Art and Love in Renaissance Italy

MAIOLICA exegesis that "the painter makes her appear as if she had been wounded by an amorous dart, by placing a dagger in her breast and blood spill[ing] from the wound. And there is a white cartouche as if from her mouth which seems, sighing, to pronounce the word LOVE."4 What Legati neglected to note is the sketchily rendered, graffito-like motif of a flying phallus, its trajectory indicated by the incised arrow pointing to the woman's head. Love is not merely alluded to, as Legati's excursus suggest, but is expressly repre sented by the phallus, as the word amore, emblazoned on its cartellino like a name tag, conveys. (The winged penis as a sym bol of carnal love is a familiar erotic motif, seen, for example, in a print of a copulat ing couple now known only through the engraver's plate; see fig. 46.) The very lit eral tableau may be a pedantic and unironic illustration of the time-honored topos of the pain associated with the travails of love (a theme also expressed in a lubricious scene of a woman exposing her genitalia on an albarello now in the Museum fiir Kunst und Gewerbe, Hamburg),5 for which the jug's original contents served perhaps as an elixir. Alternatively, this image may be a parody of the bella donna type-an irreverent and sala cious depiction of a brutta donna, or woman of questionable virtue akin to the "insatiable Swallower of Parsnips" derisively referred to by Pietro Aretina's whore Nanna, whose colorful language adduces one of the many Cat. 105 vulgar phallic metaphors from the burlesque vegetal repertoire of the day.6 Whatever its 105. Boccale (Jug): Woman though rare, were not entirely unknown in intent, there can be little doubt that the fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Italy (Vasari ribald detail of the flying phallus-which Wounded by Love refers to Greek vases, judging them inferior Legati either overlooked or abstained from to the painted earthenware of his own day), mentioning-would have sounded a humor Faenza,1499 and Aretine ware, of more local provenance, ous refrain for its original audience. Tin-glazed earthenware (maiolica), H. 12% in. was certainly familiar.3 The impetus behind LW-S (31.5 em), Diam. (base) 5¥! in. (13.5 em) the manufacture of these objects remains a Inscribed: AMORE puzzle, but given their illicit imagery it seems Musei Civici d'Arte Antica, Bologna (ms) r. G. Conti 1992; Hess 2003; T. Wilson 2005a. probable that, like erotic paintings and draw 2. Numerous examples are discussed and illus ings, they were meant for the private enjoy trated in Johns 1982. ecent scholarship has highlighted the ment and amusement of a select few, shared 3· Syson and D. Thornton 2001, pp. 214-15. R existence of a considerable body of and exchanged among friends. 4· Cited and quoted in Ajmar-Wollheim and Renaissance maiolica decorated with lewd and In a rare early reference to a specific, trace D. Thornton 1998, pp. 143-44. An image of a bawdy subject matter, of which the "Phallic able piece of maiolica, this jug is expressly woman holding a dagger and a winged heart Head" plate now in the Ashmolean Museum, mentioned in Lorenzo Legati's r677 publica on a fluted bowl (cat. no. 25) likewise takes up Oxford (cat. no. no), is the most singular tion De vasi delle terre vulgara. His descrip the theme of the pain of love (see as well cat. example.1 Recalling (in spirit, if not in form tion of "a profile portrait bust of a woman nos. 21-24). 5· For which, see Rasmussen 1984, pp. 83-86, or manner of decoration) ancient Greek of gentle bearing, almost naturalistic, with no. 52. This example is very similar to cat. ceramics embellished with overtly erotic clothes and hairstyle demonstrating the fash no. 108. scenes, these pieces belong to a tradition that ion of that time . her hair . gathered in 6. Aretino, Ragionamenti (English trans.: 2 extended back to antiquity. What exactly a little golden-yellow veil, ... tied with a fine Aretino, Secret Life ofWives, 2006 [ed.], Renaissance artists would have seen of such ribbon seemingly of black silk" accords per p. 58). Such brutte donne seem to have pro work is uncertain. Examples ofGreek pottery, fectly with its subject, as does his additional vided the subject matter for some of the floor 214 ART AND LOVE IN RENAISSANCE ITALY .

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