tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-73234034597297767692024-03-14T00:40:55.642-07:00Titian's Sacred and Profane LoveAnybody can provide accuracy; the role of the artist is to supply truth.Paul Doughtonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12560227637710387418noreply@blogger.comBlogger18125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7323403459729776769.post-21207477859753269152021-02-24T19:24:00.168-08:002024-01-19T18:45:12.668-08:00Introducing the cosmographical blueprint for the Twin Venuses.<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<blockquote><blockquote><div style="text-align: left;">"When you eventually see through the veils to how things really are, you will keep saying again and again, this is certainly not how we thought it was."</div></blockquote></blockquote><p> Jalal al-Din Rumi</p><p><br /></p></div></div></div><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"></blockquote><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; text-align: justify;"><span><div><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: large; font-style: italic;">O</span><i>n a celestial globe both North and South Celestial Poles are present as the logical extensions of the Earths North and South poles (see fig. 1). and a</i><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-style: normal;"><i> complete Southern constellation map will have at its centre, the South Celestial Pole. The Southern constellation map is based upon a conceptual point of view of the South Celestial hemisphere, looking upward as it were, from a standing position at the South pole, where t</i></span><i>he finite edge of one's earth-bound visual field will become the circular boundary known as the celestial equator (</i><i>see large red ellipsis in fig</i><i>. 1). </i></span></span></div><div><br /></div><div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-hhBdK-YOnGI/YFlF92_sqiI/AAAAAAAAFCs/gn5eeJWI4xsiv4xcFCVzQeKal2LAuuIuQCNcBGAsYHQ/s338/Figer.gif" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="338" data-original-width="301" height="493" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-hhBdK-YOnGI/YFlF92_sqiI/AAAAAAAAFCs/gn5eeJWI4xsiv4xcFCVzQeKal2LAuuIuQCNcBGAsYHQ/w439-h493/Figer.gif" width="439" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>fig. 1</i> The area of the South Celestial Sphere.<br /><br /><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><i style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><i style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><i>This circular boundary represents the horizon of the celestial equator which must also undulate annually in accordance with Earths rotation and tilt in the heavens: While the visible stars are fixed, the Earth rotates on an axial tilt of 23.5%</i><span style="font-style: normal;">, gently concealing & revealing stars, planets, and constellations throughout the course of a year.</span> </span></i></span></i></div><div><i style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><i style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><br /></span></i></span></i></div><div><i style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><i style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><br /></span></i></span></i></div><div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQq5m0utQOqYW1TLpUmNQw_kMaMLxgG7ajghN1Om4am_AdXHOErbPS5JOBWQ_hpi5hK2W0AJXt3-OUZE7c8Ia-M-HqR5-0VAe7qVo5cA5Ry6nlOyb6EGIu4rvhGNZoIvMLNLnEzYGOSi-3ICGvx5SG_AtMTA8JAc2S4dUFCJGUJYinwb_KebkCymAjuw/s613/73A89848-F967-401A-934F-8A7ED178B4A4_1_201_a.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="613" data-original-width="598" height="457" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQq5m0utQOqYW1TLpUmNQw_kMaMLxgG7ajghN1Om4am_AdXHOErbPS5JOBWQ_hpi5hK2W0AJXt3-OUZE7c8Ia-M-HqR5-0VAe7qVo5cA5Ry6nlOyb6EGIu4rvhGNZoIvMLNLnEzYGOSi-3ICGvx5SG_AtMTA8JAc2S4dUFCJGUJYinwb_KebkCymAjuw/w481-h457/73A89848-F967-401A-934F-8A7ED178B4A4_1_201_a.jpeg" width="481" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>fig. 2</i> <span style="font-size: x-small;">A complete map of the South Celestial Hemisphere, where <br />the circles edge defines the celestial equator.<br /></span><br /><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><i style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><i style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">The full South Celestial hemispheric map will contain all of the Southern constellations (see fig. 2) and from this map may be derived a partial map or simply a detailed selection of those constellations that can be viewed from earth with the naked eye. <i style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><i style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">Whether a full or partial star map, it is critical that the constellations that are represented remain true to their positions on a complete standard map.</span></i></span></i> </span></i></span></i></div></span></span><div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">~</span></div><div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><i style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><br /></span></i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">W</span>ithin </span></i><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-style: italic; text-align: justify;">the painted representation known as the Sacred and Profane Love a circle specifically representing the celestial equator can be located, and by populating this circle with those constellations found in a complete map of the South Celestial Hemisphere (with the South Celestial Pole at the maps centre) the correspondences between the Sacred and Profane Love and the complete star map become apparent. I</span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-style: italic; text-align: justify;">solated figurative iconology corresponds to select Southern constellations. Some of these constellations are zodiacal, and some not. This is to say that t</span><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; text-align: justify;">he painting known as the Sacred and Profane Love</i><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"> is an iconologic & geometric structure, whose painted design follows a strict geometric & iconological programme (invenzione).</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-style: italic; text-align: justify;">To begin with the first iconological example:</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia, times new roman, serif;"><i><br /></i></span></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUv0ndBjF-prty0Yjh-PDVNd7g_Ia93fSG4bArypa8KaSBsPU1jD-VcQzN-PBG-z6taNijLRHDqOo7FsN0wri2_TWNiHzuoCHpCiocxN7HhXVZTCaAtrUJAVgRgZtnB0IfwJDCfJSDS9X94AbV2YQDJC80zqawFK4aw1qR9ebrQZ_6CWXuU28iGngw6A/s460/5FB77EA6-D96A-443D-95CE-02AE039F7F60_4_5005_c.jpeg" style="font-style: italic; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="460" data-original-width="266" height="367" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUv0ndBjF-prty0Yjh-PDVNd7g_Ia93fSG4bArypa8KaSBsPU1jD-VcQzN-PBG-z6taNijLRHDqOo7FsN0wri2_TWNiHzuoCHpCiocxN7HhXVZTCaAtrUJAVgRgZtnB0IfwJDCfJSDS9X94AbV2YQDJC80zqawFK4aw1qR9ebrQZ_6CWXuU28iGngw6A/w281-h367/5FB77EA6-D96A-443D-95CE-02AE039F7F60_4_5005_c.jpeg" width="281" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>fig. 3 </i><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;">The mouth of the spigot represents the position of the circles apex, <br />which corresponds to the South Celestial Pole on a Southern star map. </span></td></tr></tbody></table></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"> </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-style: italic; text-align: justify;">A map of the Southern constellations reveals a circular boundary known as the Celestial Equator, while the epicentre </span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-style: italic; text-align: justify;">of that circle reveals</span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"> the position of the South Celestial Pole. The Sacred and Profane Love's design begins with the star maps apex at the position of the flowing spigot at the front of the fountain/sarcophagus. Again; the spigots mouth (see fig. 3) represents the apex of the circle. We have here a 'limitless' centre requiring a finite point from which to scribe a circle. </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-style: italic; text-align: justify;">B</span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-style: italic; text-align: justify;">y drawing a straight line from the mouth of the spigot to the hooves of the horse travelling upon</span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"> the road -</span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"> located in the upper left quarter of the Sacred and Profane Love (see fig. 4). <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLkTEPZxrx_mYBHpgMLRAk4jHhUDH2S_5GVUj5GKMRHH80ISPMKEeYfrwxRsiUKsfVA5L1OVstVOtxf1WLybSK4AxlulAXBRf9SanLQRKvRwqSWx1t8932xqxFsJw4Gbd-lhozP6M1b83_swrXbvQrdgHkOvFjB-tOeLtUd2zznInFS7XcuhRRdsm5pQ/s612/A674FE8B-433D-4F0C-A70B-2893B9B577CF.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="442" data-original-width="612" height="231" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLkTEPZxrx_mYBHpgMLRAk4jHhUDH2S_5GVUj5GKMRHH80ISPMKEeYfrwxRsiUKsfVA5L1OVstVOtxf1WLybSK4AxlulAXBRf9SanLQRKvRwqSWx1t8932xqxFsJw4Gbd-lhozP6M1b83_swrXbvQrdgHkOvFjB-tOeLtUd2zznInFS7XcuhRRdsm5pQ/s320/A674FE8B-433D-4F0C-A70B-2893B9B577CF.jpeg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: x-small;">fig. 4 The horse & rider upon the road which mimicks the <br />'forward slash' diagonal form of Taurus - as it appears on a map <br />of the Southern constellations.</span></i></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;">This line between spigot & road is actually a radial line representing a specific measurement from point to point. The first point (a departure point) begins at the spigots mouth and is the apex of a circle, while the second point (a finite point) concludes at the hooves of the horse upon the road. The radial line is complete (see fig. 5) and now defines the circles perameter.</div></span></div><div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-4bBMv8YR5tE/YFVOkq2_XkI/AAAAAAAAFCU/63jHBmT-8vodb25ponvG93TwLqoTHM3oACNcBGAsYHQ/s1600/Titian%2BSacred%2BProfane%2B-%2BCopy%2B%252832%25293.jpg" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-style: normal; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1492" data-original-width="1600" height="521" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-4bBMv8YR5tE/YFVOkq2_XkI/AAAAAAAAFCU/63jHBmT-8vodb25ponvG93TwLqoTHM3oACNcBGAsYHQ/w558-h521/Titian%2BSacred%2BProfane%2B-%2BCopy%2B%252832%25293.jpg" width="558" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>fig. 5.</i> <i>Within the circle are the positions of 9 zodiacal references.</i></td></tr></tbody></table></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"> Again, the circle in the paintings now deduced invenzione, corresponds with the celestial equator, and reveals the forms of those constellations which are specific to a star map of the Southern sky (refer to fig. 6).<i><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"> W</span></i></span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-style: italic; text-align: justify;">hen this Southern star map is used as a reference point </span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-style: italic; text-align: justify;">we find that <b>this road </b>(the finite point of the radial line) <b>mimics the 'forward/slash' constellation of Taurus </b>as seen on a star map of the South celestial hemisphere. Implicitly, when the description of Taurus in the Matheseos Libri VIII is referred to, we find the description of Taurus as 'Fission under hooves', and this is where the geometry of the painting reveals its references (and here also reveals a mistake in translation by Gombrich; it is not fission but 'fissure'... referring to a split or crack, which is precisely the form that Taurus insinuates on the globe (refer to Taurus in fig. 2)). The two points - the beginning and end of a radial line) present the key (apex & perameter) that unlocks the circle. </span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-style: italic; text-align: justify;">Taurus will become the first of nine zodiacal references sequentially revealed in an anti-clockwise manner, to correspond with the anti-clockwise movement of the zodiacal constellations in the night sky. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWEn2qc8Varafd9WcHyUfUNYJqoLNa8Jqr_whcv9jf8TWZuO4xVFPedihxsaRQj1RWT_Wuay7GSvDHqZHelA5HKl4GcQdz0c2asSKnWzZO-u9O-cdH0Q0Tlh7GD-GjlSLq_H2XnqPa0iJlJn7xrpP7wK1_fvPWHj1TsO6iKTfNsu5K4Q4UK8cDPLoxqw/s616/5E220DAB-AC86-40CD-B019-A7D12728A85B_1_201_a.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="616" data-original-width="599" height="496" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWEn2qc8Varafd9WcHyUfUNYJqoLNa8Jqr_whcv9jf8TWZuO4xVFPedihxsaRQj1RWT_Wuay7GSvDHqZHelA5HKl4GcQdz0c2asSKnWzZO-u9O-cdH0Q0Tlh7GD-GjlSLq_H2XnqPa0iJlJn7xrpP7wK1_fvPWHj1TsO6iKTfNsu5K4Q4UK8cDPLoxqw/w501-h496/5E220DAB-AC86-40CD-B019-A7D12728A85B_1_201_a.jpeg" width="501" /></a></div>fig. 6. The radial line on a star map of the Southern constellations </div><div style="text-align: center;">reveals the initial zodiacal link from the apex. </div><div style="text-align: center;">From the South Celestial Pole to the constellation of Taurus.</div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-style: italic; text-align: justify;">Now that the circle is established (fig. 5) geometry and iconology can be employed to discover 'the fullness' of the paintings meaning.</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><i style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"></span></i></span></i></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><i style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">As further geometry unfolds it shall be noted that the circles circumference (see fig. 7.) will also serve as the boundary of a pentacle (a pentagram whose proportions are contained by the dimensions of a circle) and here, the same circle that informed the Celestial Equator departs from revealing the star map to now carry symbolic weight by describing the proportions of a pentacle. It may be that the painting has employed the pentacle as a magical element which, as a known symbol of Venus, had perhaps a talismanic function as well as potentially being a significant design component, intended to fit within an ornate architectural emblem. <i style="font-family: Times;"><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">This possibility is more pronounced as the extremities of the circle and the points of the pentacle expand well beyond the paintings boundaries (refer to fig. 7). </span></i>We should be asking ourselves; what building of any architectural significance was being constructed in either Ferrara or Mantua beween 1595 - 1515?) </span></i></div><div><i style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><br /></span></i></div><div><i style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">It will be seen that the pentagram contains two further design elements. These </span></i><i style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">are <b>the angles of the two women who incline toward each other</b>, as well as demanding the <b>specific upper & lower dimensions of the fountain/sarcophagus</b>. (T</span></i><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-style: italic; text-align: center;">he only two horizontal lines found in an <b>upright</b> and a smaller <b>inverted</b> pentagram (refer to the two horizontal green lines in fig. 7). </span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-style: italic; text-align: center;"> These two lines explicitly order the upper and lower dimensions of the fountain/sarcophagus. Importantly, a</span><i style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">ll elements of the paintings 'invenzione' (plan or scheme) are synchronised in this harmonius design. While the conversation seemingly departs from the zodiacal to the esoterically symbolic, the change remains an essential component of the 'Grand plan'.</span></i></div><div><i style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><br /></span></i></div><div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-eOflFeqL2rQ/YFVMyfCWA6I/AAAAAAAAFCM/XBQQil9c46EklluY4uqcu-tg3fyfVUr9ACNcBGAsYHQ/s407/34b.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="389" data-original-width="407" height="475" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-eOflFeqL2rQ/YFVMyfCWA6I/AAAAAAAAFCM/XBQQil9c46EklluY4uqcu-tg3fyfVUr9ACNcBGAsYHQ/w496-h475/34b.jpg" width="496" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>fig. 7.</i> The pentacle and the painting: The positions of the women & fountain <br />is dictated by the pentagram & circle and the forms and locations of four constellations.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><i style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">In a very real sense this painting</span></i><i style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"> can be quantified beyond the paintings obvious aesthetic value and may also read</span></i><i style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"> in terms of data capacity (kilobytes, megabytes etc.) of information. This data is <i style="font-family: Times;"><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">cohesed into a painted totality</span></i> through the use of maps, geometry, iconology, symbology & mythology. In the final analysis the Sacred and Profane Love contains a greater amount of readily available quantifiable data than any painting that preceeded it. There is considerably more data here than in the Northern paintings outlined on this blog <a href="https://www.pauldoughton.com/2011/06/">Symbolic & Geometric Substructures</a> & <a href="https://www.pauldoughton.com/2011/07/">Esoteric Schema in Early Religious Art</a>] which were soley reliant on geometry & number symbolism. This data is also equal to the plastic perfection which must be considered an integral and equal component of the paintings data totality.