Simonetta Vespucci. La nascita della Venere fiorentina

This essay regards the changes of women role in feasts and ceremonies of renaissance Florence under the oligarchic and medicean hegemony. Following the transformations of women's image during the Quattrocento, the paper shows the way in which the gotic-burgundian stile, preferred by the citizen élites in the beginning of the century, was slowly substituted by the neoplatonic one, conceived as a new and distinctive form of political language of the ruling class led by Lorenzo il Magnifico. The process of these changes, which would be of the greatest importance for communication and political propaganda in the following century, is delineated with a selection of images (painting, marble busts and sumptuary objects) analized in the light of the festive and ceremonial events of the Quattrocento Florence. As a complement, Lazzi's essay describes the role of women in the transition from the republic to the principality