This is the other of a pair of frescoes found in the
Villa Lemmi in 1863 when the villa was undergoing construction
work. Unfortunately the antique dealer who first recognised
them as Botticellis, Birnari, was so eager to remove them
from the walls that they were damaged in the process and
more than half is missing
The Villa was thought to have been owned by the Tornabuoni
family, who had links with the Medicis. Lorenzo Tornabuoni,
was about to marry Giovanna Albizzi, and Botticelli was
asked to paint the walls by way of decoration for the
celebration. It appears that as soon as the wedding was
over, the walls were whitewashed over.
Sandro Botticelli was one of the first during the Renaissance
who dared to show people in full-face, three-quarter-face
and even from behind and gives us the impression of this
strange learned assembly toward which this austere young
man was seemingly being pushed. An admirable fresco, if
only because of the splendid severity of the young man's
profile and because of the details of the Liberal Arts,
in which one finds the same feeling of evanescence, of
line movement, which allow even images as severe as those
of the Liberal Arts to take on an absolutely extraordinary
divine aura - World
Art Treasures