Botticelli's 'Primavera': che volea s'intendesse Author(s): Paul Holberton Source: Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes,

Vol. 45 (1982), pp. 202-210 Published by: The Warburg Institute Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/750976 . Accessed: 14/09/2013 11:20
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202

NOTES AND DOCUMENTS

other heavenly bodies.3s The minor question as to whether it is orthodox for the fixed stars to have their own angels,36 as Ficino affirms that they do, seems not to be insoluble if one keeps in mind that the main point for Ficino is not the names of the heavenly bodies, but their nameability, their personal nature. In this way, Ficino's style embodies his vision; his apparent polytheism expresses his animism.
CAROLV. KASKE
CORNELL UNIVERSITY

Symposium commentary, and angels can legitimately influence our souls.33 It is no heresy (since Aquinas himself, Ficino's 'leader in theology', did so) to believe that the spheres are moved by Intelligences as secondary causes and to admit the possibility that the Intelligences or movers are so united with their spheres as to constitute their souls.34 The same degree of personality which the planets had long possessed, especially in the star-crossed Renaissance, Ficino would want to extend to these

3s This is the interpretation put on the twelve gods of the zodiac in the Sala dei Mesi by both F. Saxl, 'Il RinaD. P. Walker, Spiritualand Demonic 33 Kunstwissenschaft, Magicfrom Ficinoto scimento dell' Antichita', in RepertoriumfiTr London 1958, repr. Notre Dame, Indiana 1975, XLIII, I922, pp. 227-36, and Jean Seznec, TheSurvival Campanella, of the PP. 45 ff. PaganGods,transl. Barbara Sessions, New York 1953, P. 76 34Ficino calls Aquinas, 'dux noster in theologia,' in Opera, and p. 77, fig. 25. The phrase 'masters of the months' for the contra p. 558. He cites the Summa Gentiles, ii, 70, in support of gods of the zodiac is not in Manilius, as Seznec claims, p. 74; the notion that the stars have souls in PlatonicTheology, but Diodorus, 11.30, calls them 'xup'oug,' and Warburg Iv. ad fin.; Marcel, p. 163, n. 7. According to Thomas Litt, 'Monatsregenten,' Gesammelte Schriften, Ii, pl. LX,no. 10 o7. 36 Boll traces the twelve angelic Watchers of the Egyptian OCSO, Aquinas believed firmly that the spheres are moved by spirits; he saw little difference for theology whether or Zodiac in the Gnostic Pistis Sophia, ch. 126 (ed. Carl not the movers are so united with their spheres as to Schmidt, Leipzig 1905, p. 207) to the Hellenistic twelve constitute their souls, Les corpscilestesdansl'univers de Saint tutelary gods of the Zodiac, F. Boll, C. Bezold, and W. Thomas undSterndeutung, d'Aquin, 5th edn, Stuttgart 1966, Philosophes Medievaux, vi, Louvain 1963, Gundel, Sternglaube pp. I08--09. pp. I90-9I.

BOTTICELLI'S

'PRIMA VERA':

CHE VOLEA S'INTENDESSE* IIn, liv, that has not been exploited in the
HERE IS a passage in Alberti's Della Pittura,

understanding of Botticelli's so-called 'Primavera'in the Uffizil (Pl. 29a). Having narrated, after Lucian, the Calumny of Apelles, Alberti says that he would like to see painted those three sisters to whom Hesiod gave the names of Egle, Eufronesis and Talia - he means the Three Graces. He then describes them - as
*My thanks are due in particular to Elizabeth McGrath and Charles Hope. This article never could have been without f Bernice Rothwell. 1 Cf. A. Warburg, Die Geburt der Venus, 1893, reprinted in Gesammelte Schriften, Berlin-Leipzig 1932, in which the 'Primavera' is discussed pp. 26-44, 312-2I; E. H. Gombrich, 'Botticelli's Mythologies' (this Journal, viii, 1945, pp. 7-60) Symbolic Images, Oxford 1972, this Journal, xxxI, pp. 31-81,
201-i9;

taking each other by the hand, smiling, and in loose, diaphanous drapery. He explains that by this should be understood liberality, because one gives, the next takes, the third returns the kindness, and these stages are necessary to any complete liberality. This amounts to a fourfold analysis of the content of a picture - who the figures are; what are their attributes; what are they doing; what is meant to be understood by it. It offersa convenient model in the interpretation of a work that correspondswell with AlberIt also so happens that ti's notion of an istoria.2 the Graces appear in Botticelli's picture, and it is virtually certain that the text from Seneca, De Beneficiis, I, iii, from which Alberti borrowed all the material in his example was again used for the 'Primavera'.3
2 It seems a better model than that offered by Erwin New York 1939, reprinted Panofsky, Studiesin Iconology, 1972, PP. 3-17. It also eases the methodological difficulties raised by Gombrich (pp. 55-62). 3 Cited, after Janitschek, by Warburg. It is virtually certain because ancient texts in which Mercury accompanies the Graces are so rare. The only other obvious one is Horace, Carmina, I, xxx, quoted at the end of this article.

reprinted with a preface noting intervening comment in

Edgar

London 1958, Wind, Pagan Mysteriesin the Renaissance, revised 1968, especially pp. 113-27 in the latter edition; C.
Dempsey, 1968, pp. 251-73. Hence-

forward, 'Warburg', 'Gombrich', 'Wind', 'Dempsey'.

