Botticelli, Savonarola, and the Politics of Late Quattrocento Florence

Pallas and the Centaur, 1482

Pallas and the Centaur

Pallas and the Centaur (1482), sometimes called Camilla and the Centaur or Minerva and the Centaur, depicts an allegorical figure and a mythical creature (see Appendix Image 2). The woman holds a halberd and grasps a centaur by the hair. Her tunic fabric bears the repeated image of three, sometimes four, interlocked rings, a known Medici symbol. Despite holding a weapon associated with civic guards[1], she does not appear violent or hostile in her pose nor in her expression, but she does depict strength as she grasps the centaur by the hair, thus immobilizing him. Either olive or myrtle branches adorn her, and a tournament shield can be seen on her back. Turning towards his captor, the centaur lowers his bow and succumbs to his defeat. Rolling hills can be seen in the background landscape along with a boat sailing towards the coast.

         There is some uncertainty regarding the exact subject matter and intended patron of this piece. A 1499 inventory lists a painting of Camilla hanging outside of Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de’ Medici’s[2] Florentine palace bedchamber. Camilla, a figure from Virgil’s Aeneid, is a princess from Latium and “a chaste huntress dedicated to the service of Minerva”, who is thought to be referenced by the olive branches Camilla wears.[3] Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco’s betrothed was a princess from Latium, much like Camilla. Furthermore, centaurs, half-human and half-animal, are often considered symbols of lust, uncontrolled passions, violence, and disorder. Thus, for Hartt and Wilkins, the image is most likely an allegory for “marital chastity” as the female figure holds the lustful centaur at bay.[4] Here, chaste love, humility, and reason triumph over carnal passions and pride.[5] Lightbown maintains the same visual purpose for the image, but uses the olive branches to identify the woman as Pallas.[6] In the Aeneid Camilla was a servant of Pallas/ Diana and was thus devoted to her as a chaste figure and huntress. Schumacher observes that the female figure is wrapped in myrtle branches and bears a halberd as well as a tournament shield on her back, thus identifying her with Pallas Athena or Minerva, the goddess of wisdom.[7] A Neoplatonic reading of Botticelli’s painting would suggest that Minerva is using her divine wisdom to free the centaur, who is half-man and half-beast, from the “tethers of sensuality and bears him aloft into a realm of rational nature, and thus to godliness”.[8] Thus, the centaur is led from physical lust to Neoplatonic enlightenment, embodied by Minerva as the ideal of Wisdom.

         However, the dress worn by Botticelli’s painted figure does not exactly match descriptions of Pallas or Camilla, nor are any of these female figures linked to centaurs. It seems more likely that Botticelli’s work depicts an “allegorical invention…rather than a representation of an already existing fable”.[9] Cristina Acidini suggests that the female figure could be a representation of the “‘armed peace”’ that the Medici were able to maintain in Florence during their unofficial rule.[10] By proposing the work can be read as a political allegory, Acidini pushes the work beyond its Neoplatonic gloss, freeing it from its singular classification as a marriage allegory. Moreover, throughout the painting’s history, both Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco and Lorenzo de’ Medici have been identified as the patron of the work, and title of the work varies in inventories – all of which have added to the irresolution surrounding the work by Botticelli.[11]

         While it does not appear to be the popular consensus amongst contemporary art historians, I am inclined to agree with a political reading of this painting. In such a reading, the female figure represents the Medici triumphing over chaos in the form of the centaur.[12] Dressed in one of the Medici emblems, the figure can be interpreted as “a personification of Medician wisdom” which has subdued the beast, an “embodiment of the ignoble enemies of Florence”.[13] The Medici championed themselves as the protectors of Florence and aligned their family imagery with the symbols of the city. Frothingham argues further that the figural arrangement of the composition might have been derived by Botticelli from an illustration of a well-known late Roman[14] calendar, the Calendar of the year 354.[15] Copies of this calendar had been made during the Carolingian period and were then, in turn, copied and spread during the Renaissance. The image in question depicts Trier (Treves) dressed in Greco-Roman garb and with her right hand seizes the hair of a captured barbarian.  In light of this, the female figure in Botticelli’s painting can be read not only as symbolic of the Medici, but as Florence herself; the city guarded and ruled by the Medici.[16] This intriguing interpretation could speak to the discrepancies regarding the identification of the female and the intended patron. If she is a personification of Florence, it stands to reason that she would be dressed in Medici iconography as their family symbols adorned the city. Furthermore, it would support patronage claims of either Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de’ Medici or Lorenzo de’ Medici, as both protected Florence (and in turn, the Medici) from external threats; Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco via his foreign marriage alliance and Lorenzo with restoring temporary peace after the Pazzi Conspiracy and its aftermath.