Titian's Sacred and Profane Love Re-examined Author(s): Eugene B. Cantelupe Source: The Art Bulletin, Vol. 46, No. 2 (Jun., 1964), pp. 218-227 Published by: College Art Association

This discussion of 's Sacred and Profane Love is one of many. Walter Friedlaender and Erwin Panofsky wrote extensively on the subject in 1938 and 1939 and much was brought up to date by Malcolm Bull and others in the present century. Eugene Cantelupe provides a cogent analysis of Titian's painting, but it is worth noting that at the time of his writing it was not known that the painting was commissioned for the marriage of Nicolò Aurelio, the Venetian Grand Chancellor, to a young widow, Laura Bagarotto. Irrespective of this, the elaborate details in his article are well worth attending to. (AF) 218 THE ART BULLETIN istic of militaryfortifications built by LucianoLaurana Laurana,the most importantarchitect involved in the and Francescodi Giorgio. project,is documentedonly from 1476 untilhis death A majoredifice built in Pesaroduring the decadeof in 1479.14Giovanni may well have had accessto the the seventies,Costanzo's Nuova Roccaor, as it is now same sourceused by the designerof the medal. We known, Fortezza Costanzo, answers the description can say with certainty,then, that Giovanni'saltarpiece of S. Terenzio'smodel. Although only the foundation was paintedin 1475 or after. of the original buildingremains, the model can be Most recent scholarshave tended to assign the seen to conformto the outline of the massivelypro- Coronation of the Virgin to an earlier date, roughly portionedcorner towers.9 In addition, the sloping 1470-1473,"1which is to say, several years before foundationsof the modelcorrespond to the present-day Antonello da Messina's altar for the church of San ruins, where the sides are much thicker below the Cassiano (documented 1475-1476). A post-I475 stringcoursewhich encirclesthe building. datingof the altarpieceat Pesaroconsiderably changes The most conclusiveevidence for the identification our view of Venetianpainting during the seventies, of S. Terenzio'smodel is the elevationof the fortress especiallywith regardto Giovanni'sdebt to Antonello. on the reverseof one of Costanzo'smedals (Fig. 4), As Giles Robertsonhas observed,"the Vasariantradi- an example of which is preservedin the National tion that he learnt from Antonello to paint in oils, Gallery of Art in Washington.xoThe coin portrays inaccurateas it may be in all its details,gives us the the fortressfrom a level high enough to show the essentialanswer. In such works as the Rimini Pieta and relationshipbetween the four corner towers and the the Santa Giustina we see him modifying the sharp central tower. According to Adolfo Venturi, the hatchedmodelling of his earlierperiod . . . to achieve fortressoriginally consisted of "four massivebattle- a more continuousmodelling of form; and in the mentedtowers at the cornersof the mainescarpment; Coronation of the Virgin at Pesaro we see this fully from the escarpmenta drawbridgeled to the central achievedby some differentmeans, includingthe use section, from which arose the keep which dominated of glazes. The Antonellesquecharacter of the model- the Adriatic.""' ling of the Pesaropicture seems to me self-evident... On the basisof the identificationof the Fortezza and there is no externalevidence to suggestit was in Costanzoin the Pesaroaltarpiece, we may assumethat fact executed before Antonello's visit."16 Giovanniexecuted the paintingeither for Costanzo While we hope that the discoveriescommunicated Sforzaor for a patronwho wantedthe Fortezzarepre- in this note will substantiateRobertson's findings, we sented as a tributeto Costanzo.Situated on a bluff must emphasize in conclusion that a positive terminus overlookingthe Foglia River, the new buildingwas post for the Pesaroaltarpiece is only a firststep toward probablya conspicuousfeature of the city when Gio- an accurate assessmentof Giovanni Bellini's early vanni arrived there during the seventies. Little is development. known about Costanzo's art patronage; however, since Costanzowas the brother-in-lawof Federigoda [HARVARD UNIVERSITY] Montefeltro,his role as a significantpatron seems plausible. Throughthe identificationof the FortezzaCostanzo, TITIAN'S SACRED AND PROFANE LOVE we are able to arrive at a terminus post for the altar- RE-EXAMINED Construction of the fortress on piece. began June 3, EUGENE B. CANTELUPE 1474.12 A year later, Costanzo had the commemora- tive medal made.1" Consequently, the likeness of the If Titian's Borghesepainting is not the most enig- fortress was known in 1475 (evidently through matic of Italian High Renaissancepictures, certainly architectural plans), although the activity of Luciano it is one of the most disputed.For more than forty

9. For a reproduction of the Rocchetta as it stands today, the fortress. see Vaccaj, op.cit., p. 68. 12. Annibale Olivieri-Giordani, Lettera sopra un medaglione non ancor osservato Costanzo di io. The medal, catalogued as No. A 834 of the Kress di Sforza Pesaro, Pesaro, 1781, collection of Renaissance bronzes, was formerly in the Dreyfus p. vii. See also Pompeo Litta, Famiglie celebri italiane, 1819, collection (cf. George Francis Hill, Renaissance Medals: The I (unpaginated; plate entitled "Cenni sulle Medaglie Gustave Dreyfus Collection, Oxford, 1931, No. 97). al ramo di Pesaro"). The on the medal reads INEXPVGNABILE ii. Venturi, op.cit., vii, i, p. 675. At the same time we 13. inscription should note that the model held by S. Terenzio differs in cer- CASTELLVM CONSTANTIVM PISAVRENZI SALVTI tain ways from the fortress portrayed on the coin. For in- PVBLICAE MCCCCLXXV. stance, in the painting the central keep has a broad, sloping 14. Arduino Colasanti, Luciano Laurana, Rome, 1922, p. 8. roof, whereas on the coin it is much steeper. Also the pro- 15. Roberto Longhi, "The Giovanni Bellini Exhibition," portions of the central keep are dissimilar in the coin and Burlington Magazine, xcI, 1949, p. 281, dates the altar about the model. Although it is difficult to account for these dis- 1473. Luigi Coletti, Pittura veneta del quattrocento, Novara, does Edoardo crepancies, the identification of the model as the Fortezza 1953, p. lxii, accepts Longhi's dating, as Arslan, Costanzo would appear correct nonetheless. I have not dis- "Studi Belliniani," Bolletino d'Arte, XLV'I, 1962, p. 44. covered any other building undertaken in Pesaro, Urbino, or Rodolfo Pallucchini, Giovanni Bellini, Milan, 1959, PP. 57 Rimini that resembles the model so closely. Since construction and 137, places the execution of the altar about 1470-1471. of the Fortezza was still in progress during the 148o's, it is x6. Robertson, op.cit., p. 58. conceivable that the painting shows an alternate project for

