Botticelli's Primavera review – lucid study of a Renaissance masterpiece
Like the earlier film, this is the brainchild of Howard Burton, a theoretical physicist and philosopher who is not an art historian by training, but you wouldn't really know it. As with his Raphael magnum opus, Burton's calm and clear voiceover is the meat of the film, resembling a scholarly lecture that, for all its dryness, is lucid and very listenable. Burton foregrounds some nice archive and architectural material which – again like Raphael film – is used to support his analysis; key, it seems, is exactly when and where its existence was recorded in various key property inventories.
Visually, Burton's film is not going to win any prizes, though its fairly basic graphics and PowerPoint style presentation get his points across with undeniable clarity. What's rather impressive, however, is the combination of highmindedness and clarity on show here; Burton is a film-maker not afraid of referencing Seneca and Ovid, or getting in visual quotes from the likes of Antonio del Pollaiuolo and Lorenzo Lotto. Well, Burton makes a convincing case for what he calls Primavera's 'highlighting of a golden pastoral past' through its assembly of classical-era literary fragments, with the painting itself acting as a marriage gift to one Semiramide Appiano, wife to powerful Florentine nobleman Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de' Medici. And at a crisp hour in running time it's as easily digestible as it is informative.
Botticelli's Primavera is on Prime Video from 31 January.
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Times
a day ago
- Times
My night at the extraordinary Tuscan home of a Renaissance artist
It is a roasting summer day in Florence. Down in the basin of the Arno, steam seems to rise from the baking streets and sweat pours from pores hitherto unknown. I sigh: what hell people put themselves through to see the Duomo. I, too, can see the Duomo, but I'm not down there. I'm up in the hills, wringing out my hair — not with sweat, but from a swim. I text a friend, Daniela, who lives in Florence. Come here after work! There's a breeze! It's a centuries-old routine for Florentines: when the heat hits, decamp to the hills. About 500 years ago the owner of this villa was probably sending a similar message to his city friend. His name was Ridolfo Ghirlandaio; his friend, Raphael. In the 15th and 16th centuries, the Ghirlandaio family — paterfamilias Domenico, his brothers David and Benedetto, and his son, Ridolfo, ran one of the foremost artist workshops in Florence. Domenico was a big beast of the Renaissance: Botticelli was his rival, Michelangelo his apprentice; Da Vinci, it's thought, studied Domenico's Last Supper before creating his own. The family — whose real name was Bigordi, but took Ghirlandaio from the crown-like women's garlands (ghirlande) that had made Domenico's father wealthy — became an artistic dynasty. Ridolfo was mates with Raphael, who invited him to Rome to work for the Pope. Ridolfo refused, wrote Giorgio Vasari, the Renaissance painter and art historian — he couldn't relinquish his view of the Duomo. I can see why. The Ghirlandaios' workshop was in Florence, but their hearts were at Colle Ramole, in the olive-strewn hills four and a half miles southeast, the city unfurling below around Brunelleschi's soaring terracotta dome. It became their haven — a villa and estate, with a furnace to smelt the tesserae for Domenico and David's mosaic of the Annunciation above the Duomo's side door. When Domenico died at 45, Ridolfo took over. He frescoed their family chapel: the Virgin and Child above the altar with two saints. Above them: two rainbow-winged putti. On either side, portraits of the family: Ridolfo and his son, his wife holding a baby, and his late dad, immortalised in ruddy middle-aged eternity. It's the only self-portrait by a Renaissance artist in their home, murmurs Marco Cecchi as we come face to face with Ridolfo, who stares us down — what are you doing in my house? Sure, Raphael is said to have painted the Virgin and Child on his teenage bedroom wall in Urbino; Sofonisba Anguissola's portrait of her father and siblings hung in her Cremona home, according to Vasari. But a selfie, in situ? This might be the only one. • Discover our full guide to Italy Cecchi, who grew up one hill away, is the guardian of this great patrimony. In 2010 his family bought the crumbling estate. They planned to turn it into flats, but decided that would ruin the history. 'I didn't [initially] realise how important this was,' he says of the house's heritage. 'I consider myself lucky to be the custodian, but see the real danger if it had gone to someone else.' So they pivoted, restoring the villa, converting the five outhouses into cottages, and renting it out as Dimora (home of) Ghirlandaio in 2018. At first they rented it for exclusive use only. Six houses, up to 40 people — the prices were stratospheric enough that Cecchi won't share them. Staff whisper of tech billionaires à deux, and American lawyers private-jetting their way over to play dolce vita for their birthdays. The cradle of the Renaissance had become a party pad for modern-day Gatsbys. Until now. This summer the estate has been broken up, so you can rent a single villa at Dimora Ghirlandaio for a single night. Instead of tens of thousands to get through the gate, you can now stump up £520 for the Limonaia suite overlooking the Renaissance-style lawn. Cecchi amiably admits it's to fill up slow periods — those filthy-rich Americans prefer June, July, September and October. But I — one of the first plebs through its doors — like to think of it as reclaiming the space for ordinary people. The idea is to