Botticelli's Secret: The Lost Drawings and the Rediscovery of the Renaissance

by Joseph Luzzi, Keith Szarabajka (Read by)

Overview

A true historical “detective story” full of insight about how we look at art―and the artists and eras that produced it

Some five hundred years ago, Sandro Botticelli, a painter of humble origin, created work of unearthly beauty. An intimate associate of Florence’s unofficial rulers, the Medici, he was commissioned by a member of their family to execute a near-impossible project: to illustrate all one hundred cantos of The Divine Comedy by the city’s greatest poet, Dante Alighieri.

A powerful encounter between poet and artist, sacred and secular, earthly and evanescent, these drawings produced a wealth of stunning images but were never finished. Botticelli declined into poverty and obscurity, and his illustrations went missing for four hundred years.

The nineteenth-century rediscovery of Botticelli’s Dante drawings brought scholars to their knees: this work embodied everything the Renaissance had come to mean. Today, Botticelli’s Primavera adorns household objects of every kind.

This book is essential to explain not only how and why this artist became iconic but why we still need his work―and the spirit of the Renaissance―today.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9798212192804
Publisher:	Blackstone Publishing
Publication date:	11/22/2022
Product dimensions:	5.20(w) x 5.70(h) x (d)

About the Author

Joseph Luzzi is the Asher B. Edelman Professor of Literature at Bard College and an award-winning scholar of Italian culture. His latest book, Botticelli’s Secret, was a New Yorker Best Book of 2022 and was shortlisted for the Ralph Waldo Emerson Award in 2023. He lives in the Hudson Valley of New York.

Table of Contents

Prologue 1

Part 1 Infinite Disorder

1 The Pop Star 23

2 Bottega to Brand 49

3 Chiaroscuro 74

4 The Commission 95

5 Late Style 117

Part 2 Afterlives and Renaissances

6 History's Lost and Found 145

7 Botticelli in Britain 166

8 The Eyes of Florence 186

9 Berlin and Beyond 207

Epilogue 225

Acknowledgments 233

Timeline 237

Key Terms 243

Notes 249

Select Bibliography 301

Index 317

Editorial Reviews

08/29/2022

Bard College literature professor Luzzi (In a Dark Wood) recounts in this vivid chronicle the history of Renaissance painter Sandro Botticelli’s illustrations depicting Dante’s Divine Comedy. Commissioned by Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de’ Medici, the 92 extant drawings serve as “visual proof of how the Renaissance period broke with the spiritual doctrine of its medieval past,” according to Luzzi, who also notes that because Botticelli completed only one illustration (The Map of Hell) in full color and intricate detail, the remaining unfinished drawings offer a “window” into the artist’s creative process. Luzzi’s rich narrative delves into the biographies of Dante and Botticelli, the tumultuous Florentine culture that inspired them, and the period of Enlightenment-era obsolescence endured by both men before their rediscovery in the 19th century. Along the way, Luzzi also tracks how the illustrations disappeared after Botticelli’s death in 1510, reemerged in the 17th century, and were bought by the director of the print collection at the Royal Museum of Berlin from a profligate Scottish nobleman in 1882. Transferred to a Nazi bunker in the waning days of WWII, the drawings narrowly avoided a fire that destroyed hundreds of priceless artworks. Richly detailed and fluidly written, this is a master class in art history. Illus. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly

"In his new book, Joseph Luzzi tells the fascinating story of Botticelli’s life and afterlife, focusing on the many revealing twists and turns that the unfinished illustrations of Dante’s Divine Comedy, among the artist’s most acclaimed works, took to reach the present."

The New Criterion - John M. Wisdom

"The research that has gone into [Luzzi’s Botticelli’s Secret] is impressive and inspiring. Anyone who wants a short dramatic book about Renaissance Florence should reach for this title first. Luzzi has written so much more than the story of one artist’s fascinating commission. He’s created a vivid portrait of culture, politics, and daily life in the city that has become the very image of Renaissance history."

New York Journal of Books - Marissa Moss

"Replete with unexpected twists and dangling threads, the trajectory of Botticelli’s Dante illustrations nonetheless becomes, in Luzzi’s telling, a story about the force of art to shape lives."

