L'uomo dei dolori

The Botticelli of the drifting Venus and the flowered Primavera is not quite the painter at work here. By around 1500 Florence had lived through the rise and fiery end of Savonarola, the Dominican friar who preached against worldly art and was burned in the city's main square in 1498. Botticelli, by many accounts, took the message to heart, and his late work turned severe and devout. This is a bust of Christ crowned with thorns, and around his head a ring of small angels wheels in a circle, each carrying an instrument of the Passion, the nails, the cross, the lance. It stayed out of public view for decades. When it came up at auction in 2022 it sold for more than 45 million dollars.