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Renaissance Visions Myth and Art

By Patrick Hunt

Included in this preview: • Title and Copyright pages • Table of Contents • Preface • Chapter 1

For additional information on adopting this book for your class, please contact us at 800.200.3908 x71 or via e-mail at [email protected] Renaissance Visions Myth and Art

PATRICK HUNT

Ariel Books New York Patrick Hunt has taught in the Humanities at Stanford University since 1994. He is the author of many articles on the intersection of mythology, archaeology, ancient science, and art history. He directs the Stanford Alpine Archaeology Project and the National Geographic Society Hannibal Expedition (2007-2008). Hunt earned his Ph.D. in Archaeology from the Institute of Archaelogy, UCL, University of London.

Along with monographs, novellas, and other writing, Patrick has written Caravaggio, an art historical biography and critical book on the Baroque genius painter. It has been highly acclaimed in reviews; the Art Newspaper International in London described it as “first-class” and “a rattling good yarn.” He has presented the genre of new myth fable at the Sun Valley Writer’s Conference. His archaeology books include Ten Discoveries That Rewrote History.

Other University Readers titles by Patrick Hunt:

Alpine Archaeology, ISBN 978-1-934269-00-8 Myths for All Time: Selected Greek Stories Retold, ISBN 978-1-934269-09-1 Rembrandt: His Life in Art - Second Edition, ISBN 978-1-934269-03-9

Cover Design by Monica Hui Hekman Reproduction of Mantegna’s SAMSON AND DELILAH courtesy of National Gallery London for academic publishing only. All other images in the public domain.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or using any other information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

First published in the United States of America in 2008 by University Reader Company, Inc.

12 11 10 09 08 1 2 3 4 5 Printed in the United States of America

ISBN: 978-1-934269-14-5 (paper) Contents

Preface ...... 5

Chapter 1 Botticelli’s Birth of Venus ...... 7

Chapter 2 Mantegna’s Samson and Delilah ...... 21

Chapter 3 Leonardo da Vinci’s Leda and the Swan ...... 31

Chapter 4 Titian’s Bacchus and Ariadne ...... 41

Chapter 5 Titian’s Death of Actaeon ...... 61

Chapter 6 Titian’s Abduction of Europa ...... 67

Chapter 7 Bruegel’s Landscape with Fall of Icarus ...... 73

Chapter 8 Michelangelo’s Delphic Sibyl ...... 79

Chapter 9 Michelangelo’s Cumaean Sibyl ...... 89

Chapter 10 Caravaggio’s Bacchus ...... 97

Chapter 11 Caravaggio’s Narcissus ...... 105

Chapter 12 Caravaggio’s Raising of Lazarus...... 111

Bibliography ...... 117

Notes ...... 125

Index ...... 141 Preface

“To think is to speculate with images…” g i o r d a n o b r u n o (1532-1600)

Mythology is one of the more profound ways we humans creatively respond when imagin- ing time and eternity or when thinking about themes and ideas in cyclical history and our place therein. How much more satisfying when artists of the Renaissance or any other period look at mythology with fresh insight or new ideas transformed into pictures, sculptures and the like. Their visions thus become even more powerful in the ability to inspire us to ponder such ideas in visual terms; as Bruno suggests, that thinking itself requires images to become empowered. As if to pontificate on what is intellectually acceptable, most modern connotations of speculation carry a degree of risk, of gambling either with logic or some other capital. Specula- tion, however, as Bruno uses the verb, embeds the idea that seeing (from Latin specula) is not a negative but is possible pioneering made from a watchtower over a scouted landscape, at its best a form of exploration. In the modern mind there might be more than just suggestion that speculation could be both fantastic and idiosyncratic rather than based on reality and commonly seen and appreciated by all. Yet Myth, by its imaginary nature, seems to always invite speculation and even some personalizing, especially when the culture that originally imagined a myth is an ancient one, possibly no longer existing or having transformed almost beyond recognition. Myth also invites speculation when meaning is not limited to one set of hermeneutics but can instead have a kaleidoscope of turns and be deliberately ambiguous. This is why it is always safer for skilled mythographers and art historians – like good histo- riographers - to research knowable dates and references, with archives and correspondence, with provenance and bills of sale (always incredibly valuable resources) rather than suspect iconologies and iconographies and the labyrinths of meaning. All that said, this small book makes no apology for venturing into speculative territory at times. These twelve myth subjects rendered by Renaissance masters are arbitrarily selected

