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Mercurius Ver: The Sources of Botticelli's Primavera Author(s): Charles Dempsey Source: Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld
Institutes, Vol. 31 (1968), pp. 251-273 Published by: The Warburg Institute Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/750644 . Accessed: 14/09/2013 11:20
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MERCURIUS VER: THE SOURCES OF BOTTICELLI'S PRIMA VERA

By Charles Dempsey n 1616 Girolamo Aleandro Jr. published a small book to explain the meaning of a syncretistic solar relief in the collection of Asdrubale Mattei (P1. 72b).1 The relief, which is now lost, showed the attributes of four gods grouped around a bust crowned with the rays of the sun: the lyre of Apollo, the club of Hercules, a fruit swag with the autumnal harvest of Bacchus, and Mercury's caduceus. We are not here concerned with Aleandro's heavily Macrobian interpretation of this imagery. Suffice it to say that he identified all of the four gods with one another and with the sun, and argued that each one represented a phase of the sun's power and was identical with one of the four elements and with one of the four seasons. Thus the sun exercised his power in the summer as Apollo, in autumn as Bacchus, in winter as Hercules, and in spring as Mercury. Aleandro's last chapter, here reprinted as an appendix, deals with Mercury. It assembles the classical texts showing him to be a god of spring and the month of May and defining his relationship to the other principal springtime deities, namely Venus, Flora, Chloris, and Zephyr or Favonius, the west wind. Aleandro argued that Mercury was a god of the spring first of all on the basis of Martianus Capella, who called him the deusveriswho flew over the freshly flowered earth.2 He also cited the commentary on this passage written by the Carolingian monk Remi of Auxerre, who asserted that Mercury was a wind god who presided over the insemination of the sea and land-and who was actually identical with Favonius. Aleandro confessed that he did not know where Remi got this idea, but went on to say that there was nevertheless classical warrant for it. Virgil, for example, made Jupiter address Mercury as a leader of the winds: 'Vade age, nate, voca zephyros et labere pinnis . . . adloquere et celeris defer mea dicta per auras.'3 The ancient poets described Mercury and the winds alike, both moving the air with beating wings; and Zephyr and Mercury were particularly linked because each had wings on his head.4
Aleandro Jr. (Hieronymus solis tabulaemarmoreae Aleander Jr.), Antiquae exculptae,accurataexplicatio, effigie,symbolisque Rome 1616; second edition, Paris I617; reprinted in J. G. Graevius, Thesaurus Leiden I694-99, v, romanarum, antiquitatum cols. 702-62. For Aleandro, see L. Pelissier, 'Les amis d'Holstenius, III: Aleandro le et d'histoire, viii, Jeune,' Melangesd'arche'ologie I888, pp. 323-402, and pp. 521-608; C. Dempsey, 'The Classical Perception of Nature in Poussin's Earlier Works,' this Journal XXIX, I966, pp. 219-49. For the relief, see C. Vermeule, 'The Dal Pozzo-Albani Drawings of Classical Antiquities in the Royal of the Library at Windsor Castle,' Transactions
1 Girolamo
American Philosophical Society, n.s. lvi, part 2, 1966, pp. 5-170, no. 8380. 2 Martianus Capella, De nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii, i, 27: 'Tum vero conspiceres totius mundi gaudia convenire: nam et tellus floribus luminata, quippe veris deum conspexerat subvolare Mercurium ... . 3 See also Virgil, Aeneid, iv, 223ff. Boccaccio, Genealogiaedeorum, II. vii: 'Vento agere Mercurii est.' E. Wind, Pagan Mysteries in the Renaissance, London 1958, p. Io9, similarly associated Mercury with Zephyr in his discussion of Botticelli's Primavera. 4 For Zephyr's winged head see Philostratus, Imagines, i, 24, and see the Pompeiian wall painting of the marriage of Zephyr and
251
252
CHARLES DEMPSEY
The advent of Favonius or Zephyr, the west wind, marked the beginning of spring. Here, among numerous other authors, Aleandro quoted Pliny, who dated the beginning of the cycle of nature to the first blowing of Zephyr's warm fertilizing breath. Favonius, according to Pliny, is the genitalis spiritus mundi,the generative spirit of the world, and his name derives from fovere, 'to foster'.5 Favonius, called verispater by Claudian,6 softens the wintry sky and opens the seas to navigation. Again Pliny is the principal source: 'Ver ergo aperit navigantibus maria: cuius in principio Favonii hibernum molliunt Mercury is also a god of navigation. He is the son of Maia, loveliest of the Pleiades; the rising of the Pleiades in early May reopened the sea for travel again, after the storms of late spring. For this reason the Ides of May were sacred to Mercury and on this day the merchants dedicated a temple to him. Here Aleandro's principal source was Festus: 'Maiis Idibus mercatorum dies festus erat, quod eo die Mercurii aedes esset dedicata.'8 Mercury is thus associated with May, the spring month which he named after his mother.9 This association is borne out by an ancient rustic calendar which Aleandro cited where May is dedicated both to Mercury and to Flora-SACRUM. MERCUR. ET. FLORAE.10 We may add, although Aleandro did not mention it, that Ovid dated the end of spring to the night of 13 May, when all seven of the Pleiades were first fully visible.11 Spring thus begins and ends with the same cloud-dispelling wind, starting with the advent of Zephyr, and departing with Mercury, in whose month the season turns to summer. Aleandro next took up Mercury's relationship with the other deities of for her identification spring. First among these is Venus, and the locusclassicus as the moving spirit of the fertile spring is Lucretius's De rerumnatura,in
Chloris, discovered in I827 (in H. Roux Ain6, Herculanum et Pompeii: Recueil general des peintures . . . reproduitsd'apris Le Antichita di Ercolano, II Museo Borbonico . . ., Paris 1875, p. 228). Mercury's wings generally appear not on his head, but his hat; see, however, Apuleius, Metamorphosis, x, 30. 5 Pliny, Naturalis historiae, xvi, 39: 'Ordo autem naturae annuus ita se habet: primus est conceptus flare incipiente vento favonio, ex a.d. fere vi idus Febr. hoc maritantur viviscentia e terra, quippe cum etiam equae in Hispania, ut diximus: hic est genitalis spiritus mundi a fovendo dictus, ut quidam existimavere. flat ab occasu aequinoctiali ver inchoans.' See also Varro, De re rustica, i, 29, and Columella, De re rustica, XI, ii, 15. The Romans gave a day in the calendar, 7 February, to Favonius, and this marked the first day of spring (although Pliny warns farmers that, regardless of the officially designated day of Favonius's arrival, spring has not really come until his warming breath can actually be felt); see InscriptionesItaliae, Rome, 1937-63, xiii, fasc. ii (Fasti et Elogia, A. Degrassi ed.), pp. 407 and 421. 6 Claudian, De raptu Proserpinae,ii, 73. 7Pliny, Naturalis historia, ii, 478 Festus, De significatione verborum,p. 133. See also Ovid, Fasti, v, 663, and for other references, Inscriptiones Italiae, xiii, fasc. ii, pp. 458f. tu materno 9 Ovid, Fasti, v, 103f.-'at donasti nomine mensem,/ inventor curvae, furibus apte, fidis.' 10 For further references, see Inscriptiones Italiae, loc. cit. Aleandro makes the further point that, since Flora was the bride of Zephyr (as the earth nymph Chloris she was raped by Zephyr and metamorphosed into Flora), this is a further argument for actually identifying Mercury and Zephyr. 11 Ovid, Fasti, v, 599-602:
Pliadas aspicies omnes totumque sororum agmen, ubi ante Idus nox erit una super. turn mihi non dubiis auctoribus incipit aestas, et tepidi finem tempora veris habent.
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SOURCES
OF BOTTICELLI'S
PRIMA VERA
253
Venus's month is April.13 Genetrix.12 particular the opening invocation to Venus Aleandro began by recalling the fable of Mercury's union with Venus, from which Cupid was born.14 He pointed out that this most aptly signifies spring, for it is Cupid who inspires living creatures with passionate desire (cupiditas), goading them to follow Venus so that all life, whether of the land, the sea, or the air, will reproduce itself. Besides Lucretius, Aleandro's most explicit
source was Columella: Nunc amor ad coitus properat, nunc spiritus orbis Bacchatur Veneri, stimulisque cupidinis actus Ipse suos adamat partus, et fetibus implet.15
. . . nunc sunt genitalia tempora mundi:
'Now who is there to deny us?' asked Aleandro. 'We have shown that Mercury is the same as Favonius, and we have seen that he joined with that same Venus who was thought to be the goddess of plants and flowers. In Greek the goddess of plants and flowers was called Chloris (because of the quality of greenness), and in Latin she was named Flora (after the flowers). The month of April was given as much to Flora as to Venus, and the month of May which follows was dedicated to Mercury, as Plutarch says in Numa. And on this subject both Varro and Pliny teach us that Venus [as much as Flora] was the goddess of gardens. Of especial pertinence here is Catullus's elegy on the Lock of Berenice, where Venus is called Chloris. For in this poem Venus, Arsinoe, Chloris and Zephyritis are synonymous; and if you interpret it any other way you will not capture the poet's meaning.'16
12 Lucretius, De rerum natura, i, 1-43 (see also v. 737-40). 13 Ovid, Fasti, iv, I-I8 ('venimus ad quartum, quo tu celeberrima mense:/et vatem et mensem scis, Venus, esse tuos'). See also below, note 22. Ovid, Fasti, iv, 6If., derives the name 'April' from the Greek whence also the name 'Aphrodite'. &app6q, 14 See Cicero, De natura deorum,iii. 59, 6o. This text is crucially important to Renaissance conceptions of multiple Cupids (a notion to which Aleandro made no reference; neither, I think, did Botticelli). See Egon Verheyen, 'Eros et Anteros: "L'Iducation de Cupidon" et la pretendue "Antiope" du Correge,' Gazette des Beaux-arts, lxv, I965, pp. 321I-40 (with a complete account of As Aleandro previous bibliography). observed, Hermaphroditus was more commonly held to be the offspring of Mercury and Venus; this too he holds to be appropriate to the spring, because of the bisexual nature of plants. And, in regard to the relationship between Mercury and Zephyr, he adduces Plutarch: 'Nec silentio praetereundum, quod Plutarchus in amatorio ex nescio cujus sententia Amorem Favonii jfilium fecit.' Italics mine.
15 16
Columella, De re rustica, x, 196-9. Aleandro is thinking of Catullus lxvi.