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This content downloaded from 78.33.29.102 on Mon, 01 Feb 2016 18:58:34 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions NOTES 219 years this work has commanded critical attention, but Love may be categorized as literary, philosophical,and the considerablebody of scholarlywriting it has inspired allegorical, and begin in 1917, when Louis Hourticq is inconclusive, most critics admitting that they cannot indicated a literary source for the painting's iconog- account for all of the details in the painting. raphy-?Fra Francesco Colonna's popular romance, When one first sees Sacred and Profane Love, he Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, first published in senses neither obliquity nor mystery, rather directness by Aldus Manutius in 1499 in an edition famous for its and clarity (Fig. i). Two women, seated at a sculp- woodcuts.' tured fountain, clearly define a series of opposites.The Hourticq's hypothesis, which accounted for few of figure on the left, elaborately gowned, sits at a lower the painting'smany details, was disregardeduntil 1938, elevation than the semidraped one on the right. The when Walter Friedlaender suggested that Titian, clothed woman leans on a closed urn, while the utilizing Colonna's text and its woodcut illustrations, unclothed one extends an open urn. Moreover, these pictured the crucial rite of the "tintura delle rose" as protagonists,separated by behind and a rosebush performed by Cupid at a fountain supporting, on the in front of the fountain, lead the eye of the beholder right and the left, and Polia, the two heroines of into two contrasting backgrounds. The left one is a the novel.2 cityscape, dark and crowded (Fig. 4); the right is a In I943, Rachel Wischnitzer-Bernstein, affirming pastoral landscape, bright and spacious (Fig. 5). Friedlaender'sut pictura poesisinterpretation, attempted Further scrutiny reveals similarities that link the to corroborate his tentative identification of Polia by contrasting halves of the canvas and the landscapes explaining the sculptured scene beside her as an "alle- with the foreground. The women so closely resemble gory of assailed virginity."' But Friedlaender im- each other that they seem sisters, perhaps twins; and mediately objected to the addition by Mrs. Bernstein of their vases are alike in shape and texture. In addition, an allegorical interpretationto his purely literary one, horses and riders appear in both landscapes and in the and expressed doubt that the sculptured horse, which relief sculpture on the fountain. The viewer soon the scene features, symbolizesvirginity.' realizes that Titian has harmonized the contrasts Chief spokesmanfor a philosophicalinterpretation is between the protagonists-and between their peculiar Erwin Panofsky; in 1930, he identified the two lovely milieux-within the fundamental dichotomy of the women as Ficino's Twin Venuses, who personify composition. transient and eternal love and beauty.5Later, in 1939, In the absence of a text or program for the painting, Panofsky elaborated on his earlier explanationby com- the addition of another interpretationto those already paring Sacred and Profane Love with an engraving in existence seems unnecessary, perhaps futile. Yet a after Baccio Bandinelli, the Combat of Ratio and review and an examination of these explanations,with Libido, commenting that the painting is a Venetian reference to other pictures by Titian, at least prepare translation of the Neoplatonic theory of love into for, if they do not constitute, a new reading. images-"clear and poetic"-in contrast to the trans- lation of the Florentine engraving-"obscure and dia- I lectic."' The various interpretationsof Sacred and Profane An allegorical explanation was offered in 1948 by

Beaux- I. "La 'Fontaine d'Amour' du Titien," Gazette des seated on the right side of the fountain, attempts to press Arts, xIII, 1917, pp. 288-298. Perhaps Hourticq favored a Polia, seated on the left, into the service of love. literary source because of Franz Wickhoff's suggestion, in 4. "Letter to the Editor," Gazette des Beaux-Arts, xxIII, p. 1895, that Titian, following the Argonautica of Valerius 382. Denying that a herm appears on the fountain, Fried- Flaccus, represents Venus imploring Medea to love Jason. laender expressed doubt that the horse, an established Platonic 2. " 'La tintura delle rose,' " ART BULLETIN, XX, 1938, pp. symbol of the passions, connotes virginity; then he pointed 320-324. Like Hourticq, Friedlaender refrained from com- out that the woodcut which Mrs. Bernstein considered as menting on the dual landscapes and identified Polia on the a model for Titian's horse shows not a mare but a stallion. left less positively than he did Venus on the right, because 5. Hercules am Scheidewege, Leipzig, 1930, pp. 173-180. the relief scene directly below Polia does not indicate her as Panofsky favored such sources as Ficino's commentary on clearly as the scene on the right-the flogging of Adonis by Plato's "Symposium" and the innumerable tratti d'amore that Mars-indicates Venus. August L. Mayer, "Niccol6 Aurelio, it originated and proliferated to astonishing proportions in the Commissioner of Titian's 'Sacred and Profane Love,' " the i6th century, particularly among wealthy patrons and ART BULLETIN, XXI, 1939, p. 89, agreed that Friedlaender's humanists of the Italian courts. For a recent analysis of the interpretation solved the riddle of the painting and suggested more important of these popular love treatises, see John that perhaps the poet-humanist, Pietro Bembo, friend of Charles Nelson, Renaissance Theory of Love, New York, 1958, Aurelio and patron of Titian, might have suggested the lit- ch. 2. erary theme of the painting. 6. Studies in Iconology, New York, 1939, pp. 148-160. 3. "A New Interpretation of Titian's 'Sacred and Profane Panofsky's analysis is based upon an excellent summary, pp. Love,' " Gazette des Beaux-Arts, xxIII, 1943, pp. 89-98. Mrs. 129-150, of Neoplatonism and its attitude toward love, the Bernstein claimed that Titian modeled the horse carved on latter schematized by a synoptic table of the Venuses to which the fountain after one of the woodcuts of the novel, its small both Ficino and Pico della Mirandola subscribed. F. M. God- ears, long mane, and timidly unyielding manner identifying frey ("L'amor sacro e l'amor profano," Apollo, L, 1949, it as a symbol of virginity. She also suggested that the sculp- pp. 61-64) agreed with Panofsky's interpretation because the tured figure at the extreme left of the relief may be a herm-- popularity of Neoplatonic doctrine resulted in the widespread perhaps Terminus, who refuses to yield to Jove as Polia in concern of the age with the subject of sacred and profane the novel does to Poliphilus. Thus, she concluded, Venus, love. Hans Tietze (Titian, London, 1950, p. 14) preferred