</span></i></div></div><div><br /></div><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: center;"><i style="text-align: right;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">~</span></div></i></div><div><br /></div><div><i style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">T</span>he star map of the Southern constellations used in the Sacred and Profane Love comprise four non-zodiacal constellations </span></i><i style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">and nine zodiacal constellations as seen in their Southern positions - aspects which are distinct from the visible Northern formations. In total </span></i><i style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">the painting contains </span></i><i style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">thirteen constellational references </span></i><i style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">(two are overpainted)</span></i><i style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"> that can populate a celestial map based on the visible star constellations of the </span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">South Celestial Hemisphere</span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">.</span></i><i style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"> </span></i></div><div><i style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><br /></span></i></div><div><i style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><br /></span></i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i style="text-align: right;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-4Dr6zOgK1b0/YFXnZgVDvEI/AAAAAAAAFCc/wxGF5t7cnnAukZYTHLKPsfY1ea7AhRergCNcBGAsYHQ/s675/8887b1.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="675" data-original-width="671" height="485" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-4Dr6zOgK1b0/YFXnZgVDvEI/AAAAAAAAFCc/wxGF5t7cnnAukZYTHLKPsfY1ea7AhRergCNcBGAsYHQ/w490-h485/8887b1.jpg" width="490" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>fig. 8.</i> The constellations that are present in the S& P Love.</td></tr></tbody></table></i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div><i style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><i><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">Of those available constellations nine are zodiacal and four relate to the cosmographic identities and forms of the two women (see fig. 8). </span></i>Only on a Southern starmap will all of these thirteen constellations appear in these forms (above), and it is this specific Southern starmap that is 'hidden' by the iconography of the </span></i><i style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">Sacred and Profane Love. Interpreting this </span></i><i style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">pictorial language in</span></i><i style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"> iconological terms presents the true poet of the of the </span></i><i style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">plastic representation that has come to be known as the Sacred and Profane Love. It is </span></i><i style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">pure Giorgione merely finished by Titian.</span></i></div><div><i style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><br /></span></i></div><div><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"></blockquote><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>Four constellations</i></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"> refer to the poses of the two women at the fountain and dictate the posture and cosmographical location of the two women of the Sacred and Profane Love (Ceres & Proserpine). Hydra & Corvus forms the hem of the clothed woman's opulent dress while Corvus is located in the painting as the slip of red at the base of that dress. Serpens Caput refers to the left leg of Ceres while Serpens Cauda indicates the left arm of Ceres which holds aloft the oil lamp. A further n</span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-style: italic; text-align: justify;">ine </span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-style: italic; text-align: justify;">references to</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"> southern visible zodiacal constellations</span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"> are present and described iconographically. One (possibly two) zodiacal metaphors have been painted over, the 'head of a dog or a cow' noted by H. E. Wethey must be included in the anticlockwise sequence. These facts indicate that 8 or 9 of the 12 possible zodiacal constellations are metaphorically present in the Sacred and Profane Love, and from the descriptions of each it is clear that all</span><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"> were sourced directly from the </span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">Matheseos Libri IIX - the star catalogue</span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"> of </span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">Firmicus Maternus.</span></i><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"> </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-style: italic; text-align: justify;">Here it must be pointed out that the same programme which informed the Sacred and Profane Love</span><i style="font-family: georgia; text-align: justify;"><span> </span></i><span style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">appeared on the ceiling of the Sala dei Venti in the Palazzo del Te in Mantua <span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">(fig. 9) -</span> executed (by Titians friend) Giulio Romano. </span></span></div><div><span style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-jYP4tkOHIbg/YEy0WwKFGVI/AAAAAAAAFBI/YVbZb8o8BbkmLqLTw718aLh9qaGKNiFHACNcBGAsYHQ/s490/venti%2B%25282%2529.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="290" data-original-width="490" height="318" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-jYP4tkOHIbg/YEy0WwKFGVI/AAAAAAAAFBI/YVbZb8o8BbkmLqLTw718aLh9qaGKNiFHACNcBGAsYHQ/w537-h318/venti%2B%25282%2529.jpg" width="537" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>fig. 9.</i> The ceiling of the Sala dei Venti in the Palazzo del Te, Mantua c.1524–34.<br />by Guilio Romano </td></tr></tbody></table></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-large;"><b>~</b></span></span></div><div><span style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></span></div><div><span style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: large;">C</span>learly Titian still had the programme upon which the Sacred and Profane Love was structured, and therefore the plan of the Sala dei Venti's ceiling</span></span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-style: italic;"> </span><span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">can act as a reference point to analyse the Sacred and Profane Love. </span></span></div><div><span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">A</span></span><span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> plan of the Sala dei Venti </span></span><span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">was designed by C. Redfield and published in</span></span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-style: italic;"> Gombrich's Symbolic Images in 1978. It was Ernst Gombrich that made public the connection between the Sal dei Venti and the catalogue of Firmicus Maternus, and to demonstrate this connection Gombrich employed Redfield's design to structurally describe the pictorial arrangement. </span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-style: italic;">(see fig 10. below <span style="font-size: x-small;">- </span></span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><i>my annotation</i></span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-style: italic;">).</span><span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-style: italic;">Romano was working to a plan, and it is the same plan from which Giorgione abstracted his </span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-style: italic;">metaphorical </span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-style: italic;">arrangement of the Southern zodiac in its Southern formation. Romano used one hundred percent of the arrangement to literally describe pictorially the words of Firmicus, whereas Giorgione employed two thirds of the textual information. To this writers mind, Giorgione's method is the essence of poetry; to describe using the mere bones of language and allow the reciever to flesh those bones through evocation and imagination. (Had only Ruskin known this plan - and the two iterations of it - everything he intuited about these two artists would have been laid bare before him...).</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-M4uPuUGUkVE/YEf3oQqhp_I/AAAAAAAAFAQ/h74bH7GKIHArQuiJ6Dq1zIPavNlyrq0AACNcBGAsYHQ/s742/Pic1ann1.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="546" data-original-width="742" height="470" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-M4uPuUGUkVE/YEf3oQqhp_I/AAAAAAAAFAQ/h74bH7GKIHArQuiJ6Dq1zIPavNlyrq0AACNcBGAsYHQ/w640-h470/Pic1ann1.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><i>fig 10.</i> C. Redfield's graphic plan of the ceiling of the<i> Sala dei Venti</i> in the <i>Palazzo del Te</i>. </div><div style="text-align: center;">Published in E. Gombrich's <i>Symbolic Images</i> 1978 (<i>my annotation</i>).</div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: large;">I</span>n the centre of Redfield's plan </span></span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-style: italic; text-align: justify;">(my annotation </span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-style: italic; text-align: justify;">fig 10</span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-style: italic; text-align: justify;">)</span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"> the location that corresponds to the fountain/sarcophagus, around which the two women & the Child of the Sacred and Profane Love are draped, corresponds with the centrally located group above with the titles 'Venus, Mercury, & Ceres'. I</span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-style: italic;">n the Sacred and Profane Love, </span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-style: italic;">Mercury has been moved behind the fountain/sarcophagus - to the back of Redfields plan as it were - to form the 'presipio' (the horseshoe arrangement common to nativity settings that emphasise the manger). In the Sacred and Profane Love this central focus is on the fountain/sarcophagus (now the manger) and the two women and child. Importantly here, Redfield's plan </span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-style: italic;">(see above, </span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-style: italic;">fig. 10</span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-style: italic;">) </span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-style: italic;">confirms the identities of the Women and the Child as 'Venus, Mercury, and Ceres'. (In this analysis Proserpine is 'an aspect of and interchangeable with' the great mother 'Venus'). </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-style: italic;">The roundels below each zodiacal sign of the Sala dei Venti in the Palazzo del Te (figs. 9 & 10) contain the painted interpretation of Firmicus's descriptions. In Redfield's plan </span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-style: italic;">the zodiacal signs that are exclusively represented in the Sacred and Profane Love leave Firmicus' textual descriptions in </span><i><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">place of </span><span> <span style="font-family: georgia;">Romano'</span><span style="font-family: georgia, times new roman, serif;">s images </span></span></i><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-style: italic;"> </span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-style: italic;">for clarity of reference <span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">(my annotations, </span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">fig. 10</span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">).</span></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-style: italic;"><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-style: italic;">The last five zodiacal references are less obvious and refer to the zodiacal symbol, for example; </span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-style: italic;">at the upper right quarter of the Sacred and Profane Love, water </span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-style: italic;">divided </span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-style: italic;">by an </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-sZg6W2Disoo/YEj8v-s1K3I/AAAAAAAAFAg/Kqn6AQ7W8IosLf3RFoF9OL9OZF_KBPXgACNcBGAsYHQ/s640/Tiziano_-_Amor_Sacro_y_Amor_Profano_%2528Galer%25C3%25ADa_Borghese%252C_Roma%252C_1514%2529xx%2B%25282%2529.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><i><span style="font-size: x-small;"><img border="0" data-original-height="417" data-original-width="640" height="208" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-sZg6W2Disoo/YEj8v-s1K3I/AAAAAAAAFAg/Kqn6AQ7W8IosLf3RFoF9OL9OZF_KBPXgACNcBGAsYHQ/w320-h208/Tiziano_-_Amor_Sacro_y_Amor_Profano_%2528Galer%25C3%25ADa_Borghese%252C_Roma%252C_1514%2529xx%2B%25282%2529.jpg" width="320" /></span></i></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: x-small;">fig 11. The isthmus as sigil for Aquairius: Two distinct bodies of water (one above the<br />other - to mimic the zodiacal symbol for Aquarius). In front of<br />the water are two horses (representing Scorpio & Sagittarius).<br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; text-align: justify;"><br /></span></div></span></i></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-style: italic;">isthmus </span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-style: italic;"><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">imitates the symbol </span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">for </span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">Aquairius </span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">as water</span> divided', traditionally </span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-style: italic;">represented as </span><span lang="" style="background-color: white; color: maroon; font-family: wingdings; line-height: 38.4px;"><b>h</b></span><span lang="" style="background-color: white; font-family: centaur; line-height: 19.2px;"><span>.</span></span></div><div><span><div style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-style: normal; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-style: normal; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span lang="" style="background-color: white; font-style: italic; line-height: 19.2px;"><span>One must ask as to why there is an isthmus at all? A</span></span><span><span style="background-color: white; font-style: italic;">s pure decoration a lake without an isthmus would certainly suffice, </span><span style="background-color: white;">and</span><span style="background-color: white; font-style: italic;"> </span><span style="background-color: white;"><i style="font-style: normal;">it would have been just as easy for the painter not to paint an isthmus at all. But this isthmus was not intended to be an exact representation of <span>any specific location,</span> nor is it a meaningless fancy of the poetic imagination. This isthmus was </i><i>intended to represent a symbol </i>and therefore we have to accept that we are reading<i style="font-style: normal;"> symbolic language. All of t</i></span></span><span>hese</span><span style="font-style: italic;"> zodiacal decisions (metaphoric selections) </span><span>were most likely made by</span><span style="font-style: italic;"> Giorgione </span><span>(and </span><span>perhaps</span><span style="font-style: italic;"> </span><span>with </span><span style="font-style: italic;">Bellini?) </span><span>in</span><span style="font-style: italic;"> </span><span>accordance with a</span><span style="font-style: italic;"> zodiacal</span><span> design</span><span> which was </span><span>merely <i>finished</i> by</span><span style="font-style: italic;"> Titian </span><span>after the death of Giorgione.</span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span> </span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span>Helpfully, on </span><span>the ceiling of the</span><span style="font-style: italic;"> Sala dei Venti</span><span> in the</span><span style="font-style: italic;"> Palazzo del Te </span><span>in</span><span style="font-style: italic;"> Mantua, </span><span>grotesque images </span><span>describe</span><span style="font-style: italic;"> Guilio Romano's </span><span>interpretation</span><span style="font-style: italic;"> </span><span>of the Matheseos to reveal the</span><span style="font-style: italic;"> same plan </span><span>which was </span><span>evidently derived from the</span><span style="font-style: italic;"> same source. </span><span>D</span><span>irect c</span></span><span style="font-family: georgia;">omparison allows</span><span style="font-family: georgia; font-style: italic;"> Giorgione's</span><span style="font-family: georgia;"> poetic and restrained use of the plan to come to the fore</span><span style="font-family: georgia; font-style: italic;"> iconologically </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">because</span><span style="font-family: georgia; font-style: italic;"> Giorgione</span><span style="font-family: georgia;"> has selected just enough metaphors to make of his decisions a coherent totality - whereas</span><span style="font-family: georgia; font-style: italic;"> Romano</span><span style="font-family: georgia;"> pictorialised and almost transcribed the plan in its entirety. </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">When comparing the</span><span style="font-family: georgia; font-style: italic;"> Sacred and Profane Love </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">with</span><span style="font-family: georgia; font-style: italic;"> Romano's </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">room, the aesthetic decisions by both parties are on display for comparison, consideration, and elucidation</span><span style="font-family: georgia; font-style: italic;">. </span></div><div style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-style: italic;">(F</span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-style: italic;">or the complete explanation of the zodiacal round as represented in the Sacred and Profane Love refer to the post </span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">The Zodiacal Metaphors</span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-style: italic;"> on this site).