Sandro Botticelli
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00:02:09Words that define Florence's golden age.
00:02:19Half-way through the 15th century,
00:02:22the city was the epicenter of the Italian Renaissance.
00:02:26Here, the powerful Medici, a family of bankers and merchants, ruled without crown or scepter.
00:02:40It was under their patronage that two of the greatest icons of art history were born, Spring
00:02:46and the birth of Venus.
00:02:52These universal icons were created against a backdrop of power, religion and intrigue.
00:03:00It was a time in which art became a political tool, an era of rebirth and splendour, violence
00:03:07and betrayal.
00:03:11The artist behind these masterpieces was a great visionary.
00:03:17The leading man of Florence's golden era, Sandro Botticelli.
00:03:26Botticelli transcends time, he transcends language, he's part of our shared cultural
00:03:30consciousness.
00:03:31You see this kind of mysterious, misunderstood possibly figure.
00:03:47He was an influencer, Renaissance style.
00:03:51He's a great designer, this is this extraordinary ability that made his success in the 15th
00:04:09century that is still palpable today.
00:04:17Florence, 8th of April, 14th of March, 17th of March, 17th of March, 17th of March, 17th
00:04:47of March, 1492.
00:04:50Lorenzo de' Medici, known as the Magnificent, dies.
00:04:55He is only 43 years old.
00:05:01Girolamo Savonarola, the fire and brimstone Dominican friar, whose sermons fan the flames
00:05:07of religious fanaticism in the city, casts his prophecy from the pulpit.
00:05:14The divine sword would strike Florence at Lorenzo's death.
00:05:21A lightning bolt hits the lantern atop the dome of the cathedral, a sinister sign in
00:05:27the Florentine skies predicting the end of an era.
00:05:34Florence without Lorenzo plunges into darkness.
00:05:38Its golden age of wealth, beauty and dominance is over.
00:05:44It is the end of what is known as the Florentine Spring, an era of wild carnivals and unbridled
00:05:59celebrations, an era of creativity that inspired some of the greatest artists of all time.
00:06:14Botticelli witnesses those years and depicts them in his canvases.
00:06:25His life and that of Lorenzo the Magnificent are inextricably linked and always will be.
00:06:36Lorenzo de' Medici was the political leader of Florence but he was also the cultural leader
00:06:40of Florence.
00:06:42Think of this, he was one of the greatest poets of his day, there are no leaders like
00:06:46that today.
00:06:47He was a banker, he was a really unusual character because he cared deeply and passionately about
00:06:54the arts but he was also a ruthless manipulator and he wanted to use culture to his advantage.
00:07:41He was also a man of his word, he was a man of his word, he was a man of his word, he
00:07:57was a man of his word, he was a man of his word, he was a man of his word, he was a man
00:08:10of his word.
00:08:22It's in this city, etched in light and shadow, that Sandro Botticelli, one of the great masters
00:08:28of Florence's golden age under Lorenzo the Magnificent, was born in 1445.
00:08:46A complex character who Giorgio Vasari, the 16th century historian, described as being
00:08:53of a demanding nature, restless, troubled and enigmatic.
00:09:03Botticelli's name comes from the nickname of the artist's brother.
00:09:07The word bote means barrel, maybe it means his brother was a bit tubby or maybe it means
00:09:14that his brother liked to drink a bit or maybe a bit of both, bote, little bote, little barrel, Botticelli.
00:09:24Botticelli was born in Florence, from a family of humble origins, his father was a Gallic,
00:09:32that is, he was a conciatore of Pellame.
00:09:36The street where the family moved was called Via Nuova d'Ogni Santi, now called Via del
00:09:44Porcellana.
00:09:45Botticelli was lucky enough to work and live in the family, the shop was owned by his
00:09:52father.
00:09:53By the age of 25, Botticelli had already made an impression on the Medici family.
00:10:01But his real breakthrough came in 1470, when he snatches a commission from two other giants
00:10:08of the time, Piero and Antonio Polaiolo.
00:10:12He explodes onto the Florentine art scene with his painting Fortitude.
00:10:42Botticelli was not very scrupulous and he probably seized the opportunity to make a
00:10:54grand entrance.
00:10:55He really makes a coup.
00:11:01Botticelli was able to work his way into the commission, that was against the rules.
00:11:11He had to have someone powerful behind him, helping him.
00:11:14And who was that powerful person?
00:11:16Lorenzo the Magnificent.
00:11:42Botticelli has only painted one of these virtues, because it is already a work of incredible
00:11:50maturity and skill.
00:11:58Fortitude really glows with all sorts of coloured reflections, metallic reflections, all the
00:12:03textures extremely well worked out.
00:12:07With a beautiful palette that will become his palette from the beginning.
00:12:15With very strong purple, red, blue.
00:12:21And this kind of metallic reflection which is absolutely mind-blowing.
00:12:28The Fortitude is really close to you when you look at her.
00:12:31This is something that is a constant within Botticelli's way of working design.
00:12:36It is looking at how things will be seen by the spectator.
00:12:55In Renaissance Florence, the soft power of art is exploited to its fullest.
00:13:00Botticelli, highly skilled at engaging the spectators with his sacred and profane images,
00:13:06is a master in painting myths and symbols to be used as warning signs for people entering
00:13:11public spaces.
00:13:22Imagine entering a Renaissance church in Botticelli's time.
00:13:26Everyone could see the frescoes.
00:13:28So you look up and you would see not only the magnificent paintings, but also portraits,
00:13:34people you know.
00:13:35The heads of state, the wealthy bankers, they paid artists to create their works and they
00:13:40wanted their own faces to appear.
00:13:45So if you need to make a statement, you have to use artists.
00:13:49Artists become the spokespeople for people like the Medici family who want to say something
00:13:55about their power, their piousness, their status.
00:14:02A great example is the adoration of the Magi.
00:14:26Botticelli takes this biblical scene and he inserts all the members of the Medici family
00:14:42into it as if they were there.
00:14:44Cosimo, Piero, Giovanni and Giuliano were all there at the birth of Christ.
00:14:49Their portraits are in the centre of the painting.
00:14:53This painting is a revolution in design.
00:14:56It's probably the first non-linear depiction of the story.