lugebant, cum se Memnonis Aethiopis
5Iff.:
abiunctaepaulo ante comae mea fata sorores
et Veneriscasto collocatin gremio. ipsa suum Zephyritiseo famulumlegarat, Graia Canopeisincola litoribus. Cornish's translation (Loeb Library) reads: 'My sister locks, sundered from me just before, were mourning for my fate, when the own brother of Ethiopian Memnon appeared, striking the air with waving wings, the winged courser of Locrian Arsinoe. And he sweeping me away flies through the airs of heaven and places me in the holy bosom of Venus. On that service had the lady of Zephyrium, the Grecian queen, who sojourns on the shores of Canopus, herself sent her own minister. Thus Venus [the poem continues] ... set me, a new constellation, among the ancient stars.' Arsinoe was indeed deified as Arsinoe Aphrodite, and a temple was built to her on the promontory of Zephyrium. But this reading of the text, which is notoriously corrupt, depends on
isque per aetherias me tollens avolat umbras
unigenaimpellensnutantibusaera pennis obtulit ArsinoesLocridosales equus,
254
CHARLES DEMPSEY
The earliest particular mention of Botticelli's Primavera (and of the Birth is by Vasari: 'Per la citta, in diverse case fece tondi da sua mano, e of Venus) femmine ignude assai; delle quali oggi ancora a Castello, villa del Duca Cosimo [Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco's grandson], sono due quadri figurati, l'uno, Venere che nasce, e quelle aure e venti che la fanno venire in terra con gli Amori; e cosi un'altra Venere, che le Grazie la fioriscono, dinotando la Primavera; le quali da lui con grazia si veggono espresse.'is8 We could wish for more. Yet we have learned two crucially important was painted for a rural retreat, in fact a farm, and things: that the Primavera what its subject matter is. For slender though Vasari's description is, and despite the tricks his memory has played him in the details of his account, his the nomenclature is perfectly correct. The subject of Botticelli's Primavera, title the painting has borne since Vasari bestowed it, is in fact spring. Spring is shown in two phases: from its beginning with the blowing of the west wind (Favonius, or Zephyr) to its fullness in the month of April, represented by Venus; and from April to its end in May, presided over by Mercury. The succession of figures correspondsto the elegant and stately rhythmical movement of the painting from right to left, an apparently eccentric reversal of our normal tendency to read a painting as we read print, from left to right. Zephyr rushes in from the right. The trees bend at the force of his movement
Bentley's reading of line 54 as 'obtulit Arsinoes Locridos ales equus,' arguing that 'Locridos' refers to Cyrenaica, where there was also a temple to Arsinoe Aphrodite, and which was originally a Locrian settlement. Renaissance editors of Catullus from Avantius to Scaliger have it, 'obtulit Arsinoes Chloridos ales equus,' a reading which is the basis of Aleandro's equation of Venus with Chloris and Zephyritis (i.e., 'bride of This reading of line 54, and Zephyr'). hence this identity, almost certainly depends on Poliziano, the first editor of Catullus (although he never published an edition) who was competent in Greek, and many of whose emendations of this poem (one that I know of in this passage) on this basis still stand. For the problem of Catullus lxvi and this passage, see Ugo Foscolo, La Chioma di on Berenice, Bari 1803; R. Ellis, A Commentary Catullus, London I889, p. 373f.; and especially C. Nigra, La Chioma di Berenice, Milan 189I. For the fullest summary of pre-Bentleian scholarship on the poem, see Vossius's edition of Catullus, Leiden I684. 17 H. Horne, Alessandro Filipepi, London 1908, Appendix ii, Document xv. 18 Vasari, Milanesi ed., iii, p. 312. The only possible earlier reference to the paintings, in the 'Anonimo Gaddiano,' is too general to be of any use for their iconography (see Horne, op. cit., Appendix ii, Document ii). The most important studies of the Primavera are: A. Warburg, Sandro Botticelli's 'Geburt der Venus' und 'Friihling', Leipzig 1893, reprinted with additions in Gesammelte Schriften, Leipzig 1932, i, pp.- 5-68 and pp. 307-28; E. Gombrich, 'Botticelli's Mythologies: A Study in the Neoplatonic Symbolism of his Circle', this Journal, VIII, 1945, pp. 7-60 (with summary of earlier bibliography); E. Wind, Pagan Mysteries in the Renaissance, London 1958, pp. 100-20; and E. Panofsky, Renaissanceand Renascences in WesternArt, Uppsala 1960, pp. 191-200 (with further bibliography).
per nostro vso ...
In 1477 Lorenzo di Pierfrancescode'Medici purchased a villa at Castello, and very likely in the following year Botticelli painted the Primavera (P1. 72c) for that villa. The establishment was in fact a working farm, and is called as much in a Denunziareturned in 1480 by Lorenzo and his brother Giovanni: 'Vn podere posto allolmo achastello popolo disamichele luogho detto aluiuaio con sua uochabolj & confini, et chonun palagio designore et chonorto murato, et chonsua apartenenze dimasserizie, el quale tegnamo per nostro habitare et
'17
SOURCES OF BOTTICELLI'S PRIMA VERA
255
as he reaches out and grasps the earth nymph Chloris. She looks back in fright and as she does so flowers spring from her mouth and merge with the pattern on the dress of the next figure. This is the Roman goddess Flora, Chloris transformed, who scatters the flowers created by the warm breath of Zephyr. In the centre of the painting stands Venus, framed in a natural arch formed by the boughs of the apple trees which close the garden at the back. Cupid, blindfolded and shooting an arrow tipped with flame, flies above her head.19 Her gesturing hand leads us on to the three Graces, who with clasped hands dance a stately round, and who here assume their double function as the attendants of Venus (and the followers of Mercury) and as the springtime Horae. The elegant, rippling motion initiated by Zephyr's impetuous entrance at the right of the painting is brought to a conclusion in Mercury. All motion stops with him as he stands with his back turned to the other figures and with studied nonchalance softens the clouds into a thin mist with his wand. Mercury's behaviour, his curious isolation from the rest of the figures, and his presence in a group of otherwise normal springtime deities, have been the imagery. Now stumbling block to successful understanding of the Primavera's Aleandro's chapter on MercuriusVer gives us good reason to suppose that we need look no further than the season of spring itself to account for his presence and behaviour.20 The problem now becomes one of focusing the evidence gathered in a seventeenth-century text on Mercury's nature in a manner which will shed light on the meaning of a late Quattrocento painting destined for the rural villa of a Medici prince. Help in this comes from a most unexpected quarter, an engraving entitled The engraving Spring(Pl. 72a) by Virgil Solis of Nuremberg (15I4-I562).21 is the first of a set of four illustrating the seasons of the year. At the left Venus enters in the embrace of Mars. Flora is in the centre, riding in a triumphal car; blindfolded Cupid flies above her. Mercury exits at the right, walking with his back turned to the others. The basic scheme follows the rustic Roman calendar. The first Roman calendar, traditionally held to have been instituted by Romulus, was not organized according to the turning of the solar or lunar year, but followed the changing seasons of the farmer's year. It consisted of ten months. The first of these was March, which Romulus named after his father Mars, and the second was April, named after the mother of Aeneas, Venus.22 The third month of the rustic calendar, May, was dedicated to
19 It is Cupid in attendance, the fact that the scene is set in a garden of apple trees (a fruit proper to Venus; see, e.g., Philostratus, Imagines, i, 6), and that the central figure is framed in a spray of myrtle, which clearly establishes her identity as Venus. 20 Mercury has been the basis by which, in Panofsky's words (op. cit., p. 193), 'we may infer the presence and import of a "metaliteral" significance in Botticelli's comThe source in which recent position'. attempts to explain this 'metaliteral significance' have been founded is the Neoplatonism of Ficino; and at the heart of Neoplatonic exegesis of the Primavera lie two assumptions:
that Mercury cannot otherwise be accounted bears a programfor, and that the Primavera matic relationship to the Birth of Venus. Both assumptions are questioned in this paper. 21 Bartsch, Peintre-Graveur, 133. 22See Macrobius, Saturnalia, i, 12; liber, x, 5ff.: Ausonius, Eclogarum
Martius et generis Romani praesul et anni, prima dabas Latiis tempora consulibus. Aeneadum genetrix vicino nomen Aprili das Venus: est Marti namque Aphrodita comes.
See also Ovid, Fasti, i, 39 and iii, 73. In Fasti, iv. 129f., Ovid describes spring as Mars and Venus locked in embrace. This accords
256
CHARLES DEMPSEY
Mercury, as we have already learned from Aleandro, who quoted an inscription from a rustic calendar dedicating the month to Mercury and to Flora, and recalled Plutarch's testimony of this in the life of Numa.2 The rustic calendar is unique in this respect. The Manilian calendar, for example, which Warburg proved was the basis for Cossa's frescoes in the Palazzo Schifanoia, gives May to Apollo and June to Mercury.24 Other calendars dedicate May to Jupiter.25 Virgil Solis's engraving of Spring thus starts both the season and the year with March and April, Venus in the embrace of Mars, whose month and ends the season with May, personified by Mercury-in summer begins.26 Flora stands between April and May because, as Ovid reports, both months are hers, which explains why the Floralia extended from
28
April to 3 May:
Mater ades florum, ludis celebranda iocosis! distuleram partes mense priore tuas. incipis Aprili, transis in tempora Mai: alter te fugiens, cum venit, alter habet.27 The Primavera,destined for the rural villa of a Medici prince, is also based on the rustic farmer's calendar. The scene is set in a narrow garden framed by apple trees. The ground is scattered with flowers, and a spray of myrtle fans out around the central figure of Venus, who dominates the setting. Upon this
with Ausonius and with Virgil Solis's engraving (not to mention Botticelli's Mars and Venus). The source for this, as Ausonius's 'Aeneadum genetrix' unmistakably testifies, is Lucretius's famous opening invocation to Venus Genetrix (De rerum natura, i, 1-43), where Venus is invoked as a spring goddess, as the governess of life in nature, and as the founder of the Roman race. Here too Venus is described in Mars's embrace, and her influence characteristics heavily very Ovid's account of her (Fasti iv, 85-132). Lucretius's Venus Genetrix is, in other words, identical with the Venus to whom Romulus dedicated the second month of the calendar, and in this respect she too has something of far the character of a rustic deity-certainly more Latin than Greek in nature. This is the way Dionysius Lambinus, in his famous commentary of 1570 on the De rerum natura, tells us we must understand its opening lines: 'AENEADUM . . . Quemadmodum autem a Romanis Mars, eo quod Romuli pater haberetur, Romani generis auctor dicebatur: ita Venus Romanorum genetrix appellabatur, propterea quod Aeneae mater existimabatur. Idcirco Romulus cum annum describeret, eumque ex decem mensibus constitueret, primum a Marte patre, Martium, secundum a Venere, tanquam matre, aut certe progenetrice, Aprilem nominavit.' It is noteworthy that she is planetary in nature, something Lambinus tells us we learn from Lucretius's second line, which describes Venus moving 'caeli subter labentia signi.' Lucretius, as we shall see, is a fundamental source for the Primavera, and there can be no doubt that Botticelli's Venus is the Venus Genetrix of the rustic calendar. The same holds true for his painting of Mars and Venus. 23 Plutarch, Numa, xix, 3. 24 Manilius, Astronomicon,ii. 439-47. See also Warburg, Gesammelte Schriften, Leipzig 1932, ii, pp. 46 I-81. 25 Macrobius, Saturnalia, i, 12. 26 See Ovid, Fasti, v, 599-602; and, for further references, Inscriptiones Italiae, xiii, fasc. ii, p. 454. 27 Ovid, Fasti, v, 183-209: 'Come, mother of flowers, that we may honour thee with merry games; last month I put off giving thee thy due. Thou dost begin in April and passest into the time of May; the one month claims thee as it flies, the other as it comes.' See InscriptionesItaliae, xiii, fasc. ii, pp. 450ff. Note that Virgil Solis has represented blindfolded Cupid flying above Flora's head, a detail enforcing her relationship to Venus, with whom Flora is often confused; of which more presently.
SOURCES OF BOTTICELLI'S PRIMAVERA
257
narrow stage the whole season of spring unfolds, beginning with the first gust of Zephyr at the right, continuing through its fullness in Venus and April, and ending in May and Mercury at the left. Venus, like Mercury, is represented in her rustic character. The carefully patterned, almost medieval garden the goddess of gardens. Venus as hortorum, setting clearly proclaims her Venus the goddess of gardens, like Mercury as the god of May, is specifically a rustic deity. Thus Varro invokes her assistance at the beginning of the De re rustica, recalling that it was in her honour that the rustic Vinaliawere established.28 Pliny and Festus also remember her.29 But the fullest indication of her nature, to which we shall turn presently, is found in the tenth book of Columella's De re rustica.30 at greater length, Before considering the rustic framework of the Primavera fundamental turn to we first must however, Warburg's study of Botticelli's the showed fundamental relationliterary sources.31a Warburg conclusively and of he cited Primavera the Thus between the Poliziano. poetry ship existing the Rusticus:
Auricomae, jubare exorto, de nubibus adsunt
Horae,quae coeli portasatque atriaservant, QuasJove plena Themisnitidopulcherrima partu