</span></div><div style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-style: italic; text-align: center;"><br /></div></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: x-large; font-style: italic;"><b>~</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-style: italic;"><span style="font-size: large;">T</span>he fountains form (as sarcophagus) was sourced from the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, and on that original engraving a dedication to Proserpine is present. In the Hypnerotomachia the novels hero Poliphilis, wanders through a graveyard where he gazes into a tomb and 'ponders the Mysteries of Pluto". From the </span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-style: italic;">reference to Venus, Mercury, Ceres, revealed on the plan of the </span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-style: italic;">ceiling of the Sal dei Venti; </span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-style: italic;">and by the appropriation of the sarcophagus of the Hypnerotomachia; we have the concrete reference to Proserpine and Pluto - which infers through consideration that the fountain can be read as The Fountain Cyane - formed by Pluto to expedite the descent to Hades with the abducted Proserpine. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-umNspO4oUyQ/YEp0Fo__4AI/AAAAAAAAFAo/JLYzf8mV-yQKaM-xqpuXXDdAKogK-RDuACNcBGAsYHQ/s640/Picture1trr1%2B%25282%2529.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="602" data-original-width="640" height="449" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-umNspO4oUyQ/YEp0Fo__4AI/AAAAAAAAFAo/JLYzf8mV-yQKaM-xqpuXXDdAKogK-RDuACNcBGAsYHQ/w478-h449/Picture1trr1%2B%25282%2529.jpg" width="478" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>f</i><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>ig. 12.</i> The form of the sarcophagus/fountain is sourced<br /> directly from the <i>Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, pub.</i> at<i> </i><i>Venice </i>in<i> 1499.</i></span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div style="text-align: left;">The inscription on the <i>sarcophagus</i> of the <i>Hypnerotomachia</i> runs thus:</div><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="background-color: white; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; text-align: justify;"><div style="font-size: 17.6px; text-align: left;"><o:p> (</o:p><span style="font-size: x-small;">Trans.):</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><o:p><span style="font-size: 17.6px;"> </span>TO THE THREE BODIED PLUTO AMONG US</o:p></div></div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: left;"> AND FOR HIS <st1:stockticker>DEAR </st1:stockticker>WIFE PROSERPINE</div></div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: left;"> AND TO THE THREE HEADED CERBERUS.</div></div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 17.6px; text-align: justify;"></div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 17.6px; text-align: justify;"></div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 17.6px; text-align: justify;"></div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 17.6px; text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: left;"> <span style="font-size: x-small;"> </span></div></div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 17.6px; text-align: center;"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif" style="font-size: x-small;"><strong>(<i>Translation generously provided by the Venerable Rodney Oliver, </i></strong></span></div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 17.6px; text-align: center;"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif" style="font-size: x-small;"><strong><i> Archdeacon at <st1:city><st1:place>St Paul</st1:place></st1:city>'s Cathedral. <st1:place><st1:city>Melbourne</st1:city>, <st1:country-region>Australia</st1:country-region></st1:place>. 1999</i>)</strong></span></div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 17.6px; text-align: center;"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif" style="font-size: x-small;"><strong><br /></strong></span></div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; text-align: justify;"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-align: center;">Again, the only two horizontal lines found in a pentacle describe the </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-align: center;">upper and lower dimensions of the sarcophagus/fountain whose form is </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-align: center;">sourced <i>directly</i> from the </span><i style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-align: center;">Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, </i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-align: center;">published</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-align: center;"> at</span><i style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-align: center;"> </i><i style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-align: center;">Venice </i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-align: center;">in</span><i style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-align: center;"> 1499. </i></span></div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; text-align: justify;"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><i style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-align: center;"><br /></i></span></div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; text-align: justify;"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-align: center;">The two constellations at the left</span><i style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-align: center;"> </i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-align: center;">of the painting are </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-align: center;"><i>Hydra & Corvus.</i> <i>Hydra</i> forms the hem of <i>Proserpine's</i> dress while <i>Corvus</i> is repesented by the <i>exposed red slip</i> of undergarment. The hem and red undergarment mimic the constellations of <i>Hydra & Corvus </i>and mimic their proximity to each other<i>.</i></span></span></div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; text-align: justify;"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-align: center;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; text-align: justify;"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-align: center;"> At the paintings right <i>Serpens Cauda</i> & <i>Serpens Caput</i> indicate the<i> left side </i>of Ceres body. One arm is raised and the left leg exposed mimicking the proximity of those two constellations to each other. </span></span></div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; text-align: justify;"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-align: center;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; text-align: justify;"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-align: center;">In <i>fig. 8.</i> these four constellations have been repositioned to appear at their respective positions at the front of the<i> fountain/sarcophagus</i>. They remain relative to their position on a constellation map, and respective to the position of the <i>two women</i> and <i>fountain/sarcophagus</i> of the <i>Sacred and Profane Love</i>. </span></span></div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; text-align: justify;"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-align: center;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; text-align: justify;"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-align: center;">The <i>sarcophagus/fountains</i> form is taken from the <i>Hypnerotomachia</i>, the <i>pentacle</i> and the <i>four constellations</i> are the armatures upon which the figures of <i>Proserpine</i> and <i>Ceres </i>are draped.</span></span></div></div></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-style: italic;"><b>This analysis is entirely referenceable, traceable, and confirmable.</b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: x-large; font-style: normal;"> </span></span></div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-E1VCPGx26KY/YFledja2tcI/AAAAAAAAFC0/kERUGvL4oVYPOs6DayQtUS5zqklna1DeACNcBGAsYHQ/s523/images.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="96" data-original-width="523" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-E1VCPGx26KY/YFledja2tcI/AAAAAAAAFC0/kERUGvL4oVYPOs6DayQtUS5zqklna1DeACNcBGAsYHQ/s320/images.png" width="320" /></a></div><br /><i><br /></i></span></div><br /><div><br /></div><div><div style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div style="text-align: center;" trbidi="on"><div style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><span style="font-size: x-large;">T</span>he two women of the Sacred and Profane Love and their positions within the star map are </i></span><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">clearly, though </i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>abstractly referred to through their form as a combination of four constellation groups. Of these four constellation groups three names refer to a serpent/snake (Hydra, Serpens Cauda & Serpens Caput). Curiously, to ensure the correct identification of Hydra, the constellation of Corvus (the only non-serpentine constellation) is included, </i></span><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">appearing as the red slip below the hem of Proserpine's dress. This is to</i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i> indicate the proximity between the constellations of Hydra & Corvus (see fig. 8). In total these four references are the only constellations represented in the </i></span><i><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">Sacred and Profane Love </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">which do not refer to a zodiacal sign. </span></i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">These positions and their relationship to the painting are the end result of following the specific guidelines as set out by Firmicus (and there are quirks among them which are discussed in the post titled 'The Zodiacal Metaphors' found on this site) but other rules and guidelines are clear and irrefutable,<b> </b>and they in turn describe the programme of the Sacred and Profane Love. As to the identity of the person who prepared the invenzione, it is obvious that they were a scholar with access to an extensive library.</span></i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">When we grasp the paintings iconography we hold the programme. Through iconological consideration the paintings true history and meaning is revealed. But there is still more.</span></i></div></div></div></div></div></div><div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: center;" trbidi="on"><div style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: left;"><h3 style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">~ </span></h3><p><span style="font-size: xx-large;"></span></p><blockquote style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span>A quick summary of the paintings origin as the </span><span>nearly resolved</span><span> Night at the </span><span>studio of Giorgione. </span></span></blockquote><span style="font-size: xx-large;"></span><p></p><p><span style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">I</span>n 1506 Giovanni Bellini was approached by Isabella d'Este's merchant to secure a <i>Night</i> for her <i>studiolo</i>, but it appears that Bellini was reluctant to fulfil her wishes, probably he would have been loath to compromise his status as Official Painter to the State of Venice by participating in a work that (lightly) engages with Alchemical references, as alchemical works were outlawed by the Venetian State in 1488 and - no doubt - the walls have ears. If indeed Bellini actually worked with the painting it would have been merely in conversation with Giorgione regarding the best approach to portray the program in the most beautiful manner (recalling that brevity as poetic obfuscation was Giorgione's forte). If Bellini were to engage with this comission he was at risk of losing his sensaria and position with the Venetian state. </span></p><p><span style="text-align: justify;">Now, the walls have ears? S</span><span style="text-align: justify;">omeone must have told Isabella about the existence of a wonderful Giorgione painting in his studio because when Isabella heard of Giorgione's death she immediately dispatched a merchant to secure the painting which she described as "very singular and beautiful...". This tells us that the painting - a <i>Night</i> - was at, or near, a stage of resolution. She also referred to the <i>Night</i> as a <i>Presepio</i>. The diagrammatic form of a <i>presepio</i> is a horseshoe arrangement surrounding a point-of-focus at the centre - often the trough/manger of the Christ child in a nativity setting. But this is a pagan <i>presepio;</i> a pagan<i> Night, </i>which is to say<i> a pagan Nativity.</i></span></p><p><span style="text-align: justify;">The <i>presepio</i> form emphasises the trough - here the fountain/sarcophagus - using <i>Mercury</i> standing behind the sarcophagus, and the two women seated upon the edge of either side. This affords the composition pictorial depth, and this is the beauty of the <i>presepio</i> arrangement. The</span><span style="text-align: justify;"> </span><i style="text-align: justify;">Sacred and Profane Love</i><span style="text-align: justify;"> </span><span style="text-align: justify;">fulfills a description both as <i>Night</i> and/or <i>Presepio, </i>and especially the latter in particilar if it were being described to a person<i> who had never seen the painting</i>. </span></p><p><span style="text-align: justify;">That the painting is a <i>Night</i> is indicated by the streaked sky: <i>Ceres</i> flame (from the oil lamp held aloft by the goddess) is lost to the morning light and here she fulfills the same function as the torchbearers in the Mithraic Tauroctony. While the torch is held aloft it will signify <i>Cosmic Day</i>, and oppositely when held down it will signify <i>Cosmic Night</i>. Note Proserpine's arm on the lidded basket, it is <i>closed</i>. She is the <i>Queen of Night</i>, and the consort of <i>Pluto, </i>god of the underworld realm of <i>Hades</i>. <i>Ceres</i> signifies <i>Cosmic Day</i>: She is the Great Mother (the Great Virgin) who lights a pine torch in the flames of <i>Mt Aetna</i> to search for her daughter by <i>Night</i>. Seasonally, the painting speaks of the Equinoxes, of the equal period between <i>Cosmic Night</i> and <i>Cosmic Day,</i> that sacred time when </span><span style="text-align: justify;"><i>Mother</i> and <i>Daughter</i> are reunited here at the <i>Fountain Cyane</i> - which is also the entrance to <i>Hades. </i></span></p><p><span style="text-align: justify;">The<i> Fountain Cyane</i> was created by <i>Pluto</i> to expedite his abduction to the underworld with <i>Proserpine</i>, the <i>Daughter</i> of <i>Ceres</i>. </span><span style="text-align: justify;">The child is </span><i style="text-align: justify;">Psycopomp (</i><i style="text-align: justify;">Mercury</i><span style="text-align: justify;">) who leads the souls of the newly dead to the threshold of </span><i style="text-align: justify;">Hades</i><span style="text-align: justify;">. </span><span style="text-align: justify;">He is also the <i>alchemical Mercury</i> who is stirring here the waters of the '<i>mixt</i>' in the <i>Athanor</i> the 'mixt' referring to the mixing of the <i>white and red </i></span><i style="text-align: justify;">sulfurs</i><span style="text-align: justify;"> in the '<i>Mercurial Water</i>'. </span></p><p><span style="text-align: justify;">The fountain now can be read as the <i>Athanor</i> of the alchemists through which the <i>Great Work</i> is achieved. </span><span style="text-align: justify;">The allegoric narratives of the <i>Sacred and Profane Love</i> develop while remaing synchronised with each reading. </span><span style="text-align: justify;">This alchemical narrative is is reflected in the juxtapostion of colours associated with the women: <i>Proserpine</i> wears <i>White</i> with a touch of <i>Red</i> while <i>Ceres</i> wears <i>Red</i> with a touch of <i>White</i>. </span><span style="text-align: justify;">Having found her daughter's girdle at the Fountain Cyane the two are reunited (called the Heuresis - the 'finding again'). These two can only be reunited at the Equinoxes; the turn of the cosmic cycle from <i>Night</i> to <i>Day</i> -or- <i>Day to Night</i> when <i>day</i> is still <i>night</i> prior to the suns arrival; therefore the painting is a nocturne, and so most definitely a<i> 'Night'</i>. It is also a Giorgione and not 'Giorgionesque'. Sallust, speaking upon the seadsonal rites and regarding the myth of Kore (Proserpine) states:</span></p><p></p><blockquote><span style="text-align: justify;">"The rites are performed about the Vernal Equinox, when the fruits of the earth are ceasing to be produced, and day is becoming longer than night, which applies well to spirits rising higher. (At least, the other equinox is in mythology the time of the rape of Kore, which is the descent of the souls)."