Rafael Hanuman

What do you think when you see the image of this woman? I have been seeing it since 1989 in the Adobe Illustrator software.


It’s automatic for me, even if I seek another meaning. For many years, the opening screen of Adobe Illustrator was this image.


For those who weren't there in the early days of digital graphic arts, this image likely evokes the famous painting, The Birth of Venus.

But what was the painter Boccaccio thinking when he looked at this image? The model was real, and it shows that not all women of that time were as unattractive as the Mona Lisa.


Simonetta Vespucci, considered the muse of the Renaissance, mingled with Leonardo Da Vinci, Michelangelo, Machiavelli, Boccaccio, she was the star of Florence.

And so we can recognize Italy as the birthplace of fashion, not as the mother of textiles, but as the origin of the concept of professional fashion.

(like England invented football and the biggest winner is another country, the smartphone was invented in the USA and the Chinese are much better, etc...)

Two more paintings where Simonetta Vespucci was the model.