Edidit, Ireneque Diceque et mixta parenti Eunomie, carpuntque recenteis Pollice foetus: Quas inter, stygio remeans Proserpinaregno, Comptior ad matrem properat: comes alma sorori It Venus, et Venerem parvi comitantur Amores:
Floraquelascivoparatosculagratamarito: In mediis,resolutacomasnudatapapillas,
Ludit et alterno terram pede Gratia pulsat:
Uda chorosagitatnais...32
As Warburg pointed out, Poliziano has here skilfully interwoven several ancient poetic sources. The first is Horace:
28 Varro, De re rustica, I, i, 6; see also De lingua latina, vi. 20; Inscriptiones Italiae, xiii, fasc. ii, p. 446f. The Vinalia were celebrated twice, on 19 August and 23 April. See Ovid, Fasti, iv, 863ff. Botticelli has doubtless thought of Venus (incorrectly) in connexion with the latter, celebrated when the new wines of spring were first tasted. 29 Pliny, Naturalis historia, xix, 19; Festus, s.v. 'Vinalia rustica,' De significationeverborum, where he writes: 'Veneri templa sunt consecrata, quia in ipsius Deae tutela sunt horti.' 30 Columella, De re rustica, x, I194ff. 31 See note 18. 32 Poliziano, Rusticus, vv. 2 10-21 : 'Now rejoice, the golden-haired Hours have come down from the clouds, they who guard the gates and the halls of heaven, to whom lovely Themis filled with radiant Jupiter gave birth; Irene, Dice, and Eunomia (daughter of Pollux) now pluck the newly budded shoots. Proserpine is with them, made more lovely by their company as she retraces her steps from the Stygian kingdom and hastens to her mother. Nourishing Venus comes, companion to her sister, and is followed by the little loves; Flora offers welcome kisses to her eager husband [Zephyr]; and in their midst with hair unbound and bared breasts dances Grace, tapping the ground with rhythmic step.' As Warburg says, 'Diese Tatsache allein wfirde schon fufirden Beweis geniigen, dass Polizian auch ffr das zweite Bild der Ratgeber Botticellis gewesen ist.' The Rusticus was published in 1483, five years after the Primaverawas painted, and Poliziano may well have had the painting in mind, or perhaps his own programme for it, when he wrote these lines.
258
CHARLES DEMPSEY
Solvitur acris hiems grata vice veris et Favoni,
iam Cytherea choros ducit Venus imminente luna,

iunctaeque Nymphis Gratiae decentes alterno terram quatiunt pede...33
Another is Lucretius: it Ver et Venus et Veneris praenuntius ante pennatus graditur, Zephyri vestigia propter Flora quibus mater praespargensante viai cuncta coloribus egregiis et odoribus opplet.34
stratus.35 And Columella is the source for Poliziano's description of Proserpine
The description of the Horaeand their character clearly derives from Philo-
in the midst of the other springtime deities: Praeposuit, Ditemque Iovi, letumque saluti,
Et nunc inferno potitur Proserpina regno: Huc facili gressu teneras advertite plantas,
Vos quoque iam posito luctu maestoque timore Tellurisque comas sacris aptate canistris.36 and Botticelli's Primavera is undeniable.
The community of reference shared by Poliziano's Rusticus,its sources,

All the figures represented in the
from Lucretius, just quoted, which Poliziano adapted five years later in the from: O Venus, regina Cnidi Paphique, sperne dilectam Cypron et vocantis ture te multo Glycerae decoram transferin aedem. fervidus tecum puer et solutis Gratiae zonis properentqueNymphae et parum comis sine te luventas Mercuriusque.37
Primavera, Mercury excepted, appear in these few lines. The right half of the Primavera, Venus, Cupid, Flora, and Zephyr, is founded on the same passage
Rusticus. The left half, Venus and Cupid again, the Graces, and Mercury, is also based on Horace, but on a different ode from the one Poliziano drew
33Horace, Odes, i. 4: 'Keen winter is breaking up at the welcome change to spring and Zephyr.... Already Cytherean Venus leads her dancing bands beneath the o'erhanging moon, and the comely Graces linked with Nymphs tread the earth with tripping feet.' (Bennett's trans., Loeb Library.) 3
Lucretius, De rerum natura, v, 737-40:
'On come Spring and Venus, and Venus's winged harbinger [Cupid] marching before, with Zephyr and mother Flora a pace behind him strewing the whole path in front with brilliant colours and filling it with scents.' .3 Horace, Odes, i, 30: 'O Venus, queen of (Rouse's trans., Loeb Library). Herewith the basis also for the right half of the Primavera. Cnidos and of Paphos, forsake thy beloved
'Preferring Dis to Jove and death's abode to life, in realms below she reigns, the Queen Prosperine. Come, lay aside your mourning and sad fears and hither turn with gentle steps your tender feet and fill your sacred baskets with earth's blossoming.' (Forster's and Heffner's trans., Loeb Library). Compare the rest of this passage also with Poliziano-and with Virgil Solis's engraving. Dione's daughter (i.e. Venus-Urania?)' is present, as are Nymphs who are named companions of the Muses.
35See below, note 36 Columella, De 59-. re rustica, x,
273-7:
SOURCES OF BOTTICELLI'S PRIMAVERA
259
The passage I have quoted from Poliziano's Rusticuscombines several ancient sources, but does not literally copy any of them; he has deleted the Nymphs described by Horace, changed the Graces into Hours, introduced Proserpine on the basis of Columella, and described Venus and her train in a manner which is both clearly based on Lucretius and a conscious departure from him.38 Botticelli has followed his Horatian model equally literally (Venus... fervidus tecum puer et solutis Gratiae zonis... Mercurisque), yet with equal freedom-he has deleted the Nymphs and the figure of Iuventas as inessential to his idea. Poliziano's Rusticus is a new Latin poem consciously based in the classical tradition, but not a slavish imitation. The same may be said of the Primavera; it too is a Rusticus based in the same sources and of the same spirit, and it too speaks a pure Latin syntax.39 Like Poliziano Botticelli has also subtly adapted Lucretius's passage (It Ver et Venus et Veneris praenuntius ante...) to his own meaning by adding, not Proserpine, but the earth nymph Chloris. He has done so on the basis of the Fasti. The speaker is Flora: Chloriseram,quae Floravocor:corrupta Latino
nominis est nostri littera Graeca sono. rem fortunatis ante fuisse viris. quae fuerit mihi forma, grave est narrare modestae
Chloriseram,nymphecampifelicis,ubi audis
sed generummatrirepperitilla deum. ver erat, errabam:Zephyrus conspexit,abibam.

insequitur, fugio: fortior ille fuit, et dederat fratri Boreas ius omne rapinae ausus Erechthea praemia ferre domo.
vim tamenemendatdandomihi nominanuptae, inque meo non est ulla querellatoro.