andCourtauld Volume 45, 1982 Institutes, Journalof the Warburg

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VERA' BOTTICELLI'S "PRIMA In what has been generally accepted as the earliest surviving referenceto it, an inventory of 1499,4 Botticelli's painting is described merely as a picture with nine figures, both male and female, hanging in the chamber beside Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de' Medici's ground-floor room in his shared palazzo (since destroyed) in the Via Larga. In contrast, the compiler of the inventory made sure to itemize the other pictures in the room (including Botticelli's Uffizi 'Pallas and the Centaur',Pl. 29b), and indeed almost all the others he recorded, by their subject matter (the 'Pallas' as 'Camilla and a satyr'). This is not to imply that the 'Primavera' was unusual in its format,s or even, in that format, unique in its kind of subject,6but it may be significant that the inventory-taker was not able, like Vasari, to conclude instantly that the picture portrayed an action going on around Venus.7 Action is probably not the right word: the picture resembles a sacraconversazione, like,
Partially published byJohn Shearman, 'The Collections of the Younger Branch of the Medici', Burlington Magazine, cxvii, no. 862, January 1975, pp. 12-27; and by Webster Smith, 'On the Original Location of the "Primavera"',aArt Bulletin, LVII, March 1975, PP. 31-39. Shearman also published relevant passages from a second version of the inventory, in which 'Chamilo' appears more correctly as 'Chamilla', and the picture of nine figures as one of eight: is presumably the ninth. Cupid - The 'Primavera' is 203 X 314 cm. The three panels of The I8o x 316 cm. Panels about two metres high, with figures were hardly on the same scale as those of the 'Primavera', is comparatively a little unusual, even if the 'Primavera' wide.
6A

203

Battle of San Romano by Uccello are 182 x 319; 182 x 322;

bourne, with a dating of about 1465-70 and an association with Antonio Vivarini (in this Ursula Hoff, Catalogue of EuropeanPaintings beforeI8oo, Melbourne 1967, p. 138 several figures in a acquiesces) shows, like the 'Primavera', garden, although they are cut off (more likely, cut down) at the waist. Other panels of a similar size, showing a Trojan cycle, were also published by Edward S. King, 'The Legend Art Gallery, 1939, of Paris and Helen',journal ofthe Walters n, Art pp. 55-79. See Paul Watson, TheGarden of Lovein Tuscan ofthe EarlyRenaissance, Philadelphia 1979, pp. 122 ft. Since the 'Primavera' is not unique, there is no need to resort to the notion that it 'imitated' a tapestry. Although its strewn 'millefiori' ground may recall tapestries, the coincidence may be adequately explained by the subject matter. The setting equally recalls frescoes, such as those in the is no Casa Borromeo, Milan. In composition, the 'Primavera' more 'tapestry-like' than Pollaiuolo's print of FightingMen. 7 Vasari, Le ed. Milanesi, reprinted Florence 1973, Opere, as after the Birthof Venus III, p. 312, described the 'Primavera' 'e cosi un' altra Venere, che le Grazie la fioriscono, dinotando la primavera'. He must have written his account some time after he had seen the two pictures at Castello, and conflated them. There is no reason now to pair them. The Birth is presumably a classical illustration, like Botticelli's ofApelles. Calumny

panel i53 x 241 cm in the National Gallery, Mel-

for instance, Filippo Lippi's altarpiece from the chapel added by the Medici to S. Croce, now in the Uffizi, a row of ancillary (if energetic) figures round a central chief one, raised a little above them. Venus is probably not the right identification, for the lady is not dressed as Venus, and nothing else about her seems designed to recall Venus, except Cupid, but if Cupid were her identifying attribute one would expect him to be beside her, in communication with her. Instead he flies above, just as he does, shooting his arrows at his victims below, in numerous representations of him active as the power of love in his own right.8 All the other figures were, I believe, correctly named, in accordance with their attributes, by Warburg. There is no question about Mercury; the Graces are three, and dance, and accord with Alberti's description mentioned above, among others; Flora wears a dress all of flowers and is about to distribute those in her lap. On the right, a nymph is assailed by a wind, and because 'vernas efflat ab ore rosas' - she blows spring roses from her mouth, a unique attribute - she must be the Chloris of Ovid's Fasti, v, 193 if, and the wind is therefore Zephyr. These last two figures are recondite, and suggest the probability that someone of wider reading than either Botticelli or the Medici family was involved. Other things being equal, the advisor is most likely to have been Politian, since he is directly and exclusively linked with Botticelli's in the National Gallery, Lon'Mars and Venus' don.9 The figures on the right have earned the picture its name: they enact the onset of spring. Next to them, the figure in the middle is virtually characterless: her garments are neither classical nor contemporary, but extramundane, like those of a Virgin Mary. Her face is not a portrait but generic. Her gestures, however, are those of greeting - one hand raised upright on the wrist,10 the other lifting her robe in a curtsey. Since she looks straight out of the picture, the object of her greeting is presumably the onlooker, who mustjust have come upon her. Spring, and meeting with a woman - this is a situation more than a little common in

20o, 43,

d'Humanisme et Renaissance, XXXIII,1971, pp. 641-45. 10 See M. Baxandall, Painting and Experience in Fifteenth-

Watson, Garden ofLove,gives several examples: pls I, i18, 73, 88, 90. See further below, note 34. 9 See V. Juren, '"Pan Terrificus" de Politien', Bibliotheque

Century Italy, Oxford 1972, pp. 67-70 in the 1974 edition.

