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

In this talk, we will explore a true Renaissance “Whoddunit.” 

Some 500 years ago, Sandro Botticelli, an Italian 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.

This presentation will show how 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 talk will show how and why Botticelli became iconic, and why we need still need his work―and the spirit of the Renaissance―today.

PRAISE FOR THE BOOK:

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, coauthor of The Collector of Lives

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

Jay Parini, author of Borges and Me

Brilliantly conceived and executed,?is a riveting search for buried treasure. Luzzi takes one of the Florentine master’s least familiar works, his cycle of illustrations of Dante’s?Divine Comedy, and, tracing its history along winding passages from the fifteenth century to our own time, uses it to unearth the astonishing riches of the whole Italian Renaissance.

Stephen Greenblatt, author of Tyrant

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, author of Leonardo and the Last Supper

Richly detailed and fluidly written, this is a master class in art history.

Publishers Weekly

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, author of Borges and Me

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.

Claire Massud , Harpers