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R. Freyhan, who noted that the attributesof the seated rabbits,which are traditionalattributes of Venus.'" women correspond closely to those used to represent Titian's adorned female (Fig. 2), wreathed in the dual nature of Caritas; the elegantly draped myrtle-a plant sacred to the goddess of love and woman, holding flowers and vase, personifying Amor beauty-holds roses in her lap;;" rose petals and Seculi, contemplates God's riches of this world; her leaveson the ledge of the fountainlead to a metalbasin unclothed counterpart, raising a flaming vase that embossedwith shell motifs, an allusionto the water, symbolizes divine love, personifying Amor Dei, offers stirredby Cupid, out of which Venus Caelestiswas God's gift to the world.' born.12The two rabbitsthat nestle on a knoll in the In 1958, Edgar Wind concluded that the painting left backgroundappear unafraid or unawareof the is a "figured dialogue de voluptate," which traces the horseman,who gallopsto the gates of the city; but in initiationof Beauty into Love, a rite that is dramatized the rightbackground, a rabbitis pursuedby two riders on the fountain frieze, where animal passions are so and theirdogs (Fig. 3). This amorous,prolific animal exorcised through chastisementthat the seated women is not only an attributeof Venusbut also an important represent two forms of chastened love, Amore celeste symbolof her consuminglove for Adonis,the hand- e umano.8 some mortalwho was moreinterested in huntingthan love-making.According to , Venus' reiterated advicethat Adonishunt the timoroushare insteadof Criticism of these interpretationsof Titian's early the ferociousboar voices both her anxiety for his painting must begin with the two seated figures safety and her desirethat he pursuelove insteadof who, prior to I700, were called Beauty Adorned sport. Later, when the reckless,gored hunter cries and Unadorned, a title that might have complicated for help, Venus, dashingthrough the forestin rescue, the task of identification less than the invented one, pricksher flesh on a rose thorn; and the immortal Sacred and Profane Love, undoubtedly has.9 In ac- blood turns white roses red.'3 Hence, Titian's roses, complishing this task, scholars have not stressed rosebush,rabbits, and landscapecaccia scenes allude enough the significance of objects that appear in the generallyto the themeof love,'"but specificallyto the background and foreground-especially roses and love of Venusfor Adonis-a legend of pain,sacrifice, an interpretation that finds in the painting a parallel to the honest and adulterous people"). Conti's third Venus may be popular Platonic treatises on love which, he claimed, are also compared with Pico della Mirandola's Venus Animalis, who celebrated in Colonna's novel. symbolized animal lust and passion which, in the human be- 7. "Evolution of the Caritas Figure in the Thirteenth and ing, is a form of madness or insanity. Both philosophers added FourteenthCenturies," Journal of the Warburgand Courtauld a third goddess to the traditional two described by Plato in note 6 for reference to Ficino's Neo- Institutes, xI, 1948, pp. 68-86. Freyhan reasoned that even the "Symposium." (See though the vase of flame in Christian iconography was an platonic Academy.) attribute of Caritas representing Amor Dei, it derived from 11. Venus clutches roses in Titian's and the torch of flame held by Venus in mediaeval literature and Venus and Cupid (Florence, Uffizi). In his Allegory of Al- pictorial representations; therefore the pagan goddess of love fonso d'Avalos (Paris, Louvre), the bridal couple, playing and beauty and the salient Christian virtue of Caritas merge in the roles of Venus and Mars, are attended by two girls, one Titian's unclothed figure. Thus Titian's painting, while al- wreathed in myrtle and one carrying roses; Paris Bordone em- luding to philosophical and literary topics popular among ploys the same mythological pose and similar attributes in his fashionable and leisured Venetians in the early Cinquecento, Matrimonial Allegory and Mars, Venus and Cupid (Vienna, "is linked with the classical period of the Caritas representa- Kunsthistorisches Museum). These portraits, in which con- tion, the early Trecento." Carl Nordenfalk ("Titian's Alle- temporary couples suggest Venus and Mars, are, according gories on the Fondaco De' Tedeschi," Gazette des Beaux-Arts, to Erwin Panofsky (op.cit., pp. 16o-164) allegories of matri- to XL, 1952, pp. ioi-io8) confirmed Freyhan's interpretation of monial happiness-an interesting point with reference the seated women and suggested that Titian found in Colonna's Sacred and Profane Love which, because of its cassone shape romance motifs which are only secondary to the meaning of and the coat of arms painted on the fountain, may have been the painting. a bridal gift (cf. Edgar Wind, op.cit., p. 127 n. 3). 8. Pagan Mysteries in the Renaissance, London, 1958, pp. 12. Only Walter Friedlaender (op.cit., p. 324) noticed the 121-128. Wind also found in the contrasting landscapes, par- basin-Titian's replacement of the oyster-shells used by the ticularly in the one on the right, an echo of the theme nar- high priestesses in Colonna's novel for sprinkling holy water rated by both the figures seated on the fountain and those on on the altar of Venus or for catching the blood of Venus in the relief. the performance of the rose ritual. Of course the basin bal- and I believe it is 9. See Hans Tietze, op.cit., p. 14, and Edgar Wind, op.cit., ances the vase on the ledge of the fountain; p. 122 n. 1. associated with the woman on the left, its metallic texture like her and silken o0. A thorough summary of myths about and attitudes gleaming jeweled clasp gown. toward Venus may be found in Wilhelm H. Roscher, Ausfuhr- 13. See Metamorphoses 10. 11. 512-739. Venus' advice that liches Lexikon der griechischen und romischen Mythologie, Adonis hunt not the boar but the rabbit and deer is a re- Leipzig, 1890, I, cols. 390-405. Relevant also is the work of curring motif in Ovid's narrative, one often utilized by the enormously popular 16th century mythographer Natale Renaissance poets and painters--for example, Shakespeare in Conti's Mythologiae, sive explicationum fabularum, libri Venus and Adonis (11. 259-307), and Titian in his Pardo decem, Paris, 1583, Bk. Iv, pp. 377-398. Conti (p. 392) Venus (Paris, Louvre), where the goddess slumbers peace- lists three Venuses who personify all aspects of the allegorical fully while Adonis hunts a stag. See T. W. Baldwin, On the interpretation of the goddess--the Venus Caelestis or Urania Literary Geneticsof Shakespeare'sPoems & Sonnets, Urbana, (who ". . . signifies pure love without sexual passion") the Illinois, 1950, pp. 1-93, for a discussion of the use of Ovid's Venus Popularis ("the goddess of the common people . .. the myth by Shakespeare and other English and Continental poets. mother of all") s and the Venus Apostraphia (who . . . "made 14. Julius Held, in ", Goddess and Courtesan," Essays laws against unlawful passions and turned her back upon dis- in Honor of Erwin Panofsky, Millard Meiss, ed., New York,

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and resurrection-which the Renaissance allegorized in order to delineate his theme. These four pictures, into a myth of rebirthand eternal life.15 executed over a period of at least fifteen years, are Moreover, the roses, as richly symbolic in Christian almost identical in compositionand motifs, except that as in pagan lore, are associated, as R. Freyhan has a courtly musician and the immortal goddess appear indicated, with the symbolism of Caritas, keystone of on a balcony that opens upon a formal garden in the the Christian virtues, which Christ embodies in the first two versions-Venus with the Organ-player and New Testament.? Therefore, the flowers, animals, Venus with the Organ-player and a Putto (Madrid, embossed basin--and even the sculptured fountain Prado); a rural scene in the third-Venus with the which suggests the tomb of the resurrectedAdonis and Organ-player (, Kaiser Friedrich Museum); Christ-may allude to the dual nature of love in and a pastorallandscape in the fourth-Venus with the Platonic philosophy and Christian doctrine. Such a Lute-player (New York, Metropolitan Museum). By mixture of pagan and Biblical conceptions, which the altering the backgrounds, Titian effects important "solvent of Neoplatonism" made possible in Renais- changes both in content and theme of each painting sance thought," would certainly have been understand- in the series.'9 These four different landscapescontain able as well as acceptableto Titian, his patron, and his emblematic images, which Titian employs in like audience. Indeed the recognition of this fusion may manner in the Borghese picture. lead to a fresh interpretation of this much discussed Panofsky called the background of Sacred and painting, particularlyin view of its elaborateconfigura- Profane Love a "paysage moralise" deriving from the tion, in which appears the theme of discordia concors. mediaeval debate picture, but Titian avoids the tradi- Scholars have also given scant attention to the bi- tional implications of good and evil, superior and partite background of the painting, the elements of inferior, by making the left half of the composition which illuminate the nature and behavior of the seated sequential, rather than antagonistic, to the right half.20 women and echo the episodes in the fountain frieze. The landscapeon the left is dark and hilly, its contours Those who explained the painting as a literary illustra- rolling back to a winding road that ends at the portals tion almost ignored the landscapes; and Wind, the of a walled city with a crenelated tower rising out of one critic who considered the details in all three its center (Fig. 4). This jammed, labyrinthine vista pictorial planes, found in the pastoral setting only a has a parallel in the heavy folds of drapery that swathe musical restatement of the major theme of the misteri the seated woman, whose waist, like the compact city, amorosi.'s Yet a moment's reflection on Titian's four is locked within a girdle fastened with a jeweled clasp. later paintings of Venus and a musician reveals how The vessel she rests on is also significantly closed, her closely he relates backgroundand foreground elements possessionof it emphasizedby the circle that begins with