5 6 Renaissance Visions: Myth and Art here not just because they are beautiful or because they are necessarily the greatest paintings by these masters or even the most important myths, however that might be decided by anyone, but rather because they have moved this author in some way to look at them more closely again and again. In fact, I never tire of looking at them. My ideas are never as grand or profound as these myth paintings themselves, but I claim them as my own, while also acknowledging others’ excellent observations gathered over many years. Botticelli, Mantegna, Leonardo da Vinci, Titian, Bruegel, Michelangelo and Caravaggio have all inspired many generations with these and many more images beside. That they found these particular myths - the Birth of Venus, Samson and Delilah, Leda and the Swan, Bacchus and Ariadne, Europa and the Bull, Diana and Actaeon, the fall of Icarus, the Oracle of Delphi, the Sibyl of Cumae, Bacchus-Dionysus, Narcissus and Lazarus - worthy of their attention and their own visual speculation draws us back to them after centuries. The Re- naissance is rich in newly-rediscovered mythology, and so many subjects beckon not selected here, many also ekphrases or visual descriptions of ancient Classical texts in one way or another. Caravaggio is also included here because he bridges between the Renaissance and Baroque, of which he is a pioneer. Although some might wonder why a few Jewish and Christian tales are included, it is because they also touch something deeper and older. If these artists intended viewers to see even a small portion of the ideas covered in this small book, which is mostly unknowable, then I am content to trod over ground that far more wise than I have also already covered. I acknowledge my debt to them. Although the artists and paintings selected here may not have been deeply in touch with all the literary and artistic traditions discussed in this book, the fact that they painted them carefully within these myths’ detailed narratives is proof that myth came alive for them as each artist interpreted the stories anew. I must thank those who inspire me and to them this book is dedicated. Richard Martin is a wise bard who delights all with his deep love of mythology. Jenny March is a poet’s sage who can hear the wind in the wing beats of Pegasus. Most of all, Pamela, my wife, is the Muse whose lovely voice I follow even when blind. I also want to thank Jessica Knott for her superb editing.

Patrick Hunt Stanford University January, 2008 Chapter 1

SANDRO BOTTICELLI’S BIRTH OF VENUS, c. 1484

Uffizi Gallery, Florence (172.5 x 278.5 cm)

Introduction If there is one painting able to sum up the new beauty of Renaissance art, it could easily be Botticelli’s Birth of Venus, “incomparable” as Lightbown rightfully praises.1 It may also be among the first important masterpieces to break from Medieval and Renaissance Christian tradition, becoming the virtual “icon”2 of Renaissance Humanism in art, signal- ing independence by depicting a “pagan” mythological theme. So it can also symbolically be about the birth of the Renaissance, although Botticelli would not have made such a case however innovative its vision. On the other hand, however pioneering in certain aspects, Malcolm Bull singles out Botticelli’s Venus images as isolated mythographic instances that do not actually develop further iconography of Venus as the Renaissance would come to understand it.3 Not even originally titled the “Birth of Venus” (this title was a nineteenth century invention), it may have instead been originally named Venus Landing on the Shore. Little historic wrangling over its inspiration and its meaning, however, can detract from this painting’s enormous status in Renaissance art. A large, almost 2 by 3 meters, canvas painted in tempera probably between 1484-86 for Lorenzo di Pierfrancsco (one of the Medici family branches) and later acquired by Co- simo de Medici, it hung at the Villa Castello in Florence possibly as early as 1485 and most certainly by 1540. It was likely intended as a wall decoration for one of the villa’s state chambers, but also may have celebrated love itself and perhaps even the nuptials of the famously beautiful Simonetta Vespucci who seems to be its model for Venus. Simon- etta’s home was in the legendarily reputed birthplace of Venus for Italians, the thus-named coastal Porto Venere.

