when you hear this name Sandro Botticelli, you’re probably more likely to think of the Birth of Venus than the Birth of Jesus. But since it’s Christmas, now is a better time than ever to draw attention to a little-known and somewhat ominous painting by Botticelli depicting the latter. The Mysterious Nativity (1500), now in the National Gallery, London, is the only work signed by Botticelli. After centuries of obscurity, it reappeared in the 1800s as a complex composition imbued with symbolism.
A cursory glance paints an ordinary Christmas image. The Virgin Mary and Joseph dote on baby Jesus in a manger under the roof of an open-air wooden house with their ox and donkey. Twelve angels circled the opening in the heavens, while shepherds and three kings eagerly observed and prayed for the young family.
But the inscription Botticelli painted above the floating angel conveys a mysterious, ominous message in Biblical Greek: “According to Chapter 11, I, Sandro, was in trouble in Italy at the end of the year 1500. The painting was made half a year after St. John’s release during the second plague of the Apocalypse, for three and a half years he will then be chained up in the twelfth plague as we will see in this chapter. […] Just like this photo. “
The “Trouble in Italy” most likely recognizes the upheaval in Florence during the spiritual and de facto reign of Girolamo Savonarola. Savonarola was a fervent missionary who aimed to morally reform a city renowned throughout the world for its artistic output and lavish lifestyle. Savonarola denounced secular art and literature, denounced the city as a place of corruption, vice and inflated material wealth, and, warning of impending catastrophe, persuaded the French king and army to lift the occupation and retreat during the war. Saved the Florentines. Italian Wars 1494-98. He was regarded as a prophet, and thousands of Florentines flocked to hear his sermons. In one of his sermons, he claimed that Florence could become the new Jerusalem if its populace gave up and burned their luxuries, finery, and pagan or secular iconography.
Under the influence of Savonarola, Botticelli shifted his creations from the decorative to the pious, which in turn inspired the “Mystical Birth”. Scholars have discovered that the 12 angels at the bottom of the composition each hold a ribbon on which were once inscribed the 12 privileges or virtues of the Virgin Mary. A vision experienced.
The painting itself is full of subtle forebodings: the crib sheet on which Jesus lay recalls the shroud in which he was wrapped after his crucifixion, the sign of the cross on the donkey’s back, and the wooden house where he was born sitting in front of a cave where he It will ultimately rest here before resurrection. Also noteworthy is Botticelli’s decision to include three angels embracing mortals in the foreground – a theme often attributed to a rendition of the Last Judgment based on the Second Coming of Christ.
Another unusual aspect is that the three kings greeted Jesus empty-handed rather than carrying gold, frankincense and myrrh – this may have been influenced by Savonarola’s sermons, although it could be argued that the ultimate gifts were their prayers and Dedication. In the lower half of the painting, seven miniature demons escape into cracks and crevices as they return to Hell, some impaled by their own spears.
Botticelli died in 1510, ten years after he painted the painting, and although Botticelli was famous and highly respected during the Italian Renaissance, both the work and the artist gradually fell into obscurity. The Mysterious Nativity was acquired at a low price in Rome in the 18th century by a British collector and Caribbean plantation owner named William Young Ottley. He took the work back to his home in central London for private display until his death, when the painting was auctioned for less than £80 to another collector, who lent the work to the City of Manchester for the British The largest art exhibition in 1857, millions of people finally saw the painting and rekindled their passion for Botticelli.
In 1878, the National Gallery in London purchased “The Mysterious Birth” for £1,500. The museum houses 14 Botticelli paintings, and The Mystical Birth is displayed with four other Botticelli works in the Florence Art Gallery, owned by the Medici family.
