I read The Botticelli Secret this fall in Italy and loved it. It's an exciting story of intrigue and romance that offers a fascinating interpretation of this famous and mysterious painting.
It's the story of a Luciana Vetra, a prostitute and occasional model who poses for Botticelli. He hires her to be his model for the central and final figure in La Primavera.
She makes an offhand comment that upsets the artist and he dismisses her without payment. Furious, she retaliates by snatching up a smaller version of the work, tucking it into her bodice and fleeing the studio.
Almost immediately both her roommate and her wealthy client are brutally assasinated, and Luciana runs for her life. With nowhere to hide, she turns to a handsome young monk, the only man immune to her charms, who harbors hopes of convincing her to give up her licentious life.
More murders force the two to flee Florence as they slowly realize that La Primavera is a coded puzzle that they must unravel if they hope to stay alive.
The Botticelli Secret is an exciting, bawdy, rollicking trip through the great cities of Italy, a most enjoyable journey.
And the interpretation of the figures and elements of this famous and much discussed painting is fascinating. It might even be true, as it's based on the work of the scholar Enrico Guidoni.
Whether true or not, it's certainly plausible within the confines of the novel and the painting. Also, all the buildings, places, and many of the characters mentioned are real.
I had a great time reading this novel just before seeing the painting in the Uffizi last month. La Primavera has always been one of my favorite Renaissance paintings and I never get tired of it.
I first saw it "in person" when I was 20 and traveling around Europe on my own. All alone in the Botticelli room, I was stunned by its beauty and intrigued by its allegory.
(Today the Botticelli Room at the Uffizi in Florence is never empty, but if you go in the late afternoon, you won't have to fight the crowds of tourists and can spend all the time you want looking at this beautiful work.)
I've read many many interpretations of it over the years, but The Botticelli Secret is the most interesting and most coherent of them all.
It's a kind of high-brow DaVinci Code of a novel with surprises and twists that you won't be able to put down.



