Charles Dempsey's Primavera

A well-known scholar of the Renaissance period, Charles Dempsey has written an engaging article on the various sources of Botticelli’s Primavera. Once again, this article begins by discussing the individual identities of the figures represented, with particular reference to their role as deities and personification of the spring. According to Dempsey, the painting can be read as the stages of the season, with distinct attributes as well as a collective identity. The breakdown of the months of the year through various calendars, with particular reference to Ovid is an important aspect of this paper. Without the resurgence of interest in the classical period, these texts would have no relevance to Botticelli or his patron. Dempsey suggests, …show more content…
He wrote many books about cultural and art history. Like Wind, Gombrich also took particular interest in the symbolism present during the Renaissance. The Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes publishes research discussing various disciplines, which often emphasises their link to antiquity. This article in particular article gave immense insight into the concept of Neoplatonic thought and the more philosophical interpretation of the Primavera. Gombrich argued that it was Ficino’s letter to Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco and his discussion of mythological figures as guiding figures in Neoplatonism that is the key to truly understanding the painting. Unlike many of the other sources used throughout this essay, Gombrich discusses these figures and the painting as a conduit to higher planes of …show more content…
While Gombrich and Dempsey discussed the Primavera in relation to the Villa Castello, Smith has argued that the Medici inventories and other recent scholarship has found no real proof that the Primavera, The Birth of Venus and Minerva and the Centaur were displayed there. Instead, he claims, that original location of these works was in fact Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco’s house in Florence. In going back to the original sources and analysing further this information, Smith has attempted to provide more accurate information and the ability to create or reaffirm interpretations regarding the allegorical meaning of Botticelli’s Primavera. This article provided further use, in later scholarship and provided evidence, which Zirpolo used in her own discussion of the painting. Despite this new take on the work’s original location, Dempsey’s and Gombrich’s work can not necessarily be discounted. The philosophical and literary allusions are not truly grounded in the location, but instead the social context in which Botticelli