Story and Song: Visual Art Edition, Part 1

Welcome to my new edition of Story and Song! As some of you may recall, I did something similar for The Violinist of Venice, where I put a song from my playlist for the novel next to one of Vivaldi’s pieces that appeared in the book. For The Most Beautiful Woman in Florence, I thought I’d do the same thing with one difference: since we have no classical music in this novel, each post will pair a song from the book’s playlist with one of the works of art described in the novel. I hope you enjoy!

Anette Olzon – “Shine”

This song fits perfectly with what is perhaps the first “big” scene in The Most Beautiful Woman in Florence: when Simonetta, having come to Florence to marry Marco Vespucci, goes with him to dinner at the Medici palace in chapter 7. There she meets the rest of the novel’s major players: the Medici brothers, Lorenzo and Giuliano; Lorenzo’s wife, Clarice, and his mother, Lucrezia; and, of course, Sandro Botticelli. This sets the stage for how the relationships between Simonetta and all these characters will progress for the rest of the novel. Before the event, she is quite nervous, knowing that she’s going to meet a lot of important people, both in her soon-to-be-husband’s life and in Florence as a whole. So this song felt perfect because it seems to me to be the little voice in Simonetta’s head telling her “Shine, and lift your head high”.

Judith and Holofernes – Donatello

This statue, of the biblical hero Judith slaying Holofernes, is sculpted in bronze by Donatello. It was commissioned by Cosimo de’ Medici for the courtyard of the Medici palace in Florence, and this is where Simonetta encounters it in the novel, when Cosimo’s grandson, Lorenzo, shows it to her. This scene occurs in the same chapter noted above, chapter 7. It is the first conversation that Simonetta has with Lorenzo about art, something that continues throughout the novel. Simonetta is very struck by the power and beauty of the statue, and it is indeed striking. The above picture is one I took myself of the statue when I saw it in its current location: the museum of the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence. The statue didn’t make an appearance in the first draft of the novel; I was inspired to include it after having been to Florence doing research and seeing it myself.