This series masterfully situates Botticelli’s stylistic shifts within the crumbling Medici power structure, treating art as a vital historical document rather than mere decoration. It offers a sophisticated synthesis of aesthetic evolution and political reality that is both accessible and deeply insightful.
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Botticelli and the Medici, 1475-1500 | Finale | A Narrative Art History of the Renaissance (S2 E7)Added:
15th century [music] Florence gave rise to some of the best-known works of Renaissance art.
>> [music] >> Florence is the cradle of the Renaissance, the birthplace of linear perspective.
And this [music] season began with the pioneering painters and sculptors working under the auspices [music] of the Medici banking family in the first half of the 15th century.
>> [music] >> We now return to the city around 1475 [music] when we find a bustling center of trade and commerce, a city still controlled by [music] the Medici, cunning politicians and avid patrons of the arts.
Florence's population at this time [music] likely numbered in the high tens of thousands or so, but its wealth was concentrated in a very [music] small elite circle.
That wealth gave rise to some of the most elaborate, indulgent, and memorable [music] artworks of the Renaissance.
The painter Sandro Botticelli was a Medici favorite.
Botticelli [music] is well remembered for his mythologies, graceful, idyllic fantasies [music] situated in verdant landscapes and on utopian seashores.
These beautiful images were made for the Medici family.
But they masked the fact that the late 15th [music] century was an acutely dangerous time for the Italian peninsula and particularly for the Medici.
This was a period marked by conspiracy, invasion, paranoia, and ultimately religious fanaticism, [music] a set of disruptions that upended Florence's social and political order by 1500.
Artists [music] bore witness to this remarkable and tempestuous transformation.
In this episode, [music] we draw the curtain on the 15th century by looking closely [music] at the work of Botticelli and his Florentine contemporaries.
The complex characters of these artists, beauty of their work, >> [music] >> and brutality of their social environment serve as a bittersweet finale to our story and a prelude to the cultural dynamics of the High Renaissance to come.
>> [music] >> We began this season with the rise of Cosimo de Medici.
He's the head of the Medici Bank, a keystone of the Florentine economy.
And after the fall of a rival family in 1434, Cosimo seized power to become the lord of Florence.
And although Florence is nominally a republic, Cosimo's family lineage ends up remaining in power for the majority of the 15th century.
In Botticelli's 1475 Adoration of the Magi, we have a Medici family portrait.
This is an intergenerational reunion of all the key family members, dead or alive.
Here, the eldest [music] Magus offering gold to the Christ child, is a representation of Cosimo, his face rendered with the gravitas of imperial [music] Roman verism, bearing the wrinkled wisdom of old age.
But this is a posthumous portrait because by 1475, Cosimo had already been dead for 11 [music] years.
The other two Magi are his sons, Piero and Giovanni, who were both also dead at [music] this point in time. Piero at the center had succeeded his father as de facto ruler of Florence [music] in 1464, but tormented by gout, he didn't make it to the decade's end.
Next, we [music] have the newest, third generation of Medici rulers.
This proud sword bearer at far left, [music] we think, is Piero's son Lorenzo, born in 1449.
So, he's 26 in this painting, and he's the Medici in charge when Botticelli painted this picture.
Now, if [music] Florence was technically a republic, how did Piero and Lorenzo inherit their positions [music] of power?
Well, the Medici were so-called de facto rulers, [music] essentially puppet masters.
They operated from behind the scenes, for instance, >> [music] >> pulling strings to stock public offices with their supporters who then governed under [music] their direction.
Yet the subversion of republican [music] ideals was sustainable because for the most part, they had the backing of the Florentine citizenry. [music] Everyday citizens viewed the Medici with their preeminent [music] bank as a kind of stabilizing force against factionalism, against economic chaos.
But of course, rival families were not so happy.
And so, given their de facto status, the political standing of the Medici is a little precarious. [music] And as bankers turned politicians, their wealth ultimately rested on the success of their banking business.
That's an important point [music] for the rest of the story.
I want to show Botticelli's Adoration also for its virtuoso treatment [music] of fabrics.
These extravagant silks we see are punctuated by intricate gold embroidery.
[music] They're reminders of Florence's most powerful industry at this time, textiles.
By the 1460s, Florence had secured a monopoly on alum, a mineral essential for fixing dyes.
Alum [music] mining conducted near Rome was of course financed by the Medici.
And so, the Medici both enabled and profited from [music] the textile trade.
