For slightly over five hundred years, the most famous and popular illustration of Dante's "Divine Comedy" has remained effectively "lost"—although millions have seen it and admired it. It is right out in plain sight and one of the world's most beloved paintings. [1]

C. S. Lewis first read Dante's Inferno at some unknown date in his youth. He first read Purgatory in 1918, when he was nineteen and found himself in a hospital recovering from wounds received in the inferno of World War I. He was an atheist.

Four years later, in 1922, Lewis had just received his B.A. at Oxford and was ready to start the graduate studies that would eventually culminate in a professorship of Medieval and Renaissance Literature. Fortunately, in August he started to keep a diary, and he wryly recorded an experience he had on August 28 in London.

I took the desperate resolve of entering the National Gallery, where I finally came to the conclusion that I have no taste for painting. I could make nothing of the Titians. The only thing (besides portraits) that I cared for much were Botticelli's Mars and Venus with satyrs, and Veronese's … "Unfaithfulness" in which I liked the design tho' I confess the actual figures always seem dull to me. However, the Italian rooms are nothing like so boring as the English.[2]

Although Lewis eventually appreciated Titian,[3] he never took any great interest in paintings; but his early affinity for Botticelli continued for the rest of his life. He commented upon Botticelli paintings (specifically "Mars and Venus" and "Primavera") in The Allegory of Love, Rehabilitations, English Literature in the Sixteen Century, An Experiment in Criticism, Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Literature, and Spenser's Images of Life.

Eight years after Lewis's first recorded encounter with Botticelli, he first read Dante's Paradise; he was thirty years old and on the brink of belief in Christianity. In 1931 he became a believer. From then on, there are traces of The Divine Comedy throughout his writings, from The Pilgrim's Regress, his first Christian book, to Letters to Malcolm, his last.[4] Lewis twice presented papers at meetings of the Oxford Dante Society, and one of those papers was devoted to an aspect of the last twelve cantos of Purgatory.[5] So there is no doubt that Lewis would have been keenly interested in the following discovery related to the last four cantos of Purgatory.

Sandro Botticelli painted "Primavera" ("Spring") circa 1478 as a huge (roughly 6' by 10') wall decoration for Villa di Castello, the elegant home of Lorenzo (Lorenzino) di Pierfrancesco, a young member of the Medici family.[6] Although it is painted in tempera on a wood panel, the design is much like that of a medieval tapestry. The painting is one of the most beloved treasures of the Uffizi Gallery in the heart of Florence, but its meaning remains a puzzle to art experts as well as to the general public.[7] It seems to depict an odd mixture of figures from ancient Greco-Roman mythology.

But "Primavera" is not the mysterious and wistful tribute to paganism it is commonly assumed to be. Instead, it is an intentional Christian allegory as orthodox and ultimately joyful as John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress. It is above all a depiction of Dante's sacred Garden of Eden in Purgatory, cantos 28-31. (Dante's Purgatory is a transitory region of Heaven; everyone there is already saved and is moving on into the fullness of God's peace and joy.)

Set apart in the center of the painting, like a serene but childless Madonna, Dante's beloved Beatrice (who led him to God) presides benevolently over the tableau, adorned with a cloak of red and a patterned halo of sky light. Her right hand gestures acceptance, just as Mary's does in Botticelli's "Annunciation." (Art critics identify her as an unusually circumspect Venus, goddess of love and beauty.) At Beatrice's left hand, her friend Matilda has been gathering wildflowers as in Canto 28. (Most critics identify this figure as Flora, goddess of spring, who is scattering flowers.) At Beatrice's right hand, three maidens, Faith, Hope, and Charity, dance in a circle as in Canto 30. (Critics identify them as the Three Graces, daughters of Zeus.) The luminous equanimity of Beatrice and her four companions is paradisaical. Dante's leafy canopy spreads overhead, and his carpet of grass and flowers spreads underfoot. As Matilda says, "Here spring is everlasting."[8]

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