Botticelli's "Primavera" has been repeatedly analysed wrt hidden messages and current thinking is that it was a visual representation of Marsilio Ficino's neoplatonic theory directed to Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de' medici's presented around the time of his wedding to Semiramide, presumably as an exhortation to pursue the good.
But what would Semiramide make of it? It was apparently displayed in the ante room to Lorenzo's private rooms - she must have seen it frequently if not on a daily basis. Was there a message in it that she could see? Her first betrothal to Lorenzo's cousin Giuliano was aborted by his assassination in the Pazzi conspiracy that precipitated a war in which her family and the Medici were on opposing sides. Four years later is married into one of the most powerful families in Europe's cadet branch. She must have been terrified!
What happened to her? How did she cope?
Dear Christopher,
these are all assumptions, no one knows what happened to her. after Medici's death it was the children who came to focus. as you know it was an arranged marriage
they had children they had to marry them off well.
Dear Christopher,
This is not easy to ask such questions like that. Without thorough historical resources or the deep knowledge of that time, it is impossible to answer your question.
However, I have found a related article:
Venus as Semiramis: A New Interpretation of the Central Figure of Botticelli's "Primavera"
Sergiusz Michalski
Artibus et Historiae
Vol. 24, No. 48 (2003), pp. 213-222
http://www.jstor.org/stable/1483740?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents
Dear András
Many thanks for the link. Clearly there are layers and layers of allusion within this painting. There are visual references that link the characters to Ovid (particularly the rape of Chloris with subsequent metamorphosis to Flora), but I have always been reluctant to link Semiramide Appiano to Ovidian Semiramis who appears in Amores 1.5:
ecce, Corinna venit, tunica velata recincta,
candida dividua colla tegente coma,
qualiter in thalamos famosa Semiramis isse
dicitur, et multis Lais amata viris.
The subsequent scene of love is somewhat graphic, perhaps too graphic for open discussion in polite Florentine society. Although having said that, Lorenzo senior was famous for smutty verse in addition to his more serious poetry. Also, later on in the poem Ovid tires of Corinna.
Botticelli seems to have used some faces repeatedly in his paintings. Another candidate for the main character might be Simonetta Cattaneo/Vespucci.
It has also been suggested that the middle Grace (Charity), gazing at Mercury (? Lorenzo junior) is a likeness of Semiramide.
The main reason, however, that I believe the main figure is not Semiramis/Semiramide is the use of the direct gaze towards the picture viewer. This was unusual in Quattrocento portraits of women, who up until about 1470 (Botticelli portrait of a lady, Smeralda Bandinelli) were portrayed with modest, downcast eyes (except when in profile). For me, the use of the frontal direct gaze implies the transmission of a message to the viewer, and it is used in both the central characters ('Venus" and "Flora"). Most people seem to read the painting from right to left, but I have always been drawn to the centre and the central figure seems to be providing the viewer a choice of Platonic loves, on her left the sensible, to her right the intelligible.
Dear Christopher,
Your question and last comment with the Ovid excerpt show a fine chain of artistic or genre transport or a circulus viciosus : Semiramide d’Appiano as Flora in Boticelli’s Primavera - Ovid’s Corinna who was as beautiful as Semiramis and Lais. Semiramide can be derived from Semiramis. The Medici’s and Boticelli must have well known Ovid Amores and Semiramide-Flora as a lady-in-waiting of Venus was as charming as Semiramis. Regarding this sequence of artistic passage the original question – what happened to Semiramide d’Appiano – must be indifferent. Models are mortal but art is eternal.
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