00:15:03Botticelli places the Holy Family at the centre of the painting, raised above the scene, with
00:15:09all the other characters symmetrically arranged on either side.
00:15:13The setting, a dilapidated Roman ruin, implies that Christianity is the only truthful way.
00:15:20Lorenzo himself was still alive, so he turns him off to the side.
00:15:26Off on the right-hand side, we see a young man looking very proud, looking out at the
00:15:31viewer directly.
00:15:32That's the self-portrait of the artist.
00:15:51To me, it looks like Botticelli is saying, look at me, here I am, I'm here in the centre
00:15:57of the world.
00:15:58It's an electrifying moment in history and Botticelli's right there.
00:16:07Young, talented, handsome, but also fiercely ambitious.
00:16:13Botticelli is proud to be part of the Medici's cultural elite, an exclusive circle of artists
00:16:19he has already depicted in one of his first masterpieces, the Sant'Ambrogio altarpiece.
00:16:50The Medici were arguably history's greatest patrons of the arts, but the dynasty was steeped
00:17:07in intrigue and vendettas, and with the Pope as one of their enemies, the fight for power
00:17:13would soon erupt with unspeakable violence.
00:17:19Easter Mass, 26th April 1478, in Florence's Santa Maria del Fiore.
00:17:50It's under Brunelleschi's impressive dome that one of the most dramatic stories of the
00:17:59Italian Renaissance unfolds.
00:18:20A daring assassination attempt against the Medici, carried out by their rivals, the Pazzi
00:18:37family.
00:18:41Pazzi means crazy.
00:18:42They plotted to overtake the Medici.
00:18:45They were even in connection with the Pope in Rome.
00:18:52Pazzi family was an old enemy, a rival of the Medici family within the ruling of Florence.
00:19:16It's a personal attack.
00:19:17It's literally leveled off.
00:19:20After dozens of stabs, some can still be seen on Giuliano's bones.
00:19:46The Pazzi conspiracy was a coup d'etat blessed by the ferocious Pope Sixtus IV.
00:20:00People and freedom, the conspirators cried.
00:20:05The attack was triggered by the urge to seize political control of Florence.
00:20:15It was a risky plan.
00:20:17Up to a certain point, we can think of John and Robert Kennedy.
00:20:23They also share a tragic fate.
00:20:29In fact, there was an international conspiracy aimed at eliminating Lorenzo.
00:20:39Lorenzo's revenge for the death of his brother was swift and merciless.
00:20:46The streets of the city and beyond ran red with his enemy's blood, a reminder of the
00:20:53Medici's might and the glorification of his brother's death.
00:20:59Lorenzo was able to capture the people responsible for killing his brother, and he had them hanged
00:21:05outside the Palace of Justice.
00:21:16To ensure that this act of treason would never be forgotten, Botticelli is commissioned
00:21:22to produce the so-called defamatory paintings.
00:21:29The people walking by were able to see these images of the conspirators hanging in disgrace.
00:21:35It was a clear example of how art is being used to discredit people.
00:21:40Today, we see that through social media.
00:21:42In the Renaissance, you did it through public painting.
00:21:49Botticelli's defamatory paintings became a powerful propaganda tool, de facto advertising
00:21:55the Medici's supremacy by consigning their version of the attack to history.
00:22:00He is also entrusted with a much more delicate task, to paint a portrait of his brother,
00:22:06Giuliano.
00:22:08This portrait will become the apotheosis of Giuliano's martyrdom.
00:22:37This memorial portrait of Giuliano was based in part on Botticelli's personal knowledge.
00:22:42He knew Giuliano.
00:22:43He'd seen him when he was alive, and now he created an everlasting image of him when he was dead.
00:23:07Lorenzo is brilliant.
00:23:09Giuliano is more handsome.
00:23:11He's a bit younger.
00:23:12He's a great seducer.
00:23:15He portrays a character who, in the end, is a secular dead man,
00:23:19with canons that serve to portray holiness,
00:23:23and at the same time suggest the solemnity of death,
00:23:27a lowered gaze,
00:23:29an effective foreground.
00:23:33Botticelli wanted to give an image of what is at the same time
00:23:38the tragedy of a broken life
00:23:41and the majesty of a power that goes beyond life itself.
00:23:50I really love the portrait of Giuliano de' Medici.
00:23:54His face and this fragility and beauty that he created.
00:23:59It almost looks like actually the bust is backwards and the face is forward.
00:24:07It's very strong and somehow very quiet, modest and strange,
00:24:11but there was a real respect
00:24:14in creating this kind of mysterious and beautiful portrait
00:24:19to a friend and someone that he has known for a long time.
00:24:30Giuliano's portrait confirms Botticelli's revolutionary talent as a portrait artist.
00:24:38He moves away from the established, iconic profile popular at the time
00:24:44and introduces the three-quarter frontal pose.
00:24:48His characters break the fourth wall
00:24:51and look directly into the viewer's eyes.
00:25:00The Portrait of Giuliano de' Medici
00:25:04The Portrait of Giuliano de' Medici
00:25:28The so-called Smeralda Bandinelli, which is in the V&A,
00:25:31is a very significant example.
00:25:34It is the first recorded portrait of a woman looking directly at the viewer.
00:25:43Around the same date is Leonardo's Geneva da Vinci.
00:25:47She too looks out.
00:25:49Since Leonardo is more famous today,
00:25:51he's often given the credit of having the first full-face portrait of a woman.
00:25:55But I think it might have been Botticelli.
00:26:02In profile, the viewer is looking at the woman.
00:26:05She becomes an object.
00:26:07But with a full face, she's looking right out at you.
00:26:14Women were not meant to look directly at the viewer.
00:26:17They were requested to be humble, to be modest,
00:26:20and therefore to keep their gaze down.
00:26:24She is also very present in a way
00:26:27that she almost comes out of the frame
00:26:31by having her hand prominently in the foreground.
00:26:43So you have the space of the viewer,
00:26:45the intermediate space where the hand is positioned,
00:26:48and the space behind the frame.
00:26:54I like to think of Botticelli as a problem solver.
00:26:57He created problems for himself, and then he resolved them.
00:27:00A wonderful example is a portrait of a young man holding a medal.
00:27:05I like to think of Botticelli as a problem solver.