Indeed, Florentine fabrics were a staple of luxury decor [music] across European courts.
This one, with its signature pomegranate motifs, was commissioned by Henry VII of England.
Given all this, it's tempting to think that [music] Botticelli's Adoration is a Medici commission.
It looks and sounds like self-fashioned propaganda.
But it was actually commissioned by another Florentine banker for his personal chapel in the prominent church of Santa Maria Novella.
It's a calculated gesture to curry favor with the Medici family.
Now, we know that the Medici had long identified with the Magi. We know this from Benozzo Gozzoli's frescoes in their home chapel from episode 1.
They wanted to project themselves as wise and powerful people who were also humble servants of Christ, an identity exemplified by the three Magi, traditionally known as kings.
And this commission was really a win-win for Botticelli.
He was only 30 years old at the time, a fairly new painter, getting his work displayed in such a prominent public space as Santa Maria Novella was excellent publicity.
And so, he paints himself into the crowd, a figure at far right breaking fourth wall.
It's a bid for recognition and for future patronage.
So, really, the 1475 Adoration is this high-profile, sycophantic way of praising the Medici in public. And conveniently, it provides us an art historical record of the Medici dynasty.
But I want to focus now on Lorenzo de Medici, the incumbent at the time, beginning with an extraordinary object for the domestic setting.
This is a desco da parto, a birth tray made to commemorate Lorenzo's birth in 1449.
>> [music] [music] >> These objects evolved from plates used to serve light snacks and confectioneries to a mother postpartum.
In [music] this derivative form, however, it's intended more as a ceremonial gift celebrating a successful childbirth for the mother and a healthy child at a time when infant mortality and maternal mortality was painfully high.
This is one of the most elaborate birth trays [music] of the Renaissance fit for a future ruler of Florence.
One side shows [music] soldiers bowing to an imperious personification of fame drawn from Petrarch. [music] On the reverse, we see the coats of arms of both parents' families, the Medici [music] and the Tornabuoni, with the ostrich feathers valued for their strength and resilience being a Medici emblem.
But the imagery on the obverse of the Triumph of Fame is auspicious messaging at its finest.
From the very moment of his birth, this tray elevates Lorenzo to a mythic stature and manifests his public acclaim.
And it augured well for him. He was given an excellent classical education.
Like his grandfather Cosimo, he developed a deep appreciation for the arts.
And upon his rise to power at age 20, he was crowned Lorenzo the Magnificent, il Magnifico.
He ruled together with his brother Giuliano.
Unfortunately for Lorenzo, he was born into a moment of geopolitical tension on the Italian peninsula, which was then a collection of independent city-states with a long history of territorial conflict.
Cosimo had engineered a peace treaty three decades earlier in 1454, but in the interim, the Medici had accumulated enemies both within and without Florence. Envious rival families who resented their dynastic grip on the city.
One such family was the Pazzi, direct competitors in the banking business.
The Pazzi resented the Medici's political and financial machinations, and they found an unlikely ally in the Pope Sixtus the IV, whose territorial ambitions in central Italy had clashed with Medici efforts to keep the peace.
So, the Pazzi initiated talks with Pope Sixtus, but the Pope is hesitant to become directly involved.
Tacitly, though, he gave them the green light to act as they saw fit.
Another character, Federico da Montefeltro, the Duke of Urbino, was more head-on.
Federico agreed to commit troops in support of the Pazzi, as revealed actually in a recently deciphered letter.
Why? Because Federico believed that the Pazzi would be more easily manipulable to serve Urbino's interests should they usurp power from the Medici in Florence.
Now, the most straightforward means of deposing the Medici would be simply to eliminate the ones in charge, Lorenzo and his brother and co-ruler Giuliano.
This was a risky solution, and it was precisely the Pazzi's solution. They needed only the right opportunity.
Every [music] Easter Sunday, the Florence Cathedral, the Duomo, held and continues [music] to hold high mass.
Citizens would crowd around the Duomo, an incredibly high-profile [music] event.
That meant that both Lorenzo and Giuliano would be [music] present, standing near the high altar.
In particular, there's a highly solemn moment during high mass, the [music] elevation of the consecrated host, when observers would be bowing their heads [music] in silence.
And during the elevation of the consecrated host >> [music] >> on Easter Sunday, 1478, four men emerged from the crowd and pounced [music] on the brothers, immediately wounding both.
