Botticelli’s Muse

Dorah Blume

Jul 2017 · Juiceboxartists Press

About this ebook

Botticelli’s Muse peels back layers of history to tell a fictionalized version of the life of Sandro Botticelli, his conflicts with the Medici family of Florence, and the woman at the heart of his paintings. In 1477, Botticelli is suddenly fired by his prestigious patron and friend Lorenzo de’ Medici. In the villa of his irritating new patron, the artist’s creative well runs dry—until the day he sees Floriana, a Jewish weaver imprisoned in his sister’s convent. But events threaten to keep his unlikely muse out of reach. So begins a tale of one of the art world’s most beloved paintings, La Primavera, as Sandro, a confirmed bachelor, and Floriana, a headstrong artist in her own right, enter into a turbulent relationship.

Ratings and reviews

This wonderful story takes one back through the horrors and beauty of a late 1400s love story. Beautifully written it seems like history. More than a book this is a work of art.

I read this book while in Tuscany. It really made the history come alive for me. I enjoyed the various characters and clever storylines. It helped me to develop more of an appreciation and understanding of Botticelli's art.

This book is written in such a primitive, amateurish prose that it is painful to read at times. I ended up abandoning it which rarely happens.

About the author

An Italophile since the age of nineteen when she studied painting at Academy of Fine Arts in Florence, Italy, Dorah Blume has published short fiction and nonfiction in newspapers, magazines, and literary journals and was nominated for a Pushcart Prize for ¿Hunger for Learning.¿ Considering herself a late bloomer, she expanded her artistic reach from visual to the written word in her forties with an MFA in creative writing from Emerson, and has navigated between the two ever since.