Botticelli. Victoria Charles
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prophets, scholars, virgins, and angelic hierarchies. This project had been drafted by Palmieri himself, who was a scholar and a worthy man. The work was painted with maestria and most delicate diligence. One can discern Palmieri on his knees, as well as his wife. But despite the beauty of the piece, which ought to have silenced envy, there was ill will and slander. Because they had nothing else to blame, some said Palmieri and Botticelli had committed a grave sin of heresy: “dissero che e Matteo e Sandro gravemente vi avessero peccato in eresia”. Whatever their intentions, one had to admit that Botticelli’s figures were truly praiseworthy, both for the diligence he put into representing the circles of heaven and mingling angels and humans, as well as for his excellent foreshortenings, varied postures, and the perfection of the design.
In order to understand this theological adventure, one of the bizarre episodes of Florentine art history, one must stress that the historian lacked precision and completely failed to understand Palmieri’s sin. At which moment did the accusation of heresy against Palmieri and Botticelli surface? Vasari does not say. In what year did the outrage become so fierce that church authorities had to shroud the cursed painting for two centuries and prohibit any worship at the altar of the Palmieri chapel? No word on this, either. Thanks to the work of Father Richa on Florentine churches, we do know about the “storm” of stories on the subject of the unfortunate Assunta, made up by Italian writers, and perpetuated by popular imagination. The scholars in Florence, in Italy and beyond the Alps, as well as the good souls of the common believers thought that Palmieri himself had been burned, just like Savonarola, or that his tomb had been opened and his bones scattered.
36. Virgin and Child, also known as the Madonna Guidi de Faenza, c. 1466.
Tempera and oil (?) on poplar, 73 × 49.5 cm.
Musée du Louvre, Paris.
37. Virgin and Child, c. 1467.
Oil on poplar, 72 × 51 cm.
Musée du Petit Palais, Avignon.
38. Madonna of the Rose Garden, 1469–1470.
Tempera on wood, 124 × 64 cm.
Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence.
39. Virgin and Child, 1469–1470.
Tempera on wood, 120 × 65 cm.
Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence.
More moderate voices stated that the heretical poem that was at the bottom of the whole affair, and the manuscript which had rested on the heart of the poet, had also been burned at the hand of the hangman. They believed that the heresy, in this tradition of glorifying the Virgin Mary, was to be found in the pages of this mysterious book. Wasn’t Palmieri’s parchment poisoned by the breath of Origen, who remained the terror of the Church until the appearance of the Arab Averroes? Let us untangle this curious imbroglio of which Botticelli has been the victim for too long.
In the middle of the Quattrocento, Matteo di Marco Palmieri was one of Florence’s notable citizens, of an old Ghibelline family, once loyal to the Germanic emperors. Those Ghibellines of Tuscany, who customarily opposed the Church, had a very free spirit and a radiating faith. From their ranks had once come the Florentine Epicureans, whom Dante had buried in the burning tombs of heretics and who laughed at the fires of Hell. Palmieri was well-read in the classics, philosophy, and theology. In 1439, he began to serve on the Florentine council that tried to reconcile Byzantium with Rome. He then became ambassador to the court of Alfonso of Aragon in Naples. In 1467, he solicited the canonisation of a beatified Florentine man in Rome. He afterwards held several high offices in the Commune. In 1475, Florence sent him back to Rome in order to persuade Sixtus IV to break the alliance that the Holy Father had formed with Venice and Milan against the Medici. Upon his return from this fruitless mission, he died in his palace. The church gave him a solemn funeral, embellished by a funeral sermon, and buried him under the sacred tiles of a chapel.
In addition to being a diplomat, a scholar, a Casuist, and initiated to the mysteries of the Innate Light or the procession of the Holy Ghost, Palmieri was also a Florentine and Ghibelline poet. His soul was haunted by Virgil’s and Dante’s imagery. At the outskirts of Naples he had seen and been disturbed by Sibylla’s Cave, Lake Avernus, the well of Hell, and the Phlegraean Fields where steam rises from Satan’s boilers. He was thus inspired to write a poem corresponding to the sixth book of the Aeneid and the three Cantica of the Divine Comedy. When the masterpiece was completed, he sealed the manuscript, not to be opened until after his death.
For his poem, Palmiere borrowed from Virgil the characters who return from the underworld and speak to the people. Like Dante, he divided his poem into three parts of thirty-three songs, and he describes the stroll across the three regions of the netherworld, the screams of the damned, and the unrelenting music of Paradise, the Hosanna and the Magnificat resounding for all eternity to the tune of harps around the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.
40. Saint Sebastian, 1474.
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