Now, Lorenzo's attackers are two priests. They don't have great swordsmanship. He tries to fend them off, but it's a violent struggle, and just as they prepare to deliver [music] a coup de grace, someone jumps in front of Lorenzo and takes for him the fatal blow, a banker and ally named Francesco Nori.
Lorenzo flees [music] to the sacristy with his bodyguards who barricade the door. He narrowly escapes [music] alive.
His brother Giuliano is less fortunate. [music] He's stabbed 19 times.
Botticelli painted this coldly elegant portrait of Giuliano not long after his murder.
It's highly idealized. The atmosphere is austere and dignified.
We see him with downcast eyes, a turtle dove, [music] and a dead branch, all symbols pointing to his death.
The open window suggests the escape of his soul.
It's a moving visual tribute to the tragedy of 1478.
Now, the Pazzi had intended to spark a popular uprising to topple the Medici by inciting public revolt.
But their conspiracy backfired spectacularly. The people didn't rise up against the Medici. They had enjoyed relative peace and prosperity under their rule. They had no real reason to.
Instead, the disaster had the ironic effect of rallying public support in favor of continued Medici dominance.
For citizens, Giuliano became a martyr, and Lorenzo a beacon of leadership and hope.
The master medalist Bertoldo di Giovanni made this commemorative medal shortly after the attack.
One side reads public mourning, memorializing Giuliano, and the other public safety, a reference to Lorenzo having tightened his grip on civil security after his brush with death.
And Lorenzo did so quite publicly.
For many years, this drawing dated to the late 15th century was thought to show a dancer or entertainer.
In fact, it had been viewed the wrong side up.
When flipped, it becomes a man being hanged upside down.
This is one of the some 80 conspirators, not all of them proven guilty, to be publicly hanged by Lorenzo as a spectacle and a warning.
Lorenzo also enhanced surveillance across Tuscany, planting spies across rural towns to root out further dissent.
More blood was shed as a result, and the Tuscan countryside became a perilous place.
As for Pope Sixtus, an indirect enabler of the conspiracy, he pardoned the conspirators and excommunicated Lorenzo instead.
This is the tumultuous [music] historical backdrop to Botticelli's beautiful pictures of the late 1470s and early '80s. In fact, as we move closer [music] to 1480, Botticelli's style softens.
His figures become more expressive, more poetic, perhaps a response to a growing demand for escapist [music] pictures among the troubled elite.
We've now seen two early works, the 1475 [music] Adoration and the posthumous portrait of Giuliano.
But to trace the development of this more poetic style, let's zoom in on Botticelli's Madonnas.
Now, Madonnas were the bread and butter of a Renaissance painter. They were always in demand since they functioned as aids for private prayer. And so, workshops often made Madonnas as stock pictures, keeping them in inventory on hand. But if they're bespoke commissions, we'll see them personalized with saints or other iconography of the buyer's choice.
Botticelli's Madonna of the Magnificat is a tondo, or circular painting, a fashionable format for Florentine palaces, possibly derived from the form of the birth tray.
>> [music] >> The Virgin Mary here is the Renaissance ideal of femininity, a paragon [music] of elegance and poise.
And the grace of line, softness of contour, >> [music] >> and sweetness of tone in her face is signature Botticelli.
She wears robes [music] lined with gold with a veiled headdress and a patterned scarf.
She's being [music] crowned by angels modeled after contemporary Florentine youths.
And she gazes softly [music] at a book open to the Magnificat, a hymn dedicated to her, to the Virgin Mary.
But Mary isn't just reading the words of the Magnificat, she's writing them.
This is unusual iconography for a Madonna [music] and Child.
In the 15th century, only nuns and noble women would have been literate. [music] So, this act of writing suggests Botticelli had a specific model for the Virgin Mary here in mind. [music] Now, there's no definitive evidence, but it's possible that she represents Lorenzo de' Medici's mother, Lucrezia Tornabuoni, [music] one of the most educated, philanthropic, and powerful women of Renaissance Florence.
Lucrezia was a polymath, well-versed in literature [music] and humanism and mathematics and banking, and took on diplomatic, judicial, [music] and cultural roles alike.
By implication, the angels around her could be her sons.
One of them could be Lorenzo himself.
Working our way around the picture, the Christ Child's face is far from anatomically accurate, but anatomical impossibilities are common in Botticelli's work. He tends to prioritize holistic elegance over the anatomical nitty-gritty.
And in this way, the Madonna of the Magnificat treads a fine line between realistic description and idealistic imagination, a negotiation that rests at the heart of Botticelli's practice.
