Primavera

Flora is wearing every flower she's about to scatter. Researchers at the Uffizi have identified more than 190 distinct species painted onto the dress and into the meadow around her — primrose, cornflower, iris, anemone, hyacinth, jasmine — almost all of them botanically accurate to spring in the Arno valley. Botticelli's painter friend was the son of a Medici-court herbalist, and the gardens at the Villa di Castello, where the picture hung, were a working botanical collection. Now at Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence @uffizigalleries