7 8 Renaissance Visions: Myth and Art

Botticelli’s Birth of Venus

Economical in composition and simple in its number of fi gures, the Birth of Venus highlights only beauty as its subject. Its fi gures divided in three parts, at the left the western benevolent wind Zephyr embraces a wind nymph (probably Aura) as both fl y through the air blowing Venus to shore on her shell soon after her birth, where the Hora of Spring, Chloris, waits to wrap Venus in a fl oral-embroidered pink mantled cape. Clothed only in her golden hair Venus stands alone in a pose reminiscent of an ancient Classical Venus sculpture she deliberately echoes, possibly the Venus Capitolina now in Rome after a Praxitelean original4 – since her arm gestures covering herself are practi- cally identical - or a similar ancient Venus known as the sculpture Venus di Medici as further discussed below. The deep marine background is also grand but simple in its large scale, sweeping up to a high horizon where the coastline weaves in and out to meet it. A grove of citrus trees, probably orange, blooms on the right, and although this would normally happen in winter rather than spring, these white blossoms are in some way a counterbalance to the pink roses cascading around Zephyr and Aura and nearly to Venus herself as she steps out of shell to land. The tiny waves swell toward shore and there the light surf Renaissance Visions: Myth and Art 9

washes the foreground beach, only frothy under her shell as if to suggest her sea foam origin. The early morning light comes from the east at the viewer’s right, and the subtly complex color and kinetic scheme of the painting is brilliant: on the horizontal plane, a luminous blue sky comple- ments a reflective light green sea and contrasts with the shadowy dark foreground; the pastel but shaded folds of Zephyr’s blue cloak billowing in the open air at left darkly contrasts the daz- zling whiteness of Venus and the coral Detail of Chloris Detail of Zephyr and Aura pink folded mantle of Chloris moves against the static dark green citrus grove on the right. Gold from the dawn radiates off the veins of the orange tree leaves. At center, the purity of Venus’ stunningly white body is that skin tone yet untouched by hot sun, especially since she has only been recently born. Like the best Carrara marble freshly quarried, there is no sign of a tan on her body and only her cheeks are rosy. If the gold-rimmed shell is a scallop with its curved ribs, it is also like a giant oyster half with Detail of Venus Detail of Shell Venus revealed as its precious whitest pearl, a gem that is also linked to her in Classical iconography as a precious gift of the sea. She is just about to step from her shell unto the land, her left foot rising over the shell’s golden hinge and her lifted right foot about to follow. The floral and vegetal motifs in the painting are not insignificant. The orange tree grove catches the gold of dawn, as mentioned, brimming with white blossoms the perfume of whose fragrance can almost be breathed. Some arboreal ambiguity in identifying the trees could also suggest they are laurels (Laurus nobilis) in that both kinds of tree have longish leaves pointing upwards with tiny blossoms, and laurel blooms later in early spring whereas 10 Renaissance Visions: Myth and Art

oranges bloom mostly in summer with their fruit ripening in winter (no fruit is on these trees). But the leaves of citrus are more rounded as these are, and laurel leaves are generally narrower, so citrus appears more logical even with the laurel associated with the Medici. Falling roses would ultimately lose and spread their petals, but here they are fresh as Venus herself. Some of the roses have even landed on the wings of Aura where they rest. The rose was always identified with Ve- Detail of Falling Roses nus, as it was also associated with the goddess Isis in whose transformed and syncretic Christian milieu it became the flower of the Virgin Mary, great patroness of a higher celestial love that attempted to purify its Classical sources. In the left foreground, cattails (Typha latifolia) grow over the water, at first an oddity since they are a marsh plant and not identified as a marine habitat growth. Under Chloris, the Hora (or Hour) of Spring on the shore at right, a single anemone wind flower grows. Tiny single blades of grass bend in the golden sunlight above the shore. On the white dress of Chloris, humble blue cornflowers (fiordaliso in Italian) are embroidered; on her gold-hemmed and collared coral pink mantle, embroidered cornflowers are joined with marguerites and a red flower as well as a yellow flower. Around Chloris’ body are two wreaths, a pectoral of myrtle, also sacred to Venus, and a girdle of thornless pink roses seemingly identical to those falling from the sky although the falling or floating wind-blown roses are slightly larger. With the exception of the citrus, all of these flowers are of spring, their primary meaning also linked to the birth of that season.