Let's now consider the origins of this signature style by considering Botticelli's artistic training.
We know that when he was 14 or 15, he became apprenticed to the friar painter Fra Filippo Lippi, a leading exponent of the mid-15th century Florentine school.
And if we look at one of Lippi's Madonnas, here his most celebrated, it's easy to see where Botticelli derived his visual vernacular.
Lippi's Madonna and Child [music] with two angels from the 1450s to '60s shares many of Botticelli's stylistic [music] attributes.
The grace of figure, the emphasis on [music] line, here the relationship between Mary and her baby seems organic, truly human [music] to a degree of tenderness rarely seen before Lippi's time.
And perhaps this [music] can be explained by a colorful anecdote from Lippi's life.
A fra title in Lippi's name [music] means brother. It indicates that he's a friar.
But in his 50s, while he was [music] at a convent just outside Florence, Lippi fell in love with a young nun named Lucrezia [music] Buti.
That infatuation blossomed into an illicit affair.
>> [music] >> He eloped with her, fathering an illegitimate child, Filippino, or little Filippo.
If you'll remember, [music] Filippino made the drawing of the man hanging upside down we saw earlier. And in a full circle moment, [music] Filippino later trained as a painter in Botticelli's workshop.
>> [music] >> But it's very likely that Lippi used his lover Lucrezia as a model for his figures of Mary.
This Madonna was made around the time that he fell in love, and possibly just after Filippino was born.
And so, I like to think that the naturalism of maternal affection here is rooted in Filippo Lippi's experience as a father himself.
So, Botticelli is abstracting elements of Lippi's softness and grace.
That dimension of humanity and emotional realism, to me, is even more apparent in this Madonna, dated to the same years as the Madonna of the Magnificat.
We see Mary bathed in a soft, luminous [music] glow, reading a book of hours.
She points to the page with her left hand [music] as if she's trying to get her son to read it, too.
But he's distracted.
He looks up at her, bored [music] and maybe annoyed at her insistence, wanting instead to play.
And that playfulness, I think, reflects Botticelli's personality. He was known to be quick-witted, never taking himself too seriously.
That rich blue in Mary's robes is ultramarine, a luxurious pigment imported from Afghanistan, implying [music] whoever commissioned this work was very well-off.
The radiant symbol on her left shoulder [music] references an ancient title of hers, Star of the Sea.
>> [music] >> Take a moment to take in the details.
The tassel >> [music] >> of the pillow and the golden crown of thorns and nails in the hand of Christ, presaging his passion and crucifixion.
In the same vein, cherries in the fruit basket symbolize his blood.
This is Botticelli delighting in the graceful >> [music] >> poetics of painting for which he's so renowned.
By this point, we've progressed in time from the 1475 adoration to the 1478 Pazzi Conspiracy to now 1481, a key year politically for Pope Sixtus IV and Lorenzo de' Medici.
It's a key year because they make an attempt at reconciliation post-conspiracy in the form of cultural diplomacy.
Pope Sixtus wanted to restore Rome to its classical glory as a proclamation of Catholic dominance and papal power.
Specifically, he wanted Rome to rival Florence's position of cultural authority.
And as part of this restoration campaign, Sixtus wanted a new chapel in the Apostolic Palace where he lived in Vatican City.
This chapel would be named after him, the Sistine Chapel.
He wanted it filled with the grandest frescoes in all of Europe.
The issue was that Sixtus needed Florentine talent.
Rome, at this point, was a small town full of archaeological ruins, far from the forefront of 15th century painting.
And so, he has to ask Lorenzo de' Medici to send a team of artists.
Lorenzo recognized the need to resolve territorial disputes with the Pope.
He figures that this would give him leverage, and so Lorenzo agrees.
And in 1480, a crew of painters and their workshops head to Rome.
Among them are Perugino, who later trained Raphael, Ghirlandaio, who trained Michelangelo, and none other than Botticelli.
At this point, the plans for the chapel didn't include a lavishly frescoed ceiling.
That would be added by Michelangelo under Pope Julius II in 1510s.
For now, the ceiling was simply decorated with stars, and the altar wall had an altar piece by Perugino, which was destroyed in the 1530s to make way for Michelangelo's Last Judgment.
Sixtus' program focused on frescoing the side walls.
One side would show scenes from the life of Moses, the Old Testament prophet. The other side would have New Testament scenes from life of Christ.
