Botticelli’s Muse

Botticelli’s Muse
Author: Dorah Blume
Publisher: Juiceboxartists Press
Total Pages: 615
Release: 2017-07-21
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 099813161X

Botticelli’s Muse peels back layers of history to tell a fictionalized version of the life of Sandro Botticelli, his conflicts with the Medici family of Florence, and the woman at the heart of his paintings. In 1477, Botticelli is suddenly fired by his prestigious patron and friend Lorenzo de’ Medici. In the villa of his irritating new patron, the artist’s creative well runs dry—until the day he sees Floriana, a Jewish weaver imprisoned in his sister’s convent. But events threaten to keep his unlikely muse out of reach. So begins a tale of one of the art world’s most beloved paintings, La Primavera, as Sandro, a confirmed bachelor, and Floriana, a headstrong artist in her own right, enter into a turbulent relationship.

Botticelli Past and Present

Botticelli Past and Present
Author: Ana Debenedetti
Publisher: UCL Press
Total Pages: 334
Release: 2019-01-08
Genre: Art
ISBN: 178735461X

The recent exhibitions dedicated to Botticelli around the world show, more than ever, the significant and continued debate about the artist. Botticelli Past and Present engages with this debate. The book comprises four thematic parts, spanning four centuries of Botticelli’s artistic fame and reception from the fifteenth century. Each part comprises a number of essays and includes a short introduction which positions them within the wider scholarly literature on Botticelli. The parts are organised chronologically beginning with discussion of the artist and his working practice in his own time, moving onto the progressive rediscovery of his work from the late eighteenth to the turn of the twentieth century, through to his enduring impact on contemporary art and design. Expertly written by researchers and eminent art historians and richly illustrated throughout, the broad range of essays in this book make a valuable contribution to Botticelli studies.

The Most Beautiful Woman in Florence

The Most Beautiful Woman in Florence
Author: Alyssa Palombo
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
Total Pages: 320
Release: 2017-04-25
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1466882646

"In the tradition of Tracy Chevalier’s Girl with a Pearl Earring, Palombo has married fine art with romantic historical fiction in this lush and sensual interpretation of Medici Florence, artist Sandro Botticelli, and the muse that inspired them all." - Booklist A girl as beautiful as Simonetta Cattaneo never wants for marriage proposals in 15th Century Italy, but she jumps at the chance to marry Marco Vespucci. Marco is young, handsome and well-educated. Not to mention he is one of the powerful Medici family’s favored circle. Even before her marriage with Marco is set, Simonetta is swept up into Lorenzo and Giuliano de’ Medici’s glittering circle of politicians, poets, artists, and philosophers. The men of Florence—most notably the rakish Giuliano de’ Medici—become enthralled with her beauty. That she is educated and an ardent reader of poetry makes her more desirable and fashionable still. But it is her acquaintance with a young painter, Sandro Botticelli, which strikes her heart most. Botticelli immediately invites Simonetta, newly proclaimed the most beautiful woman in Florence, to pose for him. As Simonetta learns to navigate her marriage, her place in Florentine society, and the politics of beauty and desire, she and Botticelli develop a passionate intimacy, one that leads to her immortalization in his masterpiece, The Birth of Venus. Alyssa Palombo’s The Most Beautiful Woman in Florence vividly captures the dangerous allure of the artist and muse bond with candor and unforgettable passion.

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

Botticelli's Secret: The Lost Drawings and the Rediscovery of the Renaissance
Author: Joseph Luzzi
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Total Pages: 300
Release: 2022-10-25
Genre: History
ISBN: 1324004029

A New Yorker Best Book of 2022 “Brilliantly conceived and executed, Botticelli's Secret is a riveting search for buried treasure.” —Stephen Greenblatt, author of The Swerve Some five hundred years ago, Sandro Botticelli, a painter of humble origin, created works of unearthly beauty. A star of Florence’s art world, he was commissioned by a member of the city’s powerful Medici family to execute a near-impossible project: to illustrate all one hundred cantos of The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri, the ultimate visual homage to that “divine” poet. This sparked a gripping encounter between poet and artist, between the religious and the secular, between the earthly and the evanescent, recorded in exquisite drawings by Botticelli that now enchant audiences worldwide. Yet after a lifetime of creating masterpieces including Primavera and The Birth of Venus, Botticelli declined into poverty and obscurity. His Dante project remained unfinished. Then the drawings vanished for over four hundred years. The once famous Botticelli himself was forgotten. The nineteenth-century rediscovery of Botticelli’s Dante drawings brought scholars and art lovers to their knees: this work embodied everything the Renaissance had come to mean. From Botticelli’s metaphorical rise from the dead in Victorian England to the emergence of eagle-eyed connoisseurs like Bernard Berenson and Herbert Horne in the early twentieth century, and even the rescue of precious art during World War II and the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the posthumous story of Botticelli’s Dante drawings is, if anything, even more dramatic than their creation. A combination of artistic detective story and rich intellectual history, Botticelli’s Secret shows not only how the Renaissance came to life, but also how Botticelli’s art helped bring it about—and, most important, why we need the Renaissance and all that it stands for today.