</span></blockquote><p></p></div></div></div></div></div></div><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: center;" trbidi="on"><div style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: left;"><p></p><p style="text-align: center;"> <span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; text-align: justify;">McQueen, J. Allegory. Greek and Roman Allegory, p.17 </span><span style="text-align: left;"> </span><span style="text-align: left;"> </span></p></div></div></div></div></blockquote></blockquote><div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: center;" trbidi="on"><div style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: left;"><p></p><p><span style="text-align: justify;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="text-align: justify;">The flowing red robe of Ceres at the right of the painting signals this action; 'spirits rising higher'. Proserpine, at the left is near to the child who is Cupid, Mercury, and also Psychopomp. As Psychopomp he can be read as the guide of the newly deceased souls to the entrance of Hades - which enacts Sallusts seasonal 'descent of the souls'. Sallust declares the myth of Cybele & Attis the same cosmic myth (the river Gallus represents the Milky Way etc.) and also the torchbearers of the Mithraic Tauroctony's participate in these myths belong to the cosmos and the seasons. </span></p><p><span style="text-align: justify;">Equinoxes are represented here in the <i>Sacred and Profane Love</i> as dawn or dusk at the same time, and which is the only time when mother and daughter are reunited- the equinoxes. Again, this helps to understand the painting as a nocturne... a </span><i style="text-align: justify;">Night</i><span style="text-align: justify;">. </span><span style="text-align: justify;">The figures of the Sacred and Profane Love do not simply stand as 'this for that', but can perfectly synchronise with other complimentary narratives. In this way a 'cosmic truth' can synchronise with other cosmic 'truths', such as the torchbearers and Proserpine & Ceres as cosmic Night & Day respectively; the descent of souls and the descent into Hades (Cosmic Night); The arrival of the Great Virgin in the Night sky bearing the star Spica to search for her daughter and finding her at the Fountain Cyane: These are all the same seasonal truths for as Sallust declares:</span></p><p></p><blockquote><span style="text-align: justify;">"Thus, as the myth is in accord with the Cosmos, we for that reason keep a festival imitating the Cosmos, for how could we attain a higher order?"</span></blockquote><p style="text-align: center;"> Ibid. p.17 </p><p>It is important to recall that these myths were enacted in ritual, in different places, in different times but all myths intend to participate in the cosmic order through the rituals and reenactments of them.</p><p>At the front of the fountain are reliefs that, at the right appear to participate in the Lupercalia (Google image 'Lupercalia' and note the raised arms lashing the votaries; at the left, Ceres is known to have turned herself into a mare to escape the unwanted advances of Jupiter. There is a theme of rejection of the notion of 'sin' and a return to the sacralised and unbridled enjoyment of the body and loves force.</p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>~ </b></span></p><p></p><p><span style="text-align: justify;">The diminutive iconography surrounding the Grand Central Suite (the fountain/sarcophagus, two women & child) refer to nine zodiacal metaphors - including the 'head of a dog or cow' noted in 1978 by Harold Wethey with the naked eye after close examinations of the painting and which was later discredited by some academics in support of the Marconi restoration. (The late </span><a href="https://itsartlaw.org/2013/11/25/spotlight-artwatch-international/" style="text-align: justify;" target="_blank">Artwatch</a><span style="text-align: justify;"> founder James Beck was keenly interested when this writer suggested to him that <b>the restoration has changed the painting's surface </b><b>and that it could be proven by reintroducing Wethey's 'head of a dog or cow' - which logically should be there in perfect anti-clockwise sequence with the range beginning with Taurus and concluding with Aquarius)</b>. It was a dog to reference Leo as 'the dog Star' and was the third of the nine sequential descriptions of certain zodiacal metaphors that can be sourced to the <i>Matheseos Libri IIX</i> of <i>Firmicus Maternus</i>. Here I am not stating that the restoration is bad, but what I am saying is that all restorations permanently alter the surface of any painting, and the </span><i style="text-align: justify;">Sacred and Profane Love</i><span style="text-align: justify;"> is now the perfect example by which changes made to a paintings surface through a restoration can be assessed. Both Beck and David Rosand showed interest in this reading of the painting which was delayed for several years due to illness, and sadly, both men have died in the ten year descent/recovery interim. </span></p>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;"><blockquote>The manner by which revelations contained within the <i>Sacred and Profane Love</i> are accessed according to the paintings classical, geometric, and zodiacal plans.</blockquote></span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px;"><i>fig 1.</i> A circle can be scribed from<span style="font-size: 12.8px;"> the position of </span><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">the rider on horseback </span><em style="font-size: 12.8px;">[a] <br /></em><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">with the</span><em style="font-size: 12.8px;"> circles centre </em><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">being</span><em style="font-size: 12.8px;"> </em><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">the mouth of the spigot at the fountains front </span><em style="font-size: 12.8px;">[c]</em><span style="font-size: 12.8px;"> </span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">In the <i>Sacred and Profane Love, </i>Taurus is designated by the rider on horseback. Each of the nine zodiacal metaphors presnt in the Sacred and Profane Love follow the descriptions of Firmicus Maternus in the Mathesos Libri IIX. There, Firmicus designates Taurus as 'f'issure' </span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">under Taurus Hooves'</span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"> ('fissure and not 'fission' as printed in Gombrich's 'Symbolic Images'). This is the lock to opening the first clue on the anti-clockwise round of zodiacal metaphors. Taurus (actually the road upon which the horse and rider are travelling) mimic the 'split or fissure' (which is the slight vision of the constellation as it appears on Southern Starmap. See fig. 2 below). The upper left quarter of both the painting and starmap mimic each other, and is the original key to indicate the limit of the circles boundary, while the centre of the circle corresponds to the mouth of the fountains spigot. Looking to the constellation map of the </span><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">South Celestial Hemisphere</i><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"> [fig 2], this same centre marks the position of the </span><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">South Celestial Pole</i><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>fig 2</i>. Constellation map of the southern hemisphere </span><span style="font-size: medium;">[</span><b><span style="font-size: x-small;">+</span></b><span style="font-size: medium;">] </span><span style="font-size: x-small;">at the centre of the star map <br />refers to the south celestial pole. Note the four constellations in blue highlight.</span></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">In <i>fig 2.</i> (above) the <i>Southern star map</i> is sited over the rectangular dimensions of the </span><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">Sacred and Profane Love. </i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Note the four constellations in blue highlight; </span><em style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">Hydra (& Corvus) and Serpens Cauda & Serpens Caput.</em><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 13px;"><div dir="ltr" trbidi="on"><i>fig 3</i>. Those four constellations in their original positions abstracted from the same constellation map of <i>(fig. 2.)</i>. </div>
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<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">In <i>fig 3.</i> (above) the positions of the constellations and their relationship to the </span><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">Sacred and Profane Love's </i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">rectangular format</span><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"> </i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">has not been altered but rather, <i>f</i></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>ig. 3.</i> isolates the four constellations from the complete star map (<i>fig. 2</i>.). By setting the constellation map over the <i>Sacred and Profane Love's</i> rectangular format (<i>figs 2 & 3</i>) those four constellations reveal the</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> narrative of the twin Venuses (<i>Proserpine & Ceres</i>) and furthers </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; text-align: center;">the relationship between the celestial cosmography and the paintings hidden geometric format</span><em style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; text-align: center;">.</em></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px;"><i>fig 4</i>. <i>The four constellations have been shifted to fit the rectangular format of the Sacred and Profane Love and included now is the composite sarcophagus/fountain sourced from the Hynerotomachia Poliphili woodcut.<br />
The circles axis <span style="font-size: 12.8px;">is </span><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">located at the mouth of the spigot of the Hypnerotomachia's woodcut.</span></i><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">In <i>fig 4.</i> the four constellations have been moved slightly upward from their original </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">positions to approximate position, dimension, and relation to the sarcophagus/fountain of the <i>Sacred and Profane Love. </i>It is visually expedient to employ a composite image of the <i>fountain/sarcophagus</i> (authors annotation) which was the clear </span><span style="text-align: center;">source for the sarcophagus of the </span></span><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">Sacred and Profane Love,</i><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"> </i><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">taken</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="text-align: center;"> from the</span><i style="text-align: center;"> Hypnerotomachia Poliphili</i><span style="text-align: center;"> woodcut</span><span style="font-size: 12.8px; text-align: center;"> (</span></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>see fig 4</i>.).<i> </i>with its open top and useful<i> ledge. </i>Now the </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">design</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> involving the <i>four</i> <i>constellations;</i> <i>the positions</i> of the two women of the </span><i style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Sacred and Profane Love,</i><i style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"> </i><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">and</span><i style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"> </i><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">the </span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">connection to the </span><i style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; text-align: center;">Hypnerotomachia Poliphili</i><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; text-align: center;"> is readily apparent</span><i style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">. </i><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">These c</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">orrespondences between the constellation map of the <i>Southern sky</i> and the figurative iconology of the </span><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">Sacred and Profane Love</i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> should now be visually accessible. </span></div>
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</tbody></table></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: justify;" trbidi="on"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-large;">R</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">eferring to <i>fig 5.</i>, the constellation of </span><em style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Hydra</em><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> sinuates along the folds of Proserpine's dress. Beginning at the viewers left, the constellation has a distinct curve - as does the form of the dress. A little further to the right and directly below Hydra's most expansive angle (the dresses largest fold) a red slip is exposed - indicating the constellation of </span><em style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Corvus</em><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">. </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The positive identification of Proserpine's hem is further rewarded by focusing upon </span><em style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">Serpens Cauda</em><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> and </span><em style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">Serpens Caput</em><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> in<i> fig 4</i>. I will add here that when one has <i>actually attempted</i> to paint a figurative image according to a strict line, the degree of acceptible variation while following a mathematical structure <i>plastically</i> will often be under appreciated by an academic. This is to say if it were any more accurate, the informing design - <i>as scaffold</i> - would be <i>explicit</i> rather than <i>suggested</i>.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">It is that seemingly inconsequential slip at the base of <i>Proserpine's</i> dress with its smart flash of red <i>(see fig. 5.)</i> which is clearly designed to indicate the constellation of <em>Corvus - for</em><i> </i> <i>Corvus </i>(the Crow)<i> </i>has nothing to do with serpents. <i>Corvus</i> then, is achieving what the line of <i>Hydra</i> cannot do, and that is to designate specificity, so to make no mistake. If <i>Hydra</i> alone does not seem to offer the interpreter confidence, the combination of the two (<i>Hydra & Corvus</i>) should satiate that curiosity. Now, </span><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">Hydra & Corvus </i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">must be <i>more broadly</i> contextualised with <i>Serpens Caput</i> & <i>Serpens Cauda</i><i> </i>and their </span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">proximity</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> to each other on a Southern starmap. A </span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">relationship between the <i>serpentine </i></span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><i>constellations</i> <i>and</i> the </span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">painted form and positions of both godesses are clear.</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> Nothing here is felicitous. Again, the thread that unites <i>Hydra</i> to </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>Serpens Cauda & Serpens Caput </i>is that e</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">ach of those constellations are related because they reference serpents; the water serpent (<i>Hydra)</i> and the head and tail of the snake (<i>Serpens</i> <i>Caput</i> and <i>Serpens Cauda </i>respectively) b</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">ut fundamentally, serpents.</span></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: justify;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">I</span>n <i>fig 6.</i> two constellations are represented. <em>Serpens Cauda </em>translates as serpents tail, and <em>Serpens Caput</em> as serpents head. Tellingly, these constellations are 'upside down' from the upright position as seen in the northern sky. As can be seen <em>Serpens Cauda</em> has become the<i> left <b>arm</b> of Ceres</i>, while <em>Serpens Caput</em> represents the </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><i>left<b> leg</b></i></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">.</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">When the exposed left leg appears as a repeated motif in an individuals body of work it may be prudent to inquire where and why this motif began. Was the artist simply following the <em>Sleeping Nymph</em> woodcut from the <em>Hypnerotomachia</em> <i>Poliphili</i> or was it perhaps the scrutinising of the <i>Sacred and Profane's Love's</i> programme that inspired the artist to recall that woodcut and reinvent this motif as a <i>truth</i>? After all, the vocation of the artist - as opposed to the profession of the painter - is a <i>commitment to truth</i>.</span></div></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: justify;" trbidi="on"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 13px;"><i>fig 7. Synchronising the four constellations with the two figures.</i></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">Hermetically t</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">he </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>serpentine</i></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i> constellations</i> highlight the relationship between the women as a spiritually feminine power</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> known as the <i>Kundalini</i> force. </span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">These</span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"> cosmographical associations with the hem of the dress and the exposed left leg & raised arm of Ceres are specific and cannot be dismissed as being</span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"> at all<i> coincidental. </i>Clearly, the artists were following a strict programme.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">The two women the most likely area of the painting developed by Giorgione c.1506 - 1510.