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Botticelli's Secret

The Lost Drawings and the Rediscovery of the Renaissance

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Botticelli's Secret

By: Joseph Luzzi
Narrated by: Keith Szarabajka
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About this listen

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

Some 500 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 100 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 400 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 need still need his work―and the spirit of the Renaissance―today.

©2022 Joseph Luzzi (P)2022 Blackstone Publishing Art Italy Renaissance Visual Art
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Interesting premise

+ Covers a lot of ground, excellent array of characters, pacey, good narration

- Unfocused at times and strays into irrelevant topics with tenuous links e.g. Harlem Renaissance, final chapter seemed rushed, self-indulgent epilogue with nonsensical conclusion

Overall, worth a listen for someone with an interest in the Renaissance, art history, or Botticelli.

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