The Psychology of the Display

One of the first mentions of Sandro Botticelli’s Primavera is found in an inventory of 1498 by Lorenzo and Giovanni di Pierfrancesco de’ Medici’s palace, in Florence. Here, the painting is reported hanging over (apicato) the bedstead (the lettuccio) in Lorenzo’s bedroom (the Camera terrena che è allato ala camera di Lorenzo), in the Casa Vecchia. The word apicato over the years, the picture was listed in other inventories of the family, like that of 1598, where the Primavera, still untitled and unattributed, appears hanging in the salotto doue magnia il gran Duca (the living room where the Grand Duke eats) in the family villa of Castello, and the one of 1648, where it is reported that the painting was hung in the first chamber beside the windowed salotto. The position of the artwork above the bed, in the private room or the living room, may today appear strange and not suitable for the current value of Botticelli’s work. However, considering the historical context of the inventories and the execution of the painting, the habit of hanging pictures above the head of beds, doors or in conjunction with other domestic or public furnishings was a common practice which continued throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

As Gombrich reminds us, placing a painting above the sofa or the bed is not necessarily an action aimed at relegating the work to a mere object of decoration, but the habit must be seen in the context of the social and cultural history of the time and place.