00:27:08He created problems for himself, and then he resolved them.
00:27:11A wonderful example is a portrait of a young man holding a medal.
00:27:26That medal is actually 3D.
00:27:29It's raised up from the surface of the panel.
00:27:32So Botticelli had this problem of showing the fingers in paint
00:27:36holding something which is actually raised up from the surface.
00:27:42No one else before tried to do that.
00:27:44It's innovative. It's daring.
00:27:46It's not completely successful,
00:27:48but it's a grand challenge that he gave himself.
00:27:53We forget sometimes that he's one of the great portrait artists of the Renaissance.
00:27:57We understand their expression, we understand their character.
00:28:00They're very vivid.
00:28:02They feel like eyewitness accounts of his age.
00:28:07He really populated his paintings.
00:28:09They're like a who's who of the day.
00:28:12We can see the faces from history,
00:28:14and in Botticelli's paintings, they come alive.
00:28:31Lorenzo knows how to use the talent of his best artists to his advantage.
00:28:37In the wake of the Pazzi conspiracy,
00:28:40he uses every means at his disposal
00:28:43to put an end to what has become an outright war
00:28:46with Pope Sixtus IV, a Pazzi ally.
00:28:50The anger of the cruel and powerful pope had to be quelled.
00:29:09Lorenzo is a politician.
00:29:11He made peace with the Pazzi.
00:29:13He made peace with the Pazzi.
00:29:15He made peace with the Pazzi.
00:29:17Lorenzo is a politician.
00:29:19He made peace with the pope.
00:29:21Of course, he had to.
00:29:25And what did Lorenzo have to offer the greatest artists of the day?
00:29:35Art in the Italian Renaissance cements relationships
00:29:38and actually is part of changing history.
00:29:40So Lorenzo arranged for some of the most important painters of the day
00:29:44to go to Rome to work for Pope Sixtus,
00:29:46to paint the walls of the Sistine Chapel.
00:29:58Here, there were four artists,
00:30:01Botticelli, Ghirlandaio, Cosimo Rosselli and Perugino,
00:30:07working at the same time in the same place.
00:30:13The pope's demands were clear.
00:30:15The artists had to create frescoes
00:30:17that explained the absolute supremacy of the divinely ordained papal power.
00:30:25Competing against one another,
00:30:27the painters went to work on the same subjects,
00:30:30stories about Moses and Christ.
00:30:33Botticelli painted three of them.
00:30:46One work shows the early life of Moses.
00:30:49Here he packs in seven different scenes into one fresco.
00:30:57There are scenes of horror.
00:30:59There's a murder taking place when Moses kills an Egyptian.
00:31:09Another scene is for three different scenes.
00:31:13Another scene is for three temptations of Christ.
00:31:20Botticelli shows them in three different parts of the scene,
00:31:23so he encourages you to look around.
00:31:29Perhaps the most important scene is the story of the sons of Korah.
00:31:33Here he packs in three different scenes into one panel.
00:31:38In the foreground, we see the punishment of those who rebelled against Moses.
00:31:45We see Botticelli's skill as a storyteller throughout his career.
00:32:08Botticelli conquers Rome, but the Eternal City fails to conquer him.
00:32:18At the height of his career, rich and famous,
00:32:21Botticelli returns to Florence
00:32:24and paints the masterpieces that would become global icons.
00:32:38BOTTICELLI PICTURES
00:32:42FLORENCE
00:33:05In Florence, the Medici championed the belief
00:33:08that art deserved to be more than just religious decoration.
00:33:22Their city nurtured the most talented artists of the Renaissance,
00:33:26fully supporting their creativity.
00:33:29It was to this hive of innovation and freedom of expression
00:33:33that Botticelli returns in 1483.
00:33:39FLORENCE
00:33:45I would say Florence in the time of the Renaissance artists
00:33:48is quite similar, almost the same as the time that I grew up in the 80s and 90s in New York City.
00:33:53The way that the art scenes were paralleled,
00:33:55the way that the artists reacted with each other.
00:34:02You have to imagine a street filled with artists and artisans
00:34:06and assistants.
00:34:08They knew each other, they were friends with each other.
00:34:10They were rivals, yes.
00:34:12They were also collaborators on certain projects.
00:34:18The workshops were spaces where you have a lot of exchange of ideas.
00:34:23So there was a master who was the owner
00:34:25and then of course there was a lot of collaborators and assistants,
00:34:28more or less gifted, more or less trained.
00:34:32Florence has two very important polyvalent workshops,
00:34:38that of the Polaiolo brothers and that of Verrocchio.
00:34:42They provide drawings for embroidery, for tarsier.
00:34:48There is this important relationship with applied arts
00:34:52and it also has the workshop of Sandro Botticelli.
00:34:56The activity was also that of preparing works that had a certain success.
00:35:03For example, the Madonna del Magnificat, the Great Thunder.
00:35:08In that we know the prototype, which is at the Uffizi,
00:35:11and a few dozen works of smaller dimensions,
00:35:15carried out mostly by the workshop.
00:35:26In the workshops, the main productions were the devotional pictures,
00:35:31Virgin and Child, Virgin and Child with Saints,
00:35:33Virgin and Child with Angels,
00:35:35in many different compositions and variations,
00:35:38working from a stock of drawings that the masters had produced.
00:35:42So Botticelli was very good at composing prototypes,
00:35:46successful formulas that could be reinterpreted
00:35:49and still have this kind of great impact.
00:35:56MUSIC
00:36:06His workshop was a bustling place of commerce,
00:36:09churning out pieces of art.
00:36:16Here, through constant practice,
00:36:18Botticelli was able to refine his style and technique,
00:36:22using the use of light, texture and colour,
00:36:26and above all, his drawing.
00:36:53From a technical point of view, Botticelli is linked to tradition.
00:36:57He still prefers the supports on the table,
00:37:00he still works with the tempera,
00:37:03and even when he begins to use a mixed technique,
00:37:06that is, with the progressive introduction of oil painting of Flemish origin,
00:37:11he will continue to work it, however,
00:37:13with very tight, very thin strokes.