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204

NOTES AND DOCUMENTS

ma come ch'ella gli governa 0 volga, primavera per me pur non e mai.E Boccaccio, Filocolo, II, xxvi, says explicitly that in winter 'l'amoroso caldo per o10spiacevole tempo era nel core rattiepidito e ristretto', but with spring 'incominciarono a ritornare l'usate forze all'amorose fiamme'.14 Spring in Petrarch's sonnet first quoted is a kind of prelude, a cue. It even more obviously sets the scene in this way in Politian's Stanceper la Giostra, i, xxiv-xxvi.s15 Giuliano de' Medici has just delivered himself of some verses disparaging love, and Cupid has determined to have his revenge, ending: Or veggian se '1meschin ch' Amor riprende da due begli occhi se stesso or difende. Stanza xxv interludes like music, leading on expectation: Zefiro gin, di be' fioretti adorno, avea de' monti tolta ogni pruina; avea fatto al suo nido gia ritorno la stanca rondinella peregrina; risonava la selva intorno intorno soavemente all' aura mattutina, e la ingegnosa pecchia al primo albore giva predando ora uno or altro fiore. And in rides Giuliano, amaturus: L'ardito lulio, al giorno ancora acerbo . .
.16

European poetry. Consider Petrarch, Rime, iii: Era il giorno ch' al sol si scoloraro per la pieta del suo fattore i rai; quando i' fui preso, e non me ne guardai, che be' vostr' occhi, Donna, mi legaro. Tempo non mi parea da dar riparo contr' a' colpi d'Amor; per6 m'andai secur, senza sospetto; onde i miei guai nel commune dolor s'incominciaro. Trovommi Amor del tutto disarmato, et aperta la via per gli occhi al core, che di lagrime son fatti uscio e varco. Per6, al mio parer, non li fu onore ferir me da saetta in quello stato, a voi armata non mostrar pur l'arco.11 Behind the happenstance that Petrarch fell in love on 6 April 1327 (Rime, ccxi) lies the fact that it was spring. Frequently in Petrarch's canzonierespring quickens love,12 and generally speaking hundreds, it must be thousands, of texts confirm the association that springtime is the only pretty ring-time, sweet lovers love the spring. The next instance in Petrarch is Rime, ix: Quando '1pianeta che distingue l'ore ad albergar col Tauro si ritorna cade vert% da l'infiammate corna che veste il mondo di novel colore; e non pur quel che s'apre a noi di fore, le rive e i colli di fioretti adorna, ma dentro, dove giAmai non s'aggiorna, gravido fa di se il terrestroumore, onde tal frutto e simile si colga; cosi costei, ch' e tra le donne un sole, in me, movendo de' begli occhi i rai, cria d'amor pensieri, atti e parole:

11 The edition used is La Letteratura Italiana,vi, ed. F. Neri et al., Milan-Naples 1951. 'It was the day when, in sympathy for his maker, the rays of the sun dimmed; when I was taken, and I did not look out for it, when your beautiful eyes, Lady, bound me. It did not seem to me a time for protecting myself against the attacks of love; and so I went out without thought, untroubled; hence my woes began amidst the general grief. Love found me quite unarmed, and the path open to my heart through my eyes, which have been made passage and outlet for tears. And so, in my opinion, it did him no credit to strike me with an arrow in that state, and not even to show his bow to you, in armour'. 12 Cf. Rime,c, lines io-I I: e la nova stagion che d'anno in anno mi rinfrescain quel di l'antiche piaghe; and many other instances. There is an amplified imitation of Rime, iii by Tito Vespasiano Strozzi, Eroticon,I, ii, in which the palio at Ferrara serves instead of the Passion to evoke the season: Candida lux aderat maiis vicina calendis... Tempore quo Zephyrus viridantes evocat herbas... Hic dum sollicito spectarem lumine cursus ante mea arcitenens constitit ora puer... and this poem is fairly run-of-the-mill.

13 'When the planet that marks the hours comes back to lodge with the Bull, power falls from his inflamed horns to vest the world in new colour; and not only decks with flowers what opens up around us, the banks and the slopes, but inside, where it never has been day, it impregnates the earthy liquid; it is from here that this and similar crops are culled. In the same way she, who is a sun among women, by casting rays from her beautiful eyes, causes in me thoughts, movements and words of love; but she rules and turns them in such a way that it never is spring for me.' 14 The edition used is ed. M. Marti, Minoriin Volgare, Opere

1s Politian's Stanzewere first adduced by Warburg. The - Rime,ed. B. Maier, Novara - Orfeo edition used is Stanze 1968. The passages that are relevant are not those from the excursus on the Realm of Venus, but those of the narrative; Warburg's assumption, following Vasari, that the 'Primavera'represents the Realm of Venus has probably been the major obstacle to its decipherment. But see also p. 2o9 below. 16 'Now let us see if the wretch who reproves love saves himself now from two beautiful eyes. Already Zephyr, decked with beautiful flowers, had taken away from the mountains all frost; the tired wandering swallow had already returned to her nest; the wood echoed all around balmily to the morning breeze; and the crafty bee was up at first light despoiling now one and now another flower. Hotspur Giuliano, while day was still sharp.. .

Milan 1970.

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BOTTICELLI'S
Spring, or more particularly spring flowers, also appear simply as the habitual accompaniment of the Lady, or as a figure of her beauty, virtually then an emanation. A clear statement, amongst innumerable examples of the association, is Petrarch, Rime, clxv: Come '1candido pie per l'erba fresca i dolci passi onestamente move, vertu ch' intorno i fiori apre e rinnove de le tenere piante sue par ch' esca . . .17 In Politian's Stance, when Giuliano has been led astray by a vision of a stag sent by Cupid, he comes upon a 'ninfa' in 'un fiorito e verde prato' (i, xxxvii) and at i, xliii-xlvii, she is described: Candida e ella, e candida la veste, ma pur di rose e fior dipinta e d'erba; lo inanellato crin dall' aurea testa scende in la fronte umilmente superba. Rideli a torno tutta la foresta, e quanto pu6 sue cure disacerba; nell' atto regalmente e mansueta, e pur col ciglio le tempeste acqueta. Folgoron gli occhi d'un dolce sereno, ove sue face tien Cupido ascose; l'aier d'intorno si fa tutto ameno ovunque gira le luce amorose. Di celeste letizia il volto ha pieno, dolce dipinto di ligustri e rose; ogni aura tace al suo parlar divino, e canta ogni augelletto in suo latino. Con lei sen va Onestate umile e piana che d'ogni chiuso cor volge la chiave; con lei va Gentilezza in vista umana, e da lei impara il dolce andar soave. Non pu6 mirarli il viso alma villana, se pria di suo fallir doglia non have; tanti cori Amor piglia, fere o ancide, quanto ella o dolce parla o dolce ride. Sembra Talia se in man prende la cetra, sembra Minerva se in man prende l'asta; se l'arco ha in mano, al fianco la faretra, giurar potrai che sia Diana casta. Ira dal volto suo trista s'arretra, e poco, avanti a lei, Superbia basta; ogni dolce virtu 1'ein compagnia, Biltaila mostra a dito e Leggiadria. Ell' era assisa sovra la verdura, allegra, e ghirlandetta avea contesta di quanti fior creassi mai natura, de' quai tutta dipinta era sua vesta. E come prima al gioven puose cura, alquanto paurosa alz6 la testa;
17 'As her white foot urges its sweet pace through the fresh grass decorously, power that opens and revives the flowers around her seems to exude from her tender soles . . . '

