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Sandro Botticelli II

Nothing encourages virtues as a pretty girl Although there is no firm evidence that they were taken as a pair, Spring and The Birth of Venus is also observed due  glorification of active and contemplative (platonic, as we often call it) love but also record Vasari, a historian who mentions them as a diptych. Based on the style is considered to be the first Botticelli painted Spring 1478 after a few years Birth of Venus, decoration Vile di Castello. From the documents it is known that this villa in 1487 inherited the same fifteen Lorenzo di Pjerfrančesko, a cousin of Lorenzo the Magnificent, who was the unofficial ruler of Florence, the most influential man of his time but also one of the most important patrons of the arts. Although he later became Botticelli’s patron, Lorenzo could not be commissioner and creator of these images. In Ficino’s letter from 1478 addressed to the young Lorenzo, in which he writes about Venus that represents the ideal of humanitas (humanity, humaneness), you can see what is the meaning had for him at a time when the image was created. The file, in accordance with neplatonističkim interpretation of the order of the world is a moral allegory connected with astrology and Ficino advises the young man to embrace Venus that he is in favor of and under whose protection. This letter is the reason why it is considered that the Ficini imagined looking images and their meaning, and in the accompanying message, he even advised the boy’s tutor, his fellow Neo-Platonists, to memorize the parts. For Spring can not be said to illustrate this letter, although images serve the same purpose. Ficino believed in the power of sight and magical power of images, and, in imitation of Cicero, it was easier to convince young visual performance than the testimony by the abstract: “Do not talk to them about the virtues, already present as a virtue and an attractive girl will fall for her “(Cicero). He believed that words can not express the beauty of virtue humanitas and that the form should be comprehensible to a fifteen year old, all of which speaks in favor of that picture Spring created for this purpose. Also, the myth of the Paris Court has traditionally interpreted as a moral allegory about man’s choice between three different ways of life – contemplative, active and sensual. It is known that Ficino accepted this interpretation or that later in life the wisdom of Minerva and Juno power equally valued as a humanistic virtues of Venus – sweetness, poetry and musicality, glorified in a letter to Lorenzo di Pjerfrančesku. Encourage virtue humanitas was in line with the insistence on the civic virtues Medici, merchant family that this road would not rise to the level of the aristocracy. It is known that Lorenzo was impetuous nature and it is assumed that the ingenious philosopher in this way tried to encourage young neotesanog virtues. This is especially clear from the passionate insistence on humanity, virtue that is young and still politically inactive family member missing, but that does not mean only more refinement and courtesy. As Neoplatonists believed that art and music arts have long-lasting effects on the psyche, it is possible that Ficino conceived a new type of image because of this effect, and that Venus owes its beauty to his pedagogical method. How is the method to be effective, we can only ask ourselves whether as a mature man, Lorenzo di Pjerfrančesko is remembered in history as the most prominent figures of the new republican government of Florence.

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