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Description: The Portrayal of Love: Botticelli’s Primavera and Humanist Culture at the Time...
BOOKThe Portrayal of Love: Botticelli’s Primavera and Humanist Culture at the Time of Lorenzo the Magnificent
Charles Dempsey
Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-23765
Widely acknowledged as a prime manifestation of Florentine humanist culture under Lorenzo de'Medici, Botticelli's Primavera cannot be fully interpreted without considering the poetics that expressed the Laurentian cultural program and, in turn, the Renaissance itself. In this analysis Charles Dempsey examines the poetry written by Lorenzo and his literary clients in order to give definition to the cultural context in which the Primavera was created. A celebration of Love, the painting is shown to incorporate both public and private imaginative realms while embracing the ideal and the actual experiences of the present. The Primavera, depicting Venus as the spirit of Love and springtime, is simultaneously old-fashioned and modern, rooted in International-Style vernacular conventions and evincing a nascent classical vocabulary. After describing the profoundly humanist classical foundation to the invention of the Primavera, Dempsey identifies its genre with rustic song, then relates the painting to the conventions of vernacular love poetry. A close reading of the painting in relation to works by Lorenzo, Politian, Pulci, and other poets working to elevate vernacular expression by infusing native Tuscan with Latin forms suggests how the idea of Love portrayed by Botticelli in the figure of Venus incorporates not only the ancient springtime renovatio mundi but also the actual cultural renovation—the Renaissance—imagined and sponsored by Lorenzo the Magnificent.

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Author
Charles Dempsey
PublisherPrinceton University Press
Print publication date November 1992 (out of print)
Print ISBN 9780691032078
EISBN 9780300275643
Copyright© 1992 by Princeton University Press
Illustrations 46
Print Status out of print
Publisher (out of print)
WorldCat
Google Books

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List of illustrations

  • Primavera
  • Deathbed Scene
  • Primavera, detail of Venus, Flora, Chloris, and Zephyr
  • Primavera, detail of Chloris's head
  • Primavera, detail of Flora
  • Primavera, detail of Venus
  • Primavera, detail of Cupid
  • Primavera, detail of Venus, the Graces, and Mercury
  • Primavera, detail of the Graces
  • Horace's Dancing Graces
  • Primavera, detail of Mercury
  • Primavera, detail of Mercury's caduceus dispersing the clouds
  • Primavera, detail of Mercury's boots with swirling seed clusters
  • Spring
  • Spring
  • Spring
  • Mercury
  • Advent of Venus
  • Primavera, detail of Mercury's harpe
  • Primavera, detail of Flora's head
  • Primavera, detail of Venus's head
  • Primavera, detail of Mercury's head
  • Ginevra de' Benci
  • Wreath of Laurel, Palm, and Juniper with a Scroll inscribed Virtutem Forma Decorat
  • Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, obverse
  • The Three Graces, reverse
  • Primavera, detail of the Graces (upper half)
  • Triumph of Chastity
  • Triumph of Bacchus and Ariadne
  • Month of May, from Les très riches heures du duc de Berry
  • Lorenzo de'Medici Receiving Calendimaggio Celebrants
  • Allegory of the Dominican Order, detail
  • The Effects of Good Government in the City, detail
  • Youth and Nymph Holding an Armillary Sphere
  • Portrait of Giovanna degli Albizzi Tornabuoni
  • Portrait of a Young Woman
  • Idealised Portrait of a Lady (Portrait of Simonetta Vespucci as Nymph)
  • Simonetta Vespucci
  • Head of a Young Woman
  • Giuliano de' Medici
  • Portrait of a Youth Holding a Medal of Cosimo de'Medici
  • Adoration of the Magi
  • Minerva
  • Nymph (study for a standard)
  • Female head
  • Fortitude
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List of Illustrations
Charles Dempsey
Description: The Portrayal of Love: Botticelli’s Primavera and Humanist Culture at the Time...
The Portrayal of Love: Botticelli’s Primavera and Humanist Culture at the Time of Lorenzo the Magnificent
List of Illustrations
Author
Charles Dempsey
PublisherPrinceton University Press
Copyright© 1992 by Princeton University Press
Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-23767
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Acknowledgments
Charles Dempsey
Description: The Portrayal of Love: Botticelli’s Primavera and Humanist Culture at the Time...
The Portrayal of Love: Botticelli’s Primavera and Humanist Culture at the Time of Lorenzo the Magnificent
~~THIS BOOK was written for the most part during leaves of absence from Bryn Mawr College and the Johns Hopkins University that I spent at the Harvard Center for Renaissance Studies at Villa I Tatti in Florence, at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, and at the Charles S. Singleton Center for Italian Studies of the Johns...
Author
Charles Dempsey
PublisherPrinceton University Press
Copyright© 1992 by Princeton University Press
Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-23768
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Introduction
Charles Dempsey
Description: The Portrayal of Love: Botticelli’s Primavera and Humanist Culture at the Time...
The Portrayal of Love: Botticelli’s Primavera and Humanist Culture at the Time of Lorenzo the Magnificent
~~MUCH has been said with regard...
Author
Charles Dempsey
PublisherPrinceton University Press
Copyright© 1992 by Princeton University Press
Related print edition pages: pp.3-19
Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-23769
Chapter subject tags:Painting, Renaissance--ItalyBotticelli, Sandro, 1444 or 1445-1510. SpringLove poetry, ItalianNeoplatonismMedici, Lorenzo de', 1449-1492Venus deities in artHumanismEuropean poetry--Renaissance, 1450-1600

