20 Venuses, Madonnas, and Judith at the Uffizi

RENAISSANCE PAINTERS OF FLORENCE created loads of masterpieces that glorified females. In the city’s major museum, the Uffizi, you’ll see women adored in such paintings as those that follow.

Describing a woman as a Botticelli automatically brings up this famous image of a naked, curvy Venus stepping off a seashell to the shore. But Botticelli actually translates to “little barrel.” It was the artist’s nickname, because in truth he was a roly-poly guy.

A better description of a beautiful woman would be to call her a “Simonetta Vespucci,” the name of the model for this painting. Simonetta was Botticelli’s muse, the most adored woman in Florence, and his neighbor’s wife.

She came to Florence from Genoa as the fifteen-year-old bride of Marco Vespucci, whose cousin was the famous Italian explorer Amerigo. Her fans called her La Bella Simonetta and liked to say she was born in the Ligurian coastal town of Portovenere, where the Romans believed Venus arose from the sea.

Though these days she’d be ordered to do Pilates to tighten her abs, in 1469 Simonetta’s pear shape was ideal. Only poor starving gals were skinny back then, and Renaissance guys adored chicks with childbearing hips. In Florence, artists clamored to have Simonetta pose for them, writers sent her love poems, and she was showered with gifts from admirers.

The brothers Lorenzo and Giuliano de Medici, the family who ran Florence at the time, introduced Simonetta to Botticelli, an artist on the rise. Lorenzo, who was involved with being Magnificent and his banking and philosophy biz, ordered a painting of Simonetta for his bed chamber, which some say became Botticelli’s Venus.

Giuliano, a sporty type, starred in a jousting tournament to be held in honor of this glamour-puss who had quickly become the Marilyn Monroe of Florence. Botticelli painted Giuliano’s joust banner with the words “The Unparalleled One” under Simonetta’s image. Giuliano won and Simonetta was declared “Queen of Beauty.” Since she was married, there’s no record of nooky between Simonetta and Giuliano, though the locals imagined their steamy affair as fervently as the Brangelina romance of our times.

A year after the joust, twenty-two-year-old Simonetta died of consumption. Her funeral was an Italian day of mourning. Thousands came to Florence to join in her casket procession, weeping and tossing flowers.

Botticelli had started painting The Birth of Venus before Simonetta died. It took him nine years to finish it, perhaps because the thought of his muse being gone from him was too tragic to bear.

As you look around the room, you’ll see how Botticelli used Simonetta’s inspiration again and again—from Primavera to The Annunciation. He never married, in fact said the idea of marriage was a nightmare. And there were reports of him “liking boys,” followed by charges of sodomy, that were dropped.

When he died, thirty-four years after La Bella Simonetta, Botticelli asked to be buried at her feet. In the Church of Ognissanti, which was Simonetta’s family parish, you can see his wish was granted.

Here’s the most erotic painting in the museum. Titian probably used a Venetian prostitute for his model, as there were around ten thousand in Venice during the time he did this painting, and they traditionally took on the extra work.

Venus stretches out on a couch au naturale in elegant surroundings, with a confident look and roses in one hand, that symbolize Venus. The most attention goes to her other hand, with her curled fingers between her legs.

The painting was commissioned by the Duke of Urbino, probably as a hint for his young bride. They married when the girl was only ten years old, but things couldn’t be consummated—which meant the Duke couldn’t have heirs—until she became a woman at fourteen. The medical belief in those days was that conception could only occur if both man and woman had orgasms, so Titian’s Venus is teaching the Duke’s bride how to do her wifely duty.

In this totally enchanting painting, the Friar Lippi probably used the novice Lucrezia Buti as his model. The two had a scandalous love affair that led to her getting pregnant. The baby angel who is looking out from the painting is believed to be their child, who grew up to be the painter Filippino Lippi.

It’s amazing to think of Leonardo painting this when he was only twenty-one. Here Mary gracefully accepts her calling, looking up from her book, while the angel holds out a lily, the symbol of Florence.

The master who sculpted the David and Pieta always claimed he wasn’t good at painting, even though he painted the Sistine Chapel ceiling. He shows his genius here with vibrant color and signature sculptural sense of dimension. I see it as a great example of shared parenting, with Mary passing her son off to father Joseph, who seems to be able to handle it.

It was commissioned by the Doni family when their second child was born, as their first child had died in infancy. At first the Donis didn’t appreciate Michelangelo’s background nudes, but then accepted them as symbolic of the passing of pagan times.

Mary, who symbolizes “The Seat of Wisdom,” gets interrupted from reading by her son and his cousin, John the Baptist, at her feet. (It’s my sister’s favorite—as the mother of two she relates.) The goldfinch John the Baptist hands to Jesus is a symbol of his future violent death.

It was a wedding gift to Raphael’s friend, was destroyed in an earthquake, breaking into seventeen pieces, and has undergone many meticulous restorations.

Finally a painting by a woman! It’s displayed on the lower floors along with some awesome Caravaggios, and was done by the great Renaissance artist Artemisia Gentileschi.

Gentileschi began painting in her father’s workshop, showing her talent early on. She was raped by a painter her father teamed her up with, one Agostino Tassi. To ensure she was telling the truth during the trial where she accused Tassi, she was tortured. Horribly tortured, with a gynecological examination and wrapping and tightening of leather thongs around her fingers to the point of excruciating pain. It was believed if she could tell the same horrendous rape story under torture as the one she’d told as an accusation, it had to be true. Paintings such as this one, which tells the story of the Jewish heroine Judith cutting off the head of an enemy’s general, have been interpreted as Gentileschi’s revenge against that gruesome treatment.

Gentileschi’s life story is ultimately inspiring. She went on to have a successful career and six children and was highly respected by her contemporaries, even though it was very unusual for a woman to be among them. Since she was passed over for the high altar commissions the men around her were getting, she moved around to find work—from Florence to Rome to Venice, and finally settled in Naples.

Feminists have always taken an interest in her life, and playwright Wendy Wasserstein used her in The Heidi Chronicles, in scenes of the main character lecturing about female painters.

Golden Day: Visit the Uffizi, then have dinner at La Sostanza, my favorite restaurant in Florence. It’s a classic trattoria, always lively and delicious. Great to start with their tortino di carciofi (artichoke flan), followed by their amazing bistecca or chicken cooked in butter. Be sure to leave room for the meringue cake dessert. (Via Porcellana 25R, 055 212 691, reservations essential, closed Saturday and Sunday)

THREE TIPS: (1) Be sure to make a reservation for the Uffizi Gallery to avoid long lines, either online, www.firenzemusei.it, or by phone, 055 294 883. (2) Afternoons are less crowded. (3) They only check-in backpacks and umbrellas, so if you have shopping bags, leave them at your hotel, so you don’t have to tote them around the museum.