I96I, pp. 201-218, has discussed the long established associa- 17. The phrase is that of E. H. Gombrich, "Botticelli's tion of flowers with love and Adonis, and of Flora, goddess Mythologies," Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Insti- of flowers, with Venus, goddess of love. Also pertinent is tutes, viii, 1945, p. 43. Erwin Panofsky (Iconology, pp. 40o- Held's analysis (p. 21I3) of Titian's Flora (Florence, Uffizi), 141) mentioned the correspondences between Platonic and whose beauty and nobility resemble those of the protagonists Christian love in the writings of Ficino and his followers, in Titian's Borghese painting, and whose slightly turned head and D. P. Walker ("Orpheus the Theologian and Renaissance virtually repeats the pose of the clothed figure at the fountain. Platonists," Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 15. Renaissance artists, writers, and humanists almost al- xvI, 1953, pp. oo00-20) discussed the Neoplatonists' belief ways allegorized pagan myth, particularly Ovidian. Jean in Plato as deriving from Moses and pagan philosophy as Seznec (The Survival of the Pagan Gods, Barbara F. Ses- revealing Christian truth. sions, trans., New York, 1953, PP- 95-121) has discussed the i8. Op.cit., pp. 12 7-128. allegorizing of myth in , and, pp. 219-323, its use in x9. These four paintings have yet to be satisfactorily ex- literary and pictorial art according to references in mytholog- plained. Otto Brendel ("The Interpretation of the Holkham ical manuals (see note o). The best explanation of Ovid Venus," ART BULLETIN, XXVIII, 1946, pp. 65-75) proposed moralized is Lester K. Born's "Ovid and Allegory," Speculum, a Neoplatonic argument, the primacy of the "spiritual" senses IX, 1934, PP. 362-379. Erwin R. Goodenough (Jewish Sym- of sight and hearing over the "material" organs of sensuous bols in the Greco-Roman New Period, York, 1958, vIII, pp. perception; Edgar Wind (oP.cit., p. x23 n. i) has suggested Ioo-o05) has summarized remarks by Carl Robert, A. C. a theme similar to that in 's Fite Champitre in the Soper, and F. Cumont with reference to the appearance on Louvre, where the nymphs, differentiated from the musicians sarcophagi of pagan myths as allusions to Biblical themes of by their nudity, are "divine presences," who inspire and com- rebirth and eternal life--for example, the resurrection of municate with mortal musicians through the power of music. Adonis adumbrates that of Jonah in the Old Testament and Cf. Patricia Egan, " 'Poesia' and the 'Fete Champetre,' " ART in the Jesus New. Cf. also Fritz Saxl, "Pagan and Jewish BULLETIN, XLI, 1959, pp. 303-31 3, who has explained Giorgi- Elements in Early Christian Sculpture," in Lectures, I, Lon- one's painting as an allegory of poetry. don, x957, PP. 45-57- 20. Almost the only point on which all critics agree, it is and x6. Op.cit., p. 85, Julius Held, op.cit., p. 201. Pertinent summarized by Erwin Panofsky, op.cit., pp. 151x-52; are the references to the rose as the purity of Mary and the "[Titian's] figures do not express a contrast between good salvation of her Son. See Gustav Ludwig, "Giovanni Bellinis and evil, but symbolize one principle in two modes of exist- sogennante Madonna am See," Jahrbuch der preussischen ence and two grades of perfection." Cf. Patricia Egan, op.cit., for an of Kunstsammlungen, xxIII, 1902, pp. I63ff. analysis pp. 306, 3x2, who credits Giorgione with originating a com- the rose as one of the many examples of Renaissance symbolic positional device which very probably provided a model for thinking, the origins of which are in mediaeval anagogy5 and many later Venetian paintings-the allegorical innovation for Sydney J. Freedberg, Parmigianino, Cambridge, Mass., 1950, indicating "higher" and "lower" status by means of contrasts pp. I40-I41, for a description and bibliography of the iconog- in landscape and foreground. raphy of the rose.

This content downloaded from 78.33.29.102 on Mon, 01 Feb 2016 18:58:34 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 222 THE ART BULLETIN her left hand, moves up and around her head and votive picture, St. Peter's throne rests upon an Aphro- down to her lap, the right hand almost touching the disian marble, its antiquityindicated by a worn surface either or blurred. vessel.21 Her head, turned slightly away from her and classical reliefs shadowed By companion, suggests an attitude firmly held. Finally, placing this sculpturedpedestal on a Renaissanceterrace the horseman who dashes up the meandering road, where Alexander VI presents a victorious warrior to parallels the direction as well as the energy of the St. Peter-in whose honor the sea battle of Santo horse prominently displayed in the left panel of the Mauro was waged-Titian so contrasts a relic of the fountain. past with an event in the present that the decorated The Arcadian scene on the right is open and flat, a monument comments on the contemporary pictorial spaciousbasin rimmed by distant hills, a church, and a theme. Jacopo Pesaro was once a bishop of the island cluster of barns (Fig. 5). This radiant, undulating of Paphos, legendary sanctuary of Aphrodite, and the landscape possessesthe same rhythm as the red mantle presence of St. Peter on the sculpturedsocle symbolizes that billows behind the undrapedfigure and providesan the victory of the Church over paganism.25Moreover, appropriatesetting for her offer of a smoking urn, in a this victory is emphasizedby another victory celebrated sweeping gesture which exposes, rather than conceals, in the bas-reliefof the pedestal. The frieze is divided in her waist.22Finally, the active pursuit of the rabbit by two by a sacrificial altar out of whose flames Cupid courtly ridersand dogs correspondsto the beating of the springs. On the right is Venus in the role of Victrix, young man on the right side of the fountain. the austere, virtuous goddess whom the Romans wor- But is the stone object which supportsthe women a shipped. Attended by Mars, the goddess succeeds in fountain? The literary exegetes called it the tomb of bringing order, reason, and peace to a life of chaos and Adonis, whose corpse has been replaced by water that sensual indulgence that is represented on the left side now marks the funerary monument as a fountain of of the socle by languorous figures and an amorous love. A philosophicalexponent describedit as an ancient couple reaching for a cluster of grapes. Hence, this sarcophagusconverted by water into a spring of life, pagan victory recorded on the pedestal-which is in- and an allegorist considered it solely a love fount in deed an invented antique-is an allegory of the which Amor gently agitates water as pure as the love Christian victory that constitutes the pictorial theme."2 that the seated women personify.23A scholar interested In the Borghese painting, Titian again suggests the in Titian's use of ancient monuments analyzed it as an survival into his own world of a classical monument, invented antique, "the most imaginative in all the art first by isolating the marble fount on a mound of of Titian."'24 luxuriant growth in the center of the composition so Another invented antique, which Titian created for that the cityscape rises abruptly on the left and the the Votive Picture of Jacopo Pesaro (Antwerp Mu- pastoral meadow, at the right, rolls away from the seum), helps us define the one that appears in Sacred bottom of a hill.27 Then Titian places certain figures and Profane Love, a later painting. In the Pesaro on the fountain frieze in shadow and breaks them-as

21. Walter Friedlaender (" 'La tintura delle rose,' " p. 325) 26. Rudolph Wittkower ("Transformations of Minerva in saw in this vessel white roses which the blood of Venus will Renaissance Imagery," Journal of the Warburg Institute, II, turn red; Erwin Panofsky (Iconology, p. 151) found gold 1938-1939, p. 203) analyzed the socle and mentioned its and jewels, "symbols of short-lived happiness"; and R. Frey- allegorical treatment of the subject of the painting. But he han ("Evolution of Caritas Figure ... ," p. 85) glimpsed ignored Titian's use and placement of Pesaro's helmet, which precious objects, attributes of Caritas Misericordia. Actually, intrudes upon one of the socle's sculptured figures-an heroic, the vessel is closed, and only the fringe on the edge of the bearded male. This helmet, an emblem of war, identifies the woman's glove shows above it (see Edgar Wind, Pagan muscular male next to Venus as Mars, who always accom- Mysteries, p. 123 n. 4). What probably encouraged scholars panies the goddess in her martial role as Victrix, either giving to find objects that supported their theses were photographs her weapons or receiving them from her. (See Wilhelm H. taken before the painting was cleaned after World War II. Roscher, Ausfuhrliches Lexikon . . , cols. I94, I98, for a For photographs in black and white and color, plus enlarge- summary of the Roman worship of Venus as Victrix and its ments of all parts of the painting, taken after it was cleaned, representation on coins, medals, and monuments.) Titian's see Guilio Carlo Argan, ed., L'amor sacro e l'amor profano, juxtaposition of a "pictured" attribute and a "chiseled" figure Milan, 1949. to identify the character, and thus develop the pictorial theme, 22. With the exception of Walter Friedlaender (" 'La is crucial, I believe, to an analysis of the frieze in Sacred and tintura delle rose,'" p. 323) and Rachel Wischnitzer-Bern- Profane Love; the intruding rosebush not only divides the stein ("A New Interpretation . . . ," p. 96) who referred to bas-relief into two separate panels but also plays an important the smoking urn as an incense-burner used by Venus to super- role in the Ovidian episodes dramatized in stone. vise Colonna's ritual of the coloring of the rose, scholars 27. Fritz Saxl (op.cit., pp. 164-165) commented on Titian's have agreed that the vase of flame, symbolic of divine love, method of absorbing the Pesaro socle into the organism of associates Titian's semidraped figure with either Heavenly the picture, thus "bringing antiquity into a new relationship Love or Caritas. See Erwin Panofsky, op.cit., p. 151, R. with his own world." The more one studies the juxtaposition Freyhan, op.cit., pp. 85-86, and Edgar Wind, op.cit., p. 126. in the later painting of the classical marble against the con- 23. Walter Friedlaender, op.cit., p. 320 Rachel Wischnitzer- temporary background, the more one experiences surprise and Bernstein, op.cit., p. 96; Erwin Panofsky, op.cit., p. 52z; wonder akin to the feeling expressed by Fritz Saxl, who Edgar Wind, op.cit., p. 126, respectively. stated (p. 163) that Giorgione's slumbering goddess in the 24. Otto Brendel, "Borrowings from Ancient Art in Titian," Sleeping Venus (Venice, Academy) seems less a person than ART BULLETIN, XXXVIII, 1955 p. 117. a classical statue in a landscape with which it has no specific 25. Ibid., p. i16, and Fritz Saxl, "Titian and Aretino," in connection. Lectures, I, pp. 163-164.

