Botticelli’s Secret: The Lost Drawings and the Rediscovery of the Renaissance

Botticelli’s Secret Description

Botticelli’s Secret demonstrates how the Renaissance came to be, how Botticelli’s art contributed to it, and, most importantly, why we still require the Renaissance and everything it stands for now. It does this by blending a creative detective story with a deep intellectual history.

Scholars and art enthusiasts were brought to their knees when Botticelli’s Dante drawings were rediscovered in the eighteenth century because they perfectly encapsulated what the Renaissance had come to symbolize. The posthumous story of Botticelli’s Dante drawings is, if anything, even more, dramatic than their creation. From Botticelli’s metaphorical rise from the dead in Victorian England to the appearance of keen collectors like Bernard Berenson and Herbert Horne in the early twentieth century, and even the rescue of priceless art during World War II and the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.

Here’s what you will learn in this book:

Prologue 1

Part 1 Infinite Disorder

1. The Pop Star 23
2. Bottega to Brand 49
3. Chiaroscuro 74
4. The Commission 95
5. Late Style 117

Part 2 Afterlives and Renaissances

6. History’s Lost and Found 145
7. Botticelli in Britain 166
8. The Eyes of Florence 186
9. Berlin and Beyond 207

Epilogue 225

Acknowledgments 233

Timeline 237

Key Terms 243

Notes 249

Select Bibliography 301

Index 317