Simonetta Vespucci

Simonetta Cattaneo came from Genoa and married Marco Vespucci, landing her in Florence around 1453, where she became cousin-in-law to the navigator Amerigo. By all contemporary accounts she was the most beautiful woman in Italy — a designation that carried weight in a city obsessed with both art and appearance. She's believed to have sat for Botticelli, Piero di Cosimo, and others, her features supposedly threaded through dozens of paintings. But the attributions are shaky; Victorian critic John Ruskin gets much of the blame for spinning a legend the evidence can't quite hold. She died on 26 A…