This content downloaded from 78.33.29.102 on Mon, 01 Feb 2016 18:58:34 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions NOTES 223 he does in the earlier Pesaro pictures-by permitting the chiseled group; the agitated girl behind the horse drapery and a rosebush to intrude upon them. What on the left correspondsto the agonized nymph behind supportsthe draped and semidrapedpair is an invented the contending males on the right. Most clearly de- antique shaped like a sculptured coffin that contains lineated are the horse and these two men.31 water instead of a corpse.28 Since both landscapes in Sacred and Profane Love Precise definition of this imaginative funerary fount feature horsemen and hunting scenes, perhaps the depends upon the interpretationof its decorative reliefs horse on the fount belongs to the hunter Adonis, who (Fig. 6). Over these, too, criticshave puzzled. Do they is usually portrayed in Renaissance literary and visual dramatize the death of Adonis, particularly as it is art with either horse or dog.32 If so, the agitated girl portrayedin a woodcut illustrating Colonna's Venetian behind the horse is Venus, who, heeding her lover's cry romance? Or do the figures show how animal passion for help at the oppositeend of the frieze, according to is chastened in a pagan initiatory rite of love?29 Es- the legend stumbles against a rosebush,and her blood sential to any answer or comment is an accurate colors white roses red.s3 Titian so displays the bush descriptionof what the sculpturedband includes. that it divides the frieze into two scenes which drama- At the extreme left edge of the frieze is a male tize crucial moments in the mythological romance of figure partially concealed by the folds of the seated goddess and sportsman-the pricking and bleeding of woman's gown; next appearsa horse, trotting towards her immortal flesh, at the moment his mortal flesh is the right; behind this animal loom the head, left arm being beaten to death. and shoulder of a girl, her streaming hair or veil But Ovid's sorrowful legend of love has a happy accentuating an agonized gesture. In the center of the ending to which the monument as a whole, rather than sculptured band another figure apparently walks in its reliefs, alludes. By Olympian decree, Adonis is front of the horse, but his action is obscuredby a flower- resurrectedas a flower, a rose or an anemone; conse- ing rosebushintruding upon the frieze. Near the bush quently, the tomb that once contained his remains is are a coat of arms and a flowing conduit that irrigates now filled with water, signifying life and rebirth. The the flowers and grass.30 At the far right side of the classical tomb and its decorations, therefore, refer to a bas-relief, the mantle and legs of the unclothed woman pagan mystery of love that prefiguresthe Christian one seated on the fount shadow a figure walking toward of transubstantiationand that hints at the cult of the a muscular male who beats a recumbent youth. Behind "Precious Blood.""34It is a fitting throne--even a them stands a girl, who witnesses the flogging with predella-for the two lovely personificationsof both horror or fright. Thus the frieze comprises two parts pagan and Christian love.35 In brief, the mortuary which are similarly composed. Shadowed figures at fount supports and defines the female protagonists, opposite ends of the monument constitute a frame for echoes the contrasting landscapes, and illustrates the

z8. Edgar Wind (op.cit., p. 124 n. z) doubted that the led by the mane, why did he place the arm of the figure be- Borghese fountain, even though its shape resembles a sar- hind, rather than in front of, the animal's head? Beyond cophagus, is a classical antique because its moldings and question is the grief or agitation of the females near the figures bear no traces of the fragmentation that Titian gives clearly rendered horse and fighting males. to the Pesaro pedestal. Close study shows that neither monu- 32. In Shakespeare's Venus and Adonis, the most influential ment is fragmented. In both, Titian shadows or "breaks" poetical version of the Ovidian myth in Renaissance literature, certain of the reliefs by placing drapery or other objects in the horse plays as important a part in the drama as the pro- front of them. tagonists (see 11. 36off.). In Titan's Pardo Venus (Paris, 29. See Walter Friedlaender, op.cit., p. 320; Edgar Wind, Louvre), the goddess sleeps peacefully in the middle fore- op.cit., pp. 124-125. ground as Adonis, on the left, prepares for the hunt, and, 30. August L. Mayer (op.cit., p. 89) identified the coat on the right, pursues a gentle stag with his dogs; but in of arms as belonging to Niccol6 Aurelio, Venetian Grand Titian's Venus and Adonis (Madrid, Prado), the goddess Chancellor, or a member of his family. The water spout ap- clutches desperately at a determined hunter, whose dogs pull pears in the woodcut in the Colonna novel that Friedlaender him in the opposite direction-presumably toward a wild boar. considered as the model for Titian's tomb (see J. W. Appel's 33. Titian may well intend both of the females on the facsimile edition of the novel's woodcuts, London, 1889, fig. fount to be Venus, thus emphasizing her emotional stress 149). It is worthy of mention that the same detail appears twice, first while she is hurrying to his screams, and then in a late I6th century tapestry, Venus and Adonis (London, while witnessing his maimed body. These figures also balance Victoria and Albert Museum), which presents three episodes the two seated women. from the Ovidian myth-Adonis fighting the boar; Venus 34. Walter Friedlaender (op.cit., p. 320) merely men- and her attendants lamenting over the dead youth Venus re- tioned such an allusion; Rachel Wischnitzer-Bernstein (op.cit., turning to heaven in her chariot drawn by swans. The char- p. 98) found Christian connotations associated with the acters, wearing Elizabethan costumes, inhabit a luxuriant fountain of love; Erwin Panofsky (op.cit., pp. i5off.) im- wood, beyond which are a cityscape, a caccia scene, and a plied Christian references mainly through the association of temple. Prominently displayed on the left is a rectangular the nude figure with Caritas; Edgar Wind ignored Christian fountain with two spouting conduits. implications. 31. Edgar Wind (op.cit., p. 124) found in the left panel 35. R. Freyhan (op.cit., p. 85) while agreeing with Fried- "... a woman dragged by the hair, an unbridled horse led laender that the sarcophagus and its reliefs illustrate Colonna's away by the mane"--evidence that "animal passion must be version of the Venus-Adonis myth, recommended that the chastened and bridled." The imprecise rendering of the funerary monument be considered "a predella to the two shadowy, half-hidden figures raises questions about Wind's main figures," who, he believed, are not Venus and Polia interpretation. Is the figure at the extreme left grasping the from the novel. girl's hair or hand? If Titian wished to show the horse being