vere fruor semper: semper nitidissimusannus,
hunc meus implevit generoso flore maritus saepe ego digestos volui numerare colores et variae radiis intepuere comae,
arborhabetfrondes,pabulasemperhumus. est mihi fecundusdotalibushortusin agris: aurafovet,liquidaefonterigaturaquae. tu, dea, floreshabe.' atque ait 'arbitrium
nec potui: numerocopia maiorerat. roscidacum primumfoliisexcussapruinaest, conveniunt pictisincinctaevestibusHorae

Cyprus and betake thyself to the fair shrine of Glycera, who summons thee with bounteous incense! And with thee let hasten thy ardent child; the Graces too, with girdles all unloosed, the Nymphs, and Youth, unlovely without thee, and Mercury!' (Bennett's trans., Loeb Library.) Panofsky, op. cit., p. I93, justifies his 'metaliteral' interpretation of the Primavera principally on the basis that Mercury does not appear with
inque leves calathos munera nostra legunt.

the other springtime deities in Poliziano's poetry. But he does appear here, in a source certainly well known to Poliziano. 38 A which seems clearly departure inspired by Poliziano's knowledge of the Primavera. 39 Botticelli may not have eliminated altogether Horace's figure of luventas, but incorporated her instead into the Graces; for the argument of this, see note 6o.
260
CHARLES DEMPSEY
protinus accedunt Charites nectuntque coronas sertaque caelestes implicitura comas. prima per immensas sparsi nova semina gentes: unius tellus ante coloris erat.40 'I was Chloris, who am now called Flora,' the goddess announces at the beginning of the passage, and at the end explains the significance of her metamorphosis: 'Before, the earth was of one colour.' Botticelli has represented this by showing Chloris dressed in a plain, unadorned shift. But as she feels green Zephyr's breath on her back and looks over her shoulder flowers spring from her mouth and merge with the flowered pattern on Flora's dress. As Wind observed, these flowers, like the merging Chloris-Flora, are represented in a double aspect. They are real, as can be seen by the fact that the fingers of Chloris's left hand pass both in front of and behind the pattern on Flora's dress (and also by Flora's trailing veil, which shows the flowers on her dress reforming themselves into those on the ground), and they are also emblematic, the pattern on Flora's dress. From Chloris emerges Flora, an elegant pictorialization of the poetic metaphor of the bare earth becoming newly mantled with flowers at the first breath of spring.41 Botticelli has subtly altered the emphasis of Lucretius's description of the parade of springtime deities, changing it through Ovid's account of Flora's metamorphosis into a representation of the growing process of spring. This growth is completed in the figure of Venus, as we have seen the goddess of dea. Normally, of course, it is Flora who is the gardens, rustica Venushortorum patroness of gardens, she who is also a goddess of the spring. Venus is thus shown with something of the character of Flora, with whom she is often confused.42 In the same way that Chloris, nymph of the bare earth, is transformed into Flora by Zephyr's blowing, so Flora, who scatters the ground
40o Ovid, Fasti, v, I95-222: 'I who am now called Flora was formerly Chloris: a Greek letter of my name is corrupted in the Latin speech. Chloris I was, a nymph of the happy fields where, as you have heard, dwelt fortunate men of old. Modesty shrinks from describing my figure; but it procured the hand of a god for my mother's daughter. 'Twas Spring, and I was roaming; Zephyr caught sight of me; I retired; he pursued and I fled; but he was the stronger, and Boreas had given his brother full right of rape by daring to carry off the prize from the house of Erechtheus. However, he made amends for his violence by giving me the name of bride, and in my marriage-bed I have naught to complain of. I enjoy perpetual spring; most buxom is the year ever; the tree is clothed with leaves, the ground with pasture. In the fields that are my dower, I have a fruitful garden, fanned by the breeze and watered by a spring of running water. This garden my husband filled with noble flowers and said, "Goddess, be queen of flowers". Oft did I wish to count the colours in the beds, but could not; the number was past counting. Soon as the dewy rime is shaken from the leaves, and the varied foliage is warmed by the sunbeams, the Hours assemble, clad in dappled weeds, and cull my gifts in light baskets. Straightway the Graces draw near, and twine garlands and wreaths to bind their heavenly hair. I was the first to scatter new seeds among the countless peoples; till then the earth had been of but one colour.' (Frazer's trans., Loeb Library.) 41 See Wind, op. cit., pp. Io If. 42 See note 40 for Ovid's description of the Graces and Hours, both normally the companions of Venus, attendant on Flora. Virgil Solis's engraving of Spring (pl. 2) shows blind Cupid attending Flora, not Venus. For further documentation of the closeness of Venus and Flora, see J. Held, 'Flora, Goddess and Courtesan', De Artibus Opuscula XL: Essays in Honor of Erwin Panofsky, Princeton 1961, pp. 201-18.
SOURCES
OF BOTTICELLI'S
PRIMA VERA
261
with the first flowers of spring, grows into Venus, the goddess of April and the full ripeness of the season. And as Ovid was the basis for Botticelli's depiction of the relationship between Chloris and Flora, so Catullus, as Aleandro observed, defines Venus's relation to Chloris and Flora in his elegy on the lock of Berenice: 'For in this poem Venus. . . Chloris and Zephyritis [i.e., the bride of Zephyr] are synonymous; and if you interpret it any other way you will not capture the poet's meaning.'43 The sources for Venus's identification as the goddess of gardens are all concerned with rustic matters and with the festivals and seasons of the ancient farmer's calendar. The fullest description of Venus's nature in this role occurs in Columella's De re rustica,to which we may now return. It in imitation of appears in Columella's extraordinary tenth book, a Georgic The of of book is the care this subject gardens ('Hortorum quoque Virgil.44 te cultus, Silvine, docebo'),45 where Venus appears as the spirit of April:
Tuque tuis, Paphie, Paphien iam pange calendis; Dum cupit, et cupidae quaerit se iungere matri, Et mater facili mollissima subiacet arvo, Ingenera; nunc sunt genitalia tempora mundi: Nunc amor ad coitus properat, nunc spiritus orbis Bacchatur Veneri, stimulisque cupidinis actus Ipse suos adamat partus, et fetibus implet. Nunc pater aequoreus, nunc et regnator aquarum, Ille suam Tethyn, hic pellicit Amphitriten, Et iam caeruleo partus enixa marito Utraque nunc reserat pontumque natantibus implet. Maximus ipse deum posito iam fulmine fallax Acrisioneosveteres imitatur amores, Inque sinus matris violento defluit imbre. Nec genetrix nati nunc aspernaturamorem, Sed patitur nexus flammata cupidine tellus. Hinc maria, hinc montes, hinc totus denique mundus Ver agit: hinc hominum pecudum volucrumque cupido, Atque amor ignescit menti, saevitque medullis, Dum satiata Venus fecundos compleat artus, Et generet varias soboles, semperque frequentet Prole nova mundum, vacuo ne torpeat aevo.46
43This reading of Catullus's text almost certainly depends on Poliziano's emendations; see note 16. 44 Columella, De re rustica, x, Preface, 2, and lines 1-5. 45 Ibid., line i. 46 Ibid., lines 'On thy Calends, I92-214: Paphian Queen, plant the Paphian lettuce. While the plant desires its mother-earth's embrace, who longs for it, and she most soft beneath the yielding Earth lies waiting, grant her increase. Now's the time when all the world is mating, now when love to union hastes; the spirit of the world in Venus's revel joins and, headlong urged by Cupid's goads, itself its progeny embraces and with teeming offspring fills. The father of the sea his Tethys now allures, and now the lord of all the waves his Amphitrite; each anon displays to her caerulean lord a new-born breed, and fills the sea with swimmers. King of gods himself lays down his thunder and repeats, as once by craft with the Acrisian maid, his ancient loves and in impetuous rain descends into the lap of Mother Earth; nor does the mother her son's love refuse, but his embrace, inflamed by love, permits. Hence seas, hence hills, hence even the whole wide world is celebrating spring; hence comes desire to man and beast and bird, and
262
CHARLES DEMPSEY
Venus stands in the centre of the Primavera,attended by Cupid, the which goads living things to personification of the passionate force (cupiditas) follow her. He is blindfolded, with a flame-tipped arrow notched in his bow, a literal translation of Columella's line, 'atque amor ignescit menti.'47 It is he who causes the earth, 'flammata cupidine,' to receive Jupiter's embrace in the form of rain and put forth flowers. He is the procreative impulse of nature, with his arrows causing living things to follow in Venus's path. The sense of the figure is from these lines of Columella: 'Nunc amor ad coitus properat: nunc spiritus orbis Bacchatur Veneri, stimulisque cupidinis actus.' The abstract amorof the poem is translated into a literal, personified Amorin Botticelli's painting. Enough classical texts have now been introduced to allow us to pause for a moment and to remark upon their character and use in the picture. Immediately striking is the extraordinarily literary quality of the programme of the Primavera and, if I may say so, the almost classic purity of its sources. Catullus, Horace, Lucretius, the Fasti, Pliny's sections on the rustic calendar, the all are combined in a fashion which shows not only rerum rusticarum, Scriptores sources were good poetic taste, but also sound scholarship. The Primavera's not randomly chosen. They are in fact profoundly related and were brought together in a manner which betrays the penetrating judgement of a first-rate textual critic. Ovid's description in the Fasti of Venus as the goddess of April even Pliny's and the spring,48 Columella's description of Venushortorum, prosaic account of the beginnings of the agricultural year,49 all ring with the in the first book of the accents of Lucretius's invocation to VenusGenetrix
De rerumnatura:
Aeneadum genetrix,hominumdivomquevoluptas, alma Venus,caeli subterlabentiasigna

