Botticelli's Secret

""A lively book…[Luzzi] brilliantly sets the operatic stage of vibrant, violent Renaissance Florence and brings to life the characters who helped resurrect Botticelli."" -- Max Norman - The Wall Street Journal ""Wide-ranging...[Luzzi] reads Botticelli’s drawings as “a ‘poem’ in their own regard,” and as a crucial link in the “mapping of the human spirit’s transition” from one era to the next."" -- The New Yorker ""The Italian Renaissance has rarely been so brilliantly examined or put before us in such a delectable style. I would recommend Botticelli’s Secret to anyone who loves art, who enjoys good storytelling, and who is interested in how the human spirit rediscovered itself in such a magnificent and dramatic fashion."" -- Jay Parini, author of Borges and Me ""Botticelli’s Secret is sheer delight from beginning to end. Under the guise of tracing a fascinating history, this book finally presents a compelling brief for the lasting importance to all of us, as thinking, feeling people, irrespective of nation"" -- Ingrid Rowland, coauthor of The Collector of Lives ""Brilliantly conceived and executed...a riveting search for buried treasure. Luzzi takes one of the Florentine master’s least familiar works, his cycle of illustrations of Dante’s?Divine Comedy, and, tracing its history along winding passages from the fift"" -- Stephen Greenblatt, author of Tyrant