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">I</span>n the</span><i style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"> Sacred and Profane Love, </i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Ceres has one arm raised and one leg exposed - the left leg. Return to Giorgione and find this motif in several works <i>(</i></span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><i>Judith, </i></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>The Venus of Urbino, The Sacred and Profane Love) </i>associated now with the great mother (or in the case of Judith a persona now elevated to that of a celestial goddess). </span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">Just as the Venus </span><em style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">pudica</em><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"> attitude (the modesty) referred to the classicism of ancient Praxiteles (Greek c.350BCE) the motif of the exposed left leg repeats in Giorgione's oeuvre when he is referring to the goddess as an elevated or sanctified being. The essential difference is that the </span><em style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">pudica</em><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"> pose pays homage to classicism, whereas Giorgione's exposed left leg is referencing the celestial attitude of the constellations <i>Serpens Caput</i> and <i>Serpens Cauda </i>which he has absorbed into his visual language. This motif then </span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">refers the rise of the artist as an intellectual unafraid of developing (and synthesising) a new visual language based upon the celestial abstractions of the <i>Sacred and Profane Love</i>'s celestial programme (the new information). This also indicates the programme was with Giorgione from the time of the Judith (1504). It is out with references to classicism such as a pudica pose, and in with scholarly 'collaboration' as in important information share that has been comprehended, absorbed and developed by the artist. This is the development of Giorgione's oeuvre.</span></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: justify;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Giorgione <i>is</i> the artist responsible for the two women of the <i>Sacred and Profane Love</i> (Proserpine and Ceres), though there is no doubt that Titian has reworked the surface of the entire piece - including the escutcheon for Aurelio - which begs the question as to exactly what deal was struck between Titian and Aurelio? </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The Aurelio coat~of~arms, indicates a collaboration that most likely began in the workshop of Giovanni Bellini, was initially plastically arranged by Giorgione, and then finished finally </span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">by Titian </span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">- for Aurelio.</span></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: justify;" trbidi="on"><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><br /></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: justify;" trbidi="on"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Was the zodiacal iconology developed by two different mindsets or has Giorgione become a little more rushed? This needs to be addressed because there are different approaches to the iconology; at the left of the painting the iconology refers to the zodiacal descriptions of <i>Firmicus Maternus</i> found in the <i>Matheseos Libri IIX</i> - and on the right the iconology refers more to the established zodiacal sigils. The sequence is intact but the approach has altered.</span></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: justify;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Though it is documented that a programme was offered to Bellini by Isabella's merchant, I would argue that this painting's programme was forwarded at the request of her younger brother Alfonso d'Este, and not just because the political machinations seem to suit (Venice was at war with Alfonso) but the painting also reworks familial zodiacal themes that were established during the reign of <i>Borso d'Este</i> at <i>Schifanoia</i> known as the <i>Months</i>. </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The abiding problem as to why Isabella never received<em> </em><i>this</i> painting (as her elusive <i>Night</i>) is that it is likely that she was unaware of this paintings existence. </span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">Which is to say that in all of Isabella's earlier attempts in negotiation she seems rather mild, with perhaps the only barest tinge of even a slight frustration. </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">It is only after Giorgione's death that Isabella appears to become possessive and urgent. Clearly, she is willing to settle at '<i>any price</i>' for a painting a <em>'notte'</em> (night) <i><b>which she had obviously never seen</b>.</i> Had Alfonso informed her of the importance of this painting? </span></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: justify;" trbidi="on"><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">One might suspect that the </span><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">invenzione</i><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"> or </span><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">programme</i><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"> for the </span><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">Night</i><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"> (as the </span><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">Sacred and Profane Love</i><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">) was never sent on the behalf of Isabella at all but perhaps (using the same merchant) on the behalf of her brother Alfonso - Duke of Ferrara - the most loathed man in Venice at the time. Isabella still negotiates for her <i>Night</i> and eventually settled for a Nativity - but these paintings were not the same as historians have mistakenly believed for years. Alfonso played a duplicitous game with Giorgione executing this work for him. </span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">Among the duplicity and the ultimate theft and reworking of the <i>Night/Sacred and Profane Love</i>, </span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">Titian's character can now can be seen for all its ambition, cunning, and dishonesty. He will absorb several of Giorgione's paintings and rework them too, eventually rising to assume Bellini's coveted position of <i>Painter to the Venetian State. </i>The debt owed by Aurelio for the reworking of the <i>Sacred and Profane Love</i> would be finally resolved on the eventual death of old Bellini.</span></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: justify;" trbidi="on">
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<div style="text-align: center;"><u><span style="font-size: x-large;">Considerations on the <em>pudica</em> pose.</span></u></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-large;">T</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">he </span><em style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">pudica</em><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> pose has long association with the classical ideal of Venus, but it also a received history which declares an older social and moral order (modesty) which is a cipher closed to meaning anything other than the obvious identification </span><em style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">of</em><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> Venus and a homage to the classical ideal. Therefore the </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">language</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> of the pose </span><em style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">pudica</em><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> is now somewhat incompatible with the advance of a visual language that must be in step with a culture delighting in the printing press - see the </span><i style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Hypnerotomachia Poliphili</i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">; the </span><i style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Matheseos Libri</i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> etc.; patronage (the Estense library; the courts of Ferrara and Mantua) and the access to historical sources enabling the humanist advisor (the polymath that developed this </span><i style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">invenzione)</i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> and the collaboration of the three artists in the pictorial development of the <i>Sacred and Profane Love </i>(Bellini, Giorgione, and Titian) in representing that new surge of information in this complex visual form. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The attitudes of Botticelli's Venuses (Primavera and the Birth of Venus) bear the stamp of a Praxitelean classicism of the middle ages, but Giorgione delivers his Venuses directly from the cosmos as the <i>Nymph </i>(see the<i> Nymph and Satyr</i> woodcut as presented in the <em>Hypnerotomachia</em>)<em> </em>appears to have been sourced from a constellational form. Giorgione's consistency with the left leg seems to be confirmed by the final arrival of the prominent left leg motif of the Twin Venuses of the <i>Sacred and Profane Love </i>and<i> </i>sourced from the constellation of <i>Serpens Caput</i>. </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">T</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">his very potent attitude (the dominant left leg) arguably influenced Giorgione's <i>Sleeping Venus</i> c.1510, </span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">and the <i>Sacred and Profane Love </i>c.1514 (actually much earlier) </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">as Isabella d'Este's merchant is documented to have approached Bellini in 1506 with a programme (Bellini was reluctant to follow the strict rules) and so the motif of the left leg precedes both the<i> Sleeping Venus</i> </span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">and the </span><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">Sacred and Profane Love </i><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">and yet can be evidenced in both.</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span></div></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: justify;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Giorgione engages sign and metaphor as conceptual entities; there is no theory of everything or theory of anything and so passes from similitude to apprehension through groups of 'natural' correspondences which in itself is a conceptual/intellectual spiritual path as once described by Sallust:</span></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: justify;" trbidi="on"><blockquote style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">"Since God is intellectual, and all intellect returns into itself"</span></blockquote><p> McQueen, J. Allegory. Greek and Roman Allegory, p.15 </p></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: center;" trbidi="on"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: justify;" trbidi="on"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Giorgione portrays a confident belief in a silent, interior language as the commonality between the self and others, and his works are also steeped in the investigation of an Italian religiosity antecedent to the rise of the Holy Roman Church - as a part of common heritage; the essence of the Italian Renaissance. In contrasting Giorgione's sensibility to Titian's, the <i>Hypnerotomachia Poliphili's</i> unusual Italian mysticism would seem beyond the young Titian's personal interests or intellectual predilections, but still, this is not to challenge Titian's obvious intelligence which has been made clear by a marvellous gift for plastic representation. Nevertheless, if Titian be judged by modernist twentieth century criticism (and all 'art' if it is 'art' can be) the comment made by Marcel Duchamp in an interview in 1968 must be presented here:<br /></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: justify;" trbidi="on"><blockquote><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background-color: white; text-align: start;">"In France there is an old saying, “Stupid like a painter.” The painter was considered stupid, but the poet and writer very intelligent. I wanted to be intelligent. I had to have the idea of inventing. It is nothing to do what your father did. It is nothing be another Cézanne. In my visual period there is a little of that stupidity of the painter. All my work in the period before the </span><em style="background-color: white; border-style: solid; border-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; text-align: start;">Nude</em><span style="background-color: white; text-align: start;"> was visual painting. Then I came to the idea. I thought the ideatic formulation a way to get away from influences." </span></span> Retrieved 25-2-2021 <span style="background-color: white; font-family: georgia; text-align: start;">https://www.artnews.com/art-news/retrospective/archives-interview-marcel-duchamp-1968-11708/</span></blockquote></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: justify;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">This is the division between Giorgione and Titian. Giorgione through the collaboration that has become the </span><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">Sacred and Profane Love,</i><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"> discovered something beyond mere representation and contextual manipulation of the image simply re-representing itself: Giorgione was working with images that were multirepresentational concepts. Titian probably never understood the conceptual depth that the </span><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">Sacred and Profane Love's </i><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">programme could invest by employing the multi level synthesis of the programme given to Bellini. The amount of information this method employed (symbology, geometry, mythology, allegory, plastic representation etc.) can be found formatively in the use of geometry by Fra Angelico and certain Northern painters; but the method in the <i>Night/</i><i>Sacred and Profane Love's</i> programme took the methodology employed in previous allegoric methods to an entirely new level.</span></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: justify;" trbidi="on"><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><br /></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: center;" trbidi="on"><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: x-large;"><b>~</b></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: justify;" trbidi="on"><br /></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: justify;" trbidi="on">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 13px; text-align: justify;">Fig 8. Lucas Cranach the Elder. </span><span style="color: black; font-size: 13px; text-align: justify;">Nymph of Spring, c.<span style="color: black;">1518 Museum der Bildenden Kunste</span></span><span style="font-size: small;"></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">One can be an uninformed though competent painter at the same time. Lucas Cranach examples not a stupid painter, but a painter unaware of the finer 'message' of the image of the reclined Venus (<i>see fig 8)</i>. Curiously this work by Cranach seems to have combined Giorgione's <i>Sleeping Venus</i> with ta similar fountain emblem to that of the <i>Sacred and Profane Love</i>. Cranach has placed his Venus in an isolated environment far from the towns in the distance. She reclines upon a luxurious red fabric</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> contrasted by the soothing fecund green of fertility. Behind her a rectangular fountain with the form of a tomb perpetually showers its waters with its own abundance. Has Cranach seen paintings by Giorgione? Cranach may have chosen to deliberately ignore the refined points surrounding the Italian Venus, after all the subtleties of an historic Italian culture do not belong to his world; Cranach would become a friend of Martin Luther and so, sympathetic with the Protestant Reformation: does this interest in Italian paganism display a recalcitrance to the temporal rule of the Holy Roman Church? </span><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">The Nymph of Spring </i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">[fig 8] participates in the manner of Giorgione's reclined or </span><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">Sleeping Venus</i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">, but the mechanics forming the outcome while appearing similar, stem from entirely distinct agendas. </span><br /><br />
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<em><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The author of the </span></em><a href="http://mitpress.mit.edu/e-books/hp/hyptext0.htm"><em><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Hypnerotomachia</span></em></a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><em>, Fra Colonna seems to have developed, discovered, found, or resurrected an historical path as native to the indigenous Italian region as it is likely to get - and which has its own alchemical peculiarities. </em><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: SimSun; mso-fareast-language: ZH-CN;"><v:shapetype coordsize="21600,21600" filled="f" o:preferrelative="t" o:spt="75" path="m@4@5l@4@11@9@11@9@5xe" stroked="f"><v:stroke joinstyle="miter"><v:path gradientshapeok="t" o:connecttype="rect" o:extrusionok="f"><o:lock aspectratio="t" v:ext="edit"><em>Polia the novels heroine, should be seen as Colonna's answer to Dante's Beatrice in a story which could be described as an allegorical and alchemical fantasy and which appears to have influenced the later 'Chymical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz', a later novella also steeped in alchemical implications. Alchemic propositions provide a thread which can be decorated with many religious deities through their theogonies, narratives, myths and allegories. It is interesting to note that </em><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypnerotomachia_Poliphili"><em>the psychologist Carl Jung</em></a><em> admired the Hypnerotomachia </em><em>and thought the dream images to be an affirmation of his theory of archetypes, </em></o:lock></v:path></v:stroke></v:shapetype></span><em>which brings to mind the work of Erich Neumann again in his publication The Great Mother. </em></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: justify;" trbidi="on"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><em>Are we dealing with Jungian archetypes or something more concrete? The next three interests shall consider 1. Concrete influence. 2. Archetypal associations and the curious relationship between Venice and Tenochtitlan. 3. Religious sources; Symbolism of the Cult of Mithras; the Tauroctony etc. </em></span><em style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">These things need to be articulated even if only to be certain of dismissing any of them as fanciful.</em><br />