The idea was to highlight a narrative continuity between the Testaments while tracing a through line of succession from Jesus to Saint Peter to the Popes, legitimizing papal power.
Botticelli contributed three frescoes.
The Trial of Moses and The Temptations of Jesus face each other in the parallel arrangement. We won't discuss them here at length, but what's important is that the success of the Sistine project solidified Botticelli's place as a new Medici favorite.
For Botticelli, this was a trial of his own, and he passed with flying colors.
Upon completing the Sistine Chapel frescoes in 1482, Botticelli returned to Florence a preeminent artist.
He scored a series of Medici commissions for mythological scenes, which were much more erudite, much more prestigious, than his earlier devotional paintings, and it's the zenith of his career.
It's when he produces this magnificent tour de force, his most celebrated painting.
>> [music] [music] >> In The Birth of Venus, Botticelli offers us a world of seashells, laurel robes, and Venus rising [music] from the sea.
In keeping with classical myth, she's born fully formed from sea foam when Uranus, [music] god of the sky, was castrated, and his severed genitals cast [music] into the ocean.
We see Venus drifting to shore on the edge of this enormous scallop shell, alluding to purity and pearl-like perfection.
The wind gods, [music] Zephyr and Aura, locked in an impossible embrace, guide her by blowing a gentle breeze.
[music] >> [music] >> On land, a nymph cloaked in a beautiful laurel dress stands ready to receive [music] and enrobe her.
>> [music] >> We see Venus's hair whipping in the wind, golden [music] strands described by calligraphic line.
Her loose, voluminous hair would have been considered exceedingly [music] seductive in Renaissance Florence, where women were strictly expected to wear their hair in a bun or braid.
Botticelli's [music] Venus is a rare example of a painted full-length female nude from the 15th century. [music] But this makes it an excellent example of classical revival, [music] and therefore of Renaissance painting.
The scallop shell iconography, a type called [music] Venus Anadyomene, derives from a lost work by the ancient Greek painter Apelles, whom Botticelli is seeking to emulate here.
Venus's gesture of modesty, of covering her genitalia, also has its [music] roots in Greek sculpture, in a much-copied Aphrodite by the Athenian sculptor Praxiteles.
The Medici owned a Hellenistic Greek copy [music] of this figure, the Venus de Medici, which Botticelli surely would have seen [music] at the Medici court.
And so, taking these classical models, Botticelli shapes her into the ideal Renaissance female form.
There's a literary inspiration for this composition, too, an ancient Greek hymn praising [music] Aphrodite, Venus's Greek counterpart.
It begins like this: Of dust, gold-wreathed [music] and beautiful Aphrodite I shall sing, to whose domain belong the battlements of all sea-laved Cyprus, where, blown by the moist breath [music] of Zephyr, she was carried over the waves of the resounding sea in soft foam.
The gold-filleted [music] Horae happily welcomed her and clothed her with heavenly raiment.
Then, on her divine [music] head, they placed a well-wrought crown, beautiful and golden, and in her [music] pierced ears, flowers of brass and precious gold.
This poem would have been known at the Medici court by [music] humanist scholars employed as tutors and advisers.
Among them was the poet Angelo Poliziano, [music] who tutored the young Lorenzo de Medici.
It's likely that Poliziano collaborated [music] with Botticelli on this composition as a consultant on classical mythology. After all, artists [music] themselves rarely had the literary background required to conjure mythological [music] imagery out of thin air.
Let's look closer.
At far right, we see a laurel grove, alloro [music] in Italian.
Why laurel specifically?
It could be a pun on the name Lorenzo, [music] hinting that the patron could be Lorenzo the Magnificent, or more likely his cousin Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco.
And with Botticelli's figures, it's always fun to try and replicate their poses.
Try standing like Venus.
You'll find it pretty hard to balance because she concentrates so much of her weight on her left.
This dynamic contrapposto, or counterpoise pose, echoes those in Greek sculptures like the Venus de Medici.
What's more, she's floating. There's a [music] gap below her feet.
And even if she stood on the shell, she'd immediately tip it over.
I think it's fair to say that in the pursuit of ideal beauty, Botticelli sacrifices certain elements of anatomical [music] precision, descriptive realism, and linear perspective, but certainly [music] without sacrificing atmosphere or grace.
Mythological works like this one are often interpreted through the lens of Neoplatonism, a Renaissance era revival of Plato's philosophy, [music] especially influential in 1480s Florence.