flames of love burn in the heart and in the marrow rage, till Venus, satiated, impregnates their fruitful members and a varied brood brings forth, and ever fills the world with new offspring, lest it grow tired with childless age.' (Forster's and Heffner's trans., Loeb Library.) It is noteworthy in this regard that Botticelli's Venus is quite likely pregnant. Because Vasari's description of the Primavera and Birth of Venus, which he clearly had not recently seen, is slightly confused does not mean that he was, as some have argued, indifferent to or unaware of their meaning. That he was not is assured by his painting of Marine Venus as the spirit of Acqua in the Palazzo Vecchio (see C. Dempsey, 'The Textual Sources of Poussin's "Marine Venus" in Philadelphia,' this Journal, XXIX, I966, pp. 438-42), which depends on this same passage from Columella for its representation of Neptune, Tethys, the Amphitrides, in fact of the sea filled with swimmers ('pontumque His second primary natantibus implet'). source is Claudian's Epithalamium de Nuptiis Honorii Augusti, 149-74. 4 From a linguistic point of view it is often very difficult to tell whether a Latin writer is thinking abstractly or in terms of personified beings; it does not seem likely that the Romans really did distinguish between the two in the way we do. In this respect, note in the appendix that Aleandro capitalizes 'Cupidinis' when quoting Columella. It has been pointed out before that Poliziano also uses the figure of Cupid with a flaming arrow in the Giostra (I. 40). Moschus, i, 27-9, refers to Cupid's armament 'dipped in fire'. Botticelli's Cupid, however, is directly inspired by Columella. 48 Ovid, Fasti, v. 99ff. 49 Pliny, Naturalis historia, xvi, 39: 'hoc maritantur vivescentia e terra . . . hic est Compare, e.g., genitalis spiritus mundi.' Columella, De re rustica, x, 195: 'Nunc sunt genitalia tempora mundi . . . nunc spiritus orbis bacchatur Veneri.'
SOURCES OF BOTTICELLI'S PRIMA VERA quae mare navigerum, quae terras frugiferentis concelabras, per te quoniam genus omne animantum concipitur visitque exortum lumina solis: te, dea, te fugiunt venti, te nubila caeli adventumque tuum, tibi suavis daedala tellus summittit flores, tibi rident aequora ponti placatumque nitet diffuso lumine caelum. nam simul ac species patefactast verna diei et reserata viget genitabilis aura favoni aeriae primum volucris te, diva, tuumque significant initum perculsae corda tua vi. inde ferae pecudes persultant pabula laeta et rapidos tranant amnis: ita capta lepore te sequitur cupide quo quamque inducere pergis. denique per maria ac montis fluviosque rapacis frondiferasque domos avium camposque virentis omnibus incutiens blandum per pectora amorem efficis ut cupide generatim saecla propagent. quae quoniam rerum naturam sola gubernas nec sine te quicquam dias in luminis oras exoritur necque fit laetum necque amabile quicquam, te sociam studeo scribendis versibus esse quos ego de rerum natura pangere conor Memmiadae nostro, quem tu, dea, tempore in omni omnibus ornatum voluisti excellere rebus.50 'Venus Genetrix, mother of Aeneas and his race, delight of men and gods, nurturing Venus, who beneath the smooth-moving heavenly signs fillest with thyself the sea fullladen with ships, the earth with her kindly fruits, since through thee every generation of living things is conceived and rising looks up on the light of the sun: from thee, O goddess, from thee the winds flee away, the clouds of heaven from thee and thy coming; for thee the wonder-working earth puts forth sweet flowers, for thee the wide stretches of ocean laugh, and heaven grown peaceful glows with outpoured light. For as soon as the vernal face of day is made manifest, and the breeze of the teeming west wind [Favonius] blows fresh and free, thee first the fowls of the air proclaim, thee divine one, and thy advent, pierced to the heart by thy might: next the herds go wild and dance over the rich pastures and swim across rapid rivers, so passionately does each one follow thee, held captive by thy charm, whither thou goest on to lead them. Aye, throughout seas and mountains and sweeping torrents and the leafy dwellings of birds and verdant plains striking soft love into the breasts of all
[compare Columella, De re rustica, x,
209ff.],
263
50 Lucretius,
De rerum natura, i,
1-27:
creatures, thou dost cause them passionately to beget their generations after their kind. Since therefore thou dost alone govern the nature of things, since without thee nothing comes forth into the shining borders of light, nothing joyous and lovely is made, thee I crave as partner in writing the verses, which I essay to fashion touching the Nature of Things, for my good Memmius, whom thou, goddess, hast willed at all times to excel, endowed with all gifts.' (Rouse's trans., with one or two word changes, Loeb Library.) Lines 28-43 go on to describe Mars in Venus's embrace, and are the source for Botticelli's Mars and Venusand Virgil Solis's representation of Mars and Venus in his
engraving of Spring (pl. 2).
as we have seen, incorporates Mercury from the rustic calendar as the god of May, thereby showing that Virgil Solis interpreted Lucretius's Venus Genetrix as the ancient Roman goddess for whom Romulus named the second month of his calendar. This accords with Lambinus, part of whose commentary on Lucretius is quoted in note 22. It is noteworthy that Columella's text not only depends on Lucretius from a literary point of view, but also is associated with it historically; both Columella and
This engraving,
264
CHARLESDEMPSEY
hortorum It is these lines to which Botticelli's other sources are comment; Venus the moving spirit of nature, the mother of is identical with VenusGenetrix, Rome, founder of the ancient Latin peoples. The third month of the rustic calendar, as we have seen, was given to is devoted to the growth of Mercury. And as the right half of the Primavera of its the first to full from ripeness in Venus and April, so gust Zephyr spring the left half, towards which Venus gestures with her right hand and a graceful nod of her head, representsthe maturity of the season, from April to its end in May. Mercury's back is turned to the rest not because he is disdainful of them but because his month belongs equally to spring and to the summer, towards which he faces.51 As Aleandro reminded us, the Ides of May was sacred to Mercury, a day which stands on the threshold of the new season. Moreover, Mercury is represented as the wind god which Aleandro characterized. He is shown dispelling the last wisps of cloud from the sky with his caduceus, an action which underscores his closeness to Zephyr ('ver aperit navigantibus maria, cuius in principio Favonii hibernum molliunt coelum')52 and to In this role Mercury Venus ('te, dea, te fugiunt venti, te nubila caeli'). initiated movement the by Zephyr's impetuous entrance. In a relacompletes Chloris's to similar growth into Flora and into Venus, so Mercury tionship and Zephyr are complements, bracketing the picture and the season, the single breath which has brought the earth its life. Mercury and Venus are connected by the three Graces standing between them, their hands locked together as they dance a stately and endless round. not only as the It is well established that the Graces appear in the Primavera of as the followers but also of Mercury.54 But there is companions Venus, more to their function in the painting than this. They are dressed in thin gowns and they are dancing, both very unusual in normal representations of the Graces.55 These very features are, however, characteristic of the Hours, who moreover are very often confused with the Graces. In antiquity Venus was commonly described as attended not only by the Graces but also by the Hours.56 Both are companions of the spring; Ovid, for example, represents both the Graces and the Hours in attendance on Flora.57 Homer says that the Hours guard the gates of heaven, and in this both Ovid and Philostratus follow him.58 But more than this, as representatives of the seasons, they
Lucretius were discovered at the same time by Poggio. To the 15th-century scholar the two texts were inextricably bound. Columella was first published in 1472, together with Cato and Varro, in a volume entitled Scriptoresrerumrusticarum. 51 Ovid, Fasti, v, 599-602. 52 Pliny, Naturalis historiae, ii, 47. 53 Lucretius, De rerumnatura, i, 6. 54 Panofsky, op. cit., p. 193, note 6. 5 Panofsky, loc. cit. This statement applies to visual representations of the Graces; as I have indicated, the left half of the Primavera is based on Horace, Odes, i, 30, where the Graces are described as Botticelli painted them, 'solutis Gratiae zonis'. 56 For Renaissance interpretations of the Graces and Hours, see L. G. Giraldi's chapter on the Graces in the Historiae deorumgentilium (idem, Opera omnia, Lyons 1696, col. 417ff.), much of which is picked up in Cartari, Imagini delli dei degl'antichi, Venice 1647 (Ist ed., Lyons 1556), pp. 286-90. The functions of the two very frequently overlap, and the Hours and Graces often appear even with the same names. 57 Ovid, Fasti, v, 217f., quoted above, note 40. 58 Homer, Iliad, v, 749.
265
descend to earth and preside over the abiding principle of fertility in nature; it is in this guise that Botticelli has shown his Graces, following Philostratus: That the gates of heaven are in charge of the Horae we may leave to the special knowledge and prerogative of Homer, for very likely he became an intimate of the Horae when he inherited the skies; but the subject that is here treated in the painting is easy for a man to understand. For the Horae, coming to earth in their own proper forms, with clasped hands are dancing the year through its course, I think, and the Earth in her wisdom brings forth for them all the fruits of the year. 'Tread not on the hyacinth, or the rose,' I shall not say to the Horae of the spring-time; for when trodden on they seem sweeter and exhale a sweeter fragrance than the Horae themselves. 'Walk not on the ploughed fields when soft,' I shall not say to the Horae of the winter-time; for if they are trodden on by the Horae they will produce the ear of grain. And the golden-haired Horae yonder are walking on the spikes of the ears, but not so as to break or bend them; nay, they are so light that they do not even sway the stalks. It is charming of you, O grape-vines, that ye try to lay hold of the Horae of the autumn-tide; for you doubtless love the Horae because they make you so fair and wine-sweet. Now these are our harvestings, so to speak, from the painting; but as for the Horae themselves, they are very charming and of marvellous art. How they sing, and how they whirl in the dance! Note too the fact that the back of none of them is turned to us, because they all seem to come towards us; and note the raised arm, the freedom of flying hair, the cheek warm from the running, and the eyes that join in the dance. Perhaps they permit us to weave a tale about the painter; for it seems to me that he, falling in with the Horae as they danced, was caught up by them into their dance, the goddesses perhaps thus intimating that grace [hora] must attend his painting.59 Botticelli's dancing Graces correspond exactly with Philostratus's description of the Horae,with the single exception that one of the Graces has her back turned toward us, a change which only underscores Philostratus'spun on the word cbpa.60 Botticelli has really represented the Horaeof spring in the guise
59Philostratus, Imagines, ii, 34. (Fairbanks's trans., Loeb Library.) 60 The word as used here by Philo,p(4 stratus denotes a quality of stylistic beauty, or grace, characterized by youthful vigour. The word appears relatively rarely in this sense; its most famous occurrence is as a personification in the opening line of Pindar's eighth Nemean ode: 'Opc n6TVtL. This is perhaps best translated as 'Queen of Youthful Beauty', and she is described by Pindar as the 'harbinger of the divine desires of Aphrodite'. She appears again in Horace, Odes, i, 30, the ode which we have seen was the basis for the left half of the Primavera: 'et parum comis sine te luventas.' Why did Botticelli omit
18
luventas?
luventas when he painted the Primavera? No doubt because her function was subsumed into this word Hora. But how can we suppose that Botticelli's advisor used Pindar and Philostratus as glosses on Horace's use of
Here is part of the passage from
Auricomae, jubare exorto, de nubibus adsunt Horae, quae coeli portas atque atria servant It Venus, et Venerem parvi comitantur Amores: Floraque lascivo parat oscula grata marito: In mediis, resoluta comas nudata papillas, Ludit et alterno terram pede Gratiapulsat.
Poliziano's Rusticus,already quoted:
poetic effect, and in meaning very close to Pindar's 'Hora potnia'. Mark the closeness of
That use of Grace, singular, is a marvellous
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CHARLESDEMPSEY
