Botticelli's Secret - The Lost Drawings and the Rediscovery of the Renaissance

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.

• A New Yorker Best Book of 2022

About the author

Joseph Luzzi is the Asher B. Edelman Professor of Literature at Bard College and an award-winning scholar of Italian culture. His book Botticelli’s Secret was named a Best Book of the Year by The New Yorker and was shortlisted for the Ralph Waldo Emerson Award. He lives in New York's Hudson Valley.

Summary

A Guardian Book of the Day A true historical “detective story” full of insight about how we look at art—and the artists and eras that produced it

Product details

• Authors: Joseph Luzzi, Joseph (Bard College) Luzzi, Luzzi Joseph
• Publisher: Norton
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 25.10.2022
• EAN: 9781324004011
• ISBN: 978-1-324-00401-1
• No. of pages: 352
• Dimensions: 141 mm x 215 mm x 29 mm
• Weight: 534 g
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Art > Art history; Europe, European History, 20th Century, HISTORY / World, 20th century history: c 1900 to c 2000, HISTORY / Europe / Italy, ART / European, Italy, General & world history, 20th century, c 1900 to c 1999, History of Art, History of art & design styles: from c 1900 -, Early modern history: c 1450/1500 to c 1700, Renaissance art, General and world history, Renaissance style, European history: Renaissance, HISTORY / Europe / Renaissance, ART / History / European / Renaissance