keep some dates restricted for buyouts, open others for single bookings, and offer last-minute breaks where available. Right now there's availability throughout August and November, plus pockets in September and October. It'll be a steep learning curve, not least for the guests, unaccustomed to such luxury. I merrily went swimming in what I thought was a pool, only to be gently told it was a water feature. Of course it was — the real pool was unmistakable. A long, infinity edge melted into the estate's endless olive groves, fringed by lavender and jasmine (the grounds are an open-air perfumery). Two orange trees sprout from the centre — a nice way to split the kids' side from the adult depths, I thought, until Cecchi explained that they were there to recall Domenico's famous Cenacolo, or Last Supper fresco, in Florence's Ognissanti church. That's the joy of Dimora Ghirlandaio. Of course, it's gorgeous — but then, plenty of Tuscan villas are. Sure, it's extra-cushy — it's been designed to please billionaires, after all. But it's the history that makes this special. Cecchi has turned the estate into a homage to the family. Each of the five rooms in the main villa, where I stay — wondering if mine, overlooking the Duomo, was where Domenico once slept — is named after a brother; in another, they sport the names of pigments the family used. The walls are painted in soft mints, greys, peaches and pinky-reds — colours that Ridolfo used in the chapel. The floors are terracotta, fired at nearby Impruneta (just like the Duomo), while the fireplaces are in pietra serena, the stone that lines the Uffizi porticoes. Above the gate is the Bigordi coat of arms: three spheres, not unlike that of Domenico's friend Lorenzo de' Medici. My favourite (and the cheapest) cottage, the two-bedroom La Bottega, is supposedly the site of the family workshop. Today there's a desk overlooking the Duomo — just as inspiring 500 years on. The other villas have been crafted from stables and outbuildings. There are original fittings galore — chunky beams, a two-bull yoke — and all except La Limonaia have a strip of private garden. • 28 of the best villas in Tuscany The estate used to be self-sufficient — the Bigordis produced wine, oil and cereals — and it still is, in the sense that there's no need to leave the property. Daniela comes up for aperitivo, the sky turning a Ridolfo-esque pink behind the Duomo, church bells chiming in the distance. Dinner is in the greenhouse-like restaurant, or overlooking the olives. You can do painting classes, wine tastings, cooking classes. We taste the estate's olive oil with farm manager Clemente Pellegrini Strozzi — a descendant of another Renaissance dynasty, and a man so passionate about olive oil ('It's like making a painting') that he talks to his trees. The more I learn about the Ghirlandaio family, the more I covet their art. Dimora offers a Ghirlandaio tour of Florence — Domenico's frescoes in Santa Maria Novella, Ognissanti and Santa Trinita — but I want to see the family's works in the landscape in which they lived. Each villa has a book about the history of Colle Ramole, which also lists the locations of every nearby work. That was my Sunday settled. At the Abbazia dei Santi Salvatore e Lorenzo in Badia a Settimo, just over nine miles away, Domenico's Annunciation — two roundels over the main arch — powers me through Mass ( In the sacristy afterwards, a priest silently flicks the lights onto a Nativity and Deposition — the grass beneath the cross is as fluffy as Dimora's lawn. In San Donnino, once an Arno-side village, now a suburb of Florence, is the church of San Andrea and two frescoes: Domenico's delicate Madonna and Child with two deliciously camp saints, and the Baptism of Christ, thought to be by his brother, David, as it's not quite as good (sorry David). The churchwarden, Lorenza, ushers me into an adjoining wing. It's the Museo d'Arte Sacra di San Donnino, a collection of Renaissance art that tells the story of the flood-prone village — most of these paintings were irreparably damaged in 1966. A St Roch by the Ghirlandaios looks desultory, his robes melted clean away by floodwater. Lorenza needs to go — it's Sunday lunchtime — but gives me her number, promising to open up again if I return. You wouldn't get that in Florence (free; At Badia a Passignano, 15 miles south, six Benedictine monks still live in the monastery where David and Domenico frescoed a Last Supper in 1476. The superior, Jinsho Kuriakose, takes us on a tour (by donation; Past three swashbuckling archangels painted by Ridolfo's protégé, Michele Tosini, we head to the refectory. This was the scene of a battle of wills, says Father Jinsho. David complained to the monks that they weren't feeding them enough; when the abbot refused to give them more, the brothers downed tools and left, making sure the fresco looked decent enough for the oblivious monks to pay them in full. I imagine them flouncing back to Colle Ramole as I drive back past an Antinori vineyard. I see that same hauteur in Ridolfo's face the next morning, when I bid him farewell ('Is he glaring at us or smiling?' Strozzi had asked when we'd popped in post-oil tasting). He's inscrutable: longish hair bobbed, Tuscan nose, eyes boring into my soul, while Domenico stares from above, lip imperceptibly curled. This is our house, they seem to whisper. And it always will be, I want to reply — but I'm delighted that Cecchi has brought you back to life. This article contains affiliate links that will earn us revenue Julia Buckley was a guest of Dimora Ghirlandaio, which has B&B doubles from £520 or villas from £781 ( The chapel can be viewed on request. Fly to Florence
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