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Who is Matilda? Botticelli was no doubt well aware that before Dante wrote The Divine Comedy he had memorialized a young Florentine woman called Primavera. In Part XXIV of La Vita Nuova, Dante told about a specific encounter he once had with her: "I saw approaching me a gracious lady, renowned for her beauty, who for a long time had been the beloved of my closest friend (Guido Cavalcante). Her name was Giovanna (Joan, the feminine form of John), but some say that because of her beauty she was nicknamed Primavera, that is, Spring, and this is what she was usually called. And coming after her, as I looked, I saw the miraculous Beatrice. They passed by quite close to me, and Love seemed to say to me in my heart, 'The first is called Primavera, and the sole reason for this is the way you see her walking today, for I inspired him who gave her this name of Primavera, which means that she will come first [prima verra] on the day Beatrice appears after the dream of the one[9] who serves her faithfully.' "[10]

There can be little doubt that the historical Joan (Primavera) in La Vita Nuova appears as the allegorical Matilda (Primavera) in The Divine Comedy.[11] Charles Williams says, "It is sufficient to think of Matilda [in Purgatory] as we thought of Joan, Primavera [in Vita Nuova], who resembled the Precursor [John the Baptist]."[12] And so it is that Joan/Primavera, who appeared as Matilda in Purgatory, appears as Primavera in the painting named after her.

Like the center panel in a triptych altarpiece, Botticelli's serene portrayal of Beatrice, Matilda, and the three Theological Virtues is flanked by two related scenes. On the far right a disheveled Eve lurches vulnerably, with a broken sprig dangling from her mouth. This depicts the lines in Canto 29 where Dante deplores Eve's primordial disobedience in the Garden: "A sweet melody ran through the luminous air; and a corresponding wave of indignation caused me to condemn the recklessness of Eve, who, alone and inexperienced in this place where heaven and earth obeyed God, was unwilling to wear her veil of obedience under which, if she had been faithful, I would have enjoyed these indescribable delights far earlier and longer."[13]

Eve is being steered and perhaps propelled toward Adam by a winged Satan, who hovers in some trees with his garment curving like a large snake. Critics often identify Eve as the nymph Chloris, and Satan as Zephyr, the West Wind. Indeed, this Satan figure resembles Botticelli's West Wind in "Birth of Venus;" but in "Primavera" he is facing the opposite direction, and if he is a wind he seems to be blowing from the East. This correlates with the westward movement of the breeze in Canto 28 of Purgatory and the westward movement of the divine pageant in Canto 29. Critics all note this general sense of movement from right to left (east to west) in "Primavera." (The viewer of "Primavera" is in the same position as Dante the pageant viewer, facing north.)

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February (Web-only) 2000, Vol. 44