00:37:23The colours will always be the same,
00:37:25that is, a very limited number,
00:37:28a twenty at most, but exaggerating,
00:37:31and instead we think of how vast the achieved results are,
00:37:36the different expressions, the different values,
00:37:38even with a limited number of means,
00:37:40for centuries they have produced masterpieces that we still admire today.
00:37:53In 1493, while visiting Florence and its workshops,
00:37:59scouting for talent,
00:38:01an agent of the Duke of Milan, Ludovico il Moro, wrote...
00:38:06Sandro di Botticelli, a most excellent painter on panels and on walls,
00:38:10his things have a virile air,
00:38:12and are done with the best method and perfect proportion.
00:38:15It could almost be a tweet, so simple.
00:38:19The agent gives this report, and Botticelli is listed first.
00:38:22Clearly it's a competitive environment,
00:38:24and the people that he's put against are Filippino Lippi,
00:38:27Perugino and Ghirlandaio.
00:38:30I mean, this is the greatest artist of their age,
00:38:32so we know that Botticelli was taken extremely seriously.
00:38:39What does this letter mean?
00:38:41It's a letter to the Duke of Milan,
00:38:44What does this letter mean?
00:38:46The first part is easy to understand.
00:38:48He thinks that Botticelli is an excellent painter, and so do we.
00:38:52But then he says that Botticelli's paintings have a virile air.
00:38:57That doesn't make any sense.
00:38:59We associate virile with brawny men.
00:39:02The author of this letter was trying to tell us
00:39:05that Botticelli's works have the qualities of a mature man.
00:39:10They're balanced. They're proportioned.
00:39:13They have everything they need to have.
00:39:16There's a sense of perfection to them.
00:39:41BOTTICELLI'S PAINTINGS
00:39:51Between 1478 and 1482,
00:39:54Botticelli worked on a huge panel measuring 2 by 3 metres
00:39:59for a villa belonging to Lorenzo the Magnificent's cousin.
00:40:04BOTTICELLI'S PAINTINGS
00:40:09The painting is destined to leave its mark forever.
00:40:18It is known as Primavera.
00:40:21Spring.
00:40:33Spring.
00:41:03Spring.
00:41:28The very ambiguity,
00:41:30the fact that you can't nail down the meaning,
00:41:33that was a beauty.
00:41:45It's one of those works that you can kind of look at
00:41:48for centuries and centuries
00:41:50and always find something new and interesting to be inspired by.
00:41:56It's the first surviving painting since antiquity
00:41:59to show the ancient gods on a large scale.
00:42:02It must have been extraordinary for the original viewers.
00:42:05They had read about these gods. They had heard about them.
00:42:08But now they could see Venus and Mercury.
00:42:16There's a passage from an ancient text, Ovid,
00:42:19which says that when a girl, Cloris,
00:42:23was abducted by Zephyr the wind god,
00:42:26roses came out of her mouth
00:42:29and she transformed into the goddess Primavera,
00:42:33meaning springtime.
00:42:35Roses came out of her mouth? How do you show that?
00:42:38Botticelli found a way of doing it
00:42:40in a way that looks elegant and beautiful.
00:42:49On the right-hand side we see an image of abduction, of violence.
00:42:53Zephyr the wind god is coming out of the tree and grabbing Cloris.
00:43:02Then Venus in the centre,
00:43:04this extremely beautiful but quietly powerful woman.
00:43:10With the three graces perpetually dancing.
00:43:13And then Mercury who's chasing away the clouds
00:43:16as not to ruin this beautiful spring day.
00:43:19If you think about it just purely as an allegory of spring,
00:43:22the painting works.
00:43:24If you start looking at all the details
00:43:26and you start understanding the cultural and philosophical climate
00:43:29that Botticelli was in,
00:43:31you realise it could take a lifetime to unpick this painting.
00:43:52What is a perfect garden?
00:43:54The man who makes a garden
00:43:56collaborates with God in building a perfect nature.
00:44:01And this is the profound sign of this painting on the table
00:44:06which is also the philosophical expression of Neoplatonic philosophy
00:44:12that Botticelli learned from what was
00:44:16the greatest philosopher of the court of Lorenzo,
00:44:19who is Marsilio Ficino.
00:44:24In spring, the setting is very much like a medieval tapestry.
00:44:29You have this beautiful homage paid to nature
00:44:32with all these different plants.
00:44:35And it's highly decorative as well.
00:44:37Botticelli goes beyond naturalistic imagery
00:44:41to deliver a golden age image,
00:44:44something like the Garden of Eden.
00:44:49Every figure, every flower,
00:44:51we see him looking very closely at the natural world.
00:44:56But then we see his visionary world.
00:44:58Botticelli and his advisors were looking at various sources
00:45:01and he brought them together in a new, poetic way.
00:45:20MUSIC PLAYS
00:45:32Poets of the time celebrate him.
00:45:35Philosophers work alongside him.
00:45:39Renaissance art tends to be deeply symbolic
00:45:42and Botticelli is famous for the many layers of symbolism
00:45:45that inhabit his inscrutable paintings.
00:45:50Known as the Botticellian mythologies,
00:45:52he's able to blend Christian values
00:45:55with mythological pagan figures beautifully.
00:46:01His palace and the centaur is a perfect example.
00:46:13In Botticelli's time, there was a revival of interest in ancient Rome.
00:46:17There was an interest in ancient art and ancient architecture,
00:46:20but also in the myths of that time.
00:46:23And Botticelli was able to make those myths come alive.
00:46:27In the palace of the centaur,
00:46:29we see the triumph of virtue over vice.
00:46:32So it's a moralising work.
00:46:34MUSIC PLAYS
00:47:05Botticelli, he's the perfect storyteller for the Italian Renaissance
00:47:09because he's almost 360 degrees
00:47:12and he doesn't make pagan things pagan
00:47:14and he doesn't make Christian things Christian.
00:47:16Everything is kind of fluid and blended together.
00:47:35We can also really relate to that as a logo.
00:47:38You can imagine those three circles creating one image
00:47:41that sticks in your head.
00:47:43It easily becomes and transferred to today's culture as a logo
00:47:48or as the idea of branding.
00:47:50So as we know it today,
00:47:52branding has started in the past
00:47:54and it's carried on to the future.
00:47:56Botticelli becomes a master in interpreting his clients' wishes
00:48:02and layers his paintings with visible and invisible references to their lives.
