Volare Airlines

Volare's subsidiary Air Europe continues to fly some international routes. As the passage also contains other figures in Botticelli's group, it is probably one of the main sources for the painting: "Spring-time and Venus come,/ And Venus' boy, the winged harbinger, steps on before,/ And hard on Zephyr's foot-prints Mother Flora,/ Sprinkling the ways before them, filleth all/ With colours and with odours excellent.". Since then, the airline has come out of bankruptcy and is now flying Italian domestic routes. In his philosophical didactic poem De Rerum Nature the classical writer Lucretius celebrated both goddesses in a single spring scene. Volare suspended its operations in November 2004 and filed for bankruptcy. Flora is standing next to Venus and scattering roses, the flowers of the goddess of love. At one time the airline operated flights from Italy to Spain, Germany, France, Belgium, Czech Republic and Romania. This is why the clothes of the two women, who also do not appear to notice each other, are being blown in different directions.

Volare Airlines, also known by its volareweb.com brand, is a low-fares airline based in Italy. Botticelli is depicting two separate moments in Ovid's narrative, the erotic pursuit of Chloris by Zephyr and her subsequent transformation into Flora. Callsign: Revola. Regretting his violence, he transforms her into Flora, his gift gives her a beautiful garden in which eternal spring reigns. ICAO Code: VLE. Aroused to a fiery passion by her beauty, Zephyr, the god of the wind, follows her and forcefully takes her as his wife. IATA Code: VA. For the month of May, Flora tells how she was once the nymph Chloris, and breathes out flowers as she does so.

One source for this scene is Ovid's Fasti, a poetic calendar describing Roman festivals. Leaving aside the suppositions there remains the profoundly humanistic nature of the painting, a reflection of contemporary cultural influences and an expression of many contemporary texts. For instance, the Primavera was also read as a political image: Love (Amor) would be Rome ("Roma" in Italian); the three Graces Pisa, Naples and Genoa; Mercury Milan; Flora Florence; May Mantua; Cloris and Boreas Venice and Bozen-Bolzano (or Arezzo and Forlì). Various interpretations of the scene exist.

Next to her walks Flora, the goddess of spring, who is scattering flowers. From the right, Zephyr, the god of the winds, is forcefully pushing his way in, in pursuit of the nymph Chloris. The messenger of the gods is also identified by means of his winged shoes and the caduceus staff which he used to drive two snakes apart and make peace; Botticelli has depicted the snakes as winged dragons. Mercury, who is lightly clad in a red cloak covered with flames, is wearing a helmet and carrying a sword, clearly characterizing him as the guardian of the garden.

The garden of Venus, the goddess of love, is guarded on the left by Mercury, who stretches out his hand to touch the clouds. The Grace on the right side has the face of Caterina Sforza, also painted by Botticelli in a famous portrait in the Lindenau Museum as Catherine of Alexandria. Above her, Cupid is aiming one of his arrows of love at the Charites (Three Graces), who are elegantly dancing a rondel. Venus is standing in the centre of the picture, set slightly back from the other figures.

Above all it is the women's domed stomachs that demonstrate the contemporary ideal of beauty. These are, however, not direct copies but are translated into Botticelli's own unconventional formal language: slender figures whose bodies at times seem slightly too long. Some of the figures are based on ancient sculptures. The Primavera is, however, special in that it is one of the first surviving paintings from the post-classical period which depicts classical gods almost naked and life-size.

Such large format paintings were nothing new in high-ranking private residences. The painting decorated an anteroom attached to Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco's chambers. An inventory dating from 1499, which was not discovered until 1975, lists the property of Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco and his brother Giovanni and states that in the 15th century the Primavera had been displayed in Florence's city palace. This is why it was long assumed that the Primavera, as the painting continues to be called, was painted for the fourteen year old Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco when the villa was bought.

In 1477, the estate was acquired by Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de' Medici, who was a second cousin of Lorenzo the Magnificent. In 1550, Vasari wrote that a picture which according to him announced the arrival of spring (Primavera in Italian) was in the Medici villa in Castello. It is housed in Uffizi Gallery of Florence. 1482.

The Primavera is a painting by the Italian Renaissance painter Sandro Botticelli, c.