in one hand and a flowering branch in the other. She seems to be talking to Abra, the girl who is following her with a pretty yet frightened countenance. The burden she is carrying on her head like a basket of oranges explains her nervous demeanour. It is the bloody head of Holofernes, half wrapped in a sack. On the same topic, Botticelli painted a horror scene, a little chaotic but truly dramatic: The Discovery of the Murder of Holofernes. In fact, the turmoil of the people who find their general’s naked, atrociously mutilated corpse seems to be shared by the horse of the Assyrian captain, which is watching from the background of the scene, shivering. The heroine does not worry about either the “barons” or the general. She is walking under the sun of the God of Israel among the grass and the flowers towards her village Bethulia, swaying her flexible waist, her forehead adorned with gems, her conscience triumphant.
In Botticelli’s early work, there is one clearly defined date: 1474. He was sent to Pisa in the month of May to work at the Campo Santo, in order to see which part of the glorious monastery he could paint with frescos. He was paid one Florin for this trip along the banks of the Arno. It seems that his engagement with the people of Pisa was not one of great commitment. Botticelli was asked to prove himself by decorating the chapel of Incoronata at the cathedral with an Assumption. The books of the institution show sums of money and wheat that were given to Sandro, known as Botticelli until the end of September. The artist did not like this Assunta, lifted up by a choir of angels, which is why he “left it unfinished”, according to Vasari. Or maybe he was also daunted and discouraged by Benozzo Gozzoli’s project: Gozzoli had spent six years unfolding his “opera terribilissima” (Vasari), the Old Testament, the Deluge and the Tower of Babel, Abraham and Sodom, Moses, and David and Solomon along the corridor of the monastery. What had Botticelli hoped to paint in Pisa, the Divine Comedy, which would come back to haunt the last dreams of his life? With what kind of terror he would have pierced the melancholy of Campo Santo! But Benozzo, at work alone in this solitude, threatened to overrun everything, from the tomb of Emperor Henry VII to the Triumph of Death. So Botticelli took up his walking stick again and made his way to Florence. This Assumption and her angels seems to be one of the sources of a legend that is as complicated as it is strange, and that would later be associated with the Assumption of San Pietro Maggiore of Florence that had long been attributed to Botticelli and is housed today in the National Gallery in London (Francesco Botticini, The Assumption of the Virgin, c. 1475–1476). The painting of this latter work coincided more or less with Botticelli’s brief stay in Pisa. Nothing shrouds history more than the random connection of facts simply because they occurred around the same time.
35. Virgin and Child with Two Angels and Saint John the Baptist, c. 1468.
Tempera on canvas, 85 × 64 cm.
Galleria dell’Accademia, Florence.
Vasari writes that Botticelli made a painting for Matteo Palmieri on the lateral portal of San Pietro Maggiore. It has an infinite multitude of figures, featuring the Assumption of the Virgin and circles of heaven with patriarchs, 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
