The Story of Nastagio Degli Onesti, part one

The first panel of the Story of Nastagio degli Onesti at the Museo del Prado opens the narrative cycle from Boccaccio's Decameron: Nastagio degli Onesti, rejected by Signora Traversari, wanders in a forest and witnesses the terrible spectacle of a knight hunting a naked woman. The ghost hunt—an infernal punishment for a woman who had spurned her lover until he died of grief—would be reenacted every Friday as eternal retribution. Botticelli renders the opening panel with characteristic narrative clarity: Nastagio in contemporary Florentine dress, the forest setting specific and atmospheric, the ghostly hunt visible in the middle distance. The 1483 commission for the Pucci-Bini wedding is among the most prestigious of Botticelli's documented commissions.

The pine forest is rendered as a rhythmic pattern of vertical trunks, Botticelli's decorative sense transforming the natural setting into an elegant compositional framework for the dramatic ghostly narrative.