‘Beauty is the beacon of God,’ said Botticelli. ‘No, it’s not. Love is,’ snapped his sister.<\/p>\n
Beauty: Botticelli in Florence<\/em><\/strong> imagines what Botticelli was feeling and thinking as he painted. The people he loved and despised, his private struggle between spirituality and sensuality, the tempestuous times he lived through – all come to life in his images…<\/p>\n The novel is a speculation based on the few facts known about Botticelli, informed by his paintings. There are many surprises. The Birth of Venus<\/em> was a tapestry design. And his famed self-portrait didn’t depict him (as widely believed) but Pierfrancesco de Medici, who sued his powerful cousin Lorenzo for robbing him, abolished Florence’s homophobic witch-hunts, funded Vespucci’s journey to the New World and commissioned Botticelli’s most famous works. There was boiling tension between him and Botticelli.<\/p>\n This is the first in a sequence of illustrated ‘painting novels’ that make sights as telling as words.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A novel by one of Britain’s leading figures in museums and collecting of the last 50 years, based on the few facts known about Botticelli – informed by his paintings, imagining his thoughts and feelings as he created them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":52151,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":""},"product_brand":[],"product_cat":[5568,21064],"product_tag":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-52150","1":"product","2":"type-product","3":"status-publish","4":"has-post-thumbnail","6":"product_cat-art","7":"product_cat-sport-recreation","8":"author-by-author-julian-spalding","9":"publisher-pallas-athene","11":"first","12":"instock","13":"shipping-taxable","14":"purchasable","15":"product-type-simple"},"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n