The mystery behind what killed Botticelli’s muse: has a 550-year-old medical case been solved?

By Paolo Pozzilli, Honorary Professor of Diabetes and Clinical Research, Queen Mary University of London

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…

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