Botticelli comes to cinema. In November, the film about the painter of the Primavera

Appointment at the cinema on November 28, 29 and 30 to see one of the main masters of the Florentine Renaissance, Sandro Botticelli, on the big screen: in fact, the film Botticelli and Florence arrives in theaters. The Birth of Beauty, a journey that Nexo Digital, through the narrative voice of Jasmin Trinca, undertakes through Botticelli’s masterpieces in Florence, composing an itinerary to discover the inventor of a new model of beauty that has transcended the centuries and inspired even contemporaries.

From Terry Gilliam to Andy Warhol, from David LaChapelle to Jeff Koons and Lady Gaga, contemporary painters, stylists, and photographers have in fact been dazzled by the eternal fascination of Botticelli and his works, continually reinterpreted and re-invented to the point of entering fully into our collective imagination, the same one that brings thousands of visitors every year in front of his masterpieces. Yet, for more than three hundred years after his death, the Florentine painter was almost completely forgotten, until the rediscovery of him by Ruskin and the Pre-Raphaelites in the 19th century. After all, Alessandro di Mariano di Vanni Filipepi, known as Botticelli (Florence 1445 - 1510), is among the artists who best captured the spirit of his time.

It is precisely his history, his art and his contemporary rediscovery that are the protagonists of Botticelli and Florence. The Birth of Beauty, the docufilm, with narration by Jasmine Trinca, produced by Sky, Ballandi and Nexo Digital under the patronage of the City of Florence, conceived and written by Francesca Priori and directed by Marco Pianigiani. In the feature film, which is part of the La Grande Arte al Cinema project, the audience will encounter dreamlike re-enactments, evocative images of the city and footage of extraordinary works that alternate with the voices of leading international experts, scholars, and art historians who narrate the splendor and contradictions of Lorenzo de’ Medici’s Florence, discovering one of the artists who symbolized the Italian Renaissance. With Lorenzo the Magnificent, the equivalence of Art & Power manifested itself in every economic, political and social sphere and was embodied in paintings, frescoes, palaces, churches and chapels. The great artists who operated their workshops in the heart of the city transformed Florence into an open-air museum: these were the years of the Florentine Spring, the discovery of America, the contrasts with the pope, and the struggles between the great families of bankers and merchants. At the end of the 15th century, Florence is a city in full economic and cultural expansion, with trade and exchanges from all over. The docufilm intends to retrace that mythical period through the eyes of Botticelli, who represents those years in his works, expressing the character of his fellow citizens in their passion for work, extreme competitiveness and resourcefulness, ability to weave the right social relationships, and always being able to satisfy the wishes of public and private patrons.

From the marvelous Madonnas to the paintings of the perpetrators of the Pazzi Conspiracy who were executed and hanged outside the Porta della Dogana at the Palazzo Vecchio, from Dante’s Inferno to the Pietà, from the ancient gods of Hellenic mythology to Savonarola’s apocalyptic God, Botticelli’s art will be investigated through talks by experts: Alessandro Cecchi, director of the Casa Buonarroti Museum in Florence; Ana Debenedetti, curator of the drawings and paintings section of the Victoria & Albert Museum in London; Franco Cardini, professor of Medieval History at the University of Florence; Jonathan Nelson, professor of art history at Syracuse University in Florence; Marco Ciatti, director of the Opificio delle pietre dure in Florence; Kate Bryan, art historian; Chiara Cappelletto, associate professor of aesthetics at the Department of Philosophy, University of Milan; and Edward Buchanan, creative director of Sansovino 6.

But in common memory, Botticelli’s spirit is first and foremost encapsulated in two of his masterpieces: the Primavera (1478-82) and the Birth of Venus (1483-85). Grace and harmony sprout in Primavera, as much as the hundreds of different flowers masterfully depicted by the master: forget-me-nots, iris, cornflower, buttercup, poppy, daisy, violet, jasmine. Ethereal and perfect, the Garden of Spring is the synthesis of the neo-Platonic philosophy in vogue at the “court” of the Magnifico. With the Renaissance, the time has indeed come for the return of the ancient gods: Botticelli gave new life to myths, thus creating his most famous and enigmatic works known today as “Botticellian mythologies.” With Pallas and the Centaur (c. 1482) and Venus and Mars (c. 1483) the painter brings the goddesses and gods of ancient Greece into the heart of 15th-century Florence, in the constant and feverish search for a model of beauty that goes beyond the representation of reality, beyond the academy. The Birth of Venus (1483-85) is an emblem and concrete realization of his aspiration. Long-linear figures, soft and harmonious curves: the faces of Botticelli’s Venuses are mirrored in those of his Madonnas and vice versa. Similar yet unique, they are destined to imprint themselves in collective memory as the prototype of ideal beauty, defying centuries and fashions.

In 1492, the death of Lorenzo Il Magnifico marked the end of a golden age. Girolamo Savonarola ’s apocalyptic sermons inflame the Florentine crowds. They burn the bonfires of vanities that sacrifice the symbols of the age, including works of art. It is a matter of little time before Florentines’ tastes adjust to the Dominican friar’s precepts. Patrons changed and Botticelli himself adapted by producing other masterpieces such as the Mystical Nativity (1501) and the Lamentation over the Dead Christ (1495-1500), letting sinuosity and softness of form give way to broken lines and violent color contrasts.

After an oblivion of more than three centuries, its rediscovery in the 19th century will be by the Pre-Raphaelites: the poet and painter Dante Gabriel Rossetti will buy the Portrait of Smeralda Bandinelli (1472) for a few pounds, drawing inspiration from it for some of his most fascinating works. This was only the beginning of a genuine Botticelli-mania, which has continued from the 19th century until today, touching photography, fashion, and the world of entertainment. The Master’s works have crossed the barriers of space and time to reach us, and enthusiastic crowds continue to fill the halls of the Uffizi to meet him, Sandro Botticelli, the inventor of Beauty.

Great Art at the Movies is an original and exclusive project of Nexo Digital. For 2022, La Grande Arte al Cinema is exclusively distributed in Italy by Nexo Digital with media partners Radio Capital, Sky Arte, MYmovies.it and in collaboration with Abbonamento Musei.

Botticelli comes to cinema. In November, the film about the painter of the Primavera

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