Simonetta Vespucci is probably one of the most painted women of the Italian Renaissance. Sandro Botticelli is widely believed to have used her as his model for Venus, and she appears, transformed and idealised, across several of his most famous works.
She died in 1476, aged just 23. For centuries, historians have assumed tuberculosis was to blame – it was common, it was often fatal, and it fitted the pattern of a young woman fading quickly.