Classical Myths of the Birth of Venus and Near Eastern Connections According to Greek myth, the irrational giant Titans ruled the earth, sea and sky before their own children rebelled and imposed more order. In a violent dynastic succession, with his mother Gaia’s help, Kronos took a curved flint knife and overthrew his father Uranus by castrating him. He threw the knife that became the curved northeast coast of Sicily at Zanke (later Messina) and threw the genitals into the Mediterranean Sea, were they floated awhile oozing sperm and blood. From the foamy seed cresting the waves, the sea coalesced the foam into Aphrodite, whose Greek name means born “out of the sea foam.” As violent as her birth, Venus was the absolute paragon of perfect beauty, but the domain of sexuality she also ruled was an obvious consequence of her source material in the sperm of Ou- ranus (Uranus). Aphrodite was one of the oldest deities the Greeks knew and her power Renaissance Visions: Myth and Art 11 extended over every living thing and her greatest attribute of desire overwhelmed even the gods themselves. In a slower cultural process of diffusion than the myth account of her birth, the westward journey of the goddess can also be traced across time and many lands. Venus is her Roman name, but the goddess is always associated with the planet bearing her name, itself a cultural carryover when variations of her worship early migrated from Mesopotamia5 in the cult and name of Sumerian Inanna and Akkadian-Babylonian Ishtar, both also rep- resented by the planet Venus, the brightest celestial body in the sky after sun and moon. Even the Greek word aster for “star” retains that connection, as does the Latin word stella. Because Phoenicia bridged her Near Eastern worship (where one form of her was known as Astarte) across to Cyprus, the Classical world always identified Cyprus (also known as Cytherea) and especially Paphos as her home. Aphrodite (Venus) was also named as Kyprogeneia (“Cyprus-born”) as well as the Paphian Goddess and Cytherea or Kythereia. Having to cross the water from the Near Eastern Levant, Cyprus would be her first step- ping stone westward, although this poses a problem in myth literature because she is said to move westward via the wind, not eastward, and this is discussed more fully below.

Ancient and Contemporary Literature Hesiod’s Theogony and the Homeric Hymns to Venus are ancient source texts, among many others, accounting for the birth of Venus in the Renaissance world. As Hesiod tells it in his Theogony 160ff, 180-85, 188-200, when Kronos conspired with his mother Gaia to punish Ouranus-Uranus, she armed him with a giant gray flint sickle:

“[Kronos] swung it sharply and lopped off the members of his own father, and threw them behind him to fall where they would…but the members themselves when Kronos had lopped them with the flint, he threw from the mainland into the great wash of the sea water and they drifted a great while on the open sea, and there spread a circle of white foam from the immortal flesh, and in it grew a girl, whose course first took her to Kythera, and from there she afterward made her way to sea-washed Cyprus and stepped ashore, a modest lovely goddess. And about her slight and slender feet the grass grew, and the gods called her Aphrodite, and men do too, and the sea-foam born goddess, and garlanded Kythereia because from the sea-foam she grew, and Kythereia because she had gone to Kythera, and Kyprogeneia because she came forth from wave-washed Cyprus…”6 12 Renaissance Visions: Myth and Art

Although Botticelli would have probably needed a scholar like Ficino to introduce him to these Hesiodic lines or, as Bull attests, more likely via Medici court poets like Politianus,7 it is interesting that Botticelli’s Venus is, above all, modest in her loveliness, just as Hesiod de- scribes above in his “modest, lovely goddess” as she “stepped ashore” from the “open sea” unto land where “the grass grew.” That all these visual ideas are in Botticelli’s canvas may be indications of a Hesiodic literary source, possibly filtered through Renaissance literature. The Homeric Hymns to Aphrodite also develop her nature and character, as well as her power over living things. Of all the Greek deities, only three chaste goddesses are beyond her power: Athena, Artemis and Hestia, as the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite 5 tells. But all others, mortal and immortal, are under her sway:

“Muse , tell me the deeds of golden Aphrodite the Cyprian, who stirs up sweet passion in the gods and subdues the tribes of mortal men and birds that fly in the air and all the many creatures that the dry land rears, and all that the sea [rears]: all these love the deeds of rich-crowned Cytherea.”8

Here the Homeric Hymn calls her “golden,” and this is a common thread in Aphrodite iconography, just as Botticelli has given his Venus a tawny mass of wind-blown golden hair and also tinged his landscape with dawn gold. The artist has also created a landscape that joins the three cardinal elements here in sky (even winged in Aura), earth (where Chloris stands beside the grove) and water (out of which the shell came) in synch with the words “air,” “dry land” and “sea” as the hymn suggests her power extends everywhere life is lived. If Botticelli assem- bles air, earth, and water and adds fire in the golden light, all four great elements are present. According to Luchinat, a single line in Ovid’s Metamorphoses II.27 is only one possible literary source for the myth as Botticelli depicts it.9

“And the Horae…Young Spring was there wreathed with a floral crown.”