Neoplatonism posits [music] the existence of ideal, abstract, transcendent capital F forms, perfect versions of concepts like beauty, love, or truth, of which all earthly things are imperfect [music] imitations.
While we can never fully attain these forms, we're meant to aspire toward them.
In the Neoplatonic framework, [music] Venus represents the ideal form of divine love and beauty.
And so, her image is not merely decorative, [music] but aspirational.
By contemplating the perfection she embodies, we're urged [music] to elevate our own souls, to seek higher love, spiritual refinement, and harmony [music] with the divine.
So, there's a literary basis [music] and pretty clear Neoplatonic meaning to the iconography in The Birth [music] of Venus.
But we haven't been able to find any source for the subject of this painting.
In the 16th [music] century, the painter and art historian Giorgio Vasari identified this work by the name Primavera, meaning spring, so suggesting [music] it to be an allegory of springtime.
But aside from the 130 distinct [music] species of wildflowers that have been identified on the meadow, the plot of the scene [music] is surprisingly unclear.
It's a very well-known painting, [music] but if it were an allegory of spring, it only makes sense [music] when we read it right to left.
At far right, we see a silver-blue deity [music] whose stormy presence bends the trees. He seems to be abducting a young woman cloaked [music] in a diaphanous robe who has flowers sprouting from her mouth. We can identify [music] this with the wind god Zephyr abducting the nymph Chloris and transforming her into Flora, [music] the goddess of spring, who stands third from right.
Flora strides [music] towards us with a beguiling smile, her right hand about to shower us with flowers.
We then see a [music] woman, her anatomical characteristics slightly off, gesturing with her [music] right hand, much like Mary does in scenes of the Annunciation. There was an Italian Renaissance belief that the classical equivalent of the Virgin Mary was Venus, who ruled over both earthly and divine love, an appropriate deity for the spring season. [music] So, perhaps it's appropriate to think of the central figure as Venus.
At far left, the distinctive caduceus staff identifies this young man as Mercury, the god of mercantile commerce.
But he takes no notice of the three Graces, goddesses of beauty, dancing beside him.
Meanwhile, Cupid, blindfolded, prepares to shoot his arrow.
But who's he aiming for?
Clearly, there are undercurrents of love, fertility, [music] and springtime transformation, all pointing to a marriage.
A record [music] from 1499 tells us that the painting was hanging in the palace of Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco, a cousin of Lorenzo de Medici, who may have also commissioned [music] The Birth of Venus.
Now, this is all hypothetical, but in the Primavera we do see both laurel trees, a pun on Lorenzo's name, and [music] oranges, a Medici symbol. And so, likely the Primavera celebrates a Medici marriage.
And here it's worth considering why Botticelli became [music] so beloved by the Medici in the 1480s, a time haunted by tension post conspiracy. [music] There's a day and night contrast between Botticelli's soft, graceful idealism and the merciless cruelty of Florence's [music] political circumstances.
I like to imagine that the Medici viewed Botticelli's pictures as a visual [music] escape from their ruthless world.
In his mythologies, they might [music] have found respite and solace, as we still do today.
Completing the trinity of great Botticelli mythologies is this splendid panel from London, Venus and Mars.
Here the war god Mars is shown [music] as a warrior asleep next to Venus, a reclining young maiden.
His armor is kind of scattered all over, his clothes barely there.
This is maybe the morning after.
These adorable little satyrs, [music] horned horse human hybrids, play with his armor and blow a conch shell in [music] his ear, trying to wake them up.
And his mouth is slightly open. We can imagine him snoring, while his head rests dangerously [music] close to a wasp's nest.
It's a comical, totally chaotic [music] scene.
On another level though, this could be read as an [music] elegant allegory of love triumphant over war.
Venus is awake, enjoying the mischief, while Mars is out cold, [music] his weapons on the ground.
Or you could interpret this as vicious lust [music] leading to Mars neglecting his battle duties, as a commentary on the danger [music] of a seductress.
Look closer and you'll notice that Venus's braids are impossibly [music] continuous with the lining of her dress, locked into place with the jewel.
She can't possibly take it off.
Plus, you can confirm by trying for yourself that her pose is anatomically impossible. [music] Perhaps Botticelli is trying to emulate the famed Roman sculpture of sleeping hermaphrodite.
The message here though, no doubt [music] relates to love.
And in this sense, Venus's impossible to take off dress could symbolize marital fidelity or loyalty. [music] It's slightly ironic because we're actually witnessing an affair here, since Venus [music] was married to Vulcan at the time.