This content downloaded from 78.33.29.102 on Mon, 01 Feb 2016 18:58:34 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 224 THE ART BULLETIN fusion of mythological-Biblical elements with which in Ficino's Florentine Academy, triumphedthroughout the painting abounds-a typical Renaissance blend to northern Italy." Within this context, a new reading of which the action of Cupid, who forms part of the Titian's painting is warranted, indeed necessary. vertical axis of the composition,neatly points."3 Sacred and Profane Love is an allegory of pagan- Biblicallove. The splendid, amply gowned figure, who III possessesa closed treasure chest, personifiesone aspect The foregoing summary and criticism demand an of Caritas, Amor Seculi; her seminude twin, who allegorical interpretationwhich will not only mediate holds high a flaming vase, personifiesthe other aspect, between but also combine the philosophicaland the A'mor Dei. literary ones. Only an allegorical approachcan explain The roses, rosebush, rabbits, and Cupid further the intricate pattern of contrasting yet corresponding identify these exquisite personages, who contemplate details by which Titian sets forth a complex theme. and offer God's gifts to man. The sophisticatedwoman That he might deliberately compose a canvas in this on the left is also the Venus Vulgaris, who signifies fashion is disclosed by his conversion, in mid-century, physical beauty and the generative force in the world of a mythological into a religious picture. After por- that brings into existence human beings, flowers, traying a humble Venus bowing before a victorious animals, even such works of art as the embossedbasin Minerva for Alfonso d'Este of Ferrara, Titian was and engraved tomb. Her simple, unadorned sister is unable to deliver the painting because of the Duke's the Venus Caelestis, who symbolizes intelligible, spir- death. Almost twenty years later, for King Philip II of itual beauty and whose vase of flame exhibits the Spain, Titian changed the mythological subject into a splendor of God. Cupid stands nearer the Earthly religious allegory-Religion Succored by Spain (Ma- Venus, whom he aids in impelling nature to procreate drid, Prado)-by altering slightly the secondary likenessesof itself in the world; but he also stirs water elements of flag on lance, cross, and chalice. Thus out of which the Heavenly Venus was born, and out of Minerva became an allegory of the Church and Venus which all life springs.40Thus the attributesidentify the of Sin redeemed by Faith.87 Such a transformation two lovely creatures as personificationsof love in its was both natural and possiblebecause of the immense dual nature-in Platonic philosophy and in the New iconographical system of pagan, Christian, and Neo- Testament." platonic imagery which Renaissance thinkers, poets, Their throne is a sarcophagus-fountain, which is and artists utilized." This symbolic system enabled also a fusion of pagan with Christianmotifs.42 In form, Titian to satisfy the humanistic interests of a Renais- texture, and decoration it is classical, but Titian so sance duke and the mystical concerns of a Counter- improvisesits bas-relief and so transforms its contents Reformation king. that it becomes an integral part of the painting's re- The patron who commissionedSacred and Profane ligious theme. In his usual manner of integrating a Love undoubtedly possessed interests similar to those classical monument into the aesthetic and ideational of the Duke of Ferrara. Completed not later than scheme of the picture, Titian indicates its survival into 15 16, the painting mirrors the time when the symbolic his own world as a ruin by isolating it on a mound of conception of mythology, first glimpsed in primitive luxuriant grass, with a flowering rosebush, and by Christian art and seriously and religiously rationalized shadowing its reliefs with the draperies of the seated

36. Rachel Wischnitzer-Bernstein (op.cit., p. 98) men- constant thesis of Renaissance philosophy that the element of tioned that the figure of Cupid fused two mysteries, Christian water unites opposites, because water joins heaven and earth." and Pagan, "in true fashion of the Renaissance." 41. In the Renaissance, Venus, more than any other Olym- 37. See Rudolph Wittkower, 'Titian's Allegory of 'Re- pian, underwent a moral transformation. This transformation ligion Succored by Spain': The Change of Symbolism," begins as early as the x2th century, when Venus was desig- Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, I1, I938- nated a subordinate power of Dame Nature, God's Vice Regent, 1939, pp. 138-140. E. Tietze-Conrat ("Titian's Allegory of in the Christianized Platonism of the School of Chartres. See Religion," Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, my article, "The Anonymous 'Triumph of Venus' in the xv, 195 -1952, pp. 127-132) believed that the painting, with Louvre: An Early Italian Renaissance Example of Mytho- its as Wittkower is not an alle- ART symbolism changed indicated, logical Disguise," BULLETIN, XLIV, 1962, pp. 238-242. gory of conversion but of religion. 42. Walter Friedlaender's claim that Titian found the 38. See Jean Seznec, op.cit., Bk. i; cf. also Liselotte Dieck- model for the sarcophagus in Colonna's novel and its accom- mann, "Renaissance Hieroglyphics," Comparative Literature, panying woodcuts, and Otto Brendel's conclusion that Titian IX, 1957, PP. 308-321. has improvised an ancient monument (see notes 23, 24) are 39. See Paolo D'Ancona, The Farnesina Frescoes at Rome, not so much contradictory as revelatory of Titian's traditional- Milan, 1955, pp. 16-21. At this time Agostino Chigi com- ism and originality. Since Titian's painting is linked with missioned Raphael and Peruzzi to decorate his suburban villa the classic period of the Caritas representation, the early Tre- with a moralized version of Cupid and Psyche, and a fortu- cento, it is reasonable to assume that he also drew upon a nate horoscope in the form of mythological-astrological fic- traditional motif that has its origin in mediaeval art (see tion. Cf., also, Fritz Saxl, "The Villa Farnesina," in Lectures, notes 7, 34), and that Francesco Colonna, whose novel is a I, pp. 189-199. Gothic romance, strongly influenced by the Roman de la rose 40. Cf. Erwin Panofsky's remark (Iconology, p. 152) as well as by Boccaccio's Amorosa visione, drew upon the that the placement and action of Cupid "may express the Neo- same source. (See Anthony Blunt, Artistic Theory in Italy, platonic belief that love, a principle of cosmic 'mixture' Oxford, 1956, pp. 40-41, for an analysis of the mediaeval acts as an intermediary between heaven and earth," with elements in the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili.) Rudolph Wittkower's statement (op.cit., p. 138), "It is a

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protagonists. He then permits the fountain frieze to angel that troubled the water of the pool of Bethesda narratethe myth of Venus and Adonisin such a way which made men clean, and also Christ, often repre- that it allegorizes-mainly through the element of sented in mediaeval art as issuing from the center of sufferingrevealed in both sculpturedpanels-the pas- the fountain in which the faithful bathe."' Thus the sion and triumphof Christ.The scene subordinateto sarcophagusis the tomb of Adonis and Christ, its re- Amor Dei-Venus Caelestispresents a jealous Mars who juvenating waters a symbol of their resurrection and flogsa recumbentAdonis in a mannerreminiscent of a the ever-recurring cycle of birth, death, and eternal soldier chastisingChrist on the sepulcherin Titian's life. Moreover, Amor, who signifies sacrifice and re- Entombment (Madrid, Prado), just as the girl, with ward for love, initiates the ritual of a regenerative staringeyes and outstretchedarms, describesthe grief Baptism of Love, which is precededby a kind of death. andagony of the two Marys.43In the scenesubordinate Hence, earthly love, its pagan and Christian aspects to Amor Seculi-Venus Vulgaris, both the horse of designated by the clothed woman, is followed by spir- Adonis and the agitated goddess respondto the hunter's itual love, indicated by the unclothed one. cry for help. In her haste, Venus brushes against a The dual landscapesfall away from the emblematic thorn on the rosebush,and her blood colors white roses fountain, which rests upon a hill of high, thick grass, red. After the beating, Adonis dies, and Jupiter, out of perhaps a mons veneris."7 Its left side, crowded and compassion for the grief-stricken Venus, resurrectsthe active, repeats the swirling rhythm of the gown on the handsome mortal in the form of a flower. clothed figure in the foreground. The mounted rider This youthful hunter, who suffered and died for the gallops to the group before the city gates, as does the love of a goddess, is a pagan prefiguration of Christ, horse on the sarcophagus toward the group around who suffered and died for the love of mankind; and Adonis. The right side of the landscape, silent and the conversion of white roses into red by the ichor of peaceful, repeats the flowing rhythm of the cloak that Venus is a pagan mystery of love that anticipates the floats behind the unclothed figure in the foreground. Christian one of transubstantiation."This myth also In the sunny meadow, sheep graze peacefully, as one explains the presence of water in the funerary monu- shepherd studies the foliage of trees, and another ment. The contents are those of Fountains of Youth embraces a shepherdess. The two mounted hunters and of Life in mediaeval allegory and religious art, who chase the hare, the animal which Venus begged whose miraculous waters restore not only youth to the Adonis to pursue rather than the boar, correspond to aged and health to the sick, but also eternal life to the the battling men on the frieze. Thus the dimly lighted, faithful."' Cupid, who agitates the waters, echoes the busy landscape on the left is the proper environment