'PRIMAVERA'
poi colla bianca man ripreso il lembo, levossi in pie con di fior pieno un grembo.1s

205

Not only flowers, but abstract qualities such as Onestate, Gentilezza, Leggiadria, accompany her. So, too, the left-hand figures in Botticelli's 'Primavera'can be read as attributes, as emanations. The Graces, the traditional companions of Venus, embody feminine virtues, or, more specifically, after Alberti or rather Seneca, represent the Lady's liberality.19 Mercury,
is 'White she is, and white her dress, but coloured with roses and flowers and grass; her curling hair from her golden head falls on to a brow proud in modesty. The whole forest about her smiles at her, and almost takes the edge off his hurt; in gesture she is impressively mild, and yet with her glance she settles storms. Her eyes, wherein Cupid has his torches lurking, flash with soft serenity. The air around her, wherever she turns her captivating glance, becomes balmy. Her face, gently flushed with lavender and roses, is full of heavenlyjoy; every breeze hushes at her holy word, and every little bird sings in her lingua franca. With her travels Integrity, modest and quiet, who turns the key of every locked heart; with her comes Nobility in human form, and learns from her a graceful carriage. No base soul can look her in the face, without first repenting of its sin; Love seizes, strikes or slays hearts as often as she sweetly speaks or sweetly laughs. She seems a Thalia if she takes a lyre in hand, she seems a Minerva if she holds a spear; if she has a bow in her hand and a quiver at her side you could swear her to be chaste Diana. Anger retreats downcast from her face, and Pride amounts to little, confronted with her; every lovely quality accompanies her, Beauty points her out with a finger, so does Grace. She was sitting on the grass, happily, and had woven a garland of all the flowers of nature's making, with which all her dress was spangled. And as soon as she took stock of the youth, she raised her head a little timidly; then taking her

hemwithherwhitehand,shestoodupright withherlapfull

of flowers. 19 Seneca, De Beneficiis, i, iii, 9, also says that the Graces accompany Venus. Cf. Dempsey, and again in this Journal, with varying legends. But it would be misleading to be categorical about which moral and physical virtues they or for that matter in the picture represent in the 'Primavera', of the subject recorded in the 1499 inventory in Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco's ground-floor room to which the 'Primavera' was next door. It seems natural to conclude that the persons involved in the creation of the 'Primavera' knew Alberti's Della Pittura,since they follow so many of its precepts, but unnatural to expect that the interpretation of the picture should be limited by the sources Alberti happens to use, especially since at the very minimum two more texts irrelevant to Alberti are needed to explain its composition. So, too, Mercury appears as Mercury, not as an emblem encapsulating an exegesis. That the 'Primavera' has nine (or eight) figures is not an instance of its dependence on Alberti, who is often read (iin, if xl) as he thought nine figures the optimum in a painting. In fact he felt nine to be the maximum, and no better than eight or seven or any smaller number. He says, anyway, nine or ten.

Gracesthe vehicleof his ideas,referring to severalmedals

xxxIV,

1971, pp. 326-30.

Wind made the image of the

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NOTES AND DOCUMENTS

'Mercury is the god of eloquence and the gobetween (interpres)of the gods'. He quotes Martial, vii, lxxiv, 1-2: Cyllenes caelique decus, facunde minister, aurea cui torto virga dracone viret. He quotes much else besides, most ofit concerning the symbolism of the caduceus, and ends with Suidas: . .. 'And his straight wand is a token of his upright speech'.24 He does not, however, cite the passage, also from Statius, not the Silvae, but the Thebaid,1, 3' o- 11, which may at last explain what Mercury is doing with the caduceus: Nec mora, sublimis raptim per inane volatus carpit et ingenti designat nubila gyro. He scribes the clouds with a circle.25 Although the figures have their names and attributes and are intelligible, in order to understand fully what they are doing one has to know
6Q06V XovTof 6Q00o k6you lvy The in runs full f): 2s (303 passage ParetAtlantiades dictisgenitoris et inde summapedumpropere plantaribus inligatalis, comaset temperat astragalero. obnubitque Tumdextrae dulces inseruit, virgam quapellere aut suadere iterumsomnos,quanigrasubire Tartara et exsanguis animare adsueverat umbras. inhorruit aura. Desiluit,tenuique exceptus Nec mora,sublimis raptim perinanevolatus carpitet ingentidesignatnubilagyro. As seenfromn. 23 above,the passagewascitedby Boccacin Statius Politian's interest is cio, so is notall-that obscure; anyway well known. Cf. also Thebaid, n, 55 ff. and vii, 5 if., which again describe Mercury in flight, while VII, 35 if., gives a clue to the precise meaning of'designat nubila gyro': Atque ilium (sc. Cyllenium) Arctoae labentem cardine portae tempestas aeternae plagae praetentaque caelo agmina nimborum primique Aquilonis hiatus in diversa ferunt... He cuts a swathe or furrow as he travels round the earth. solem refert, unde administrum existimari inter superos et inferos, quoniam "inferiorehemisphaerio, idest hiemalibus suum peragit" et "partem Zodiacae ambit signis, cursum aestivam" ' I think the verb designare in its general significance fits the way in which Mercury holds his rod in Botticelli's picture: he appears to guide it with his index finger in a delicate motion, one that might well be circular. It is not of course with a huge ('ingenti') circular motion, but then the clouds are tiny: this is not a naturalistic representation but the symbol or diagram of a faculty. What is to be indicated is that he travels among the clouds. The reason why the faculty has been devolved on to his caduceus must lie in Virgil's description of Mercury in Aeneid,iv (adduced to Botticelli's picture by Warburg and Wind, and to Statius, Silvae,nii,i, 189 by Politian), particularly the lines (245-46): illa (sc. virga) fretus agit ventos et turbida tranat nubila...
24 'iRP3oXov 6E7v T6

