Simonetta Cattaneo
Simonetta Cattaneo, who came from a noble and important Genoese family and was probably born in Fezzano, not far from Portovenere, was one of the most beautiful women of the 15th century and soon became an icon of the Florentine Renaissance. She was defined by Lorenzo de’ Medici as “la sans par”, French for “the one who cannot be paralleled” and, after her marriage to Marco Vespucci, exponent of an historical Florentine family and close ally of the de Medici family, moved to Florence.
She was soon considered an ideal of Neoplatonic beauty and was celebrated in the words of poets and in the pictures of artists at the service of Lorenzo de Medici. There is a belief that her appearance inspired Botticelli’s Birth of Venus and other major masterpieces by Botticelli and other contemporary artists. She died at the young age of 23, probably fueling the myth of her beauty.
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The intellectual and artistic environment she attended contributed to create her aura of loving contemplation, idealizing her on par with Dante’s imaginary of the “angel woman”. This is testified by a re-enactment of the Lorenzo il Magnifico’s literary work called “Comento”, where Simonetta Cattaneo is recreated taking inspiration from Dante’s Beatrice.