(ANSA) - One of the most famous and studied paintings of the Renaissance hides a carefully coded map of 15th-century Italian politics, according to a top Italian art expert. Sandro Botticelli's 'Primavera' (Spring), painted in 1478, has been pored over for decades and a wealth of interpretations have been produced explaining the enigmatic arrangement of the eight figures and the cupid.
The most common identifies the figures with eight months of the year, starting on the right with February and ending on the left with September. Each figure also has a mythological identity so that their positions relative to each other can be seen as telling a story with philosophical implications on life and beauty.
But Enrico Guidoni, a lecturer in art history at Rome's La Sapienza University, said at a press conference on Friday that this is far from being the whole story. He said it was crucial to remember that Botticelli was working for a cousin of Lorenzo de Medici, the powerful and art-loving ruler of Florence who has gone down in history as 'the Magnificent'.
The Primavera painting shows a secret strategy Lorenzo de Medici' had worked out to unite the major Italian city states in peaceful co-existence, Guidoni argued. The nine figures represent important cities in 15th century Italy, he continued, listing what he said were linguistic links between the some of the characters portrayed and the cities they stood for.
The figure covered in flowers usually identified as Flora, the Roman goddess of flowers, is Florence; the cupid representing love, or 'Amor' in Italian, is Rome; the falling girl on the right, named as Ver (Latin for spring), is Venice. Guidoni said the three women who formed a small group on the right, apparently representing the three graces of mythology, were three key maritime powers: Pisa, Naples and Genoa.
The military-looking figure on the far left was Milan, source of weapons and arms at the time; the serene, motherly figure in the centre was Mantua; and the cold-looking one on the extreme right, bearing down on 'Venice', was Bolzano.
Guidoni's deductions and interpretations are explained in a recently published book, which outlines Lorenzo de Medici's efforts in the 1480s to begin forging his alliances. Using marriages and other methods he established an axis binding his own Florence with Mantua in the north and the Rome of the pope to the south. He then brought on board several of the other cities with other pacts and accords.
Guidoni's theory is expected to prod art historians into taking another look at Botticelli's painting, which was produced for the villa of Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco Medici, a cousin of Lorenzo the Magnificent. Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco was Botticelli's patron and protector at the time. According to art historians, it was common for the leading artists of the day to express a philosophical message in their paintings through a language of symbols and mythological figures. This message was decided beforehand by the patron's favourite intellectuals, who discussed the symbols to be used in a work in depth with the artist.
Iconography, the science of decoding the language of art, grew up at the start of the last century and continues today.
One of its founders was Germany's Aby Warburg who devoted much time to studying Botticelli's work, especially Primavera and the even more famous Birth of Venus. His ideas on the Primavera were the first of many subsequent attempts to interpret a painting which most experts admit is enigmatic and probably has several layers of meaning existing together.
Many of the theorists describe it as representing the poetic myth of springtime or as a Neo-platonic meditation on beauty. Guidoni is the first person to suggest the picture has a political meaning.