Yet Lightbown, Luchinat, Bull and others,10 also suggest an equally or even more important literary connection to this painting in the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite 6, which seems to be an implicit source for Botticelli, not a direct one, via the Stanze per la Giostra of Angelo Poliziano or Politian (1454-94) which he summarized in verse. Politianus was the Latinized name of Mons Politianus from his birth name Angelo da Montepulciano, as Lightbown and others also attest Renaissance Visions: Myth and Art 13

of his origins and literary work.11 Here is the original excerpt from the Homeric Hymn 6, later reworked by Politian, in a translation from the Greek:

“I will sing of stately Aphrodite, gold-crowned and beautiful…There the moist breath of the western wind wafted her over the waves of the loud-moaning sea in soft foam, and there the gold-filleted Hours welcomed her joyously. They clothed her with heavenly gar- ments: on her head they put a fine, well-wrought crown of gold…and adorned her golden necklaces over her soft neck and snow-white breasts…”12

In these lines we see the painting in this visual context, and again Venus-Aphrodite is “gold- crowned” in her hair alone, all other ornament unnecessary, although Botticelli has a few blue ribbons bind some of her tresses. The “western wind” is of course Zephyr and Botticelli has clearly painted his breath, aided by Aura’s, “wafting” Venus ashore with the “soft foam” seen in the beaching shell. She is indeed welcomed, although not by a crowd of Hours, rather only one in Chloris, herself garlanded instead of the goddess, although she might soon transfer these myrtle and rose garlands to Venus. Botticelli also shows a “snow-white breast.” Lorenzo de Medici’s scholar poet Politianus (Angelo Poliziano) was himself immortalized in Ghirland- aio’s fresco in Santa Maria Novella, Florence, a sign of esteem for his poetic humanism. Lucretius’ (1st c. BCE) De Rerum Natura (On the Nature of Things) 1:1-43 could also be consid- ered in some way as a literary source, however transformed in Medici court poetry like that of Politianus, as the following dedicatory opening lines of Lucretius hint:

“Nurturing Venus, who beneath the smooth-moving heavenly signs fill with yourself the sea…since through you every kind of living thing is conceived and rising up looks on the light of the sun: from you, O goddess, from you the winds flee away, the clouds of heaven from you and your coming; for you the wonder-working earth puts forth sweet flowers, for you the wide stretches of ocean laugh, and heaven grown peaceful glows with outpoured light. For as soon as the vernal face of day is made manifest, and the breeze of the teeming west wind blows fresh and free…”13

The overlapping ideas are not obtuse. “Nurturing Venus” (alma Venus) is tied to celestial movements – which motion Ficino develops at length in his Theologia Platonica – along with the “wide stretches of ocean laugh” (rident aequora ponti) and “heaven’s outpoured light” (dif- 14 Renaissance Visions: Myth and Art

fuso lumine caelum) and “earth putting forth spring flowers” (tellus summittit flores), certainly all common themes for Venusian spring, but especially “breeze of the teeming west wind blows fresh and free” (reserata viget genitabilis aura favoni). Perhaps important here, the word aura appears above in Lucretius, and this is the exact personified nymph (Aura) many agree is she whom Zephyr embraces. Aura, of course, means “ breath of air” as the mate or double of Zephyr, exactly as Botticelli paints. Thus, sufficient texts in the literary background of the Birth of Venus leads to the conclusion that Botticelli was following some sort of visual template for an ekphrasis, bringing ancient literary text into an idiosyncratic but iconographically consistent framework, also likely alluding Classical art in some way. Already mentioned, one primary mythographic problem is that the cult of the love goddess – by whatever name – historically moved westward from the Near East across the Le- vant strait to Cyprus and then to Greece and beyond, not eastward from the Mediterranean as the Homeric Hymn 6 implies in blown by the western wind. But this is not a problem for Botticelli whose ekphrasis is carefully drawn.