again after Seneca, represents her intellect and her sweet tongue: Seneca, after describing the Graces, adds (De Beneficiis, I, iii, 7): 'Ergo et Mercurius una stat, non quia beneficia ratio commendat vel oratio, sed quia pictori ita visum est' [And Mercury also stands with them for this reason, not because sense or eloquence foster/adorn kindness, but because so it seemed good to the painter]. Ovid, in the same book of the Fasti used as a source for Chloris, says of Mercury (v, 668): 'quo didicit culte lingua favente loqui': 'under whose auspices language learnt decorously to speak'. Eloquence is one of the traditional qualities of Mercury, and the first quotation adduced by Politian in his commentary on Mercury in Statius, Silvae, ii, i, 189 is: 'quod ipse est deus prudentiae' [since he is himself the god of wisdom].20 Correspondingly, the Lady is described in countless texts of the dolcestil nuovoas endowed with ratio and oratio - Petrarch calls Laura (Rime, xxxvii) 'torre d' alto intelletto'; in the sestine of the sonnet last quoted (Rime, clxv) it follows inevitably: E co l'andar e col soave sguardo s'accordan le dolcissime parole e l'atto mansueto, umile e tardo.21 Similarly, in the five stanzas of Politian just quoted, just as the ninfa is twice said to be clothed in flowers, so she is twice said to speak beautifully, and her attitudes in general show forth her decorousness. The phrase 'parole occurs in accorte' prescient words Petrarch, Rime, cix, and, should this not convince, recurs in the highly Petrarchan poetry of Lorenzo il Magnifico.22 Politian, in his commentary on Statius, Silvae, I1, i, 189, continues by quoting from Horace's Carminaand from Virgil, Aeneid, IV, 239-46, the classic passage for Mercury.23 He explains: Studi e IstitutoNazionaledi Studi sul Rinascimento, Florence Testiv, ed. L. C. Martinelli, pp. 417ff. I978, 21 'Andwithhercarriage andherlovelyglancego hervery sweetwordsandhergentle,humbleandgravebehaviour.' 22Forinstance,in SonnetsLXXXII and LXXXIII andin Selve d'Amore ed.J. Rossand E. Hutton, II, i8, in Opere Volgari, Edinburgh1912. (The sonnetsare sometimesnumbered In SonnetLXXXII he callsupontheLady: differently). il lietoriso,ovegia ferno Mostrami Le Graziela lorsede,e '1desioqueti unaparolaaccorta... Un piosembiante, All the pointsmadehithertoaboutspringcouldalso have fromLorenzo's been illustrated poetry.Cf Sonnetsii, v,
23 Cited, for instance, by Boccaccio, Genealogia Deorum, ii, vii. In a lengthy passage about Mercury he has recourse first to Horace and Virgil, Aeneid, Iv. Then to Statius, Thebaid, I, 305, 'obnubitque comas et temperat astra galero'.
LXXXVIII, CXVII

20

Macrobius:'Macrobiusquae de Mercuriodicunturad

Politian, in his commentary

on Silvae, ii, i, 189, quotes

etc.

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BOTTICELLI'S
the meaning of the whole. One has to grasp the drift of the body of poetry of which the 'Primavera' is a painted member. It shares in the conventions of courtly love: Mercury, for honest goinstance, gracious, prudent, between, plays a role in Botticelli's picture in conception not very distant from that of Bialacoil (Bel Accueil) in Guillaume de Lorris's Roman de la Rose.26 Some fundamental conditions of courtly love as it took form in Italy in the poetry of the dolce stil nuovo can be illustrated from what has already been quoted. As Petrarch, Rime, iii, complains, love is not requited - Cupid does not show his bow to her, and his eyes are a passage for tears. As Rime, ix, well enough explains, she is in control, and does not permit his passion outlet. It burns nevertheless, to such an extent ch' i' non curo altro ben ne bramo altr' esca as it is put in Rime, clxv. So it is again with Giuliano in Politian's Stance, in which the nymph, Simonetta Vespucci, is already married, and in which Giuliano's passion for her is not inflicted on him for its own sake, but in order that, by overcoming every other feeling, it may make him worthy, honourable and glorious. An intimation of Giuliano's destiny has already appeared in the lines quoted above (i, Non pu6 mirarli il viso alma villana 'No ignoble soul can look her in the face'. The theme had been treated very obviously in Boc-

'PRIMAVERA'

207

In Politian's Stanze the process of sublimation is adulterated by the martial element, the Giostra. Book nii nevertheless provides a clear and useful allegory of its dynamic. The excursus on the Realm of Love concluded, Politian describes the effect of an army of cupids (the referent of 'lor' in line 5) on the youth of Florence who shortly will be jousting (ii, xix): E come quando il sol li Pesce accende,
tutta la terra e di suo virtu pregna, che poscia a primavera fuor si estende, mostrando al cel verde e fiorita insegna; cosi ne' petti ove lor foco scende un disio sol d'eterna gloria e fama,

s'abbarbica un disio che dentro regna,

che le 'nfiammate menti a virtu chiama. As for Giuliano, he is visited by a dream. In it he sees Love bound by his Lady, who wears the armour of Pallas; Giuliano recoils in fear and horror at it, but Love exhorts him (ii, xxxi): Alza gli occhi, alza, lulio, a quella fiamma che come un sol col suo splendor t'adombra:
quivi e colei che l'alte mente infiamma, e che de' petti ogni vilta disgombra . . .
:29

'colei' is in fact Gloria (ii, xxxii): Cosi dicea Cupido, e gia la Gloria scendea git folgorando ardente vampo..