But thematically, it's a reasonable subject [music] for a bridal bedroom.
And considering the oblong dimensions, this is probably a spalliera, a painting laid into the back of a wooden couch [music] or into the wainscoting on a wall.
Now, whenever a curious animal or symbol appears in a Renaissance painting, it's usually either biblical iconography or reference to the patron's family.
In Venus and Mars, we see a wasp's nest.
Wasp in Italian is vespe, probably a pun on Vespucci, a prominent Florentine family.
Simonetta Vespucci, considered the most beautiful woman in Florence, was potentially a model for Botticelli's Venuses.
Her cousin was a navigator named Amerigo, who would later give his name to the Americas.
So, maybe Botticelli painted this for a Vespucci marriage.
With these mythological paintings, the 1480s are Botticelli's most creative decade. But it's the last decade that Lorenzo de Medici would rule Florence.
In 1492, Lorenzo died, and with him died the Florentine golden age.
As we noted previously, Botticelli's beautiful mythologies masked a dynasty in decline.
The financial health of the Medici was contingent on the success of their bank.
And yet, even in Cosimo's time, corruption had emerged as the bank grew in geographic [music] reach, and high-risk loans were not being paid back.
Lorenzo's cultural pursuits, too, increasingly came at the expense of his business.
When Lorenzo died, his eldest son Piero took the helm.
Piero was astonishingly incompetent.
He was distrustful of his court, poisoned his most valuable advisers, including likely [music] Lissiano, and shocked his associates with his arrogance and heavy-handedness.
Piero also hadn't [music] the slightest clue about foreign policy.
Two years into his reign in 1494, Charles VIII of France invaded the Italian peninsula in a campaign to conquer Naples.
As Charles approached Florence on his southward rampage, Piero was at a total loss for what [music] to do.
His indecisiveness allowed Charles to invade, ransacking the Tuscan countryside, and forcing Piero to surrender in total submission.
The Florentine people, humiliated and understandably outraged, expelled Piero from the city.
And in the resulting power vacuum, a fanatical Dominican friar named Girolamo Savonarola seized [music] control.
Savonarola's emotional, puritanical sermons resonated with disillusioned Florentines.
He was also a cunning populist demagogue.
Negotiating [music] with Charles, he persuaded French forces to peacefully leave Florence, gaining the trust of the people.
Then he began to sully the reputation of his predecessors, >> [music] >> convincing Florentines that Medici wealth embodied vice and corruption.
"Part of the problem," he declared, "was the provocative secular art they sponsored," which he declared shameful to the Christian [music] faith.
And so, in 1497, 3 years into his rule, Savonarola proposed to purify the city through a bonfire of the vanities, a spectacle where objects deemed corrupt and sinful, like jewelry, >> [music] >> marble nudes, mythological paintings, were burned to ash.
Many artists in Florence fell under Savonarola's spell, including Botticelli.
Savonarola deemed Botticelli's sensual madonnas [ __ ] and the artist became so ashamed, he willingly burned his work in the bonfire of the vanities.
Pictures like The Birth of Venus only survived because they were tucked away in Medici villas, [music] out of reach.
This third and final phase of Botticelli's career sees him returning to religious imagery with renewed fervor.
In 1500, he paints this picture, Mystic Nativity, likely for his own use in prayer.
It's his only signed work.
Here Botticelli abandons Renaissance notions [music] of spatial recession for an archaic, Gothic approach, dividing his composition [music] into vertical tiers without regard for perspective.
Devils hiding in the foreground [music] hint at spiritual turmoil.
Botticelli's [music] descent into fanaticism, I think, speaks to an internal battle between >> [music] >> painting with sensuality and grace versus painting with dignity and faith.
But Savonarola's [music] radical preachings quickly gained him powerful enemies.
In [music] denouncing the pursuit of material ostentation, he accused the Roman clergy of moral corruption, a direct affront to the [music] papacy.
And in 1497, Savonarola called the entire church, quote, "a whore."
Pope Alexander VI >> [music] >> labeled him a dangerous heretic and promptly excommunicated him. And the Vatican began pressuring Florence [music] to expel Savonarola.
And indeed, Florentines began questioning how they stood to benefit [music] from Savonarola's religiosity after 3 years now of his rule.
There didn't seem to be all that much in it for them.
Although Savonarola's supporters never died out, practicing quietly into the years of the Reformation, the Florentine masses turned against him.