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1. Poetry as Painting: The Classical Materia of Botticelli’s Invention for the Primavera
Charles Dempsey
Description: The Portrayal of Love: Botticelli’s Primavera and Humanist Culture at the Time...
The Portrayal of Love: Botticelli’s Primavera and Humanist Culture at the Time of Lorenzo the Magnificent
~THE EARLIEST description of Botticelli’s Primavera (plate...
Author
Charles Dempsey
PublisherPrinceton University Press
Copyright© 1992 by Princeton University Press
Related print edition pages: pp.20-49
Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-23770
Chapter subject tags:Painting, Renaissance--ItalyBotticelli, Sandro, 1444 or 1445-1510. SpringLove poetry, ItalianNeoplatonismMedici, Lorenzo de', 1449-1492Poetry, AncientHumanism

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2. Poetry as Public Myth: The Primavera and Vernacular Expression
Charles Dempsey
Description: The Portrayal of Love: Botticelli’s Primavera and Humanist Culture at the Time...
The Portrayal of Love: Botticelli’s Primavera and Humanist Culture at the Time of Lorenzo the Magnificent
~WHEN Poggio Bracciolini...
Author
Charles Dempsey
PublisherPrinceton University Press
Copyright© 1992 by Princeton University Press
Related print edition pages: pp.50-78
Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-23771
Chapter subject tags:Painting, Renaissance--ItalyBotticelli, Sandro, 1444 or 1445-1510. SpringLove poetry, ItalianNeoplatonismMedici, Lorenzo de', 1449-1492Venus deities in artHumanism

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3. Poetry as History: Lucrezia Donati, Luigi Pulci’s Da poi che ’l Lauro, and Some Poems by Lorenzo de’Medici
Charles Dempsey
Description: The Portrayal of Love: Botticelli’s Primavera and Humanist Culture at the Time...
The Portrayal of Love: Botticelli’s Primavera and Humanist Culture at the Time of Lorenzo the Magnificent
~MACHIAVELLI, writing in the Istorie Fiorentine of the days of Piero de’Medici and the dissensions strewn in Florence by the rebellious Diotisalvi Neroni, Luca Pitti, Agnolo Acciaiuoli, and Niccolò Soderini, tells of...
Author
Charles Dempsey
PublisherPrinceton University Press
Copyright© 1992 by Princeton University Press
Related print edition pages: pp.79-113
Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-23772
Chapter subject tags:Painting, Renaissance--ItalyBotticelli, Sandro, 1444 or 1445-1510. SpringLove poetry, ItalianNeoplatonismMedici, Lorenzo de', 1449-1492Venus deities in artHumanism

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4. Poetry as Historical Fiction: Lorenzo de’Medici, Simonetta Cattaneo, and Lucrezia Donati
Charles Dempsey
Description: The Portrayal of Love: Botticelli’s Primavera and Humanist Culture at the Time...
The Portrayal of Love: Botticelli’s Primavera and Humanist Culture at the Time of Lorenzo the Magnificent
~LORENZO de’Medici wrote his...
Author
Charles Dempsey
PublisherPrinceton University Press
Copyright© 1992 by Princeton University Press
Related print edition pages: pp.114-139
Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-23773
Chapter subject tags:Painting, Renaissance--ItalyBotticelli, Sandro, 1444 or 1445-1510. SpringLove poetry, ItalianNeoplatonismMedici, Lorenzo de', 1449-1492Venus deities in artHumanism

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5. Reading the Poem
Charles Dempsey
Description: The Portrayal of Love: Botticelli’s Primavera and Humanist Culture at the Time...
The Portrayal of Love: Botticelli’s Primavera and Humanist Culture at the Time of Lorenzo the Magnificent
~WHEN I began my investigation with the classical materia that provides the foundation for the poetic invention of the Primavera, I stressed that Botticelli did not illustrate a particular Latin or Greek text. The ancient sources brought together in the conception of the painting were assembled in order to make fully...
Author
Charles Dempsey
PublisherPrinceton University Press
Copyright© 1992 by Princeton University Press
Related print edition pages: pp.140-166
Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-23774
Chapter subject tags:Painting, Renaissance--ItalyBotticelli, Sandro, 1444 or 1445-1510. SpringLove poetry, ItalianNeoplatonismMedici, Lorenzo de', 1449-1492Venus deities in artHumanism

Access to this content is only available to subscribers. If you are at an institution that currently subscribes to the A&AePortal, please login to your VPN before accessing the site. If you have already purchased an individual subscription, please sign in to your account to access the content. Learn more about subscriptions.

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The Portrayal of Love: Botticelli’s Primavera and Humanist Culture at the Time of Lorenzo the Magnificent
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