Botticelli’s muse

Botticelli’s muse, frozen in eternal beauty! ‘Simonetta Vespucci’ (1490) embodies Renaissance perfection—golden curls, porcelain skin, and a gaze that launched a thousand sonnets. Was she Florence’s Helen of Troy? Some scholars argue this isn’t Simonetta—but Botticelli’s idealized fantasy of her, blending lover, muse, and myth.

In 1475, Simonetta Vespucci, a Genoese noblewoman married to a Florentine diplomat, became the obsession of Medici circles. Her ethereal beauty inspired poets—and Botticelli, who painted her as both mortal and myth: Venus in The Birth of Venus, Flora in Primavera, and here, in a standalone portrait. Yet tragedy struck when she died at 22, likely of tuberculosis, sending the city into mourning.