Tea at Trianon: Simonetta Vespucci

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Monday, October 7, 2013

Simonetta Vespucci

She was the favorite model of the great Boticelli. From Gio:

The name Simonetta Vespucci may not say much to many people, yet everyone knows her face. Considered the most beautiful woman of the Renaissance, "la bella Simonetta", as she was nicknamed, was praised by the poets and painted by the painters of her time. She's the inspiration, and the face, of one of the most famous paintings of all times, "The Birth of Venus" by Sandro Botticelli.

Simonetta, daughter of the nobleman Gaspare Cattaneo and his wife Catocchia Spinola, was born in Genoa in 1454. A lovely child, she grew into a stunning young woman. At 15, she married Marco Vespucci (he was a cousin of the famous explorer Amerigo) and moved with him to Florence, the capital of the Italian Renaissance. Her beauty, coupled with her sweet disposition, turned her into a celebrity. (Read more.)