.30

xlv, 5):

Giuliano then rushes forward, seizes the armour from his lady, and puts it on himself. On waking, he recalls his dream, and so invokes
Love (ii, xliv-xlvi): E s'io son, dolce Amor, s'io son pur degno essere il tuo campion contro a costei, contro a costei da cui con forza e 'ngegno, se ver mi dice il sonno, avinto sei, fa si del tuo furor mio pensier pregno che spirto di pieta nel cor li crei: mie virtu per se stessa ha l'ale corte, perche troppo e '1 valor di costei forte. Troppo forte e, signor, lo suo valore che, come vedi, el tuo poter non cura; e tu pur suoli al cor gentile, Amore, riparar come augello alla verdura.

peasant, stumbles on a group of nymphs by a stream. His initial fears of a fate like Actaeon's having been assuaged, he converses with them and is gradually taught about love. As a result, 'brievemente, d'animale bruto, uomo divenuto essere li pare' (xlvi); earlier (xvi) he had sung: E .Amore... tu.. ... il qual m'hai tratto della vita selvaggia e dallo errore istato rozzo infino allora e matto. At the climax a heavenly Venus descends, and can now be perceived by the indoctrinated Ameto. So in Guinizelli and Dante 'the lady become angel serves the man as a means and guide to God'.27

caccio's Comedia delleNinfe Fiorentine. Ameto, a

28 'And as when the sun lights up the Fish the whole earth is fecund with its power, and thereupon opens itself out in spring, showing to heaven a green and flowery banner;so in the hearts where their fire descends there stings a desire which rules inside, a desire only for eternal glory and fame, which calls their inflamed spirits to mettle'. 26 See C. S. 29 'Raise your eyes, raise them, Giuliano, to that flame Lewis, The Allegoryof Love, Oxford 1936, which like a sun frights you with its splendour: here is the reprinted 1979, p. 122. 27See Azzurra B. Givens, La Dottrina d'Amore nelBoccaccio, one who incites high minds, and strips baseness from hearts Messina-Florence 1968, who summarizes Andrea Capella30 'Thus spoke Cupid, and already Glory was descending, nus and amatory philosophy in Italy before Boccaccio in her first chapter. flashing a blazing glow.'

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already well-worn, classicizing pity sky was not alerted by a 16th-century 'recrudescence of Petrarchism within the frameworkof the Platonizing philosophy' which he shuffles away into note 68. The paradox that Ficino's 'scanty following' amounted to 'a tremendous influence, both directly and indirectly, on artists, poets, and what might be called "poetical thinkers" from Michelangelo to Giordano Bruno, Tasso, Spenser, Donne and even Shaftesbury' (pp. 145-46) is explained and abolished; the romance of 'one kindly, delicate, little scholar' (p. 130) evaporates. Wind is less transparent. But there is no need to read his triadic transformation principle into the 'Primavera' or into anything else. This sentence from the preface to the second I edition of Pagan Mysteries find typical: 'As before, the footnotes can be ignored by readers more interested in the text than its foundation'. The footnotes do not support Wind's assertions; his method, which is pernicious, is argument from significant detail, or reading 'a calculated effect' into 'an oddity of style' (p. i16). Often he shows intuition, often he assembles interesting material, but there is no control. Both Wind and Panofsky point out that Ficino had no interest in art. By contrast Politian's descriptions of the reliefs in the palace in the Realm of Love in the Stanze make interesting art criticism. Warburg's proposition that Politian provided the programme for the 'Primavera' is surely correct.

