Most scholars, like Giorgio Vasari in the sixteenth century, have believed the central figure of Botticelli’s celebrated Primavera to be a manifestation of Venus, appearing as a goddess of spring. Careful studies of the history of Primavera scholarship and of the classical and Renaissance texts previously associated with the painting reveal the reasons for this belief, which has only tenuous ...

This analysis of Giorgio Vasari’s 1568 addendum to the vita of Leonardo explores Vasari’s rhetorical and narrative strategies to dramatize the importance of both visual artist and patron’s possessing l’intelletto d’arte—“the intelligence of art.” A close reading of Vasari’s tale about Leonardo and the Duke of Milan leads to new interpretive avenues, which reveal how Vasari prioritized his own...