Harpers - Claire Messud

"The Italian Renaissance has rarely been so brilliantly examined or put before us in such a delectable style. I would recommend Botticelli’s Secret to anyone who loves art, who enjoys good storytelling, and who is interested in how the human spirit rediscovered itself in such a magnificent and dramatic fashion."

Jay Parini

"Botticelli’s Secret is sheer delight from beginning to end. Under the guise of tracing a fascinating history, this book finally presents a compelling brief for the lasting importance to all of us, as thinking, feeling people, irrespective of nation [or] social class, of coming face-to-face with transcendent human endeavor."

Ingrid Rowland

"Brilliantly conceived and executed, Botticelli’s Secret is a riveting search for buried treasure."

Stephen Greenblatt

"Wide-ranging...[Luzzi] reads Botticelli’s drawings as “a ‘poem’ in their own regard,” and as a crucial link in the “mapping of the human spirit’s transition” from one era to the next."

The New Yorker

"A lively book…[Luzzi] brilliantly sets the operatic stage of vibrant, violent Renaissance Florence and brings to life the characters who helped resurrect Botticelli."

Wall Street Journal - Max Norman

"Luzzi’s best book yet, full of intimate and personal insights into the masters and masterpieces of Renaissance Italy and told with his unique blend of scholarship and superb storytelling."

Ross King

"Wide-ranging.…[Luzzi] reads Botticelli’s drawings as ‘a poem in their own regard,’ and as a crucial link in the ‘mapping of the human spirit’s transition’ from one era to the next."

The New Yorker

"Replete with unexpected twists and dangling threads, the trajectory of Botticelli’s Dante illustrations nonetheless becomes, in Luzzi’s telling, a story about the force of art to shape lives."

Harpers - Claire Massud

“I would recommend Botticelli’s Secret to anyone who loves art, who enjoys good storytelling, and who is interested in how the human spirit rediscovered itself.”

author of Borges and Me Jay Parini

“Brilliantly conceived and executed, Botticelli’s Secret is a riveting search for buried treasure.”

New York Times bestselling author Stephen Greenblatt

“Botticelli’s Secret is sheer delight from beginning to end…Tracing a fascinating history, this book finally presents a compelling brief…of coming face-to-face with transcendent human endeavor.”

coauthor of The Collector of Lives Ingrid Rowland

“Full of intimate and personal insights into the masters and masterpieces of Renaissance Italy and told with his unique blend of scholarship and superb storytelling."

author of Leonardo and the Last Supper Ross King

2022-08-17
Tracing the fate of remarkable 15th-century drawings.

In 1475, the artist Sandro Botticelli (circa 1445-1510) was at the height of his prominence, proclaimed “Master of Painting, one of Florence’s highest artistic honors.” Soon, he undertook two important projects: to illustrate each of the 100 cantos in Dante’s Divine Comedy, one set for a deluxe edition intended for mass production and another, commissioned by Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de’ Medici—Botticelli’s most influential patron and a cousin of Lorenzo il Magnifico— for a private, hand-lettered volume. Luzzi, a professor of comparative literature, brings his extensive knowledge of Dante and Italian history to a richly detailed investigation of the creation, reception, and afterlife of Botticelli’s second project: drawings that informed an understanding of the fertile, contradictory period that came to be known as the Renaissance. The Dante drawings went unfinished for more than a decade while Botticelli worked on other projects, including three frescoes in the Sistine Chapel and The Birth of Venus. In 1494, however, Lorenzo apparently rushed the artist to fulfill the commission, probably to offer the volume as a gift to the French king, Charles VIII, who had just marched into Florence and with whom Lorenzo hoped to ingratiate himself. Luzzi recounts the sad trajectory of Botticelli’s last years and his diminished posthumous reputation until a renewed interest in Dante in the late 18th century and a celebration of the Renaissance by pre-Raphaelites and prominent art critics in the 19th century led to “the Victorian cult of Botticelli.” After migrating through Europe, the drawings, not seen for some 400 years, ended up in England, where they were bought by an astute German art historian. Precariously surviving World War II in a salt mine and divided during the Cold War, in 2000, “all 92 extant Dante illustrations by Botticelli appear[ed] together for the first time at exhibitions in Rome, Berlin, and London.” The book includes photos, a timeline, and a list of “key terms.”

A fresh perspective on an iconic artist and his time.

Kirkus Reviews