The Seven Senses of Italy: La Luna di Miele

The Seven Senses of Italy: La Luna di Miele
Author: Nicole Gregory
Publisher: Barbera Foundation
Total Pages: 177
Release:
Genre: Fiction
ISBN:

A honeymoon though Italy filled with love and adventure where all the senses are awakened. Part love story, part travelogue, The Seven Senses of Italy follows American newlyweds Bobby and Lisa as they breathe in the sights, sounds, aromas, tastes, and textures of Italy. Unknowingly guided by Lisa’s late grandmother—her nonna—who exemplifies past generations’ intangible but indisputable gifts of intuition and common sense, the couple falls in love with the people, culture, food, and history of the vibrant peninsula. In the process they grow, change, and begin to imagine a new future. Joining Bobby and Lisa on their adventures and discoveries, readers will glide through Venice’s Grand Canal, ride a Vespa through the Umbrian countryside, hear the resonant peal of ancient church bells, sip espresso at sidewalk caffés, and lose themselves in museum masterpieces that transcend time and space. The Seven Senses of Italy is a must-read for the armchair traveler and romantic as well as those familiar with Italy or planning their first trip.

The Metallic Muse

The Metallic Muse
Author: Lloyd Biggle, Jr.
Publisher: Wildside Press LLC
Total Pages: 230
Release: 2003-09-01
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0809531674

Lloyd Biggie is not only a writer, but also a musician. In THE METALLIC MUSE he has included seven science fiction stories, written over several years, all of which in some way relate to the arts. Thoroughly entertaining and provocative, many of the stories explore the intricate relationship between life and art, and all of them contain very pertinent ideas about present and future experience. Superbly demonstrating their author's depth of insight to the human condition, they offer to all who read them an intriguing blend of accurate analysis and sometimes devastating speculation.

Gabriel's Rapture

Gabriel's Rapture
Author: Sylvain Reynard
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 449
Release: 2012-07-31
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1101614773

New York Times bestselling author Sylvain Reynard continues the story of Gabriel and Julia, two lovers bound together by their darkest desires. But those very desires may destroy them—NOW A FILM FROM PASSIONFLIX! Professor Gabriel Emerson has embarked on a passionate, yet clandestine affair with his former student Julia Mitchell. Sequestered on a romantic holiday in Italy, he tutors her in the sensual delights of the body and the raptures of sex. But when they return, their happiness is threatened by conspiring students, academic politics, and a jealous ex-lover. When Gabriel is confronted by the university administration, will he succumb to Dante’s fate? Or will he fight to keep Julia, his Beatrice, forever? In Gabriel’s Rapture, the brilliant sequel to the wildly successful debut novel, Gabriel’s Inferno, Sylvain Reynard weaves an exquisite love story that will touch the reader’s mind, body, and soul, forever.

Gabriel's Inferno Trilogy

Gabriel's Inferno Trilogy
Author: Sylvain Reynard
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 1879
Release: 2014-02-04
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0698175883

From New York Times bestselling author Sylvain Reynard comes the haunting trilogy of one man’s salvation and one woman’s sensual awakening... The first three volumes in the story of Professor Gabriel Emerson and his beloved Julia, an unforgettable exploration of sin, seduction, forbidden love, and redemption. GABRIEL'S INFERNO GABRIEL'S RAPTURE GABRIEL'S REDEMPTION

Painting Masterclass

Painting Masterclass
Author: Susie Hodge
Publisher: White Lion Publishing
Total Pages: 291
Release: 2019-05-28
Genre: Art
ISBN: 0711241252

Like having 100 of the world’s greatest painters at your side, giving you their own personal tips and advice – Painting Masterclass examines 100 paintings from art history: the way they were made, what they do well, and how and what we can learn from them. Throughout the history of painting, one of the best ways in which many great painters have developed their own personal approaches has been by copying other artists’ work. Learning from great artists helps to encourage a discerning eye, as well as an understanding of colour, materials and perspective, and can inspire further innovation. With the detailed analyses and instructive creative tips sections in this book, you can learn how to convey movement like Degas, apply acrylic like Twombly, and command colour like Matisse. With paintings comprising a broad variety of styles, approaches and materials, the book studies the techniques of many of the greatest painters who have worked across the globe from the 15th to the 21st centuries, using watercolour, gouache, tempera, fresco, oils, encaustic and mixed media, including: Titian, Francisco Goya, Gustave Courbet, Georges Seurat, Edvard Munch, Paul Gauguin, Gustav Klimt, Amedeo Modigliani, Jenny Saville, Caravaggio, Egon Schiele, Michelangelo Buonarroti, Paul Klee, Claude Monet, Edward Hopper, Georgia O’Keeffe, Leonardo da Vinci, Marlene Dumas, Mary Cassatt, Frida Kahlo, Marc Chagall, Sandro Botticelli and Jackson Pollock. Perfect for students as well as professional painters, and with a broad historical and global reach, this book is an indispensable introduction to the rich history and practice of painting. Organized by genre: nudes, figures, landscapes, still lifes, heads, fantasy, and abstraction. Includes practical tips and advice, allowing you to weave some of the great artists’ magic into your own work. Selected masterpieces serve as perfect examples of a particular quality in painting: light and shade, rhythm, form, space, contour, and composition are all covered in detail. Explores each artist’s creative vision, describing how they made the artwork. Use it as a guide, a confidence-booster, a workbook, a companion – or simply admire the paintings!