NOTES AND DOCUMENTS 208 Ma se mi presti el tuo santo furore, In the poetry so far quoted spring has leverai me sovra la tua natura; appeared not only as an attribute of the Donna; e farai come suol marmorea rota, it has also symbolized her lover's passion.33 So che lei non taglia e pure il ferro arruota.31 Botticelli's picture can be read not merely as a static list of the Lady's qualities; it also Con voi men vengo, Amor, Minerva e Gloria... expresses the progress of the lover's love - the lover is the spectator, whom the Lady greets.34 These three figures, to interpret somewhat crudely, stand for sexual passion, chastity and The picture breaks around her into two halves: prowess; sexual passion imprisoned in chastity on the right, to use Politian's words, 'Ma se mi (the armour borrowed from the Lady) achieves presti el tuo santo furore';on the left, its apodoprowess. Stanza ii, xliv, explains something of sis, 'leverai me sovra la tua natura'. Surely this the psychology of the sublimation, purification is why it was chosen to represent spring in this or refinement - a perpetual state of fervour of all ways, as an impulse to rape; and surely maintained by the interaction of two opposites, this is why Mercury points upwards through his sexual passion and her chastity. This is the clouds he crosses when he travels from earth different from the flat dichotomy of 'celestial' to heaven.35 In this way the figures' activity, and 'natural' Venus envisaged by many Neo- which is, so to speak, the direction or purpose of their attributes, demonstrates the meaning platonic iconographers.32 sublimation. Mercury travels to heaven on the wind of Zephyr.36 Sublimation is a modern word; in contem31 'And if I am, sweet Love, if I am really worthy to be your terms the picture expresses the attainporary champion against this lady, against this lady by whom with ment - and the lady's embodiment - of genif and dream were craft, true, bound, might my speaks you In Boccaccio there is progress not only tilezza. with mind so that in madness it causes her my your implant a spirit of compassion: my mettle in itself has short wings, from beast to man but also from peasant to since much too strong is her worth. nobler. In Politian's Stanze, even in Much too strong, my lord, is her worth, which, as you see, something takes no account of your sway; even so, Love, you like to the passages quoted (1, xlv, 5; n, xxxi, 4; n, xlv, take refuge in a gentle heart, like a bird in bushes. But ifyou 3) the antithesis gentile-vile or villano is insistent. grant me your holy madness, you will lift me above your In the context of the Stance martial glory, and own nature; and you will do as a whetstone does, which the body of ideas that go with a tourney, are itself does not cut and yet sharpens the iron. interwoven with and so, in Castigentilezza, With you will I travel, Love, Minerva and Glory... 32 In Studies in Iconology, v, 'The Neoplatonic Movement in glione, the courtier is still first and foremost a Florence and North Italy', Erwin Panofskydisregarded the military man; but like 'gentle' gentile also involdolcestil nuovo.But it is evident that Ficino was in part ves softer qualities, those of Venus as well as ideas and a that Panof33See Petrarch, Rime,xx;Politian, Stanze,ii, xix. 34 Evidently, although the picture was hung high up, above a lettuccio, according to the inventory of 1499, and although Cupid's head and arms are turned well against the picture-plane, he is not intended to confront the spectator illusionistically and pierce him with his arrow. He draws his bow nevertheless and is about to shoot: he signals the capacity of the Donna to induce love, and is an attribute or like the other figures. quality ' The notion of Mercury flying through cloud and circling the globe (see note 25 above) fits nicely with visualizations of the lover'sjourney to heaven. Cf., for example, Lorenzo il Magnifico, Sonnet cxvi: Per lunga, erta, aspra via, nell' ombre involto, scorgendo Amor lo mio cieco pensiero, mossi i pie per incognito sentiero, avendo il desio gid verso il ciel volto. Per mille errorial fin con sudor molto all' orizzonte del nostro emispero pervenni, indi in eccelso e piii altero loco, di terra gia levato e tolto...
36 Virgil, Aeneid, Iv, 223: Jupiter addresses Mercury:
I21-25,

vade age, nate, voca Zephyros et labere pennis...

is worth reading on this point.

Wind, pp.

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BOTTICELLI'S
Mars. A gentleman learns grace after falling in love, by which his savagery is tamed.37 It can now be seen that the 'Primavera'shares its theme with some other Medici commissions and indeed has a place in a widespread tradition. Although they have been understood hitherto imprecisely and in Neoplatonic terms, it has long been recognized that 'Pallas and the Centaur'(Pl. 29b), which hung in the same room as the 'Primavera', and Donatello's bronze David, from which the stance of Botticelli's Mercury is derived, represented the subjection of base passions to a superior force.38 With these Donatello's Judith, also a Medici commission, 39 should be joined. It is also evident that other pictures, such as a painting by Paolo Schiavo in Yale University Art Gallery,40 reflect similar
37 This is almost explicit in Politian, Stanze, i, x, describing Giulianojust before he begins his verses disparaging love: Facea sovente pe' boschi soggiorno inculto sempre e rigido in aspetto... 38 Ronald Lightbown, Sandro Botticelli,i, London 1978, p. 78, had already pointed out the derivation from Donatello's David. It is first recorded next door in the cortileof the present Palazzo Medici-Riccardi in 1469 (H. W. Janson, TheSculpture of Donatello,Princeton 1963, p. 77); for a late dating see Francis Ames-Lewis, 'Art History or Stilkritik', Art History, II, no. 2, June 1979, pp. 139-55. Mercury's helmet, though copied, like his wings, from Donatello's statue, must correspond to the 'galerum' of Statius, Thebaid,

'PRIMAVERA'

209

conventions of courtly love. A cassone in the Museo Stibbert in Florence41 bears the inscription: Sensa honesta'e perduta la bellessa E sensa amor non fu mai gentilessa. 'Pallas and the Centaur', recte Camilla and the Centaur,42 seems to be a classicized version of the lady taming the unicorn or the wild man.43 And now that we have come so far, it is possible to accommodate Warburg's thesis, that the 'Primavera' represents Venus in the Garden of Love. In Boccaccio's Teseida, when Arcita and Palemone catch sight for the first time of Emilia,44 Arcita exclaims: Vener e qui discesa veramente; and Palemone replies: Per certo questa e Citerea. Of course any beautiful woman can be assumed to be Venus; even more so if she is accompanied by the Graces. It is worth recalling Politian's lines, Stance i, xlvi, quoted above, Sembra Talia se in man prende la cetra, etc. Even though the Lady is not marked as Venus, the setting of the 'Primavera' is the Garden of

than usual beauty, as an image of freedom and youthful energy; this is just before Camilla appears. Subsequently (11.699 ff.) Camilla on foot is tricked by, but then kills, a mounted Ligurian. In the picture she bears a halberd, the weapon of the foot-soldier against the horseman. The compiler of the inventory published by Shearman in fact describes her antagonist as a satyr; Botticelli himself and 13, 2), and presumably the lost base of the David makes a similar confusion, in the panel at the base of the throne in the Calumny pointed up the meaning similarly. of Apelles,where Apelles's Family of 4o The subject of Watson, Garden ofLove,op. cit. n. 6 above. Centaurs after Lucian is shown: the centaur suckles little Although he adducesJacopo da Montepulciano's Fimerodia, satyrs. in which, 'when the heroine chooses Diana, Eritonio per43 For the lady and the unicorn, see, for an introduction, ceives the flames of a new love kindling themselves within Margaret B. Freeman, TheUnicorn Tapestries oftheMetropolihis breast' (p. 119), Watson does not quite realize the tanMuseum, New York 1976; orJiirgen W. Einhorn, Spiritafinal of the in Schiavo's lis Munich continuous For the and the wild man, Unicornis, significance episode 1976. lady Husband, TheWildMan, New York I980. Timothy representation, in which the lover reclines in melancholy. see 44 Teseida, He is still in love - but Watson reads the picture as a denial III,xiiiff. This comes of course after a description of love: 'Virtue lies on one side, love on the other' (p. 120). of spring, mIII, vff.

