The Medici family commissioned the Renaissance philosopher Marsilio Ficino to educate the young Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco in Platonic ideas. Ficino, following Cicero, firmly believed in the power of sight as a means of learning, considering that young people could be more stimulated through visual presentations than by abstract teachings (Gombrich, 1990). In the mythological reinterpretation of Venus, Ficino found the perfect symbol of Neoplatonism (Eco, 2005). The Florentine philosopher wanted the young Medici, under devotion to the goddess Venus, to achieve a comprehensive balance of his abilities, developing ethics and ways of acting guided by beauty, truth, and goodness. To materialize this vision, Botticelli was chosen to create the masterpiece “The Birth of Venus.” This painting has been interpreted throughout history as the pinnacle of Neoplatonic ideas, which Ficino considered essential for the education of the Medici heir.
The Florentine philosopher wanted the young Medici, under devotion to the goddess Venus, to achieve a comprehensive balance of his abilities, developing ethics and ways of acting guided by beauty, truth, and goodness.
Following the Platonic directives given to him by Ficino, Botticelli sought to represent ideal love by uniting beauty, truth, and goodness in a single image. It was not about representing desire or carnal pleasure, but rather their ideal. Beauty is represented in the painting both by its strokes and by the figure of Venus, symbolizing the ideal of feminine beauty according to Botticelli. Truth is manifested in the proportions of Venus, which correspond to the golden ratio. The division of Venus’s height by the distance from her navel to her feet, and from her navel to her head, always gives 1.618, a proportion considered perfect and called the golden ratio by Leonardo da Vinci.
From the union of beauty, truth, and goodness, Botticelli’s Venus represents the perfection of ideal love.
Finally, goodness is symbolized by the very birth of Venus. At that time, goodness or virtue was associated with love beyond the carnal. According to mythology, Venus’s conception was not carnal, which made her the symbol of absolute goodness. From the union of beauty, truth, and goodness, Botticelli’s Venus represents the perfection of ideal love.
Ideal love, more commonly known as Platonic love, has often been interpreted as a love detached from reality and matter, an unattainable love. However, in Plato’s writings, it is not suggested that love should renounce materiality, including sexuality. Rather, Plato proposes that it is necessary to go beyond mere sexual action for it to have meaning. He expresses this in the following quote from his Dialogues: “No action by itself is beautiful or ugly; what we commonly do—drinking, eating—none of these is beautiful in itself, but it can be depending on how it is done; beautiful if done according to the rules of honesty, and ugly if done against those rules. The same goes for love” (1985, p. 110).
References
- Eco, U. (2005). Historia de la belleza. Barcelona: Lumen.
- Gombrich, E. H. (1990). Imágenes simbólicas. Estudios sobre el arte del Renacimiento. Madrid: Alianza Editorial.
- Platón. (1985). Diálogos. Barcelona: Iberia.
Associate Professor at the Department of Theory and History of Education, University of Barcelona.