The Most Beautiful Woman in Florence- A Story of Botticelli
While this type of cheesy romance is not usually my genre, and I normally wouldn't even admit to having devoured an entire book cover to cover about this type of drama, preferring to maintain my masculine dignity and stride on with chest out, I did enjoy hearing this fictionalized version of the inspiration behind some of history's greatest paintings.
The story is told from the perspective of one Simonetta Vespucci, as she is betrothed to her husband, Marco Vespucci, during Renaissance times, in Florence during the reign of the Medici family. She is hailed as an astonishing beauty with no equal, and is adored everywhere she goes, has
men fighting over her, and lining up at her balcony to sing songs to her almost every day from the street below. (Pretty girl problems, right?) We follow her marriage to Marco Vespucci, (cousin of Amerigo Vespucci, for whom America is named) from her teenage years into her early twenties, before she was taken ill with a form of tuberculosis that had no cure in those days.
As her marriage with the unfaithful Marco starts to wear on her, and he begins to distance himself from her, (it seems no one really thought this marriage through, just married a pretty girl to a rich guy and said "well done.") she begins to sit for the painter Sandro Botticelli (I think I've heard of him before...) to begin sketches and work on the now famous portrait The Birth of Venus, for which she posed nude. Botticelli is quite taken by her beauty, and finds it inspiring as the artist will, but no affair begins just yet, though the meetings with him are kept secret, especially the nude posing.
The whole story was nicely executed, and it kept me interested in this world that seems so mythical to me. The difference between marriage then and marriage now is a subtle undertone to all this, and the political position of women in fifteenth century Florence versus today. It was certainly a different kind of agreement. I think the author (Alyssa Palombo) did a good job of creating a world that we can't really judge from a distance, because this is the only world that these characters know. She delves into the dynamics of marriage as well, with the disputes that arise between Marco and Simonetta. It got me thinking about the whole emotional and mental ordeal of marriage, outside of the legal status and documents signed. The compromise kind of wasn't yet there for them. Where and when certain behaviors and visitations would be allowed wasn't quite agreed upon, and both parties had retreated from the relationship in their own ways. Whoops. There's a problem that we still have in society today, regardless of gender politics in society in general.
Of course, Marco's having cheated on Simonetta with a prostitute very much weakens his bargaining position here. I mean, everyone knows that's the number one way to get the other person to pull away, if they don't outright leave you. Kind of hard to give her orders after you did that, man. Might need to spend some time earning her trust back, and re-building the intimacy before we can make demands.
I did of course enjoy the descriptions of Botticelli, and his exciting encounters with the young lady. He is not one of the central central characters here, but a mysterious side character who wanders in for brief moments, catching the main character's attention in ways that I'm going to assume are a slow build up of sexual tension felt by young Simonetta.
*Spoiler alert*
They do end up having sex, Simonetta and Botticelli, though after she is already diagnosed with the sickness that will claim her life in her early twenties, so very sad. She says that she is in love with Botticelli, but to me, it seems like he was more an escape from a dead marriage, and she was enjoying the attention she got from him. I mean, it's easy to be hot for that mysterious stranger that you don't have to share a living space with twenty four seven, and since she died young, they never got a chance to get sick of each other, Botticelli and Simonetta.
Still, to think that that tragic figure spawned all those paintings, staying alive just long enough for what history needed her for. She is kind of a hero in that sense. It does impact me.
There was a quote by a historian, named Felipe Fernandez-Armesto, doubting the claim that Simonetta posed for Botticelli's "The Birth of Venus", saying:
The vulgar assumption, for instance, that she was Botticelli's model for all his famous beauties seems to be based on no better grounds than the feeling that the most beautiful woman of the day ought to have modelled for the most sensitive painter.
Well, why not Felipe? Rules are rules, after all.
The story is told from the perspective of one Simonetta Vespucci, as she is betrothed to her husband, Marco Vespucci, during Renaissance times, in Florence during the reign of the Medici family. She is hailed as an astonishing beauty with no equal, and is adored everywhere she goes, hasmen fighting over her, and lining up at her balcony to sing songs to her almost every day from the street below. (Pretty girl problems, right?) We follow her marriage to Marco Vespucci, (cousin of Amerigo Vespucci, for whom America is named) from her teenage years into her early twenties, before she was taken ill with a form of tuberculosis that had no cure in those days.
As her marriage with the unfaithful Marco starts to wear on her, and he begins to distance himself from her, (it seems no one really thought this marriage through, just married a pretty girl to a rich guy and said "well done.") she begins to sit for the painter Sandro Botticelli (I think I've heard of him before...) to begin sketches and work on the now famous portrait The Birth of Venus, for which she posed nude. Botticelli is quite taken by her beauty, and finds it inspiring as the artist will, but no affair begins just yet, though the meetings with him are kept secret, especially the nude posing.
The whole story was nicely executed, and it kept me interested in this world that seems so mythical to me. The difference between marriage then and marriage now is a subtle undertone to all this, and the political position of women in fifteenth century Florence versus today. It was certainly a different kind of agreement. I think the author (Alyssa Palombo) did a good job of creating a world that we can't really judge from a distance, because this is the only world that these characters know. She delves into the dynamics of marriage as well, with the disputes that arise between Marco and Simonetta. It got me thinking about the whole emotional and mental ordeal of marriage, outside of the legal status and documents signed. The compromise kind of wasn't yet there for them. Where and when certain behaviors and visitations would be allowed wasn't quite agreed upon, and both parties had retreated from the relationship in their own ways. Whoops. There's a problem that we still have in society today, regardless of gender politics in society in general.
Of course, Marco's having cheated on Simonetta with a prostitute very much weakens his bargaining position here. I mean, everyone knows that's the number one way to get the other person to pull away, if they don't outright leave you. Kind of hard to give her orders after you did that, man. Might need to spend some time earning her trust back, and re-building the intimacy before we can make demands.I did of course enjoy the descriptions of Botticelli, and his exciting encounters with the young lady. He is not one of the central central characters here, but a mysterious side character who wanders in for brief moments, catching the main character's attention in ways that I'm going to assume are a slow build up of sexual tension felt by young Simonetta.
*Spoiler alert*
They do end up having sex, Simonetta and Botticelli, though after she is already diagnosed with the sickness that will claim her life in her early twenties, so very sad. She says that she is in love with Botticelli, but to me, it seems like he was more an escape from a dead marriage, and she was enjoying the attention she got from him. I mean, it's easy to be hot for that mysterious stranger that you don't have to share a living space with twenty four seven, and since she died young, they never got a chance to get sick of each other, Botticelli and Simonetta.
Still, to think that that tragic figure spawned all those paintings, staying alive just long enough for what history needed her for. She is kind of a hero in that sense. It does impact me.
There was a quote by a historian, named Felipe Fernandez-Armesto, doubting the claim that Simonetta posed for Botticelli's "The Birth of Venus", saying:
The vulgar assumption, for instance, that she was Botticelli's model for all his famous beauties seems to be based on no better grounds than the feeling that the most beautiful woman of the day ought to have modelled for the most sensitive painter.
Well, why not Felipe? Rules are rules, after all.