Marsilio Ficino on Planetary Venus Known to be more than just an occasional inspiration to Botticelli, the contemporary scholar and Neoplatonist philosopher Marsilio Ficino (1433-99) revived the esteem for Plato in the Renaissance.14 Ficino’s patron, like Botticelli’s, was Lorenzo de Medici, and it is probable Botticelli learned some philosophy from Ficino and adapted some of his allegories. Deriving his celestial and zodiacal mélange from the Roman Astronomica of the 1st c. astrologer Marcus Manilius,15 Ficino mentioned the combined planetary-mythological Venus a few times in his Theologia Platonica, a work attempting to reconcile Christianity and Classical paganism, among other goals. Here Venus is one of the twelve Pythagorean divine souls associated with Zodiacal constellations, in this case Taurus in the spring between April to May,16 in this case again consistent with the spring context of the painting. Later in the same text, Ficino associates Venus with Bacchus Lysius, the “loosener,” the liberating god of the vine’s vegeta- tive power,17 when the power of spring is abundantly manifest in unstoppable growth, and the Muse Erato, whose domain was lyric poetry. While not obviously connected to Ficino’s Venus references, there are clear seasonal clues in this painting emphasizing late spring, from Zephyr on the left to Venus landing onshore to the Hora of Spring on the right. The painting is at least somewhat consistent with Ficino’s philosophy of Venus, not the Venus Renaissance Visions: Myth and Art 15 who is responsible for lust but the Venus who personifies beauty, like the Platonic ideal to which humans were to ascend on the ladder of love already mentioned. Ficino would have been familiar with this but Botticelli less so. As Gombrich pointed out in 1945, one of Ficino’s letters to Botticelli contained this quote:

“The planets like Venus and Mars are allegorical of the virtues to which young men can aspire…”18

While Venus here is planetary rather than mythological, Ficino’s syncretic philosophy could, like the desire of early Gnostic Christianity to see its roots growing from a plethora of fertile sources, already encompass the synthesis of Venus the myth goddess with the Virgin Mary, both of them Regina Caeli, and Venus the planet could also easily presage dawn and birth as a shining celestial queen. In Theologia Platonica, 18.9, Ficino’s philosophy, however, could be easily applied to this painting: “The beauty of the body lies not in the shadow of matter but in the light and grace of form; not in darkness, but in clear proportion; not in slug- gish and senseless weight, but in harmonious number and measure.” Although Ficino in his writing allegorized Venus philosophically from her “primeval” source – the spilled seed of Uranus at his castration – Lightbown also maintains this painting is less intentional of personal allusions and more a celebration of love and beauty.19

Selected Possible Allegories Nevertheless, much has been made of possible allegories in the painting. In the last century or so, Aby Warburg and later Ernst Gombrich along with E. Panofsky, Levi d’Ancona20 and others have offered somewhat complementary versions of possible allegories influenced by the relationship between Marsilio Ficino and Botticelli, among others. Holmes noted its “pre- carious balance of myth and naturalism” and how it combined “Classical legend, ecclesiasti- cal painting [in the Madonna-like innocence of Venus], literary spiritualism and aristocratic enjoyment of the pleasures of life.”21 That the painting has some allegorical elements is difficult to deny; what it meant to Botticelli and the Medici is more convoluted and virtually impossible to gloss. The clearest suggestion of some form of allegory – despite the point of Lightbown that it is likely not personal allusion but celebration of love and perhaps nup- tials22 - are the elements not so easy to find in literary or artistic precedents. Some of these possibilities are discussed below, but mostly posed as tenuous questions. 16 Renaissance Visions: Myth and Art