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</div></div></div></div></div>Paul Doughtonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12560227637710387418noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7323403459729776769.post-63914377527537178232020-10-18T19:03:00.011-07:002022-08-10T04:21:45.169-07:00Home<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<h2><br /></h2><div><br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; text-align: center;">The </span><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium; text-align: center;"><b>Sacred and Profane Love's</b> </span><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; text-align: center;">entire formal structure is based upon the circle (which is inclusive of the pentacle) and strict cosmographic, metaphoric & iconological references. </span></i><i><span style="font-style: normal;"><span><span face=""><span style="text-align: center;"><span><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: times;">The</span><span style="font-family: times;"> </span><b><span style="font-family: times;">Geometry: Venus and the Pentagram</span></b><span style="font-family: times;"> post has been isolated into this brief pictorial abstract:</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></i></div><div><i style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-style: normal; text-align: center;"><br /></span></i></div><div><i style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-style: normal; text-align: center;"><br /></span></i></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-6LikzcAAWRo/X4zVET5cfXI/AAAAAAAAE7I/s4B9OHCR_E0ABMdSGc0A05EOrKsdg6fwQCNcBGAsYHQ/s1600/Titian%2BSacred%2BProfane%2B-%2BCopy%2B%252894a%2529k.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1529" data-original-width="1600" height="581" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-6LikzcAAWRo/X4zVET5cfXI/AAAAAAAAE7I/s4B9OHCR_E0ABMdSGc0A05EOrKsdg6fwQCNcBGAsYHQ/w640-h581/Titian%2BSacred%2BProfane%2B-%2BCopy%2B%252894a%2529k.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"> <br /><a href=" https://www.pauldoughton.com/2020/10/the-sacred-and-profane-love-geometry.html" target="_blank">Link</a> here to <b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Geometry: Venus and the Pentagram</span></b></td></tr></tbody></table></div><div><b><span>~<br /></span></b><b><br /></b><div style="text-align: justify;"><span>T</span><span>he <b><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;">History and Collaboration</span></b></span><span> post has been recently edited & re-published. </span><span>This post</span> argues for recognition of Giorgione's auteurship in the S&P Love citing the late Wendy Sharman Sheard who saw Giorgione's hand in the Orpheus from around the period of the <i>Fondaco dei Tedschi</i> murals. <span>E</span>qually, there is an argument for Giorgione's influence in the collaboration known as the <i>Sacred and Profane Love</i>. </div></div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-F44Rp8F7v0o/Xz8WifI0XnI/AAAAAAAAE5g/KeRNlWgX7VAy2fYzxDnhSkQ4zVxUk5kggCNcBGAsYHQ/s407/34.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="389" data-original-width="407" height="382" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-F44Rp8F7v0o/Xz8WifI0XnI/AAAAAAAAE5g/KeRNlWgX7VAy2fYzxDnhSkQ4zVxUk5kggCNcBGAsYHQ/w400-h382/34.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">Link here to <b><a href="https://www.pauldoughton.com/2012/06/history-and-collaboration-widener.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #cc0000;">History and Collaboration</span></a></b>.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: xx-large;"><b>~</b></span></div></div></div></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span face=""><b><span><span style="text-align: justify;">Links to this sites </span></span></b><span face=""><b><span style="color: #660000;"><span style="text-align: justify;">most </span></span></b></span><span face=""><b><span style="color: #660000;"><span style="text-align: justify;">popular </span></span></b></span></span></span><span face=""><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span face=""><b><span style="color: #660000;"><span style="text-align: justify;">posts </span></span></b></span><b><span style="color: #660000;"><span style="text-align: justify;">are </span></span></b><span face=""><b><span style="color: #660000;"><span style="text-align: justify;">listed</span></span></b></span></span><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><i style="text-align: justify;"> </i><span style="text-align: justify;">below</span></span><span style="font-size: medium; text-align: justify;">:</span></b></span><br /><br />
<i style="color: #660000;">(Two posts have been removed and may be re-posted in the coming months. As I have found my original </i><i style="color: #660000;">insights online without acknowledgement of the source of the argument (this blog)</i><br />
<i style="color: #660000;"> I am reluctant to leave certain works in progress here until this gets sorted.)</i><br />
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<i style="color: #660000;"><i style="color: #660000;"><b style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #444444; font-size: x-large;"><span face="" style="font-size: large; font-weight: normal; text-align: justify;"><b style="color: black; font-size: medium; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">~</span></b></span></span></b></i></i></div></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span><span><span style="color: black;"><span><span face="" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: black; text-align: center;"><span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; color: #660000; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><u>The Birth of Venus:</u></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; color: #660000; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; color: #660000; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; color: #660000; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: times; text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: white; text-align: center;"><b><u><span style="font-size: large;"><span>New Analysis Raises the </span></span></u></b></span><span style="background-color: white; text-align: center;"><u><span style="font-size: large;"><b><span><span>Outstanding Iconographical </span></span></b></span></u></span></span><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: white; text-align: center;"><u><span style="font-size: large;"><b><span><span style="font-family: times;">Concerns.</span></span><span><span style="font-family: times;"> </span> </span></b></span></u></span><span style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://pauldoughton.blogspot.com/2016/01/a-new-analysis-history-and-outstanding.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: black; font-family: georgia;">Botticelli's</span><span style="font-family: times; font-weight: bold;"> </span></a></span></span><i style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://pauldoughton.blogspot.com/2016/01/a-new-analysis-history-and-outstanding.html" style="font-weight: bold;" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Birth of Venus</span></a><b style="font-family: times; font-size: x-large;"> </b></i><span style="background-color: white; font-family: georgia; font-size: x-large; font-style: italic; text-align: center;">[1.]</span></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; color: #660000; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; color: #660000; font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;"><u>The Coronation of Venus/Aphrodite. </u></span></b></span><i><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">[</span></i><span style="font-family: georgia; text-align: left;"><i style="background-color: white; font-size: x-large; text-align: center;"><span>2.</span></i><i style="font-size: x-large; text-align: justify;">]</i></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; color: #660000; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium; font-weight: 400;"><span style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: times;">(</span></b></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: georgia; text-align: center;"><span face=""><span><b>The true </b></span></span></span><b style="background-color: white; font-family: georgia; text-align: center;"><i>meaning</i> behind</b><b style="font-family: georgia; text-align: center;"> </b></span><b style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large; font-weight: 400; text-align: center;">Botticelli's </b><span style="background-color: white; font-family: georgia; text-align: center;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: medium; font-weight: bold;"><a href="https://pauldoughton.blogspot.com/2017/03/the-coronation-of-venusaphrodite.html" style="font-style: italic;" target="_blank">Birth of Venus</a>)</span><span style="font-size: large; font-style: italic;"><b style="font-weight: 400;"> </b></span></span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><i><br /></i></span></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="color: #660000; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-9cByWbiW9Bo/Xb_XkfgM0oI/AAAAAAAAEzE/NnzgTgV-C3cSuK1Ht3qQ5gAap-EUan5oQCNcBGAsYHQ/s1600/Botticelli_Venus%2B-%2BCopy%2B%252810%2529.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="365" data-original-width="509" height="286" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-9cByWbiW9Bo/Xb_XkfgM0oI/AAAAAAAAEzE/NnzgTgV-C3cSuK1Ht3qQ5gAap-EUan5oQCNcBGAsYHQ/w400-h286/Botticelli_Venus%2B-%2BCopy%2B%252810%2529.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"> "The Coronation of Venus/Aphrodite". (detail with authors nimbus design & annotations).<br /></td></tr></tbody></table></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; color: #660000; text-align: justify;"><br /></div></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div></div></div></div></div><div><div><div style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-family: times; font-size: x-large;"><b>~</b></span></i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-family: times; font-size: x-large;"><b><br /></b></span></i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><u>The Sacred and Profane Love:</u></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: center;">
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<a href="https://www.pauldoughton.com/2011/03/sacred-and-profane-love-visual-analysis.html" style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: black;"><span face="" style="font-size: large;">The Visual Analysis </span><span face="" style="font-size: small;">(link)</span></span></a></h2>
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<span face="" style="background-color: white;">'The purpose of writing a visual analysis is to train the eye to see precisely, so that the mind may more accurately perceive...'.</span></div>
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<span face="" style="font-size: large;"><b style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #444444; font-size: x-large;"><span face="" style="font-size: large; font-weight: normal; text-align: justify;"><b style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: medium; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">~</span></b></span></span></b></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span face=""><b><span><span face="" style="font-weight: normal; text-align: justify;"><b style="text-align: center;"><span><u style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">Geometry: Venus and the Pentagram</span></u><u style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: x-large;"> </u><u style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="color: #444444; font-size: medium;"><a href="https://www.pauldoughton.com/2020/10/the-sacred-and-profane-love-geometry.html">(link)</a></span></u></span></b></span></span></b></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span face=""><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="color: #444444;"><span face="" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; text-align: center;"><span><span style="font-size: medium;">The formative development of the Sacred and Profane Love's basic geometry.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span face=""><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="color: #444444;"><span face="" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b> ~</b></span></span></span></span></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small; text-align: left;"><span face="" style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="color: #660000;"><a href="http://www.pauldoughton.com/2012/10/the-zodiacal-metaphors.html"><span face="" style="color: black;">The Zodiacal Metaphors</span></a><span face=""> </span></span></b></span></span><span face="" style="text-align: left;">(link)</span></div>
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<span face="">Perhaps still the most important post on this site: The Zodiacal Metaphors reveal anti-clockwise </span><span face="">sequential </span><span face="">references to specific zodiacal</span><span style="font-size: small;"><span face=""> </span></span><span face="">houses hidden within the painting and which form an allegorical language designed to deliberately coincide with the paintings geometric arrangements.</span><br />
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<span face=""><b style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="color: #444444; font-size: x-large;"><span face="" style="font-size: large; font-weight: normal; text-align: justify;"><b style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: medium; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">~</span></b></span></span></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="http://www.pauldoughton.com/2011/05/ceres-and-proserpine-sacred-and-profane.html"><span face="" style="color: black;"><b>The Women, Fountain and Child</b></span></a><span face="" style="color: black;"> </span></span><span face="" style="color: black; font-size: small;">(link)</span></span></h4>
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<span face="">Discusses the classical and archetypal identities of the three figures at the sarcophagus/fountain, as well as the fountain itself - the original visual source, the geometric confirmation, and philosophical <i>raison d'etre</i>.</span></div>
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<span face="" style="color: #351c75;"><span face=""><a href="http://www.pauldoughton.com/2012/02/analysing-fondaco-dei-tedeschi-murals.html" style="color: black; font-weight: bold;"><span style="color: black; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Meaning of the Fondaco dei Tedeschi murals</span></a><span style="color: #351c75;"><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><span style="font-size: medium; font-weight: normal;">(<i>a </i></span></span><span style="font-size: medium; font-weight: normal;"><i>digression</i>)</span></span></span><span face="" style="font-size: medium;">(link)</span></h4>
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<span face="" style="background-color: white; text-align: left;"><span face="" style="text-align: center;">The intention of this post was to connect the child at the Fountain/Sarcophagus of the <i>Sacred and Profane Love</i> to the child with the 'wand' supposedly 'tapping apples' (J. Anderson. <i>Giorgione - the Painter of 'Poetic Brevity'. </i></span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #392529; text-align: left;"><span face="">New York : Flammarion, c.1997</span></span><span face="" style="background-color: white; text-align: left;"><span face="" style="text-align: center;">) that was painted on the walls of the German trade headquarters in Venice by Giorgione. This post argues that <i>in </i></span></span><span face="" style="background-color: white; text-align: center;"><i>both</i></span><span face="" style="background-color: white; text-align: left;"><span face="" style="text-align: center;"> </span></span><span face="" style="background-color: white; text-align: center;">the </span><span style="font-family: times;"><i style="background-color: white; text-align: center;">Sacred and Profane Love</i><i style="background-color: white; text-align: center;"> </i><span face="" style="background-color: white; text-align: center;">and the</span><i style="background-color: white; text-align: center;"> Fondaco dei Tedeschi </i><span face="" style="background-color: white; text-align: center;">murals</span></span><span face="" style="background-color: white; text-align: left;"><span face="" style="text-align: center;"> the child </span></span><span face="" style="background-color: white; text-align: left;"><span face="" style="text-align: center;">presented as a </span></span><span face="" style="background-color: white;">winged babe intends to</span><span face="" style="background-color: white; text-align: left;"><span face="" style="text-align: center;"> represent the god <i>Mercury, </i>and a</span></span><span face="" style="background-color: white; text-align: left;"><span face="" style="text-align: center;">s b</span></span><span face="" style="background-color: white;">oth instances </span><span face="" style="background-color: white;">conceive </span><span face="" style="background-color: white;"><i>Mercury</i> in this unique manner, it shall be argued that these portrayals can be traced to the <i>oeuvre</i> of Giorgione. But this connection can only be realised by deciphering the general meaning of the Fondaco murals and then comparing that finding with the child of the <i>Sacred and Profane Love. </i>This article finds that Giorgione<i> </i>is most likely responsible for this highly individual iconological presentation in both paintings.</span></div>