43. Titian's muscular, brutal Mars and agonized nymph- which does not restore or conserve youth to prolong pleasure Venus, perhaps-further illustrate his adaptation of pagan of the senses, but, rather, to bestow eternal life upon the legend and monuments for his own purpose. Natali Conti faithful. In Italy, the fusion of these two fountains was (Mythologiae, . .. , p. 386) recorded a version of the Adonis regarded as a "Fountain of Love," a "rendezvous for lovers" myth that differs from Ovid's-that of a jealous Mars, who (see Van Marle figs. 460-467). See also, Rachel Wischnitzer- either sends or turns himself into a ferocious boar that kills Bernstein, op.cit., p. 98, who remarked that in Titian's time the hunter (see note io, and cf. Walter Friedlaender, op.cit., the sarcophagus was intimately associated with the Fountain of p. 320). Titian varies it even more, permitting Mars, in Youth and its Christian connotations; and Erwin Panofsky, human form, to beat Adonis to death; this provides a more op.cit., p. 154, who mentioned the Fountain of Life as one of convincing image for its Christianized equivalent. The ex- the motifs used in Christian art to portray allegorical figures pressive gesture of the nymph and the two Marys is repeated who symbolize and advocate two divergent moral or in the Pieth (Venice, Academy) by Mary Magdalene, and is theological principles. derived from an ancient sarcophagus which portrays Venus, 46. Rachel Wischnitzer-Bernstein (op.cit., p. 89) suggested with the same gesture, looking with horror upon the maimed an allusion to St. John, 5: 4, and also to Christ, who, in the Adonis. See Fritz Saxl, "Titian and Aretino," in Lectures, process of secularization, is replaced by Cupid. Also, in the and I, p. 173, pls. 113, Ii4. It is worth noting that a similar Pesaro votive picture Titian identifies Cupid with Christ's gesture is used by Michelangelo in his Sacrifice of Noah Vicar by placing Peter's keys above the head of Cupid (Sistine Chapel), which repeats that of Althea, who also engraved on the socle; Cupid thus becomes a symbol of appears on a Roman sarcophagus which contains the myth divine love (see Rudolph Wittkower, "Transformations of of Meleager. This hunter, like Adonis, was associated with Minerva in Renaissance Imagery," p. 203). For illustrations Christ by Titian and Raphael in a manner similar to that on of "La Fontaine de la Vie," see tmile Mile, L'art religieux the tomb in the Borghese allegory. See Frederick Hartt, de la fin du moyen-dge en France, Paris, 1925, pp. iioff. "Lignum Vitae in Medio Paradisi," ART BULLETIN, XXXII, 47. The landscapes also echo an allegorical Garden of I950, p. 185 nn. 36, 37. Love. Raimond van Marle (op.cit., pp. 426-428) discussed Fritz in 44. Saxl ("Pagan Sacrifice the Italian Renais- the development in the 15th century of the "Garden of Love" sance," Journal of the Warburg Institute, II, 1939, p. 348) theme, particularly popular in Italy and England. Very pointed out that the rebirth of classical antiquity provided probably based upon descriptions of a similar garden in the "the emotional background for the representation of pagan second part of the Roman de la rose, it is analogous to the sacrifices by Italian Renaissance artists who introduced them "Chateau d'Amour" and describes a landscape of the dream as counterparts to Christian ritual." of love. This garden landscape includes a fountain, often with 45. Raimond van Marle (Iconographie de l'art profane au musical instruments around it or a Cupid perched upon its moyen-dge et a la Renaissance, II, The Hague, 1932, PP. 430- ledge, and such animals as the rabbit, stag, and horse, and 433) described a popular motif in mediaeval literature and men on horseback. It is significant that Titian's landscape is as religious art, particularly in Italy--"La Fontaine de la Vie," traditional in its elements and their emblematic function as which appears in a garden and miraculously conserves or his use of the classical monument is inventive and original. restores youth. It was fused with "La Fontaine de Jouvence,"

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for the realizationof physicallove in the world, and lifts her fiery urn to the golden sky, her vigorous the bright, quiet landscapeon the right is the ap- gesture exposing the pelvic region and finding its accent propriateone for the contemplationof divinelove in in the church steeple that appearsbelow her arm. The the spiritualrealm."' landscape, as expansive and limitless as her action, is Althoughthis analysisemphasizes the fundamental filled with open, radiant space. A lake and meadow dichotomyof the painting,it also revealsthe carefully form graceful arcs that roll to a country church, its planned links between backgroundand foreground, steeple pointing to an infinity of blue. The pursuit of figuresand attributes,and paganand Christianmotifs love, dramatized by the chase, and its ultimate reward, with which Titian has unifiedall partsof the canvas rebirth--embodied in the dying Adonis on the tomb- in orderto narratea dual allegoricaltheme."' Indeed, find reality in the rustic lovers who embrace in the only by such meansis the complextheme finallypro- sunlit pasture. Thus the right half of the composition, jected. Amor Seculi is contrastedwith, but not an- though serene and meditative, is permeated with the tagonistic toward, Amor Dei, just as Venus Vulgaris undulating and continuous rhythm of everlasting life is with Venus Caelestis; earthly love is the first step which is realized, as it was by Adonis and Christ, towards the attainment of divine love, just as love for through a Baptism of Love. one's neighbor leads to love for God. Pagan love fore- It can now be seen that the two sides of the canvas, and shadows Christian love, its representative,Venus, though different, are compounded of the same figures, in turn Caritas. represents details, and images-all of which explore, as in the Yet in the rather than in the contrast, antagonism dialoghi d'amore, the issue of love. The dark left side between the and their figures respective backgrounds, representsthe realm of earth where man is concerned lies the meaning of the painting. The swathed figure, with material wealth and love-that centered around a and does not sitting at lower elevation, is silent look the castle and the well-accoutered Venus. An exist- at her The as if bathed in sister. landscape, twilight, ence in it must be and utilized for its own contains rabbits that do not mate and a hunter who time, accepted sake, in full realization that its attractions and beauty returns to a towered city, the walls of which enclose it are merely adornments for transience and pain. But as tightly as the sash does the waist of the adorned these are the preparationfor the woman. These images of sanctuary and enclosure, experiences necessary bliss and reward of a realm, one to which like the voluminous drapery encircling the woman, permanent love is the its and vicarious symbolize virginity and chastity-resistance to the earthly bridge, suffering the for rebirth. activity that the myrtle, roses, and Cupid designate."5 joys requirements The side exhibitsthe world of Its This is further illustrated by the manner in which the right permanence. who far the is lady leans on the urn, also tightly locked. Although unadorned Venus, has by superior role, than her mun- sensitive, gentle, and dignified, she rejects the pleading more ardent, sensuous, and persuasive or persuadingof her sister, and clings to the trappings dane twin, and its dominant images of vessel and of earthly love, blind and indifferent to its reality and spire-the former burning and the latter penile-have implications. Therefore, the left side of the painting, a sexual connotation. Yet it must be noted that she is although jammed with details, is peculiarly frozen and modestly covered, her flame is God's spark of life, and still, in direct contrast to the excited Venus and the the spire belongs to the Church.52 Titian's pictorial trotting horse on the sarcophagus-ancient symbols of allegory, which fuses pagan eroticism with Christian the reality and impermanence of physical love, suffer- symbols, is in perfect accord with the beliefs of the ing the necessaryrituals for its eternal reward.51 Neoplatonists and the writers of the love treatises that The naked Venus, on the right, leans toward her Divine Love has its own cult of the senses, and must, sister and persuades,perhaps admonishes. Suddenly she by its intensity and magnetism, convince man of the