00:48:26MUSIC PLAYS
00:48:31Venus and Mars, among its many secrets, hides an emblem.
00:48:41It's a powerful painting,
00:48:43but also he's making a painting that will keep his commissioner happy
00:48:46because they're in the painting too.
00:48:48If you look closely at the tree trunk, these little wasps are emerging
00:48:51and they're the symbol of the Spucci family.
00:48:54And it's saying something about them, about their power, about their status,
00:48:58about them being intellectual and newly read in this city
00:49:02which is just brimming with books and new ideas.
00:49:10It brings together erudition, eroticism and humour.
00:49:23We see the beautiful Venus reclining on one side
00:49:27and the other side, Mars,
00:49:30exhausted after an amorous embrace with his beloved.
00:49:36We see these little half-men, half-goats,
00:49:39these little satyrs running about,
00:49:42playing with Mars' armour.
00:49:45So it's good fun and it's a beautiful work.
00:49:50It's an incredibly audacious painting.
00:49:52They're there together after the act of making love.
00:49:55They could practically have a cigarette.
00:49:57And she is so powerful in that scene.
00:50:00Mars is completely sound asleep.
00:50:04The woman seems to have all the power.
00:50:14Botticelli's women, from his powerful Venus,
00:50:17the beautiful Madonnas and the Graces in Spring,
00:50:21all share a similar, ephemeral, perfect beauty.
00:50:25Did Botticelli have a muse capable of embodying all those attributes?
00:50:34Legend claims Simonetta Vespucci, his neighbour,
00:50:37and a woman of unparalleled beauty,
00:50:40much loved by Giuliano de' Medici,
00:50:43may have been his model.
00:50:48Simonetta was only 23 years old when she died in 1476.
00:50:56Beauty, virtue, grace and a premature death,
00:51:02the perfect attributes of a legendary muse.
00:51:06But was she?
00:51:08I think Botticelli, as such,
00:51:11I think Botticelli, as such a great imagination,
00:51:14that probably no one woman on Earth
00:51:16would be enough for him to be one muse.
00:51:19I think that he's drawing from lots of different sources.
00:51:22He understands that he needs to create the ideal woman,
00:51:25so he'll kind of create her from lots of places, lots of sources.
00:51:29But it's extremely tempting to think
00:51:32that Simonetta was Venus living in Florence.
00:51:37The idea of beauty created by Botticelli springs from a single origin,
00:51:42his obsessive and unrelenting search for a universal model.
00:52:07Botticelli's ideal Venus
00:52:09embraces everlasting aesthetic parameters,
00:52:12imagination, experimentation
00:52:15and a search for harmony and proportion.
00:52:21The goddess of beauty created by Botticelli
00:52:24rises from the sea, blown by the wind.
00:52:37The goddess of beauty
00:52:40rises from the sea, blown by the wind.
00:53:06The goddess of beauty
00:53:09rises from the sea, blown by the wind.
00:53:36The goddess of beauty rises from the sea, blown by the wind.
00:53:54The birth of Venus.
00:53:59One of the greatest masterpieces of all time.
00:54:07We not only see an ancient goddess,
00:54:10but perhaps for the first time since antiquity,
00:54:13we see full frontal nudity.
00:54:16She's absolutely naked.
00:54:19She covers herself in a way that reveals more than she covers.
00:54:22Her hair is fluttering in the wind.
00:54:25Her drapery is moving.
00:54:27We see roses flying through the air.
00:54:30So nudity, the goddesses, the sense of movement itself,
00:54:34all these are qualities or figures that come from the ancient world
00:54:38that is reborn in Botticelli's day.
00:54:49Botticelli's Venus is extraordinary
00:54:52because for the first time the female nude
00:54:55is no longer used to show a figure of perdition,
00:54:58but the beauty of the body.
00:55:02It's a nod to beauty and love.
00:55:05It's very interesting to see that these ideas of beauty
00:55:08It's a nod to beauty and love.
00:55:11It's very interesting to see that these ideas of beauty
00:55:14which were displayed in the Primavera,
00:55:17in between all these feminine figures,
00:55:20are in a way concentrated and embodied by Venus in the birth of Venus.
00:55:23are in a way concentrated and embodied by Venus in the birth of Venus.
00:55:26At such point that Botticelli
00:55:29will extract this figure
00:55:32and replicate it on a black background
00:55:35as individual figures, as an epitome of beauty.
00:55:38as individual figures, as an epitome of beauty.
00:55:45We know that Botticelli devised this type of ideal beauty
00:55:48that fascinated the learned as the unlearned.
00:55:51that fascinated the learned as the unlearned.
00:55:55Venus is claimed to be beautiful,
00:55:58Venus is claimed to be beautiful,
00:56:01feminine, and the CANON OF the beauty of women.
00:56:10The eye at present is far from the canon of feminine beauty
00:56:13that is always attributed to it.
00:56:16It's a disturbing, disturbing, disturbing body,
00:56:19of anger, that can be very interesting
00:56:22very interesting for an audience of new generations.
00:56:37It's a beauty that transcends the realistic data.
00:56:43It tends to represent an ideal beauty.
00:56:47This is the modernity and novelty of Botticelli,
00:56:51this filtered, transformed, created beauty.
00:56:57In Botticelli you have a repertory of beauty, of feminine beauty.
00:57:04And they are also very much like the type of the Virgin in Botticelli's work.
00:57:10They are all the same and yet they are all different.
00:57:41Lorenzo the Magnificent's gamble had paid off.
00:57:47Florence had become Italy's capital of art and culture.
00:57:561492, the year of Lorenzo's death.
00:58:05After his demise, ideal beauty will be banned from Florence.
00:58:11Its new leader turning it all to ash.
00:58:30Oh Florence, your sins will bring about many scourges.
00:58:35Oh priest, here is a storm for your wrongdoings.
00:58:45Convert, or the Lord God Almighty shall never look upon thee again.
00:58:54So spoke from his pulpit the heretic friar, Girolamo Savonarola.
00:59:06That the universal judgment is near,
00:59:08that humanity, especially Christianity, is betraying Christ,
00:59:14is immersing itself in sin,
00:59:18and that there is little time left,
00:59:22if humanity wants to be saved.