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<span face="" style="background-color: white; line-height: 22.4px;">Paul Doughton ©1997 - 2020.</span></div>
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</div></div>Paul Doughtonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12560227637710387418noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7323403459729776769.post-69321909925251676492020-10-18T18:37:00.003-07:002020-10-18T18:41:28.612-07:00<p> </p><div dir="ltr" trbidi="on"><div style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: center;"><div><h2><i style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: x-large;"><u>Home.</u></span></i></h2><div><i style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></b></i></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-6LikzcAAWRo/X4zVET5cfXI/AAAAAAAAE7I/s4B9OHCR_E0ABMdSGc0A05EOrKsdg6fwQCNcBGAsYHQ/s1600/Titian%2BSacred%2BProfane%2B-%2BCopy%2B%252894a%2529k.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1529" data-original-width="1600" height="581" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-6LikzcAAWRo/X4zVET5cfXI/AAAAAAAAE7I/s4B9OHCR_E0ABMdSGc0A05EOrKsdg6fwQCNcBGAsYHQ/w640-h581/Titian%2BSacred%2BProfane%2B-%2BCopy%2B%252894a%2529k.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Sacred and Profane Love's entire formal structure is based upon the circle which is inclusive of the pentacle and strict cosmographical references. (Above: authors design analysis and annotations).<br /></td></tr></tbody></table></div><div><b><span style="font-size: xx-large;">~<br /></span></b><b><br /></b><div style="text-align: justify;"><span>T</span><span>he <b>History and Collaboration</b></span><span> post has been recently edited & re-published. In that post there are three diagrams to show the </span><span>Sacred and Profane Love's </span><span>abstract design (invenzione) simplified into three stages: </span><span>Mythical, Zodiacal, & Cosmographical.</span><span> These diagrams offer direct visual access to the </span>S&P Love's<span> foundational structure. The post also</span> argues for recognition of Giorgione's auteurship in the S&P Love citing the late Wendy Sharman Sheard who saw Giorgione's hand in the Orpheus from around the period of the <i>Fondaco dei Tedschi</i> murals. <span>E</span>qually, there is an argument for Giorgione's influence in the collaboration known as the Sacred and Profane Love. <span style="font-size: large; text-align: center;">Link here to </span><b style="font-size: large; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.pauldoughton.com/2012/06/history-and-collaboration-widener.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #cc0000;">History and Collaboration</span></a></b><span style="font-size: large; text-align: center;">.</span></div></div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-F44Rp8F7v0o/Xz8WifI0XnI/AAAAAAAAE5g/KeRNlWgX7VAy2fYzxDnhSkQ4zVxUk5kggCNcBGAsYHQ/s407/34.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="389" data-original-width="407" height="611" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-F44Rp8F7v0o/Xz8WifI0XnI/AAAAAAAAE5g/KeRNlWgX7VAy2fYzxDnhSkQ4zVxUk5kggCNcBGAsYHQ/w640-h611/34.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>The Sacred and Profane Love: </b> Above: (authors design analysis & annotations).<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-size: xx-large;"><b>~</b></span></div><div><span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="text-align: center;"><span><br /></span></span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="text-align: center;"><span> Botticelli's </span></span></span><span style="background-color: white; text-align: center;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><a href="https://pauldoughton.blogspot.com/2017/03/the-coronation-of-venusaphrodite.html" style="font-style: italic;" target="_blank">Birth of Venus</a></span><span style="font-style: italic;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large; font-style: italic;">[1.] </span></span></span><b style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large; font-style: italic; text-align: center;">The Coronation of Venus Aphrodite</b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large; font-style: italic; text-align: center;"> (The true meaning behind the Birth of Venus).</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white; text-align: center;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large; font-style: italic;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></span></span></div></span></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-9cByWbiW9Bo/Xb_XkfgM0oI/AAAAAAAAEzE/NnzgTgV-C3cSuK1Ht3qQ5gAap-EUan5oQCNcBGAsYHQ/s1600/Botticelli_Venus%2B-%2BCopy%2B%252810%2529.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="365" data-original-width="509" height="458" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-9cByWbiW9Bo/Xb_XkfgM0oI/AAAAAAAAEzE/NnzgTgV-C3cSuK1Ht3qQ5gAap-EUan5oQCNcBGAsYHQ/w640-h458/Botticelli_Venus%2B-%2BCopy%2B%252810%2529.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>Birth of Venus </b>(detail) (Authors design & annotations).<br /></td></tr></tbody></table></div><div><div></div></div></div></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"></div><div><i><b><span style="font-size: x-large;">~</span></b></i></div><br /><div><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span face=""><b><span><span style="text-align: justify;">Links to this sites </span></span></b><span face=""><b><span style="color: #660000;"><span style="text-align: justify;">most </span></span></b></span><span face=""><b><span style="color: #660000;"><span style="text-align: justify;">popular </span></span></b></span></span></span><span face=""><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span face=""><b><span style="color: #660000;"><span style="text-align: justify;">posts </span></span></b></span><b><span style="color: #660000;"><span style="text-align: justify;">are </span></span></b><span face=""><b><span style="color: #660000;"><span style="text-align: justify;">listed</span></span></b></span></span><b><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i style="text-align: justify;"> </i><span style="text-align: justify;">below</span></span><span style="text-align: justify;">:</span></b></span></span><br /><br /><span style="color: #cc0000;"><i>(Two posts have been removed and may be re-posted in the coming months. As I have found my original </i><i>insights online without acknowledgement of the source of the argument (this blog)</i><br /><i> I am reluctant to leave certain works in progress here until this gets sorted.)</i></span><i style="color: #660000;"><br /></i><i style="color: #660000;"><i><b style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #444444; font-size: x-large;"><span face="" style="font-size: large; font-weight: normal; text-align: justify;"><b style="color: black; font-size: medium; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">~</span></b></span></span></b></i></i></div><div><i style="color: #660000;"><i><b style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #444444; font-size: x-large;"><span face="" style="font-size: large; font-weight: normal; text-align: justify;"><b style="color: black; font-size: medium; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></b></span></span></b></i></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #660000;"><span><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: #444444;"><span face=""><span style="color: black; text-align: center;"><span><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><u><b>The Birth of Venus:</b></u></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-size: large;"><u><br /></u></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: times;"><b><u><span style="font-size: large;"><span>New Analysis Raises the </span></span></u></b></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: times;"><u><span style="font-size: large;"><b><span><span>Outstanding Iconographical </span></span></b></span></u></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: white; text-align: center;"><u><span style="font-size: large;"><b><span><span style="font-family: times;">Concerns.</span></span></b></span></u></span><span style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> <a href="https://pauldoughton.blogspot.com/2016/01/a-new-analysis-history-and-outstanding.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: black; font-family: georgia;">Botticelli's</span><span style="font-family: times; font-weight: bold;"> </span></a></span></span><i style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium; font-weight: bold;"><a href="https://pauldoughton.blogspot.com/2016/01/a-new-analysis-history-and-outstanding.html" target="_blank">Birth of Venus</a> </span></i><span style="background-color: white; font-family: georgia; font-size: x-large; font-style: italic; text-align: center;"> [1.]</span></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;"><u>The Coronation of Venus/Aphrodite.</u> </span></b></span><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: georgia; text-align: center;"><span face=""><span><b>The </b></span></span></span><b style="background-color: white; font-family: georgia; text-align: center;"><i>meaning</i> behind the Painting.</b><b style="font-family: georgia; text-align: center;"> </b></span><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium; text-align: center;">Botticelli's</span><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large; text-align: center;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: georgia; text-align: center;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: medium; font-weight: bold;"><a href="https://pauldoughton.blogspot.com/2017/03/the-coronation-of-venusaphrodite.html" style="font-style: italic;" target="_blank">Birth of Venus</a>) </span></span></span><i><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">[</span></i><span style="font-family: georgia; text-align: left;"><i style="background-color: white; font-size: x-large; text-align: center;"><span>2.</span></i><i style="font-size: x-large; text-align: justify;">]</i></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; text-align: left;"><i style="font-size: x-large; text-align: justify;"><br /></i></span></div></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div></div></div></div></div><div><div style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-family: times; font-size: x-large;"><b>~</b></span></i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><u><b>The Sacred and Profane Love:</b></u></span></div><div dir="ltr" trbidi="on"><div style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: center;"><div><div style="text-align: left;"><h2 style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0.75em 0px 0px; position: relative;"><a href="https://www.pauldoughton.com/2011/03/sacred-and-profane-love-visual-analysis.html" style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: black;"><span face="" style="font-size: large;">The Visual Analysis </span><span face="" style="font-size: small;">(link)</span></span></a></h2></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span face="" style="background-color: white;">'The purpose of writing a visual analysis is to train the eye to see precisely, so that the mind may more accurately perceive...'.</span></div><div><span face="" style="font-size: large;"><b style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #444444; font-size: x-large;"><span face="" style="font-size: large; font-weight: normal; text-align: justify;"><b style="color: black; font-size: medium; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">~</span></b></span></span></b></span></div><div style="clear: both;"><div style="text-align: left;"><h4><span style="font-size: small;"><span face="" style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="color: #660000;"><a href="http://www.pauldoughton.com/2012/10/the-zodiacal-metaphors.html"><span face="" style="color: black;">The Zodiacal Metaphors</span></a><span face=""> </span></span></b></span></span><span face="">(link)</span></h4></div></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span face="" style="font-size: large;"><b style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #444444; font-size: x-large;"><span face="" style="font-size: large; font-weight: normal; text-align: justify;"></span></span></b></span></div><div style="clear: both;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span face="">Perhaps still the most important post on this site: The Zodiacal Metaphors reveal anti-clockwise </span><span face="">sequential </span><span face="">references to specific zodiacal</span><span style="font-size: small;"> </span><span face="">houses hidden within the painting and which form an allegorical language designed to deliberately coincide with the paintings geometric arrangements.</span><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span face=""><b style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="color: #444444; font-size: x-large;"><span face="" style="font-size: large; font-weight: normal; text-align: justify;"><b style="color: black; font-size: medium; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">~</span></b></span></span></b></span></div></div></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"></div></div></div></div><div style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: left;"><h4><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="http://www.pauldoughton.com/2011/05/ceres-and-proserpine-sacred-and-profane.html"><span face="" style="color: black;"><b>The Women, Fountain and Child</b></span></a><span face="" style="color: black;"> </span></span><span face="" style="color: black; font-size: small;">(link)</span></span></h4></div></div><div style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span face="">Discusses the classical and archetypal identities of the three figures at the sarcophagus/fountain, as well as the fountain itself - the original visual source, the geometric confirmation, and philosophical <i>raison d'etre</i>.</span></div></div><div style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: x-large;">~</span></b><br /><br /><h4 style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span face="" style="color: #351c75; font-size: large;"><span face=""><a href="http://www.pauldoughton.com/2012/02/analysing-fondaco-dei-tedeschi-murals.html" style="color: black;"><span style="color: black;">Meaning of the Fondaco dei Tedeschi murals</span></a><span style="color: #351c75;"> <span style="font-weight: normal;">(<i>a </i></span></span><span style="font-weight: normal;"><i>digression</i>)</span></span></span><span face="" style="font-size: medium;">(link)</span></h4><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span face="" style="background-color: white; text-align: left;"><span face="" style="text-align: center;">The intention of this post was to connect the child at the Fountain/Sarcophagus of the <i>Sacred and Profane Love</i> to the child with the 'wand' supposedly 'tapping apples' (J. Anderson. <i>Giorgione - the Painter of 'Poetic Brevity'. </i></span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #392529; text-align: left;"><span face="">New York : Flammarion, c.1997</span></span><span face="" style="background-color: white; text-align: left;"><span face="" style="text-align: center;">) that was painted on the walls of the German trade headquarters in Venice by Giorgione. This post argues that <i>in </i></span></span><span face="" style="background-color: white; text-align: center;"><i>both</i></span><span face="" style="background-color: white; text-align: left;"><span face="" style="text-align: center;"> </span></span><span face="" style="background-color: white; text-align: center;">the </span><span style="font-family: times;"><i style="background-color: white; text-align: center;">Sacred and Profane Love</i><i style="background-color: white; text-align: center;"> </i><span face="" style="background-color: white; text-align: center;">and the</span><i style="background-color: white; text-align: center;"> Fondaco dei Tedeschi </i><span face="" style="background-color: white; text-align: center;">murals</span></span><span face="" style="background-color: white; text-align: left;"><span face="" style="text-align: center;"> the child </span></span><span face="" style="background-color: white; text-align: left;"><span face="" style="text-align: center;">presented as a </span></span><span face="" style="background-color: white;">winged babe intends to</span><span face="" style="background-color: white; text-align: left;"><span face="" style="text-align: center;"> represent the god <i>Mercury, </i>and a</span></span><span face="" style="background-color: white; text-align: left;"><span face="" style="text-align: center;">s b</span></span><span face="" style="background-color: white;">oth instances </span><span face="" style="background-color: white;">conceive </span><span face="" style="background-color: white;"><i>Mercury</i> in this unique manner, it shall be argued that these portrayals can be traced to the <i>oeuvre</i> of Giorgione. But this connection can only be realised by deciphering the general meaning of the Fondaco murals and then comparing that finding with the child of the <i>Sacred and Profane Love. </i>This article finds that Giorgione<i> </i>is most likely responsible for this highly individual iconological presentation in both paintings.