About this design
Simonetta Vespucci (circa 1450-1475) must have been a real stunner. Nicknamed la bella Simonetta, she was renowned to be the "greatest beauty of her age" and was reportedly born in Portovenere, Liguria which is where the goddess Venus was born.
She married a nobleman Marco Vespucci around the age of fifteen, and through the Vespucci family she met Botticelli and other notable painters and before long they were all besotted with her!
Even the brothers Lorenzo & Giuliano of the ruling family Medici were lovestruck and Giuliano is supposed to have had an affair with her.
Her life ended early at the young age of 22 probably from tuberculosis, and apparently the whole town mourned her death with thousands following her coffin to its burial.








