Storia di Nastagio degli Onesti, terzo episodio

These four panels were wedding furniture, made in 1483 to be set into the walls of a Florentine bedchamber. Lorenzo de' Medici helped arrange the marriage they celebrated, between the Pucci and Bini families, and all three coats of arms appear on this panel. The story is from Boccaccio. A young man, rejected by the woman he loves, sees a ghostly hunt in a pine wood, a cruel lady forever chased down and killed by her old suitor as punishment for spurning him. Here the young man has staged a banquet on that same spot so his beloved will witness it. The women at the table leap up in horror as the vision erupts among the pines. Botticelli designed the series and left much of the painting to his workshop.