First, the falling and floating roses are one such possible symbolic element, in many senses emblematic of love. If roses here conjoin earthly and celestial love in the combined personae of pagan Venus and the Christian Virgin Mary, some of this joining may be related to Mar- silio Ficino’s Neoplatonist philosophy, although that connection is not compelling between Venus and Mary or even to Ficino despite the previous paragraph on Ficino’s ruminations on Venus. Although the shell later comes to be associated with Mary, it was often a symbol of feminine sexuality and certainly long identified with Venus before borrowed into Mary’s iconography. The descending roses in this image perfectly fit Botticelli’s modest Venus, in fact, none of them yet touch the ground. Botticelli’s use of roses may in fact represent a celestial Venus Urania. Quoting Aghion, Barbillou and Lissarrague:

“Plato in fact contrasted Aphrodite Urania (celestial), goddess of chaste and pure love, with Aphrodite Pandemos (popular), patroness of carnal love.” 23

That the roses come from above is clear in the blossoms that have landed on the nymph wings of Aura: they precede the blowing or come from higher up. Thereby not all plants are earthly. Thus, this invisible source of the roses is a higher domain than earth and suggests a divine blessing higher than earthly love can muster. Reminding perhaps of Plato’s Sympo- sium - Ficino also completed his Symposium commentary in 146924 - all the forms of Beauty, always desirable but in different ways, should call humans to higher planes of love, moving from Eros and the physical love to love of the Soul and ultimately Beauty itself, here personified not in a Venus who brings us not to lust but in a purer Venus who brings us to contem- plation of Beauty. When the seeking human soul identifies more and more with Beauty, it becomes more like that which it seeks. Whatever tenuous connection Plato’s forms of Beauty might have with Botticelli’s Venus is probably casual at best, nonetheless his Venus here is just such an icon drawing viewers to Beauty herself. Second, as mentioned, although this overall combined context is necessary in the story, the four elements of earth, air, fire and water are somewhat symbolically present in sky, sea, land and golden light. Zephyr the god of the west wind represents air as does Aura (“breath” or “vapor”) with him, both their feet suspended in air. The diagonal line of breath Botticelli has painted, with which they blow Venus shoreward, is mobile air manifest in its kinetic form. Chloris, the Hora of Spring, has her feet touching the ground, representing earth. Ve- nus herself rides across the sea, carried by a marine shell her feet touch only inches from Renaissance Visions: Myth and Art 17

the foamy water, and she is born out of its watery waves. The golden hair of Venus and the golden light reflected throughout the painting from the right at dawn’s source also represent the sun and its power as fire personified. The separate groupings of figures also highlights their different domains as none of the figures actually touch each other (excepting Zephyr and Aura) with earth, sea and sky combined at the horizon but not without distinct lines between them. Whether or not the four elements – or at least the three obvious ones in sky, sea and land - are even important other than as necessary geographic indicators is difficult to establish. Third, other than the roses, the garlands and other flowers shown in the painting can be seen as traditional but also idiosyncratic here, since they do not seem to appear in historic precedents for the birth of Venus. The myrtle and rose garlands around Chloris are logical for Venus, especially the myrtle pectoral since the Romans worshipped Venus Murtia (or Murcia) as “Venus of the Myrtle,” and myrtle was also a plant grown around temples of Ve- nus. As Pollini has noted, myrtle was associated with lovemaking and inspiring love, as seen in Horace’s Carmen I.4.5, 9-10, and also identified with the conquering Venus Victrix.25 That the pectoral myrtle is over Chloris’ heart and around her neck is apropos: it does not over- whelm her mind with passion, nor is the myrtle around her brow as Horace mentions; higher reason is thus seemingly unaffected. Bull notes that “the link between Venus and weddings was an ancient one, for it was her girdle, the ceston, that legitimized marriages.”26 If the grove of trees are ambiguously laurel along with citrus, this is relevant in that Lorenzo de Medici identified with the Laurus nobilis not only by his Latinized name (Laurentius) but also by its Apollonian role in inspiration, as many have pointed out.27 The cattails are the most puzzling plant elements, as mentioned, because they are not in this habitat. The cornflowers (fiordaliso) and marguerites, while also symbolic of love, are equally or mostly signifiers of spring, as is the anemone, also apropos as a “wind-flower” because of Zephyr. Therefore, the overall painting’s plant context signals spring - along with love – probably more than anything else. Dempsey’s caution on overt plant symbolism in the Primavera28 is also wise to remember here. While Aura the nymph is an apparent visual invention of Botticelli here in the painting (although the antecedent word aura appeared in Lucretius’ text), at least accompanying Zephyr, by being so close in his embrace, she also in some way exemplifies unifying love as these two fly embracing through the sky. They touch bodily, although without much flesh contact except in their heads and her arms around his waist. Otherwise, their cloaks barely 18 Renaissance Visions: Myth and Art

