The Story of Nastagio degli Onesti

Sandro Botticelli shows how Nastagio Persuades a Lady to Marry Him

Mar 21, 2007

In "Nastagio Arranges a Feast at which the Ghosts Reappear," Botticelli depicts a story from The Decameron with frightening realism and gruesome enthusiasm for detail.

Sandro Botticelli, the Early Renaissance Florentine master, is famous for his lovely Venus, emerging from the sea on a shell, and for his graceful Madonnas.

In 1483 he creates a painting quite different from these images of peace and harmony. He creates, in the most exquisite colors and details, a scene of horror and drama. At a banquet nestled among pine trees, a beautiful nude girl rushes through, screaming and sobbing as she’s attacked by mastiffs and chased by an angry man on horseback. The crowd starts up in terror. The intensity of the scene contrasts with the placidity of the sea in the distance.

The Decameron

Although much of the art of Renaissance Italy revolved around Christian and classical themes, at times artists also painted scenes from contemporary literature for their wealthy patrons. Such is the case with Botticelli’s Story of Nastagio degli Onesti. The painting depicts in tempera a scene from a contemporary novella called The Decameron, an allegorical work of storytelling written by Italian author Giovanni Boccaccio. The Decameron consists of 100 tales of love, tragedy, wit, and practical jokes. The stories are framed by a narrative about seven women and three men who flee the woes of the Black Death in Florence to a villa in the countryside. They tell stories to pass the time and enjoy one another’s company. The Decameron is important for its documentation of life in the 14th century.

The tale, Nastagio degli Onesti, is one of The Decameron’s stories about lovers who survive misfortunes and find happiness. Nastagio suffers rejection from the daughter of Paolo Traversaro to whom he proposes. Supposedly she turns him down because of her extraordinary beauty and exalted rank. Nastagio plunges into despair, considers suicide, but is persuaded by his friends to get away to the sea to hang out alone for a while. Occasionally he invites friends to have dinner with him in his pavilions under the trees.

Nastagio's Plan

One day Nastagio, walking about the woods, comes upon this nightmarish chase. The beautiful, nude young woman is torn apart by the dogs. The crazed knight jumps from his horse, knocks down the woman, cuts out her heart with his knife and feeds it to the dogs. Within moments, the girl jumps to her feet and continues with her desperate flight. The knight explains to the horrified Nastagio that both of them have long been dead but at one time he had proposed marriage to the girl and she had rejected him. Now both are condemned to this cruel punishment by God: the knight for committing suicide over his depression at being rejected and the girl for rejecting the man due to her hard, cold heart. They are eternally doomed to repeat the chase. Every Friday at the same hour he overtakes her in the same woods and attacks her.

After they depart, Nastagio stands alone, disturbed and horrified. But he’s a practical man and begins to form a plan.

The next Friday he invites Paolo Traversaro and his family to an outdoor banquet. As the final course is being served, the hellish attack plays out. The girls at the banquet especially draw back in horror, upsetting a table and dashing dishes to the ground. One figure stands in composure: Nastagio in the foreground in blue tunic, red tights, and yellow boots. He explains to the crowd the meaning behind the ghosts and the chase to which they are doomed. The moral seems to be: Ladies, comply with men’s wishes! It has to be the rare Renaissance woman who turns down an appropriate and willing suitor.

Off to the right, in an intriguing inclusion of consecutive episodes within the same panel, the marriage is depicted in front of the pink tent. The girl, apparently persuaded by the scene to relent and consent to Nastagio’s offer, trustingly lays her hand on her new husband’s arm.

The Four Panels

It was traditional before Renaissance weddings to commission paintings of tribute to the new bride. Botticelli depicts actually four scenes from the story of Nastagio in four striking panels that include this one. The first two panels show the young man encountering the hunt in the woods and seeing the young lady meet her gruesome death. The third panel shown here illustrates the banquet where the scene again takes place and the subsequent marriage. The fourth panel shows the wedding feast under imposing Renaissance arches. In his magnificently-rendered panels, Botticelli faithfully follows Boccacio's story down to the slightest detail.

Most likely the panels were destined to be installed on the walls of newlyweds in a family palace. Typically sons continued to live in their father’s house after marriage; their rooms would undergo new decoration which would include painted wall panels. These would be the only luxury in rooms which were, in contrast, simply furnished.

Source:

Hagen, Rose-Marie & Rainer. What Great Paintings Say: Old Masters in Detail. Cologne: Benedikt Tasche, 2000.

The copyright of the article The Story of Nastagio degli Onesti in Renaissance Art is owned by Suzanne Hill. Permission to republish The Story of Nastagio degli Onesti in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.