of the Graces, descended from heaven to lend a grace to the garden newly bedecked with flowers. A similar idea is expressed in the passage we have already quoted from Poliziano's Rusticusof 1483, which appeared five years was painted and which is so clearly familiar with its after the Primavera describes the Hours in the company of Venus, Flora and Poliziano imagery. midst dances their while in (not the Charites, but) Grace.61 Zephyr, The season moves to its close in May and Mercury, in whose steps the Graces follow, their dance sweetening spring's maturity. As the Hours of springtime they too endow the season with its fruitfulness. And a touch of sadness too, for the round of their dance, like the round of the year, underscores the transience of spring. With clasped hands they follow Mercury into summer. Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco'sfarming villa at Castello also housed Botticelli's Birthof Venus (P1. 72d). Because of this, and because of the closeness of its subthe two paintings have been associated from that of the Primavera, to matter ject the time of Vasari. But it does not follow from this that the two pictures were necessarily pendants.62 In fact the evidence argues that they were not. They is is painted on wood; the Birth of Venus are not the same size. The Primavera surface is in to the of relation The scale linen. on painted figures painted different. They cannot have been painted at the same time. The Birth of Venusis later stylistically, and is normally dated to 1485-6. The Primavera is an dates to about 1478. This is enough in itself to assure that the Primavera conmust be Primavera that the The argument independent conception.63 sidered one of a pair because the rhythms of the painting and the succession of its figures moves from right to left is not conclusive. The circle of the Zodiac, whose turning was thought to control the ebb and flow of the changing
Poliziano's imagery in this passage to that of the Primavera. I think he must have had the painting in mind (or perhaps, as Warburg suggested, his own programme for it) when he wrote these lines. Confirmation that Poliziano, at least, understood the word 'hora' in this sense is remarkably illustrated by two lines from his elegy, 'In violas': hoc flore amrnbrosios incingiturHora capillos, hoc tegit indocilesGratiablandasinus. Here, as in the Rusticus, Hora and Gratia are juxtaposed, and what is interesting here is that Hora is in the singular. This is to say that Poliziano is making reference not only to the meaning of the word as 'Hour', but is also referring to the rustic Roman goddess (the deified wife of Romulus), Hora Quirini. Hora Quirini is the ancient Roman goddess of Youth. All three concepts, Gratia, Hora, and Iuventas are brought together in Botticelli's dancing Graces. 61 See notes 32 and 6o. 62 The Neoplatonic interpretation of the Primavera and Birth of Venus depends heavily on the assumption that the paintings are pendants representing Heavenly Venus and Earthly Venus. Panofsky, op. cit., p. I92, although arguing a Neoplatonic interpretation of the pictures, clearly outlines the dangers of overreliance on this assumption. 63 For the preceding data, see Horne, op. cit., pp. 5off. and pp. 148ff. More recently, see R. Salvini, All the Paintings of Botticelli, New York I965, ii, pp. 63-5, and iii, pp. I28-9, with very judicious summaries of the The possibility remains that, paintings. although the Primavera was independently conceived, the Birth of Venuswas later painted to expand upon its idea; it seems highly unlikely that the Primaverawas conceived with a pendant in mind. It is noteworthy that the later picture, painted on linen and not on wood, is a much less expensive production. It is possible that the Primaverawas conceived as the first of a series representing the four seasons of the year, a project perhaps abandoned because of its costliness.
267
seasons, moves counter to the rotation of the earth. In schematic form, the seasons actually do move 'backwards', marching from right to left across the dome of the heavens.64 In my view the Birth of Venus was not intended as a pendant to the Primavera; it is rather an independent expression, a refinement, of the same idea. In this painting Venus again appears as a goddess of the spring, but conceived in more general terms. She is not linked with the rustic calendar, but is instead represented as the controlling principle of the rebirth of life. To phrase it another way, Columella's Venus hortorum has put aside her rustic weeds to Genetrix of Lucretius. emerge in her pure form as the Venus The subject of the Birth of Venus is made up of the same trinity, ChlorisFlora-Venus, which appears in the right half of the Primavera.Zephyr rushes in at the left, his cheeks distended with effort as he blows a warming gust of air onto Venus. No more graphic illustration of the essential relationship of Chloris and Venus could be desired, for here it is Zephyr's fertilizing breath directed toward Venus which produces the roses which, from the point of view of mythological exactitude, in fact emanated from Chloris. The rudely dressed female figure in Zephyr's arms must be identified as Chloris. She has usually been considered to be a second wind-god accompanying Zephyr, but neither her sex, her attributes, nor her actions support this identification. She is not blowing, nor does she have wings. The wings which can be seen behind her back cannot possibly be attached to her shoulders; in order to maintain her grasp on Zephyr (for she is not flying, but being carried by him) she has turned her shoulder down and well forward of the wing behind. Moreover, the rough green tunic thrown over her shoulder, appropriate garb for Chloris, a plain nymph of the earth made newly green at the advent of the west wind, is fastened in such a way as to leave no place for a wing to attach. Zephyr is in fact the possessorof a mighty pair of double wings, which propel him toward Venus. It is his newly captured bride, Chloris, whom he holds in his arms.65 The figure who stands on the shore at the right has usually been identified as one of the Hours, on the basis of Warburg's association of the theme of the painting with the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite.66 Yet the flowered pattern
My thanks to Charles Minott for pointing this out to me. See the illustrations of the months in the Tres Riches Heures and in the Palazzo Schifanoia in Ferrara. In both examples the months themselves advance 'normally', which is to say from left to right, while the signs of the Zodiac move counter to them, 'backwards' from right to left. Since Botticelli did not represent the months together with their Zodiacal signs, he instead indicated their astronomical succession by making their personifications appear in reverse order. The same is true of Dosso Dossi's Jupiter and Mercuryin Vienna, which I am convinced is also a seasonal picture, also based in Columella. The dying spring appears at the right of the painting,
64
representedby Flora (not Honour); Mercury, Jupiter, as June, paints butterflies on a canvas. This point of view will be argued at
some future date. 65 Chloris's green mantle or May, is in the centre; and at the left
brings greenness to the earth. In the Primamaking Zephyr himself green-something perhaps inspired by the pun in Horace,
the effect of Zephyr's first advent, which
here indicates
vera this is indicated in another way, by Odes,i, 23:
nam seu mobilibus veris inhorruit adventus foliis seu virides rubum dimovere lacertae, et corde et genibus tremit.
66 The Homeric
Hymns,vi.
268
CHARLES DEMPSEY
of her dress, although slightly less elaborate, reminds us at once of Flora's dress in the Primavera.Her belt, a twining briar of roses, is identical, and around her neck she wears a wreath of myrtle, Venus's plant, which corresponds to the similar wreath worn by Flora in the earlier painting. There can be no substantial objection to her identification with Flora, second member of the vernal triad which is fulfilled in Venus. She stands on the shore of Cyprus, Venus's island, and prepares to place a cloak richly patterned with flowers over the nude goddess. The flowers which decorate this mantle are in full bloom, in pointed contrast to those on her own dress, which are newly budded. The three-fold development of the season is at the moment of its completion. Chloris, nymph of the bare earth newly green, lies in her husband's arms; Flora, goddess of the earth freshly mantled with flowers, Chloris transformed, stands on the shore opposite; and Venus, whose spirit presides over April and the full spring, prepares to step on shore and receive the mantle of the earth now fully cloaked in flowers. is not really an accurate As Warburg recognized, the title Birth of Venus of Botticelli's content of the painting. To call it the Adventof description would be more precise, since this title does not tempt us to associate the Venus picture with a specific event in mythological narrative. Moreover, implicit in this title is the monthly and planetary nature of Venus, whose representation in this painting must be considered a purely Lucretian refinement of the Columellan Venus of the Primavera.And in one respect, that she is shown as she is really a more orthodox representation of Venus VenusAnadyomene, Genetrixthan was Botticelli's earlier Venus, whose archaic appearance is accountable for by her specific attachment to the rustic calendar.67 Albricus, 'Venus quintum tenet to cite one example, describes her as the Anadyomene: inter planetas locum: propter quod quinto loco figurabatur. Pingebatur Venus pulcherrima, nuda, & in mari natans.'68 It is thus no wonder that Botticelli's second Venus set the definitive standard for Renaissance representations of Venus from Vasari to Poussin and beyond, while the Primavera remained virtually unfollowed in its idea.69 Who was the author of the programme of the Primavera? Warburg's onethe was been never has which surely right challenged, seriously answer, the remarked have We Poliziano. scholarly judgement already upon Angelo and literary taste which brought together and blended the sources behind the
67 Botticelli's representations of Venus and Flora in the Primavera are conceivably inspired by antique prototypes he would have considered appropriately rustic or archaic in style. See, for example, H. Sichtermann, Griechische Vasen in Unteritalien aus der Sammlung Jatta in Ruvo, Tilbingen 1966, passim. 68 Albricus, De deorumimaginibus libellus, v. See also Marion Lawrence, 'The Birth of Venus in Roman Art', Essays in the History of Art Presented to Rudolf Wittkower, London 1967, pp. io-i6. 69 Poussin's Realm of Flora in Dresden is the only painting I know of whose language and meaning approach that of the Primavera. I do not think it is wrong here to see in the figure of Flora, who presides over the garden, something of Venus as well. She is dancing beneath a figure of Apollo driving the chariot of the sun through the signs of the Zodiac, a representation irresistibly reminiscent of Lucretius's description of Venus, the spirit of the spring, moving 'caeli subter labentia signa'.
269
Primavera's conception. Poliziano's mind possessed both virtues in eminent I not here repeat Warburg's masterful analysis of the similarity need degree. of Poliziano's poetic imagery and sources to those exploited in Botticelli's painting. I would only remind the reader of certain salient features of Poliziano's career: of his celebrated series of lectures on Lucretius; of his precocious mastery of the poetry of Catullus; of the fact that he was one of the few scholars of his age whose knowledge of Greek was sufficient to the mastery of Philostratusand to the emendation of Catullus's translation of Callimachus's elegy on the lock of Berenice.70 But the real burden of my argument that Poliziano constructed the literary framework of the Primaveralies in the preceding pages.71 The same mind is present both in his poetry and in Botticelli's painting. If, however, we look for a poem in the corpus of Poliziano's work which exactly duplicates the imagery of the Primavera we shall look in vain. The Primavera is itself that poem.72
APPENDIX
totius mundigaudia conCapella lib. I. de Nupt. Philolog. iis verbis. Tunc veroconspiceres venire: nam & tellus Verisdeum subvolare &c. Mercurium, quippe conspexerat floribusluminata,
Deum Verni temporis fuisse creditum Mercurium, aperte insinuat Martianus
Remigius Monachus, de quo superiusverba fecimus, ad hunc Martiani locum ita notat: seminibus & ipseestdictus Favonius: unde hanc sibi maris,& terrae, quod& ipseferturpraeesse erueritsententiam, haud sane scio: videor tamen quaedam subodorariposse argumenta, quae in medium proferam. Zephyrus, seu Favonius (ut & alii venti) non minus quam Mercurius, alatus volitansque fingitur a poetis: at notandum praecipue quod de utriusque alis refertur: nam quum Mercurio (ut cum Apulejo loquar) supertempora pares pinnulaeemineant,Zephyro itidem alata finxerunt tempora: siquidem ipsum
Philostratus lib.
i.
xpooa xd & venusta forma: quae postrema cum Mercurii quoque specie conveniunt, qui apud Lucianum in dialogo Mercur. & Panos, formositatemjactat, & ei ab Apulejo facies decora, & succiplena tribuitur: unde Galenus in Suasoria,formosum passim affingi solitum, tradit: id autem Mercurio fortasse tributum proptervernalem faciem
Iconum appingit
atu 7
PvP
e a op tc
?a,
alatis temporibus,
curium fabulati sunt, Atlantis esse nepotem, qui mons est Mauritaniae ad occidentalem plagam situs: ideoque Virgilius de Mercurio Aeneam adeunte ita loquitur IV. Aen.
Materno veniensab avo Cylleniaproles.
70 See J. E. Sandys, A Historyof Classical Scholarship,Cambridge 1908, ii, pp. 83ff., where Poliziano's particular interest in the textual criticism of Lucretius, Ovid, Ausonius, rerum rusticarum are Catullus, and the Scriptores noted. That is, the texts which are the foundation of the Primavera'sprogramme, whose conception and handling of related classical sources reveals the mind of a textual critic of the first rank. See also R. Sabbadini, Le scoperte dei codiciLatinie Grecine'secoli XIV e
terrae, quae ceterisformosior, ut verbis utar D. Augustini, VII. de Civit. cap. XXV. Quoniam vero Zephyrus flat ab occasuaequinoctialiver inchoans,ut inquit Plinius, Mer-
recently, Ida Maier, Les manuscrits d'Ange Politien, Geneva 1965, and idem, Ange Politien, La formation d'un poete humaniste, Geneva 1966.
71 72
A. Perosa ed., Florence
ana: Manoscritti, libri rari, autografi e documenti,