00:59:367th of February, 1497.
00:59:39A pyramid of fire blazes in Piazza della Signoria.
00:59:44It will become known as the bonfire of the vanities.
00:59:49Statues, books and paintings of immense beauty are in flames.
01:00:06After the death of Lorenzo the Magnificent,
01:00:09Girolamo Savonarola, with his terrifying prophecies,
01:00:13captures the imagination of the masses
01:00:15and rises to become Florence's leader.
01:00:20Speaking against clerical and political corruption,
01:00:23he takes hold of the city.
01:00:26Crowds of over 10,000 people cram into churches and squares
01:00:31to listen to his sermons.
01:00:35Fra Girolamo manages to enthuse the Florentines,
01:00:40sometimes even to terrorise them.
01:00:43He says that if the way of speaking circulates,
01:00:47this fratricide will bring us harm,
01:00:50in the sense that it will bring us down,
01:00:53because he continuously preaches misfortune,
01:00:56misfortune if the Florentines do not repent.
01:01:02Botticelli is very ahead of his time,
01:01:04but actually Savonarola was very ahead of his time.
01:01:06He was like a political campaigner.
01:01:09He used the printed press.
01:01:11He spoke in an incredible way.
01:01:13He was one of the great orators of his age.
01:01:15And he created a massive U-turn in the city.
01:01:19Savonarola stopped the Golden Age dead with his sermons.
01:01:23He terrified everybody.
01:01:25And so you go from the light into the dark.
01:01:29Botticelli has to make art for a new era.
01:01:31His clients now, even if they want those beautiful Venuses,
01:01:35they can't ask for them anymore.
01:01:39And so suddenly everything becomes chaste and quiet and moral,
01:01:43and Botticelli is very good at switching
01:01:46and making that kind of work.
01:01:51There is a rupture in style
01:01:53within Botticelli's production of classical music.
01:01:57There is a rupture in style
01:01:59within Botticelli's production, of course.
01:02:08It's not that Savonarola was against art,
01:02:10but he uses art as a mediator.
01:02:12So art should lead you towards the invisible,
01:02:16towards the divine.
01:02:20And therefore you could not be stopped by a very beautiful image
01:02:25of a journey towards meditation and towards the divine.
01:02:34The great question mark is,
01:02:36was Botticelli a follower of Savonarola?
01:02:41Personally, I don't think so, because for such a creative mind,
01:02:45he would have provoked such a crisis
01:02:47that he would have stopped creating.
01:02:49He would have stopped completely.
01:02:52Was Botticelli a follower of Savonarola?
01:02:56So little is known about his personal life
01:02:59that art historians are still divided.
01:03:01What they do agree on is the gradual yet drastic change in his style
01:03:06that coincides with the friar's rise to power.
01:03:21If we go to San Marco, where Savonarola himself was the friar,
01:03:25this is almost the epicentre of Savonarola's fiery sermons
01:03:29saying everybody needs to repent.
01:03:31And if you look at the altarpiece that he paints there...
01:03:40..suddenly all the gold has come rushing back in,
01:03:43the vision of heaven, the clouds, the vision of God.
01:03:46It's like something from another era.
01:03:52MUSIC CONTINUES
01:03:56Botticelli manages to re-adapt,
01:03:59recontextualising techniques of the past in his own time.
01:04:03For example, the background of The Incarnation of the Virgin
01:04:06returns to the use of a gold leaf background.
01:04:12He manages to adapt it and manage it
01:04:14with an almost spatial, Renaissance concept,
01:04:17which he imagines in the encounter between the two figures,
01:04:20Christ and the Virgin, in the Incarnation,
01:04:22as if a great light were shining.
01:04:28The gold leaf is worked with rays
01:04:31that start from the meeting point of the two figures.
01:04:35The two main characters are in front,
01:04:38behind there are angels
01:04:40who are behind the rays cast by the light.
01:04:47The sacred miracle is made three-dimensionally
01:04:52thanks to this technique of duration.
01:05:02The era of the ancient gods had come to an end,
01:05:06replaced by religious piety,
01:05:09reflected in the sombre, sacred images of sorrow
01:05:13that populate his paintings.
01:05:16Against the lightness of touch of his Venus,
01:05:19Jesus Christ takes centre stage.
01:05:23The Botticelli painting that I find most moving
01:05:26is his Lamentation in Milan.
01:05:46One extraordinary quality is how all the figures
01:05:49are moved to the foreground.
01:05:53They're piled as if one on top of the other.
01:05:56The neck of the figure and the body are twisted,
01:05:59they don't follow the laws of nature.
01:06:01We've seen this before,
01:06:03how Botticelli transforms the body for beauty,
01:06:06and here he distorts the body
01:06:08in order to convey the sense of grief of Christ's followers.
01:06:13It's an impressive work.
01:06:15It's the Lamentation of Christ of Monaco,
01:06:18by Alte Pinakothek.
01:06:23There's this young Christ,
01:06:25embalmed and dead,
01:06:27in the colour of wax,
01:06:29in the womb of his mother,
01:06:31who has fainted and is consoled by St. John the Evangelist.
01:06:35There are the Piedonnes,
01:06:37the Maddalena.
01:06:39Undoubtedly, it's a composition
01:06:42that couldn't not influence the faithful,
01:06:46not touch it deeply.
01:06:57I think one of the most representative works
01:07:00is a painted crucifix, which is now in Plato.
01:07:03When you look at this beautiful Christ,
01:07:06you can see that Botticelli managed to convey austerity,
01:07:10convey more humble images,
01:07:14but through grace.
01:07:19The torment of Christ
01:07:21has become a peaceful meditative gesture.
01:07:34BOTTICELLI'S WORK
01:07:42Through Botticelli's work,
01:07:45we bear witness to the seismic shift in Renaissance Florence.
01:07:49Without Lorenzo the Magnificent,
01:07:52what was once a powerhouse of creativity
01:07:55descends into darkness.
01:07:57Uncertain times follow,
01:08:00leading to the execution of Savonarola.
01:08:03On 23rd May 1498,
01:08:06the friar is hanged and burnt at the stake
01:08:09in Florence's main square.
01:08:13BOTTICELLI'S WORK
01:08:25Botticelli preferred to have nothing to do
01:08:28with the political world of Florence.