separate them, and Zephyr’s blue cloak empha- sizes his sky domain. Thus, that Botticelli paints both Zephyr and Aura as double but united winds (note Coleridge’s idea that “unity implies multe- ity”) echoes text as well. Finally, the birth of Venus is also simply the birth of spring. The season of spring is tradition- ally identifi ed as the season for love, but this is less allegory than an accepted method of representing the seasonal cycles of time in space. That more intricate symbolism and contemplative allegory might be possible in the painting is certainly feasible, but best approached with caution.

Classical Venus Antecedents in Art Famous sculptural Venus images abound from antiquity, especially in Roman art, but surviving examples similar to Botticelli’s of Venus at her birth are less so. The most quoted sculptural examples are often categorized as Venus pudica forms. Among others, Horne noted this Venus stands “in the attitude of the Medicean Venus.”29 Venus fi gures Botticelli might have seen include the marble Medici Venus (1st c. BCE) also at the Uffi zi in Florence, as well as the Capitoline Venus (2nd c. CE) in the Capitoline Museum in Rome, the Cnid- ian Venus (or Aphrodite of Knidos) (2nd c. CE) in the Vatican Collection, a Roman copy purport- edly based on the Praxiteles original, among others. The most logical sculptural antecedents not only were known in his day as suffi ciently local, but have the added compelling gestures using the same arms to shield right breast and genitals. Of Capitoline Venus Renaissance Visions: Myth and Art 19

these primary Venus types, only the Medici Venus satisfies all such requisites, although its presence cannot be easily attested at the end of the fifteenth century in Florence for Botticelli to have used it as his model. It also adds a shell and a dolphin as accompanying motif, which elements suggest it also connects to the birth of Venus. The idea of a Venus Marina linked to the sea is also useful for Roman antecedents, but such painted images have not survived well from antiquity nor were many directly known to the Renaissance. The suggested Venus Anadyomene image as seen in Pompeiian wall-painting would not have been yet excavated for several centuries, but even if a popular form, its primary resemblances are the nudity of the goddess and the seashell, whereas its Venus is supine, unlike Botticelli’s. Classical paintings are sometimes mentioned in Roman texts. For example, literary accounts via Pliny (Natural History 35.91ff) of the Venus birth painting of Apelles (4th c. BCE), “Venus emerging from the sea” (Venerem exeuntem a mari) for which the lovely courtesan Phryne may have also modeled (like the Calumny), have sometimes been discussed as ekphrases for Botticelli. But Pliny does not describe it amply, noting that it was dedicated by Augustus to his adoptive father Caesar’s shrine. So surviving Roman art examples of the birth of Venus are not as numerous in the Re- naissance as to provide Botticelli a range of poses form which to choose, although the clear resemblance of his Venus to the Medici Venus is close enough to suffice.

Conclusion Botticelli’s Birth of Venus, c. 1484, is a touchstone, iconic for the Renaissance despite not being a painting that seems to have influenced many others if we accept Bull’s word. What it represents now is not necessarily how it was envisioned at the end of the fifteenth century, but it has always been much loved from the beginning. If it is the most beautiful painting in the world, as some insist, it may be because the artist eliminated all extraneous distractions in order to distill his profound subject to its essence. But what is its subject? Regardless of any attempts at wrapping an allegorical structure around this pioneering work – more apropos but often equally unyielding in his Primavera of 1482 – the Birth of Ve- nus may best represent Botticelli’s ideal of Beauty, and that is its most likely subject. Whether or not as some say, that the artist also secretly loved Simonetta Vespucci, the most likely model for Venus, it is endearingly understandable that love itself can animate such art and elevate it to the highest level, as in Plato’s Symposium. Botticelli’s Birth of Venus heralds for so many the real Birth of the Renaissance (although that seems a tautology), free from reli- 20 Renaissance Visions: Myth and Art gious piety and instead shining out the message of rebirth for both intellect and soul. In this painting, Beauty dawns anew for the inquiring spirit.