Simonetta Vespucci

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Portrait of Simonetta Vespucci, possibly as Proserpina (Piero di Cosimo, 1490)

Simonetta Cattaneo Vespucci (* probably January 28, 1453 in Porto Venere or Genoa , † April 26, 1476 in Florence ) was considered the most beautiful woman in Florence and inspired several artists of the Italian Renaissance .

Life

Simonetta's father was the Genoese nobleman Gaspare Cattaneo Della Volta. He was married to Simonetta's mother, Cattocchia Spinola.

Simonetta was married to Marco Vespucci , a cousin of the navigator and explorer Amerigo Vespucci , at the age of 16 in order to strengthen the alliance between the two trading aristocracies. However, the marriage was not happy, presumably due to the young husband's homosexual tendencies. However, it gave Simonetta quick access to the circles around the Medici family .

On January 29, 1475, a tournament took place in Florence at which Giuliano di Piero de 'Medici , the brother of the famous Lorenzo il Magnifico , dedicated his performance to Simonetta, the "Queen of Beauty" (regina della bellezza) . She appeared on a - not preserved - standard from Botticelli's workshop with a helmet, lance and shield in the pose of Pallas Athene next to Cupid , who was tied to a tree, the arrows broken; this scene was supposed to symbolize that the beauty is resisting the temptations of the advertiser and rejecting him, as the tournament rules require. Also Poliziano describes this tournament in such a way that the chosen one for the Minerva is, and Botticelli's Minerva representations in turn carry similar traits of the idealized beautiful woman presenting allegedly Simonetta Vespucci.

It is not clear whether the platonic adoration remained after the tournament or whether Simonetta became Giuliano's lover. Evidence such as the Medici cameo that Botticelli's “ideal female portrait ” (Städel) wears around her neck has been found time and again. On the other hand, it can be assumed that a connection between a Medici regent and a married woman should have triggered a scandal known throughout the city; but there is no such record in the sources.

Simonetta died of tuberculosis on the night of April 26-27, 1476 at the age of 23 and was buried in the family chapel of Vespucci in the Ognissanti church in Florence. Giuliano was stabbed to the day exactly two years after her death as part of the " Pazzi Conspiracy " in the Florentine Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore .

Vespucci in painting

Piero di Cosimo portrayed her as Cleopatra or Proserpina with long blond hair. Sandro Botticelli is said to have immortalized her - according to earlier iconographic explanations of art history - in his work The Birth of Venus and in numerous other allegorical depictions of the Madonna and portraits. The art historian Ernst Gombrich rejected this theory. However, new comparative juxtapositions in a Botticelli retrospective at the Städel Museum in Frankfurt in 2009/10 have brought it back into focus.

Botticelli's paintings, for which Simonetta Vespucci may have served as a model :

  • Madonna and Child (1470)

  • Portrait of a Young Woman (around 1476–1480)

  • Idealized portrait of a young woman, also "Portrait of Simonetta Vespucci as a nymph" (1480)

  • Venus and Mars (around 1483)

  • The Birth of Venus (1484–1485)

literature

  • Hans Körner: Simonetta Vespucci. Construction, deconstruction and reconstruction of a myth. In: Andreas Schumacher (ed.): Botticelli - portrait, myth, devotion. (= Catalog for the Botticelli exhibition in the Städel Museum). Hatje Cantz, Ostfildern 2009, ISBN 978-3-7757-2480-7 , pp. 57-72.
  • Therese Rie : The story of the beautiful Simonetta. In: Auguste Fickert (Ed.): New women's life. 18th year, Vienna 1916, No. 6, pp. 141–144 and No. 7, pp. 164–168 ( online in the Gutenberg-DE project ).
  • Mariella Righini: The Florentine. Novel . Heyne Verlag, Munich 1997, ISBN 3-453-12434-0 .
  • Daniela Venner: Botticelli's Ideal Portraits of Simonetta Vespucci - A Study of the Sensation of Ideal Beauty in the Italian Renaissance. Painting and poetry as means of communication for the Bellezza ideals. VDM Verlag Dr. Müller, Saarbrücken 2010, ISBN 978-3-639-28836-0 .

Web links

Commons : Portraits of Simonetta Vespucci  - Album with pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Mariella Righini: The Florentine . 1997, p. 12 .
  2. ↑ Hans Körner: Simonetta Vespucci . S. 57 .
personal data
SURNAME Vespucci, Simonetta
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Simonetta Cattaneo Vespucci (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Mistress of Giuliano di Piero de Medici, model
DATE OF BIRTH January 28, 1453
PLACE OF BIRTH Porto Venere or Genoa
DATE OF DEATH April 26, 1476
Place of death Florence