01:08:31He left it and in 1501
01:08:35he did his masterpiece,
01:08:38The Mystical Birth.
01:08:43THE MYSTICAL BIRTH
01:08:54It's a painting that doesn't just speak of the birth of Jesus,
01:08:58but also of the end of the world,
01:09:01the end of humanity,
01:09:03and the advent of the Kingdom of Heaven.
01:09:06THE MYSTICAL BIRTH
01:09:10For this reason, Botticelli retrieves the message of the golden background,
01:09:15and the golden background is Heaven,
01:09:18is Eternity,
01:09:20is the perfection of the universe.
01:09:25In the Mystic Nativity, in the upper part of the painting,
01:09:28there are angels holding scrolls with inscriptions.
01:09:32And these inscriptions come directly from sermons by Savonarola.
01:09:36Here's a smoking gun.
01:09:38There's no doubt that Botticelli was a follower of Savonarola,
01:09:42at least at the time when he painted this work.
01:09:47Here, Botticelli completely abandoned
01:09:50this kind of naturalistic rendering of the space.
01:09:54To go back to earlier examples
01:09:57where the main figures are bigger in scale
01:10:01than the minor figures in terms of hierarchy in the space.
01:10:05But you still have, in the upper register,
01:10:07these angels playing and dancing,
01:10:10and you can think this is remembering the golden age
01:10:14of these festivities, of this theatrical representation throughout the cities.
01:10:19What we do know about Botticelli,
01:10:22we mainly know from his paintings.
01:10:26He is the storyteller par excellence,
01:10:30who understood how to use the soft power of art to his advantage.
01:10:36He is the man who invented beauty,
01:10:39and he is the man who created art.
01:10:42He created art to his advantage.
01:10:45He is the man who invented beauty,
01:10:49and the first artist to explore the female gaze.
01:10:56He is also the man who brought us...
01:10:59hell.
01:11:12He is the man who brought us hell.
01:11:28Through me, pass into the painful city.
01:11:43Through me, pass into eternal grief.
01:11:57Through me, pass among the lost people.
01:12:05Abandon all hope.
01:12:09Ye who enter here.
01:12:21The words of Dante Alighieri's Inferno
01:12:24resonate in Botticelli's work.
01:12:27The illustrations for the Divine Comedy
01:12:30tell us of an agonising inner journey
01:12:33that the artist, who was already midway through his life,
01:12:36shared with Dante.
01:12:39The poem itself is so full of images
01:12:43that a mind like Botticelli must have been completely fascinated
01:12:47with the possibilities that would open for him
01:12:50to design, to draw, to compose, to invent, to create.
01:13:00Botticelli and Dante are very similar
01:13:03in the sense that they're two of the greatest minds and creators
01:13:06to come out of Florence, but they were separated by a century.
01:13:11Hell, as we think of it now collectively,
01:13:14is given to us by Dante,
01:13:16and the visual imagery of that is given to us by Botticelli.
01:13:33All the drawings...
01:13:37..are still today a masterpiece of Renaissance graphic design.
01:13:44All the drawings have remained in pen or stylus,
01:13:48but only a few have been coloured by the artist.
01:13:55Every single scene that illustrates Hell, Inferno,
01:14:00are more metaphorical than Purgatory and Paradise.
01:14:13So you have this kind of extraordinary progression
01:14:16from very saturated compositions
01:14:19towards something that is less and less formal,
01:14:22less and less composed,
01:14:24and is almost like, I think, the last sheet
01:14:27is just a very small point within a white surface.
01:14:39In these we see an enormous complexity.
01:14:43He's able to take many different scenes
01:14:46and pack them into one page.
01:14:52These are works that take time to appreciate.
01:14:55Botticelli is expecting you to read the text and look at the image,
01:15:00and we see figures that emerge from the woods,
01:15:04being chased by dogs, being bitten.
01:15:07We see figures in Inferno who are being tortured by devils.
01:15:17He includes an enormous range of emotions,
01:15:21of hand gestures, of body language.
01:15:25So Botticelli has a contrast between beauty and elegance
01:15:29and horror and blood.
01:15:32That is how Botticelli tells his stories.
01:15:36BOTTICELLI'S WORLD
01:15:43Botticelli, the storyteller,
01:15:45knows how to touch the heart of the public,
01:15:48and his paintings are a chronicle of the time.
01:15:52Florence was unrecognisable from its heyday
01:15:55under Lorenzo the Magnificent.
01:15:57A city divided into warring factions,
01:16:00it was a time of repression, fear and slander.
01:16:04All of which Botticelli distills into a sinister scene.
01:16:15A painting in tempera, on a small panel only 91cm wide.
01:16:20The Calumny of Apelles.
01:16:34An ancient allegory that he uses to defend a friend
01:16:38slandered by false accusations.
01:16:46Between King Midas with donkey's ears and the naked truth,
01:16:52the victim is dragged along the ground by Calumny.
01:16:58A real event becomes a metaphorical criticism
01:17:01of the society he is living in.
01:17:08Artists of the calibre of Botticelli are extremely sought after
01:17:12in the sense that they are able to convey,
01:17:15to translate highly complex message in harmonious, clear ensemble.
01:17:21If you want to make graphic novels, if you want to be good at that,
01:17:24you should look at Botticelli.
01:17:26Because even though he's working hundreds of years
01:17:28before the invention of the graphic novel,
01:17:31he is so succinct in his storytelling
01:17:33that as an illustrator you could learn so much from Botticelli.
01:17:38Within the Calumny of Apelles, which is quite a small work,
01:17:43there is about, if I remember well, 72 small reliefs.
01:17:51These include many works already treated by Botticelli,
01:17:55such as the painting in tempera,
01:17:57the painting in Calumny,
01:17:59the painting in Apelles,
01:18:01the painting in Calumny,
01:18:03the painting in Apelles,
01:18:05which includes many works already treated by the artist.
01:18:09There is a Venus and Mars,
01:18:12you have a palace,
01:18:15and there is an episode from Nostalgia dei Leonesti.
01:18:21So you have many self-quotations that are readable
01:18:25only if you really look at the work.
01:18:36Calumny ends Botticelli's golden era.
01:18:45Taste is changing fast.