1954; and most
Michels, Russell T. Scott, and in particular Charles Mitchell for their cheerful criticism and wise counsel; and special acknowledgement is due Miss Wendy Wassyng, who XV, Florence 1905, p. 151ff.; Instituto Nazionale di Studi sul Rinascimento, Mostra asked a bright question. del Poliziano nella BibliotecaMediceaLaurenzi-
I wish to thank ProfessorsAgnes K. L.
See in particular notes 16, 32, and 6o.
270
CHARLES DEMPSEY
haud enim mihi dubium, quin ad hanc de Mercurio, Zephyroque opinionem alludat: nam & Jovem ita Mercurio loquentem inducit: Vade age nate, voca zephyros, & laberepennis. aptissimis hic poeta & significantibus uti solet vocibus, seque peritissimum veteris theologiae ostendit, quod pluribus locis aperit Servius: temere Statius Mercurio dat Notos: id enim tantum curae est minorum gentium poetis, ut ea usurpent, quae carmini, quoquomodo quadrent; dumque auribus blandiantur, nihil ulterius pensi habent: secus vatum princeps, qui penitiores satagit inserere sensus doctioribus perscrutandos: ac sane fabulosa illa Mercurii legatione, admonitum significare voluit Aeneam temporis ad navigandum idonei. Jupiter enim Aeneae curam gerens aer esse videtur abscessu hiemis mitior redditus: ipse Mercurius Favonius est Veris pater, ut Claudiano dicitur. Etenim ver, teste Plinio lib. II. cap. XIII. aperit navigantibusmaria, cujus in principio a Satyro cognominatur Zephyrus, de quo molliuntcoelum: & wxo-r6xoq Favonii hybernum vide quaedam epigrammata primo Anthologias. Placet etiam quibusdam, Plejadas an7rTo 7rxco appellatas, quod suo exortu navigandi tempus ingerant: at Mercurium Maja ferunt genitum una ex Plejadibus. Ipsum quinetiam mercaturae deum statuerunt, quod mercatura quam maxime navigatione juvetur. Natalem navigationisappellat Vegetius V. de re milit. diem sextum Iduum Martiarum, licet periculose adhuc maria tentari dicat usque in Idus Majas: ideo Majis Idibus (verba sunt Pauli ex Sexto Pompejo) diesfestus erat, quodeo die Mercurii aedes esset dedicata:qua de re Livius lib. II. mercatorum natum eadem luce Mercurium prodit Martialis eo versiculo ex lib. XII. quin Majae Mercuriumcreastisidus. nisi ad eandem templi dedicationem alludat, quasi tunc natus Romae dici queat, quum ejus aedes dedicata est: quo sensu Natale Salutis nominasse Tullius videtur IV. Epist. ad Atticum, ut & ab aliis observatum. At profecto vernum illum mensem a Maja Mercurii parente nuncupatum, quidam suspicati sunt, quod Censorinus, Festus Pompejus, & Ovidius testantur: sed & vetus poeta: Mensis Atlantigenaedictus cognomine Majae. alius item: Majus Atlantiadosgnata dignatushonore. Porro fabula de Mercurii cum Venere congressu, ex quo procreatus Cupido, ut Tullio placet III. de natur. deor. aut Hermaphroditus, ut Ovidius, aliique dixere, aptissime vernum tempus designat. Cupido siquidem cupiditatem illam innuit, qua ob benignum verni aeris teporem ad Venerem omnia excitantur, procreationique inhiant: de qua Lucretius Venerem alloquens: Nam simul ac speciespatefacta est vernadiei, Et reserataviget genitabilis aura Favoni, Aeriaeprimum volucreste, Diva, tuumque Significantinitumperculsaecordatua vi. & apertius Columella de Cultu hort. nuncsunt mundi, tempora . . . amorad genitalia nunc coitus spiritus orbis properat: Nunc Bacchatur Veneri,stimulisqueCupidinisastus Ipse suas adamatpartes, & foetibus implet.
& mox:
SOURCES OF BOTTICELLI'S PRIMA VERA Hinc maria, hinc montes,hinc totus deniquemundus Ver agit hinc hominum, cupido, pecudum,volucrumque Atque amor ignescit menti, saevitquemedullis, Dum satiata Venus foecundoscompleatartus Et generetvarias soboles,semperque frequentet Prole nova mundum,vacuone torpeataevo.
271
Nec silentio praetereundum, quod Plutarchus in amatorioex nescio cujus sententia Amorem Favonii filium facit. Per Hermaphroditum vero non inepte herbas intelligemus, quae verno tempore in lucem erumpunt: nam quemadmodum Hermaphrodito ambiguum sexum tribuerunt, ita plantis vim inesse tam maris quam foeminae testatur Porphyrius apud Euseb. de Praep. Evang. sic enim de Baccho loquitur plantarum 4opcpo, V60V u'v&VocLLV, -n~v 7rEP. t-r?V evyevawvT(JLv 0iXP08P~wv ppeV6Oi?UV 8e' praeside: ga'tr& muliebriformisest, promiscuamindicans virtutemgenerationisplantarum. Phurnutus quoque Bacchum 06-xopcpov effingi solitum scribit, & in Bacchico triumpho, quod praese fert vetus marmor in aedibus Hasdrubalis Matthaeii, Bacchus ipse curru vehitur vultu, & cultu muliebri. Aristides quoque Orat. in Bacchum, utroque sexu praeditum affirmat. o ' &po & ppyv re xOt COXuqe 6 Ok c ac lv propterea & masculus est, & foemina At is deus, utix?1 ajunt. quod Mercurium Favonium esse ostendimus, quis nos vetat, & illam ipsam herbarum ac florum deam putare, quae Graecis ei Venerem copulatam Chloris a viriditate, Latinis Flora dicta est a floribus, de qua Ovidius IV. Fastorum? addictus enim tam Florae, quam Veneri mensis Aprilis, quem Majus statim sequitur Mercurio dicatus, ut ait Plutarchus in Numa. Quapropter Venerem hortorum esse deam, docent nos Varro initio lib. de re rust. & V. de ling. Lat. necnon Plinius lib. XIX. cap. IV. ac sane apud Catullum in elegia de Coma Berenices ipsa Venus Chloris dicitur: sunt enim synonyma in eo poematio Venus, Arsinoe, Chloris, Zephyritis: neque, si aliter interpreteris, poetae mentem capias. Veneri dicata fuit Berenices coma, quae quum postridie in aede non reperiretur, ubi posita fuerat, in coelum esse translatam fabulatus est Conon: fingit vero Catullus, seu potius Callimachus, suum a Venere equum ea in re ministrum adhibitum: is equus non est Pegasus, ut docti viri credidere, sed Luciferi equus, quae Veneris stella est; de quo Venus ipsa apud Claudianum II. de raptuProserp.ita loquens inducitur: Dum meushumectatflaventes Lucifer agros Rorantiprovectusequo .... meminit etiam Ovidius II. Tristium: Hos utinam nitidi Solis praenuntiusortus Aferat admissoLucifer albus equo. nec non secundo Amorum,eleg. XI. Haec mihi quamprimum coelo nitidissimusalto Lucifer admissotempora portet equo. . . . quumque albo Lucifer exit Clarus equo.
Et XV. Metamorph.
Martianus Capella lib. II. an Solis remigia vigilarent, sonipesquePhosphori comeretur. Nam quum Berenicaea coma inter astra foret recipienda, docte Callimachus de Venere agit, tanquam de stella: porro singulares equi stellis tribuebantur. Lactantius, seu Luctatius Statii interpres ad VI. Theb. Quadrigasdant Soli, bigas Lunae, equossingulos sideribus. Nec absurde alatus a Callimacho fingitur is equus ad notandam ejus stellae celeritatem: nominatur vero, Memnonis unigena, tanquam ab Aurora profectus, quia
272
CHARLES DEMPSEY
nimirum matutinum sidus censetur Lucifer. Vocatur is equus a Claudiano Aethon, & Auroraenuntiusdicitur, Paneg. in IV. Hon. Cons. Quinetiamvelox AuroraenuntiusAethon, domatur Quifugat hinnitustellas, roseoque Lucifero, quotiesequitemte cernitab astris Invidet, inque tuis mavultspumarelupatis. ac ne qua supersit dubitatio, eundem esse cum Aurorae equo, colligere licet ex iis Servii verbis ad XI. Aen. Aethonnomenequi, quo etiam Auroraeequusvocatur,Aethonisvero vocabulum ab ardendo derivatum est: idemque nomen dat Ovidius uni ex Solaribus equis, & ipsemet Claudianus uni ex quadriga Plutonis, ac praeterea uni ex Amoribus, qui Veneri famulantur: ut omittam Hectoris equum apud Homerum, & Pallantis apud Virgilium. Venus itaque eadem, quae Lucifer, & quae Chloris, seu Flora herbarum florumque dea. Quocirca ad locum illum Ausonii, seu quisquis auctor fuit Elegiae de Rosis, quae etiam Virgilio attribuitur, ad eum inquam locum: Sideris, & floris nam dominauna Venus: quemadmodum & mox: Communis Paphiae dea sideris, & deafloris, recte Pomponius Sabinus: Venusquae mane Lucifer. Flora & Venusidem sunt: ut merito de Venere pronunciarit Pelignus poeta IV. Fastorum: Illa satis causas, arboribusque dedit. vis enim seminalis stirpium videtur esse; unde eleganter in Pervigilio Veneris: spiritu Ipsa venas, atque mentem permeante Intus occultisgubernat procreatrixviribus, Perquecoelum,perqueterras,perquepontumsubditum seminali tramite Perviumsui tenorem Imbuit. ac profecto eadem credita est, quae natura omnium parens. Artemidorus lib. II xcx rv "Xov vv6o'paTm: bona est & agricolis, x4 Moe yop &r~vOC Tjp cpaL ,cyeopyot. Mercurio universorum esse creditur: & mater natura enim copulatur, quem jure igitur praeesse seminibus maris & terrae dixit Remigius. At vero quemadmodum Mercurium, ut docuimus, venerabantur mercatores tanquam navigationis praesidem, ita rustici eodem mense Majo sacrum ipsi faciebant, veluti satis omnibus vitam ferenti, non soli tamen, sed conjunctim cum Flora: quapropter legimus in antiquo Kalendario Rustico: SACRUM. MERCUR. ET. FLORAE. atque hinc etiam arguere licet, Mercurium eundem esse cum Zephyro. Floram vero cum Venere confundi, quid attinet toties inculcare? dicendum potius, ex utriusque conjunctione ver excitari, flores oriri. Itaque in Pervigilio Veneris: papillas de Favoni spiritu Ipsa turgentes Urget in torospatentes ... hoc est, florum utriculos (ut alicubi nominat Plinius) in latos calices aperit. At Lucretius libro quinto ita poetice ludit: It Ver, & Venus, & Veneris praenuntiusante PennatusgraditurZephyrusvestigiapropter: ante viai Flora quibusmaterpraespargens Cunctacoloribusegregiis, & odoribusimplet.
273
nam quod Floram a Venere videtur quodammodo separare, poetarum morem sequitur, quibus deorum conducit multitudo ad fabulas confingendas. Quod vero Zephyrum facit nuntium Veneris, id quorundam opinionem fulcit ajentium, ventos deorum esse internuntios ex loco Virgiliano Ecloga III. Partem aliquam venti divumreferatisad auras. quod sententiam firmat de Mercurio deorum nuntio, quem Zephyrum diximus esse creditum. Id vero in memoriam revocat locum illum in Psal. CIII. Quifacis angelos tuos spiritus, quo Hebraei expositores, teste Genebrardo, post R. Salomonem intelligi ajunt Deum ventorum uti ministerio tanquam nuntiorum: quem sensum & Jansenius ingerit. Caeterum nolim quisquam labatur putans, Chlorida ventum esse Japyga ex veteri Glossario, in quo scriptum, Clores, Lcun deceptus emendatione Jo. &'veLoq Meursii in Exercitation.Criticis, & Bon. Vulcanii in notis ad Glossar.qui reponunt Chloris: licet id blandiretur fabulae de Zephyri & Chloridos conjunctione; nam occidentalis quoque ventus est Japyx: siquidem in Glossario legendum Corus,vel Caurus,qui ventus idem est cum Japyge, ut disserit Phavorinus apud A. Gellium lib. II. cap. XXII. Quod vero ex Labeonis, aliorumque sententia tradit Macrobius, Majam Mercurii matrem creditam esse terram, id etiam pertinere huc potest; palam enim est, oriri ventos ex terreno halitu: ideo ventorum parentes a Philochoro apud Suidam nominantur Tellus, & Sol; ab aliis caelum, & terram. Munus quoque Mercurii fuisse, legimus apud Lucianum, Jovis palatium verrendi: id quod & Zephyri opus indicat, qui abacta hieme vernam inducens serenitatem detergit nubila caelo, ut de albo Noto alicubi ait Horatius: coelum enim, hoc est, aer, Jovis est domus, & verrere apud Lucretium, Maronem, Lucanum, aliosque passim venti dicuntur. Quod autem ait Plinius lib. XVIII. cap. XXXIV. Favonium in plantas afflatu nutricium exercere, id adumbrari a poetis, aliisque fabulatoribus videtur, dum ajunt, Mercurium Bacchi fuisse nutricium: unde & cujusdam Mercurii statuae meminit idem Plinius lib. XXXIV. cap. VIII.... Here Aleandro moves to matters beyond our present concern. It should be pointed out that the texts Aleandro chooses to support his argument are, in contrast to the rest of his treatise, remarkably pure and homogeneous as a group; by and large they fall outside the body of texts generally relied upon by syncretistic scholars of the seventeenth century. In this regard I cannot refrain from quoting one of Aleandro's own poems, entitled De aqua rosacea,from his CarminaAnacreontica (published by L. Pdlissier, 'Les amis d'Holstenius,' Milanges d'archiologie et d'histoire, viii, 1888, p. 589): Quum spiritus Favoni Ver suscitat decorum, Passimque prata gaudent Florae explicare gazas, Neaera Gratiaeque Currunt repente in hortos Rosaque colligentes Capacibus canistris . . . And so on. The imagery would not have been unfamiliar to Botticelli.