48. The bipartite landscape no doubt echoes those used in and novelistic associations claimed for these figures by Edgar religious pictures to contrast Virtue and Pleasure, and the Wind and Walter Friedlaender. See notes 3, 4, 32. crossroads or choice Hercules ponders (see Erwin Panofsky, 52. The fusion of pagan-Christian elements is typical of op.cit.,p. 64). Renaissance philosophy and art, but the use of pagan sensuous 49. Arthur Pope, in Titian's Rape of Europa, Cambridge, beauty to pictorialize Christian concepts is peculiarly Italian. Mass., 1960, has discussed the artist's amplification of theme The representation of Caritas by means of Venus with a torch by means of "minor echoes" (p. 18), and his "sheer quantity originated and developed in Italy; in France and Germany of orderly relationships which produces the richness of effect" the type was known but not so utilized. The reason for the With to Titian's of which this (p. 41). respect blending images appearance and development of type is, very probably, embody separate and distinct ideas, see the analysis of his the literary movement, "dolce stil nuovo," which fused, within Prudentia by Jean Seznec, The Survival of the Pagan Gods, the code of courtly love, erotic and religious thought. (See pp. 119-121. R. Freyhan, op.cit., pp. 76-78.) In France, courtly love 50. See Ernest Kitzinger, "The Mosaics of the Capella and religion were kept separate, but the introduction of Palatina in Palermo," ART BULLETIN, XXXI, 1949, p. 277, for Provengal poetry into Italy, where feudalism had never taken a discussion of the closed gates of Ezekiel in Byzantine iconog- firm root, resulted in the poets' stress of the ennobling and raphy as a prophecy of the Annunciation; and Frederick purifying aspects of love rather than the chivalric. (See Nesca Hartt, op.cit., p. 189, for mention of mediaeval imagery of Robb, Neoplatonism of the Italian Renaissance, London, 1953, Mary's virginity, such as the closed door and the tower. pp. 177-178.) 51. Certainly this explanation does not exclude the Platonic

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This content downloaded from 78.33.29.102 on Mon, 01 Feb 2016 18:58:34 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions NOTES 227 ultimate reality-reality to which both Plato and the and to publish the first critical catalogue of his large Gospels well attest.53 oeuvre, many important contributions have helped to Therefore, Titian does not permit his Venus-Caritas enlarge and deepen our knowledge of the artist's per- figures and their symbolic landscapes merely to argue sonality, his cultural and artistic background, and his the dual aspects of pagan and Christian love. The ties with contemporarystyles of painting.' In fact, al- funerary but vitalistic monument, with its beautiful though Bazzani lived in , once a famous cap- women, not only lies astride the canvas, filling its ital but now in a period of decline, his artistic purpose frontal plane, but also continues the diagonal that was never limited by a provincial cultural outlook. He begins on the ground, with the tip of the gown of the managed to participatein various, complex currents of unclothed figure, moves up across the fountain, and painting, perhaps through short, undocumented jour- ends in the sky with the flaming vase held by Venus neys, but certainly through the extensive knowledge Caelestis. This diagonal stitches the two halves of the provided in the form of engravings. Through the painting together and magnetizes all its parts to the paintings of Castiglione, it is possible to see in Baz- symbol of eternal life. Thus Titian divides his painting zani's work significant similaritieswith trends formu- into two distinct parts to define their inherent sequence lated in Liguria; with Piedmontese concepts, as shown and unity. by interesting parallels with the works of his contem- Like Raphael's frescoes in the Stanza della Segna- porary, Guala da Casale;2 with the Venetian style, tura, which unite all gods and all truth within a single for the close analogies with the works of Giovanni cult,54 Titian's allegory of love so reconciles the dual Battista Pittoni, , and Gian An- aspects of Platonic and Christian love that each is ad- tonio Guardi;3 and, finally, with the Austrian school, mired and followed with equal fervor. Sacred and as revealed in Bazzani's influence on Maulpertsch.4 Profane Love records the reconciliationthat humanists, Through the kindness of E. Arslan, I was able to scholars, poets, painters, and philosophershad dreamed see two paintings whose present whereabouts are not of and striven for since the time of Petrarch, the known, and which I propose to include in Bazzani's reconciliation that the optimistic and triumphant clas- oeuvre: Christ and the Magdalen (Fig. I) and Christ sicism of the High Renaissance demanded. on the Road to Emmaus (Fig. 2). Perhaps they were once companion pieces since the shape of both is rec- C. W. POST COLLEGE, LONG ISLAND UNIVERSITY tangular, but, in any case, they share stylistic similari- ties and have close affinitiesin pictorialaims. Although these works are it is rather dif- SOME UNPUBLISHED PAINTINGS BY certainly Bazzani's, ficult to place them chronologically, because there are few well-dated paintings to show us the development of his CHIARA PERINA style. Let us try to summarize the fundamental phases of The development of Giuseppe Bazzani's style, his development. On the evidence of the Mantuan known until a short while ago through a few dated biographer, Pasquale Codde,5 the paintings of the Via works, has recently been more clearly defined by mod- crucis (Way of the Cross) in San Barnaba, Mantua' ern critics, notably by Ivanoff who made a careful have been ascribed to Bazzani's youth when he was study of the paintings along lines which may, for the apprenticedto Giovanni Canti of Parma. These early most part, still be accepted today. pictures are rather uneven in quality, but one does find Since 1950, when an exhibition made it possible to some inspired passages and expressionist tendencies and study compare a great many works by Bazzani, which shed light on the young painter's artistic ed-

See Charles 53. John Nelson, Renaissance Theory of Love, "Note venete alla mostra della pittura italiana nelle collezioni Cf., 121. pp. 69ff. also, Edgar Wind, op.cit., p. polacche," Emporium, cxxv, 1957, p. 256; J. Feny6, "Des- See 54. Jean Seznec, op.cit., pp. 143-147. sins italiens inconnus," Bulletin du Musie National Hongrois des Beaux-Arts, xIII, 1958, pp. 59-86; N. Ivanoff, "Ignoti L. I. Ozzola, "Giuseppe Bazzani," Commentari, 1951, pp. disegni lombardi del Sei e Settecento," Emporium, cxxIx, 43ff.; M. Muraro, "I1 posto di Giuseppe Bazzani," Arti, I, 1959, pp. 8ff.; L. Puppi, "Un disegno noto e un dipinto poco N. 1951, pp. 52ff.; Ivanoff, "Ultimi echi della mostra di noto del Bazzani," Paragone, 153, 1962, pp. 39ff.; E. Arslan, Bazzani a Giuseppe Mantova," Arti, II, 1951, pp. 84f.; T. "Contributo al Bencovich e al Bazzani," Commentari, 11, 1962, "Venetian Seicento and Settecento An Pignatti, Drawings: pp. 12Iff. Uffizi Exhibition," Burlington Magazine, October, 1954, 2. G. Testori, "Introduzione al Guala," Paragone, 55, p. 314; G. Copertini, "Note su Giuseppe Bazzani e Giuseppe 1954, pp. 23-36. Maria Crespi," Parma per l'arte, v, 1955, PP. 36ff.5 H. S. 3. E. Arslan, op.cit., pp. 2 Iff. Francis, "A Pieta"by Giuseppe Bazzani," Bulletin of the Cleve- 4. M. Muraro, "Importanza dell'ambiente viennese e land Museum, XLIII, 1956, pp. 44ff.; J. Bialostocki, exhibition della provincia prealpina nella pittura veneziana del '700," catalogue, Italian Painting of the 17th and p8th Centuries in Atti del I convegno internazionale per le arti figurative, Flor- Polish Collections (in Polish), Warsaw, 1956, pp. 23f.; A. ence, 1948, p. 141. Riccoboni, "Un capolavoro di Giuseppe Bazzani," Emporium, 5. P. Codde, Memorie biografiche . . . dei pittori, scultori, with CXXv, 1957, pp. I4ff. (I disagree Riccoboni, who at- architetti ed incisori mantovani, Mantua, 1837, P. 12. tributes this Pieta to Bazzani, because it seems to me to be 6. N. Ivanoff, Bazzani (Catalogue of the Exhibition), different from the artist's known works); F. Valcanover, Mantua, 1950, p. 43, Nos. 1-14. (Hereinafter, Ivanoff).

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