What Remains of the Fair Simonetta (28 page)

Afterword

While completing my prerequisites for nursing school, I enrolled in an art history class and discovered the wonders of the Renaissance, and of Sandro Botticelli. Particularly fascinated with the
Birth of Venus
and the story behind it, I wrote a ten page paper on the meaning behind this exquisite masterpiece while still in college.

              After many trips to Florence, and a good deal of research on the artist, it was
The Fair Simonetta
, the odd painting of Botticelli’s housed in the Galleria Palatina that inspired this sequel. In every other portrayal by Botticelli as well as other artists, Simonetta Vespucci is painted in an idealized manner, wearing regal clothing and many jewels. But in Botticelli’s
The Fair Simonetta
, Florence’s greatest beauty is seen wearing a drab brown and white house dress with her mousy hair mostly tucked under a cloth, and the only jewelry she wears is a thin, black cord around her neck. I wanted to tell the story behind the anomaloy in
that
painting, one of the few that were actually completed before her death in 1476.

While many of the characters, locales, and stories are authentic, I have used them in a fictitious way, and have changed the order of some events and compressed the timeline in which they occurred. The characters of Anastasia, Antonella, Luciana, Carlo, and Constantia are creations of my imagination.

Even though I read every book I could get my hands on related to Sandro Botticelli, the two most helpful references were Vasari’s
Lives of the Artists
, translated by Mrs. Jonathon Foster, and the thoroughly researched
Botticelli
Life and Work
by Robert Lightbown.

Dedication

Thank you to those, dead and alive, who have shared my love for the glorious painter, Sandro Botticelli, and all that his works represent.

About the Author

Laura T Emery has lived most of her life in Los Angeles, California, but spent most of her time and energy the past few years perusing the streets of Florence through literature, art, and Google Maps.

Laura is learning the Italian language, simply to enable her to read the few books that exist on Simonetta Vespucci, and the many other documents of the Italian Renaissance that have yet to be translated into English.

She made several research trips to Florence in order to become fully immersed in the history and culture, hoping to one day retire with her husband in the Tuscany region of Italy.

Visit Laura on Facebook at:

https://www.facebook.com/lauratemeryauthor/?ref=hl