrom]

5. indeed - it's an allegory painting.

but to think it had a message from the medici and lorenzo himself -- wow.

[Kagemusha]

6. From what I've read he had a big enough ego for it.

A lot of people from that era did, for a variety of reasons.

[emad]

7. Image of the goddess Isis obscured by the cherub and central

female figure? The two kidney-shaped bits immediately under the cherub look like sleeves of her dress as she envelops the woman....

[DemBones DemBones]

8. This is the

conclusion of one art historian, based on his research. It's interesting but no mention is made of what other art historians think of Dottore Guidoni's work in regard to "Primavera."

When discussing art, one should never lose perspective.

:evilgrin:

[WolverineDG]

10. that's bad, but funny

:spank:

dg

[DemBones DemBones]

11. As intended!

:hippie:

[emad]

9. Some interesting stuff written about 'Sacred Geometry' viz

Leonardo's depictions of the Virgin, and other renaissance artists' portrayals of 'the Queen of Heaven' and 'Coronation of the Virgin/Queen of Heaven'.

All boils down to the occult lore of mathematics and symbolism as related to masonic interpretations of Egyptian understanding of 'Isis', Mother of Creation.