The sixty-minute film, Botticelli’s Primavera (now available on Ideas Roadshow’s App for TV, tablet & phone and VOD and Amazon Prime) opens like a ceremonial lecture on the occasion of an exhibition opening or the start of an academic symposium: a familiar set piece in museums and art historical institutions, delivered by a well-known expert on a major work of art, summarizing and synthesizing current scholarship before presenting his or her own definitive position.

Only in this case the Voice of Authority is off-screen and anonymous and the inconsistent delivery style swings from the dry and academic to the colloquial and conversational. As a result the narration never focuses on a single authority but instead wanders among decades of scholarly research and commentary.