At one point, they called on Savonarola to prove his divinity by walking through fire unscathed.
The friar panicked and hired a body double to perform the farce, but on the day of the trial, the fire was rained out.
Citizens took this as a divine denial of Savonarola's credibility, and in 1498, Savonarola was arrested and hanged before a jeering crowd.
Artists closely watched Savonarola's rise and fall, all while interrogating their own spiritual beliefs. Last episode, we saw a fresco by Luca Signorelli from the Orvieto Chapel.
Here's another one from the same cycle.
A direct response to the roller coaster of events in Florence.
Signorelli shows a Christ-like figure preaching to the masses.
But the devil is whispering in his ear, telling him what to say, revealing that this preacher is in fact the Antichrist.
Consider the date of this painting and Signorelli's Florentine training, as well as the fact that he's included a self-portrait at lower left, standing next to the friar painter Fra Angelico.
It's compelling to read the fresco as a commentary on Savonarola's influence, that he was akin to the Antichrist, fooling the masses, but ultimately destroyed, expelled from heaven, vanquished by the light of God.
But Botticelli seemed to have been indelibly affected by Savonarola's puritanical preachings, even after the friar's demise.
The artist's reversion to a Gothic idiom seems to echo the sentiment that a cleansing of Florentine sins was in order, that moral corruption had overtaken the city, that a return to religion was the only way out.
>> [music] >> In the Mystic Crucifixion from around 1500, two years after Savonarola's hanging, Botticelli depicts this vision of purification quite literally.
Angels bearing white shields with red crosses, symbolic Florence, [music] ward away thunderclouds, letting a blue sky shine anew on the city.
In the barren hellscape in the foreground, we see Christ crucified, Mary Magdalene mourning, >> [music] >> and an angel whipping a lion, the emblem of Florence, punishing the city for its unscrupulous conduct.
>> [music] >> And if you look closer, there's a beast emerging [music] from underneath Mary Magdalene's blood-red robes.
It could be a wolf, a representation of vice in the Catholic Church, exiting the scene as the Magdalene so devoutly clutches the foot of the cross.
Like the Mystic Nativity, this panel was probably also made for Botticelli's own devotional use.
It's a far cry from the Birth [music] of Venus and the Primavera and the Venus and Mars made 20 years earlier.
Indeed, in [music] this final decade of Botticelli's life, he produced very few works and decidedly refused to engage with the nascent High Renaissance style.
His signature grace [music] was gone.
His style out of fashion.
In 1510, [music] around when Michelangelo was working on the Sistine Chapel ceiling, Botticelli died an impoverished man.
And thus, [music] the 15th century in Florence comes to a close. It's a century of immense innovation, interconnection, [music] and drama.
From Brunelleschi's dome of Santa Maria del Fiore to Piero della Francesca's innovations in linear perspective, to Leonardo da Vinci's iconic Vitruvian Man, to Hans Memling's portraits, we see artistic breakthroughs.
In the Saint Vincent panels from mid-century Lisbon, and the Portinari Altarpiece made for the branch [music] head of the Medici Bank in Bruges, >> [music] >> and Antonello da Messina's Saint Jerome made when he first moved [music] to Venice, we see artistic dialogue.
In Paolo Uccello's Battle of San Romano, and Gentile [music] Bellini's portrait of the Ottoman Sultan, >> [music] >> in Botticelli's tribute to the assassinated Giuliano, we see the cruelty and complexity of Renaissance politics.
>> [music] >> And in Botticelli's Birth of Venus, Jean Fouquet's Madonna in the Melun Diptych, and [music] Urbino's Ideal Cities, we see the poetic potential of divine beauty.
>> [music] >> Chronologically, the High Renaissance comes next, the age of Leonardo, Michelangelo, Titian, and Raphael.
For that, I hope you'll watch season [music] 1.
But as we near the end of this series, I hope that through these histories [music] of Renaissance art, you've seen what makes art history worth studying.
Works of art can teach us endless [music] new ways to see.
And at the very least, I hope you found a narrative dimension to Renaissance art that defies cultural and linguistic boundaries.
It's nothing short of incredible that a work of art can carry such rich cultural information across continents and centuries, while reflecting the social and historical tides of its own time.
The intricate, endless [music] web of science, technology, diplomacy, philosophy, and history.
>> [music] >> For me, this richness is what makes art history so boundlessly delightful and rewarding.
>> [music]
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