Ovid, Metamorphoses, 1, 672. His sword is the sword with which he decapitated Argus, Metamorphoses, 1, 717-18: nec mora, falcato nutantem vulnerat ense qua collo est confine caput. Decapitation, I hazard, symbolizes the conquest of the passions. Perhaps the first instance is the Mithras relief on the base of the Tomb of the Cardinal of Portugal, where other motifs, such as unicorns, also allude to the Cardinal's chastity (see F. Hartt, G. Corti, C. Kennedy, TheChapel of the Cardinal of Portugalin San Miniato,Florence, Philadelphia 1964, pp. 121 ff). Decapitation recurs in Donatello's David and his Judith,and is hinted at in Botticelli's 'Pallas', in the way she holds the centaur by the hair of the head as severed heads are held, and asJudith held Holofernes (Judith, 13, 7). Outside Florence, the figure opposite Diana guarding the Garden of the Liberal Arts in the picture in the Louvre painted by Costa for Isabella d'Este again holds a halberd, with which he has removed the head of the dragon at his heel. 39 The statue is first heard of in 1495, in the garden of the Medici Palace (Janson, op. cit. p. 198). The putti beneath comment on the drunkenness of Holofernes (Judith,12, 20,

1, 305 (see note 25 above) or to the 'tegumenque capillis' of

Camilla e l'altre andar use in battaglia con la sinistra sola intera mamma. As for her juxtaposition with a centaur, horses are very frequently mentioned in Aeneid,xi, not only because there
are cavalry battles but also (11. 492-97), in lines of more

Amazon (11. 70-71):

42 Camilla brings up the rear in Virgil, Aeneid, vii, 11. 803-17, and occupies much of Aeneid,xi. As Shearman, 'Younger Branch' (see note 4 above), pp. i8-19, supposed with unnecessary uncertainty, she appears in Botticelli's picture as a subduer of carnal appetites; admittedly this is not her role in the Aeneid, but she is a warrior virgin particularly beloved of Diana: and this is why she appears in the Triumph of Chastity in Petrarch's Trionfias an

41xCited by Watson, op. cit., p. 101.

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210

NOTES AND DOCUMENTS

Love, and that is the reason for the oranges on the trees.45 For the 'Primavera' is undoubtedly joyful. It does not represent the tears of love. As Politian says, Stancei, xliii (quoted above): Ridelia tornotuttala foresta, etc. It corresponds to such outbursts as Petrarch, Rime,lxxii: Gentilmiadonna,i' veggio nel moverde' vostr'occhiun dolcelume che mi mostrala via ch' al ciel conduce; e perlungocostume, dentrola dovesol conAmorseggio, quasivisibilmente il cortraluce. Questae la vistach' a benfarm'induce e che mi scorgeal glorioso fine; questasola dal vulgom'allontana. Ne mailinguaumana contar gi. poriaquelche le duedivine luci sentirmi fanno, e quando'1vernospargele pruine e quandopoi ringiovenisce l'anno, qualeraal tempodel mioprimoaffanno.46

46 'My gentle lady, I see in the movement of your eyes a sweet light that shows me the way to heaven; and as it long has done, inside, where I sit alone with Love, almost visibly it shines through my heart. This is the vision that urges me to do well, and that guides me to the glorious goal; this alone distances me from the crowd. Human language could never describe what your two holy eyes make me feel, both when winter scatters his frosts, and when the year then renews itself, such as it was at the time of my first pang. . .'.

Devices', this Journal, XLII, 1979, pp. 128 and 140.

had put it in Silvae, ii, i, 189, and on which Politian's gloss begins: 'Per Mercurium finguntur revocari ab inferis animae, "quod ipse est deus prudentiae", ut ait Servius in 6`' [Souls are pictured as being recalled from the lower regions through Mercury, 'because he is himself the god of wisdom', as Servius says in his commentary on Aeneid, vi]. And it will now be seen that the 'Primavera' fits very well, mutatis mutandis, into the context reconstructed by Gombrich.47 His thesis that the picture had an educative force is supported. It could have been a kind of invocation, like Horace's Carmina, i, xxx, which Warburg adduced: O Venus, regina Cnidi Paphique, sperne dilectam Cypron et vocantis ture te multo Glycerae decoram transfer in aedem. Fervidus tecum puer et solutis Gratiae zonis properentquenymphae et parum comis sine te luventas Mercuriusque. 4 Oranges are prominent in the Florentine print of the I that the penultimate line can now be hope 'Children of Venus' (A. M. Hind, Early Italian Engraving, read with richer meaning: 'too little courtly London 1938, pls 122, 123); they often grow in Love Gardens. See also F. Ames-Lewis, 'Early Medicean without you'.
PAUL HOLBERTON

So it is more than possible that Mercuryis intendedto gesture'gaudenti virga',as Statius

47 Ficino's letter to Lorenzo di Pierfrancescopublished by Gombrich gives a gloss for Mercuryjust like the one from which this article depends; but see note 33 (end) above. I have avoided criticizing other interpretations, since it would not have helped to establish this one.

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PhotoAlinari

Florence, Uffizi (p. 202) a-Botticelli, 'Primavera'.

b-Botticell (pp.203, 2

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