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The Symbolism of the Marsh Plant, Typha latifolia, in Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus
Liana De Girolami Cheney
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DOI:10.17265/2159-5836/2025.09.001
Professor of Art History (Emerita), UMASS Lowell, MA, USA
Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus continues to serve as an iconographic enigma and remains an enduring subject of scholarly analysis concerning the significance of mythological art and its symbolism during the Italian Renaissance. Therefore, it is particularly noteworthy to examine further the symbolic elements embedded within the imagery. This essay focuses on a specific component in the landscape of The Birth of Venus—the marsh plant on the riverbank, commonly known as cattail in English, tifa or stiancia in Italian, and Typha latifolia in Latin. Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus, executed between 1485 and 1490, is a tempera on canvas with gesso and gold applications. It was commissioned with specific aesthetic, cultural, and intellectual objectives and was intended to be displayed in a private chamber for personal viewing by members of the Medici family. Situated initially within the Medicean Villa at Castello, it has been exhibited at the Galleria degli Uffizi in Florence since 1815. This mythological painting exemplifies the Italian Renaissance principles of both physical and metaphysical humanism, visualized in a fusion of pagan and Christian iconography and iconology, incorporating symbolism that engages with antiquity and classical mythology. It also incorporates Italian Renaissance Neoplatonic philosophy, reflects Renaissance love poetry, demonstrates inventive patronage, and embodies spirituality directed towards a higher purpose.
Antiquity, humanism, mythology, Italian Neoplatonism, Italian Renaissance poetry, Botticelli, Medici, symbolism, marsh plant, cattails
Journal of Literature and Art Studies, September 2025, Vol. 15, No. 9, 665-677
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