01:18:48He's replaced by new giants,
01:18:50Leonardo, Michelangelo and Raphael.
01:19:06If you were alive during Botticelli's heyday,
01:19:09you could never have imagined in a million years
01:19:12that Botticelli would die unknown and it broke.
01:19:36He was ill, full of debts and in a full artistic crisis.
01:19:51It's just extraordinary to think that a man
01:19:53that has created paintings that have stood the test of time,
01:19:56that have become universal symbols of beauty,
01:19:59died without any kind of fanfare.
01:20:01No one noticed when Botticelli died,
01:20:03that this was not a great man in Florence anymore.
01:20:06It's like, how did that happen?
01:20:08How could that possibly have happened to Botticelli,
01:20:10who we love so much today?
01:20:21Botticelli dies on 17th May, 1510.
01:20:26He was buried without pomp
01:20:28in the family vault of All Saints Church,
01:20:32penniless, alone and forgotten.
01:20:56A genius, a symbol of the Renaissance.
01:21:01Yet after his death, Botticelli lay forgotten
01:21:04until the 19th century.
01:21:09It's hard to believe today,
01:21:11but Botticelli fell out of fashion for centuries.
01:21:14Nobody talked about him, his works were not on view.
01:21:17The Primavera was in storage.
01:21:20In the late 19th century,
01:21:22Botticelli was discovered by the artists.
01:21:25It was the Pre-Raphaelites who looked to the art of the past
01:21:29in order to make their creations for the present.
01:21:50Pre-Raphaelites means pre-Raphael, before Raphael,
01:21:54hence the art for them stops before Raphael.
01:21:59And what is before Raphael the most extraordinary artist?
01:22:03It is Botticelli.
01:22:20The nudity, the pagan subjects,
01:22:23the ambiguity and the non-canonical body types.
01:22:27These are four reasons why Botticelli
01:22:30was rediscovered in the 19th century.
01:22:50We have one important character called Dante Gabriele Rossetti.
01:23:02He and his fellow artists created a new vision,
01:23:06a new aesthetic from Botticelli's rediscovery.
01:23:20Especially from one painting that he owned,
01:23:23which is the famous so-called portrait of Smeralda Bodinelli.
01:23:32He interpreted this portrait as a woman at the window
01:23:37and he would produce a series of women at the window.
01:23:50MUSIC PLAYS
01:23:54MUSIC CONTINUES
01:24:15After the pre-Raphaelites, the ethereal images of Botticelli,
01:24:19his nymphs and myths, take on different meanings,
01:24:22adapting to the times
01:24:24and new means of communication in the 20th century.
01:24:31The spread of mass culture sees new media reinterpreting
01:24:35and appropriating the artists' works,
01:24:37empowering and manipulating them.
01:24:45MUSIC PLAYS
01:24:50Five centuries after its creation,
01:24:53Botticelli's art is exploited again for political propaganda.
01:25:19MUSIC CONTINUES
01:25:49MUSIC CONTINUES
01:26:20MUSIC CONTINUES
01:26:24You can understand why Warhol became obsessed by Botticelli,
01:26:27because it was so pop.
01:26:30MUSIC CONTINUES
01:26:40Botticelli is very adaptable to modern trends.
01:26:44Before Andy Warhol, he was inspiring Italian artists
01:26:47like Giuseppe Fioroni, who was inspired by the birth of Venus,
01:26:50many years before Andy Warhol's version.
01:26:55Alexander McQueen, the fashion designer,
01:26:57had an entire collection about Botticelli
01:26:59and my personal favourite is Lady Gaga,
01:27:02with her album inspired by Botticelli,
01:27:04recreated by the great contemporary artist Jeff Koons.
01:27:08MUSIC CONTINUES
01:27:33Those standards of beauty that were created
01:27:35become often linked within our systems
01:27:38that we don't even realise when we're using them
01:27:41or when we're referring to these, actually, beauties.
01:27:44I created a collection which was based on the inspiration
01:27:48between Africa and also contemporary Italian style.
01:27:53And we looked at the images later on,
01:27:55we realised that the stance of this model
01:27:58was very similar to Venus.
01:28:02In the work that I do,
01:28:04this is the real type of beauty that I'm attracted to.
01:28:12Botticelli's art continues to be a multifaceted prism,
01:28:16refracting the imagination of its observers.
01:28:19His ideal of female beauty,
01:28:22constantly repurposed and transformed,
01:28:25inspiring new theories.
01:28:28Interpretations of the androgyny of his subjects
01:28:31still ignite debate.
01:28:57I insisted on Botticelli's ability
01:29:00to show the sexuality and eroticism of bodies
01:29:04coming out of the canons of the feminine and the masculine
01:29:11and opening up to a world of androgyny,
01:29:14of freedom,
01:29:16which was unimaginable,
01:29:19even only until a few years ago.
01:29:27Fashion, films, pop art, Internet.
01:29:32The universal beauty created by Botticelli
01:29:35is rejuvenated by being continuously reimagined.
01:29:44You can transpose these very iconic figures
01:29:47and make them say whatever you want,
01:29:49and this is the particularity of Botticelli,
01:29:51I think, much more than any other painter.
01:29:55Botticelli was a visionary artist.
01:29:57He didn't try to paint according to rules and canons.
01:30:01He created his own sense of beauty.
01:30:05In the last century,
01:30:07because of the rebirth of Botticelli,
01:30:09of Botticelli mania,
01:30:11everybody went back to Florence.
01:30:16And we go to Florence today and we feel that.
01:30:19We feel the electricity that existed in the Italian Renaissance.
01:30:23And I think you feel it most strongly
01:30:25when you stand in front of Botticelli's paintings in the Uffizi.
01:30:28They're electrifying.
01:30:32They're a sort of portal into that world.
01:30:40From symbol of Medici Florence and the Renaissance
01:30:44to global brand,
01:30:48Botticelli crosses the boundaries of time and space
01:30:51to become part of the collective imagination.
01:30:59Now, as then, he is a powerful influencer.
01:31:06His masterpieces speak a universal contemporary language.
01:31:13On the shores of the Arno River,
01:31:16Botticelli awaits.
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01:31:38Florence is everything.
01:31:42And all the rest...
01:31:44is nothing.
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