Pagan Mysteries of the Renaissance (New Haven, Conn., 1958), p. 106.

This function of Mercury as a disperser of clouds is discussed by Wind (p. 107) in his exegesis of the Primavera: «The removal of clouds would indeed be a proper occupation for a god who presides over the reasoning soul, particularly as Ficino himself used the simile to characterize in Plotinus's Enneads the enlightening force of intellectual contemplation». Another source quoted by Wind to the same effect is Boccaccio's Genealogia deorum (XII, lxii): «Ventos insuper hac virga medicus [i.e. Mercurius] amovet, dum stultas egrotantium opiniones suasionibus et rationibus veris removet, auferendo timorem». (With his staff the healer stirs the winds above, simultaneously doing away with the fears and silly opinions of the sick by means of true persuasive reasoning.) The translation is mine and unfortunately it does not tell us exactly what Boccaccio had in mind when he referred to Mercury's healing of the sick. Nevertheless, the idea of removing the opinions of stupid ignorance with his staff is definitely there, and it constitutes a solid concept which could easily be utilized by Botticelli to portray the god of speed removing the dark mist of medieval ignorance and revealing the mysteries of the ancient scholars.

M. Ficino, Opera Omnia, Basle, 1576, p. 864: «Mercurius enim lovis vitali quadam promptaque mobilitate sua, ut res ipsas assidue investigetis, hortatur».

«Mercurius Ver», p. 254.

Adam Von Bartsch, Le peintre-graveur, IX, 133: Le Printemps. Flore dans un char, traîné par deux boeufs, précédée par Mercure, et suivie par l'Amour, Clio, Uranie, Melpomène, Mars et Vénus.

Besides the engraving Spring by Virgil Solis, Vicenzo Cartari includes in his Imagini delli dei de gl'antichi (Venetia, 1947, p. 290) an engraving of Mercury leading the three Graces in a dance procession which again moves, as in Virgil Solis, from left to right. These two examples thus clearly indicate that the normal direction should be from left to right and that Botticelli has introduced a drastic deviation from the usual procedure.

Thus far I have not been able to determine if Botticelli had any specific symbolism in mind when he conceived the extraordinary image of the three Graces. It is quite possible that Cervantes, in the three gipsy girls that accompany Preciosa, was not evoking any individual typology for each one of the three dancing girls. Shadowy most of the time and rarely ever expressing distinguishing features -only one of them is named by Cervantes- they seem rather to function as a an ever present chorus that enhances Preciosa's symbolic representation of a fourth Grace who in turn is Venus. This leads me to suspect that both the Spaniard and Florentine discarded the many classical and Renaissance attempts to clothe each Grace with a precise meaning. One of the most accepted interpretations is that which attributes the quality of verdure to Thalia, happiness to Euphrosyne, and splendor to Aglaia, all three meanings being derived from the etymology of the names in Greek. Notwithstanding the possibility of specific meanings in Botticelli's chorus, since each one presents strongly individualistic physiognomic traits which distinguishes her beauty from the others, Botticelli's main concern appears to be the depiction of a chorus of three extraordinarily beautiful Graces who, when infolded, becomes the goddess of love herself. Cervantes, on the other hand, if he did have any precise meanings in mind for the Graces, may have conceived his Preciosa-Venus as gathering within herself the threefold attributes of grace, poetry and music, qualities which are subsumed perfectly in the characterization of her role and which Ficino applies to Venus in a dedication to Lorenzo il Magnifico: «Quamobrem et a Pallade sapientiam et a Iunone potentiam et a Venere gratias poesimque, et Musicam reportavit». Opera omnia, Basle, 1576, p. 920. Cf. Gombrich, p. 31. For more on the Graces, see Gombrich, pp. 55-61, and especially the extensive and scholarly treatment they receive throughout E. Wind's study, esp. pp. 31-56. C. Dempsey, to whom I referred when discussing the confusion between Horae and Graces, provides useful reflections on these two groups of nymphs, esp. p. 265, where he speaks of one Grace that in Pindar's eighth Nemean ode becomes, so Dempsey tells us, the «Queen of Youthful Beauty», being described by Pindar as «the harbinger of the divine desires of Aphrodite». This concept of the Graces as harbingers could now be used to explain their presence in the Primavera without the corresponding presence of Venus herself: as forerunners of the goddess of love, they prepare the way and herald the arrival of the true and undivided Venus who will appear in all her radiant, unadorned beauty in the Anadyomene.

We can now see that Gombrich was indeed very close to solving the mystery of the Primavera. He sensed that there was something entirely new here that went far beyond all previous secular art, something conceived not only «on a larger scale but altogether on a higher plane». Though he could not fully perceive the profoundly religious, or better yet antireligious, message of the Primavera, yet he intuitively realized that Botticelli executed the composition «with the fervour and feeling usually reserved for objects of worship, which was a departure of momentous significance». Gombrich, moreover, could see, as did critics before him, an affinity between Botticelli's 'Venus' and the Virgin: but, unlike former critics, he did not find such a close tie as being naïve or paradoxical, and even saw in it a tendency to conceive Venus «in such terms of sacred art» that «the Bower of Love would of itself take on the appearance of Paradise». Hence he saw that there was clearly a confusion of two diametrically opposed ideals which tended, on an artistic level, to merge the imagery of Paradise and the Realm of Venus to such an extent that Jean Gerson, in the fifteenth century, condemned in the strongest terms Jean de Meung's blending of carnal love with his descriptions of Paradise in the Roman de la Rose. These interesting and discerning reflections by Gombrich, in addition to his concept of Venus-Humanitas, proved to be key factors in my interpretation. (The quotations are from «Botticelli's Mythologies», pp. 41-42).

This and the previous quote are from the Antwerp, 1615, edition, pp. 116 and 118 respectively. Seznec (Survival of the Pagan Gods, pp. 76, 103 and 273) was familiar with Otto Vaenius's engravings and briefly alludes to the Cupid-Christ transformation, without, however, reproducing any of the Dutchman's significant illustrations. In Panofsky's chapter on «Blind Cupid» in Studies in Iconology, I am not sure whether the critic was aware of Cupid's representation as the Infant Jesus, since his one illustration of a haloed god of love is merely described as relating «to the early Christian idea of the Fisher of Men».

Bettina Wadia, p. 13. Among other critics who stress this notable characteristic is J. Mesmil: «Dans l'ensemble... ce 'Royaume de Vénus' rappelle les peintures du moyen âge, où sous le couvert d'arbres raides, des chevaliers à l'air dolent... chantent les peines de leurs coeurs fidèles à des belles étroitement enfermées dans leurs robes. Bien beaucoup de détails soient exactement rendus, le bosquet est sans vie, l'air ne joue pas entre les troncs, la sève ne circule pas sous l'écorce des arbres et l'on n'a point sensation de l'espace infini». Botticelli, (Paris, 1938), p. 51. If we also consider the sad countenance of the central figure, it becomes apparent that Botticelli was portraying that prevailing «atmosphere of melancholy gravity» which characterizes the mood of the Middle Ages. (The quote is from Huizinga, Waning of the Middle Ages, p. 298).