COMENIUS PROJECT
"Young explorers of the sea"
ITALY
“Liceo Giovanni Verga” Adrano
FLORENCE
Florence is an Italian town of 379 180 inhabitants, capital of the
province of Tuscany.
In the Middle Ages it was an important cultural, commercial,
economic and financial centre.
In the modern age it has served as the capital of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, from 1569
to 1859, with the government of the Medici and Lorraine. It was the capital of Italy from
1865 to 1871, after the unification of the country.
Important university and UNESCO World Heritage Site, it is considered the birthplace of
the Renaissance and it is universally recognized as one of the cradles of art and
architecture, and renowned as one of the most beautiful cities in the world, thanks to its
numerous monuments and museums - including the Duomo, Santa Croce, the Uffizi
Gallery, Ponte Vecchio, Piazza della Signoria and Palazzo Pitti.
Florence is known
as the cradle of the
Renaissance: the
city is everywhere
characterized by
the extraordinary
literary, artistic and
scientific thinking
that took place in
the fourteenth and
sixteenth centuries.
Florence, with its artists,
thinkers, writers, worldrenowned scientists (just
think of Leonardo da
Vinci that here created
his masterpieces such as
the Mona Lisa,
Michelangelo, Raphael,
Botticelli, Niccolo
Machiavelli, Filippo
Brunelleschi, Galileo
between many) benefited
in all respects, materially
and spiritually, of this
great social change and
became one of the
catalysts of the current of
thought, constituting one
of the most important
centres of revival of world
culture.
UFFIZI GALLERY
The Uffizi Gallery in Florence is one of
the most important Italian museums, and one of the largest and best known in the world.
The building houses a superb collection of priceless works of art, deriving, as core, from the collections of the Medici, enriched over the
centuries by bequests, donations and exchanges, highlighted by a fundamental group of religious works derived from the suppression of
monasteries and convents between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
Divided into various rooms
prepared for schools and
styles in chronological order,
the exhibition shows works
from the twelfth to the
eighteenth century, with the
best collection in the world
of Renaissance works.
Inside are hosted some of the
greatest masterpieces of
humanity, made by artists
ranging from Cimabue to
Caravaggio, through Giotto,
Leonardo da Vinci,
Michelangelo, Raphael,
Mantegna, Rubens,
Rembrandt, Canaletto, etc.).
Here there is also the
unparalleled collection of
works by Sandro Botticelli.
In the Uffizi Gallery there’s the Botticelli’s hole that is considered the most important artistic place dedicated to him,
including his masterpiece, the Spring and the famous Birth of Venus, two emblematic works of Neoplatonic sophisticated
culture that developed in Florence in the second half of the fifteenth century.
Botticelli, Sandro
Filipepi nickname
of the painter
(1445-1510), is a
Florentine artist
who contributed
most to the growth
of the Renaissance
in Tuscany.
In 1472 he realized
the diptych "Judith
and Holofernes”. In
1477 he painted for
the church of Santa
Maria Novella ‘The
Adoration of the
Magi. "
After an
apprenticeship
probably
conducted at the
workshop of some
goldsmith, began
his painting career
as an assistant to
Filippo Lippi. At 25
he made his first
major work, "The
Fortress".
From 1478 began
the series of
allegories and
myths: "The
Spring" of 1478,
"Pallas taming the
centaur" 1482,
"Venus and Mars",
1483 and "Birth of
Venus" of 1484
THE BIRTH OF VENUS
The Birth of Venus is a painting in tempera on linen canvas of Sandro Botticelli, dating to about 1482-1485. Made for the
Medici villa of Castello, the artwork is currently in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence. Iconic work of the Italian Renaissance, it
represents one of the highest aesthetic creations of the Florentine painter, as well as a universal ideal of feminine beauty.
Thanks to this, a detail of the Birth of Venus (the face of the goddess) is used in Italian currency euro worth ten cents.
There are two versions of the birth of Venus: in the first, narrated by Hesiod, was born before the other gods of Olympus.
When the Titan Cronus cut off the genitals of his father's (Uranus) and threw them into the sea, blood and semen caused is
thickened in the form of foam and floated to the island of Cyprus, where Aphrodite emerged from the waters and the foam.
She had experienced no infancy; she came into the world as a young and fully formed. This is known as "version of the Shell".
In the second version, narrated by Homer, and known as "version of the Cherubim," Venus was the daughter of Zeus and the
nymph of the oceans, Dione. He went then married to Hephaestus (Vulcan) and gave birth to their children; however
neglected their domestic duties and marital since devoted himself almost exclusively to his affairs with gods and mortals,
and among the many lovers include Aries. She was also the mother of Eros (Cupid), Deimos (Terror) Phobos (Fear) and
Harmony. One of her mortal sons was Aeneas, by her lover Anchises.
Venus advances slight fluttering on a shell
on the sea surface rippled by the waves, in
all its grace and incomparable beauty,
naked and distant as a beautiful ancient
statue. It is driven and heated by the breath
of Zephyr, the wind fertilizing, hugging a
female character with which symbolizes the
physical act of love that Venus moves with
the wind of passion. Perhaps the female
figure is the nymph Chloris, perhaps the
wind Aura or Bora. On the shore a girl, one
of the Hours presiding the changing
seasons, especially the Spring, the goddess
gives a magnificent mantle embroidered
pink flowers to protect (myrtle, roses and
primroses).
It represents the caste servant of
Venus and has a silky dress richly
decorated with flowers and garlands
of roses and lilies, the flowers that
the goddess Flora found near the
body of the beloved Cyanus. The
pose of the goddess, with the
balanced balance "opposed", derives
from the classical model of the
Venus pudica (who covers her
breasts with her arms and lower
abdomen) and Anadiomene (ie
"emerging" or rising from the sea
foam)
The face seems to be inspired by the
features of Simonetta Vespucci, the
woman from the short life and by
the beauty "unparalleled" sung by
artists and poets Florentines. The
work hides Neoplatonic allegory
based on the concept of love as a
life-giving energy, as the driving
force of nature. Surely the
nakedness of the goddess is not
accounted for a contemporary
pagan exaltation of feminine
beauty, but rather the concept of
Humanitas, understood as spiritual
beauty that represents purity,
simplicity and nobility of soul. This
was indeed one of the fundamental
concepts of humanism Neoplatonic,
who returns in several aspects in
other paintings by Botticelli
mythological made around the
same time. Botticelli used for this
work support the canvas, extremely
unusual in Renaissance Florence.
Two sheets of linen were sewn
together and then was added an
imprimitura gypsum stained with a
little 'blue, so as to give the
particular tone blued in the whole
painting.
The painting uses the
technique of tempera lean,
ie: color dissolved in animal
and vegetable glues as
binders, which gave an
extraordinary brightness
approaching the yield of the
fresco.
Abundant is the use of gold
for the highlights, lying
mainly with two techniques:
a "brush", as in the Venus
hair, and "mission", that is,
with the addition of a
mordant, the trunks and
leaves.
This work was produced by
Vincenzo Leocata 5 Asa
Gabriele Furnari 3 As
Clelia Asero 5 Ac
Greetings from Italy