Beauty

Beauty is the beacon of God, said Botticelli. No, its not. Love is, snapped his sister. Beauty: Botticelli in Florence 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 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 was a tapestry design. And his famed self-portrait didnt depict him (as widely believed) but Pierfrancesco de Medici, who sued his powerful cousin Lorenzo for robbing him, abolished Florences homophobic witch-hunts, funded Vespuccis journey to the New World and commissioned Botticellis most famous works. There was boiling tension between him and Botticelli. This is the first in a sequence of illustrated painting novels that make sights as telling as words.