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Mercurius Ver: The Sources of Botticelli's Primavera Author(s): Charles Dempsey Source: Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld

MERCURIUS VER: THE SOURCES OF BOTTICELLI'S PRIMA VERA

b-Solis effigies. From Aleandro, Antiqua Tabula Marmorea (p. 251)

a-Virgil Solis, Spring(p. 255)

Primavera. Florence, Uffizi (p. 254)

iiiii~i!!!ii i lNow.i !i!ii~iiiiii~ii~iiiiiii~ iiii~~iiiiiiiliii!!~i~ ii~ ~iiii~i~ i !!i~i~ iIL iiii~ii!iiii!i!!!!i!!!

Florence, Uffizi (p. 266) 4-Botticelli, Birth of Venus.

Columella, De re rustica, x, 196-9. Aleandro is thinking of Catullus lxvi.

abiunctaepaulo ante comae mea fata sorores

isque per aetherias me tollens avolat umbras

unigenaimpellensnutantibusaera pennis obtulit ArsinoesLocridosales equus,

per nostro vso ...

SOURCES OF BOTTICELLI'S PRIMA VERA

SOURCES OF BOTTICELLI'S PRIMAVERA

Horae,quae coeli portasatque atriaservant, QuasJove plena Themisnitidopulcherrima partu

Solvitur acris hiems grata vice veris et Favoni,

iam Cytherea choros ducit Venus imminente luna,

The community of reference shared by Poliziano's Rusticus,its sources,

35See below, note 36 Columella, De 59-. re rustica, x,

SOURCES OF BOTTICELLI'S PRIMAVERA

sed generummatrirepperitilla deum. ver erat, errabam:Zephyrus conspexit,abibam.

vim tamenemendatdandomihi nominanuptae, inque meo non est ulla querellatoro.

nec potui: numerocopia maiorerat. roscidacum primumfoliisexcussapruinaest, conveniunt pictisincinctaevestibusHorae

inque leves calathos munera nostra legunt.

Aeneadum genetrix,hominumdivomquevoluptas, alma Venus,caeli subterlabentiasigna

SOURCES OF BOTTICELLI'S PRIMA VERA

Poliziano's Rusticus,already quoted:

That use of Grace, singular, is a marvellous

SOURCES OF BOTTICELLI'S PRIMA VERA

the effect of Zephyr's first advent, which

vera this is indicated in another way, by Odes,i, 23:

SOURCES OF BOTTICELLI'S PRIMA VERA

Deum Verni temporis fuisse creditum Mercurium, aperte insinuat Martianus

A. Perosa ed., Florence

ana: Manoscritti, libri rari, autografi e documenti,

I wish to thank ProfessorsAgnes K. L.

See in particular notes 16, 32, and 6o.

SOURCES OF BOTTICELLI'S PRIMA VERA

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