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span face="" style="background-color: white;"><i><br /></i></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><b style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: xx-large;"><i>~</i></b></div></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-vIONNeguA98/U1Oza2cKuNI/AAAAAAAAC3I/Sf0OYN1f_cs/s1600/pagebreak+2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="68" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-vIONNeguA98/U1Oza2cKuNI/AAAAAAAAC3I/Sf0OYN1f_cs/s1600/pagebreak+2.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div></div><div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div></div></div></div>Paul Doughtonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12560227637710387418noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7323403459729776769.post-8221343120530406432020-10-18T18:33:00.008-07:002020-10-20T16:56:08.315-07:00The Sacred and Profane Love: Geometry: Venus & the pentagram.<p> </p><div dir="ltr" trbidi="on"><div style="text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 1px solid rgb(236, 236, 236); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; color: black; float: right; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-left: 1em; padding: 5px; position: relative; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px; text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><b style="font-size: x-large; text-align: left;"><br /></b><br /></div></div><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><div dir="ltr" trbidi="on"><div style="text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: center;"><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 1px solid rgb(236, 236, 236); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; color: black; float: left; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-left: 1em; padding: 5px; position: relative;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-DxHtNrX5KVc/VF97y-5gBvI/AAAAAAAADN4/IpuqFW8Arz8/s1600/34.jpg" style="clear: left; color: #828282; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-decoration-line: none;"><img border="0" height="475" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-DxHtNrX5KVc/VF97y-5gBvI/AAAAAAAADN4/IpuqFW8Arz8/w500-h475/34.jpg" style="background: transparent; border: none; box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 0px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative;" width="500" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px; text-align: center;">Fig. 1.</td></tr></tbody></table></div></div></div></blockquote></blockquote><p><br /></p><p> </p><div dir="ltr" trbidi="on"><div style="text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div style="text-align: center;"><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 1px solid rgb(236, 236, 236); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; color: black; float: right; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-left: 1em; padding: 5px; position: relative; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px; text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr></tbody></table></div><span style="font-family: times;"><div style="text-align: center;">Fig. 1. The inverted pentagram forms the upper and lower boundaries by </div><div style="text-align: center;">which the dimensions of the fountain /sarcophagus are defined</div><div>6<br />8][</div><div><br /></div><br /></span><span style="font-family: times;"></span><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 1px solid rgb(236, 236, 236); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; color: black; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; padding: 5px; position: relative;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="476" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-bmbXeOpLgMQ/VF97JJVHl3I/AAAAAAAADNw/IrBKDAmKlhM/w489-h476/Picture1tr9.jpg" style="background: transparent; border: none; box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 0px 0px 0px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; padding: 0px;" width="489" /></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 14.08px; text-align: center;">.</td></tr></tbody></table><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14.08px;">Fig. 2. The zodiacal constellations as they correspond with the paintings diminutive iconography</span></div><span style="font-family: times;"></span><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span><br /><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="479" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/--tW-RMlQ3Yo/VGMvp420LgI/AAAAAAAADOI/b2PSocdU8PA/w489-h479/Picture1x122LL.JPG" style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 1px solid rgb(236, 236, 236); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px;" width="489" /></div><span style="font-family: times;"><div style="text-align: center;">Fig 3.<span style="text-align: justify;"> The Fountain, Mercury (psychopomp) and the zodiacal & non-zodiacal </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: justify;">constellations that directly indicate the positioning of the two women, </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: justify;">the fountain, and the child, in relation to the pentagram and the classical narrative. </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: justify;"><br /></span></div><div><span face=""><span face=""><br /></span></span></div><div>Figs 1, 2, & 3. p<span face="">resent the <i>Sacred and Profane Love's </i></span>programme (<i>invenzione</i>) as abstracted from the painting through analysis into three distinct levels. </div><div><br /></div><div>The first level (fig 1.) shows the general proportions that the painted, plastic forms must adhere to.</div><div><br /></div><div>The second level (fig 2.) describes the cosmographical map to which the paintings surrounding diminutive iconology must relate to metaphorically. This level is zodiacal.</div><div><br /></div><div>The third level (fig 3.) shows those constellations that do not describe zodiacal references; they actually describe constellations that refer to serpents (Hydra; Serpens Cauda & Serpens Caput) and these relate directly to the forms of the women. Hydra refers to the hem of Proserpine's opulent dress, while Serpens Cauda & Caput relate directly to the extended arm and leg of Ceres. These reference the women as two aspects of the Great Mother, the Divine Mother, in her aspect as mystical serpent Kundalini. Each level states the importance of the pentagrams design within the painting.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span face=""><div style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: xx-large;">~</span></b></div></span><span style="font-family: times;"><br />It can be seen from the above diagrams that the pentagram is a critical component of the <i>Sacred and Profane Love's</i> design which is confirmed by the two horizontal lines of the (two) pentagrams (upright and inverted) which perfectly create the dimensions of the upper and lower boundaries of the sarcophagus (</span><span style="text-align: center;">see fig.3</span><span style="text-align: center;">).</span><span style="font-family: times;"> </span><span style="font-family: times;">Geometric astronomical association with the planet Venus explain the link between the mythological Venus and her geometric traditional (and alchemical) form as represented the pentagram.</span><span style="font-family: times;"> </span>The following two paragraphs by the author Henry Lincoln explain the astronomical and geometric association of the planet Venus with the pentagram:<br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">'The early astronomers saw the Earth as the centre of the universe, around which the Sun, the stars and the planets revolved. Each planet forms its own pattern of movement around the Sun as seen from the Earth. For the ancient watchers of the heavens, those differing patterns of movement allowed them to draw geometric shapes based on the positions of each planet when it was aligned with the Sun. For instance, Mercury is aligned three times in its orbit and the pattern formed by these conjunctions is an irregular triangle. Mars is aligned four times and forms an irregular four-sided figure. Each planet makes a different number of alignments and each forms its own irregular pattern. Only one planet describes a precise and regular geometric pattern in the sky - and that planet is Venus... and the pattern that she draws as regular as clockwork every eight years is a pentacle.' Henry Lincoln, <i>The Holy Place</i>. p.69. J. Cape, London. 1991</blockquote><br /><span style="font-family: georgia;">Through astronomic geometric identification with the planet Venus, the Roman Venus becomes separated from the Greek </span><i style="font-family: georgia;">Aphrodite. </i><span style="font-family: georgia;">In the</span><i style="font-family: georgia;"> Sacred and Profane Love,</i><span style="font-family: georgia;"> the pentacles structure expresses her cosmological signature as Venus - both goddess and planet.</span><span style="font-family: georgia;"> To further distinguish the separation of Aphrodite from Venus the next section will look at Giorgione's collaborative exposition of the Roman <i>concha/vulva</i> metaphor and the idea of the Venus <i>Marina</i> myth. </span><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 17.6px;">The Venus</span><i style="font-size: 17.6px;"> Vulgare </i><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 17.6px;">of the </span><i style="font-size: 17.6px;">Sacred and Profane Love</i><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 17.6px;"> refers to the clothed woman as Proserpine, who is also Venus; it is she Venus (Proserpine) who wanders across the starry fields gathering flowers prior to her abduction by Pluto.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 17.6px;">The pentagram of the </span><i style="background-color: white; font-size: 17.6px;">Sacred and Profane Love</i><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 17.6px;"> also defines the dimensions of the <i>athanor/sarcophagus/fountain </i>at<i> </i>the centre of the paintings graphic plan, and t</span><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 17.6px;">he athanor as yoni/vulva is discreetly referred to by the nineteenth century occultist Eliphas Levi:</span><br style="background-color: white; font-size: 17.6px;" /></span><blockquote class="tr_bq" style="background-color: white; font-size: 17.6px;"><span style="font-family: times;">'By the Pentagram also is measured the exact proportions of the great and unique Athanor necessary to the confection of the Philosophical Stone and the accomplishment of the Great Work. The most powerful alembic in which the Quintessence can be elaborated is conformable to this figure, and the Quintessence itself is represented by the Sign of the Pentagram.' Eliphas Levi, <i>Transcendental Magic, p.87. </i>Bracken Books, London 1997.</span></blockquote><span style="background-color: white; font-family: times; font-size: 17.6px;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: times; font-size: 17.6px;">Athanor/sarcophagus/fountain,<i> </i>Yoni/vulva/pudenda,<i> </i>and <i>'Kteis'/concha</i><i> </i>are the themes of the portrayals of the Venus/<i>Aphrodite</i> goddess myth </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 17.6px;">(see the programme for the </span><i style="background-color: white; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 17.6px;">Sacred and Profane Love</i><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 17.6px;">, figs 1,2.3). </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: times; font-size: 17.6px;">This is because the 'Great Work' of true alchemy is sexual transmutation, and the <i>athanor, fountain, yoni, pudenda </i>are all metaphors for the<i> vulva;</i> the vessel and matrix of the Alchemical Great Work - without knowledge of which <i>nothing</i> can be accomplished. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: times; font-size: 17.6px;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: times; font-size: 17.6px;">But that which has become artistically compelling is the distinction between the Roman sea-born Venus </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: times; font-size: 17.6px;">(<i>Marina</i>) and the Roman metaphor for the vulva</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: times; font-size: 17.6px;"> <i><b>as the</b></i></span><i style="background-color: white; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 17.6px;"><b><span style="font-family: times;"> pre-geometric/</span><span style="font-family: times;">astrological </span><span style="font-family: times;">Roman</span><span style="font-family: times;"> </span><span style="font-family: times;">adaptation</span><span style="font-family: times;"> </span><span style="font-family: times;">of the</span><span style="font-family: times;"> </span><span style="font-family: times;">Greek </span><span style="font-family: times;">creation myth of </span><span style="font-family: times;">Aphrodite.</span></b></i><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 17.6px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: times; font-size: 17.6px;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 17.6px;"></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: times; font-size: 17.6px;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 17.6px;"></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: times; font-size: 17.6px;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 17.6px;"></span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 17.6px;" /><div style="background-color: white; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 17.6px; text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-LrOGFU73pQc/U5vA73YJEwI/AAAAAAAADCw/IGOtZN0tRNg/s1600/pagebreak+2.jpg" style="color: #828282; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-decoration-line: none;"><img border="0" height="68" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-LrOGFU73pQc/U5vA73YJEwI/AAAAAAAADCw/IGOtZN0tRNg/s1600/pagebreak+2.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(236, 236, 236); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="200" /></a></div><div><br /></div></div></div>Paul Doughtonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12560227637710387418noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7323403459729776769.post-79078553678445476832016-01-13T14:54:00.095-08:002020-10-18T16:38:53.087-07:00New Analysis Raises the Outstanding Iconographical Concerns. (2)<p> </p><h3 class="post-title entry-title" itemprop="name" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 24px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0.75em 0px 0px; position: relative; text-align: left;">New Analysis Raises the Outstanding Iconographical Concerns.</h3><div class="post-header" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, "Palatino Linotype", Palatino, serif; font-size: 10.8px; line-height: 1.6; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><div class="post-header-line-1"></div></div><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, Palatino Linotype, Palatino, serif;"><span style="font-size: 13.2px;"><br /></span></span><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><div class="post-body entry-content" id="post-body-8933450747506807482" itemprop="description articleBody" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, "Palatino Linotype", Palatino, serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 1.4; position: relative; width: 830px;"><div trbidi="on"><div style="text-align: center;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; color: #333333; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; padding: 5px; position: relative; text-align: justify;"><tbody><tr><td><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-YCpMrT8yj-Y/Xb5gRe26cyI/AAAAAAAAEvM/IG6YDa-0qhcy4t1wfXG2e9L3tKz_PwOawCNcBGAsYHQ/s1600/Botticelli_Venus%2B-%2BCopy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="color: #333333; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-decoration-line: none;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1005" data-original-width="1600" height="401" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-YCpMrT8yj-Y/Xb5gRe26cyI/AAAAAAAAEvM/IG6YDa-0qhcy4t1wfXG2e9L3tKz_PwOawCNcBGAsYHQ/s640/Botticelli_Venus%2B-%2BCopy.jpg" style="background: transparent; border: none; box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 0px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative;" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 10.56px;"><span style="background-color: #f9f9f9; color: #252525; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 12.3704px; line-height: 17.3186px; text-align: left;">Fig. 1. Sandro Botticelli, </span><i style="background-color: #f9f9f9; color: #252525; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 12.3704px; line-height: 17.3186px; text-align: left;">The Birth of Venus</i><span style="background-color: #f9f9f9; color: #252525; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 12.3704px; line-height: 17.3186px; text-align: left;"> (c</span><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 10.56px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">.1484-86)</span></span><span style="background-color: #f9f9f9; color: #252525; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 12.3704px; line-height: 17.3186px; text-align: left;">. </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tempera" style="background: none rgb(249, 249, 249); color: #0b0080; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 12.3704px; line-height: 17.3186px; text-align: left; text-decoration-line: none;" title="Tempera">Tempera</a><span style="background-color: #f9f9f9; color: #252525; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 12.3704px; line-height: 17.3186px; text-align: left;"> on canvas. 172.5 cm × 278.9 cm (67.9 in × 109.6 in). </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uffizi" style="background: none rgb(249, 249, 249); color: #0b0080; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 12.3704px; line-height: 17.3186px; text-align: left; text-decoration-line: none;" title="Uffizi">Uffizi</a><span style="background-color: #f9f9f9; color: #252525; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 12.3704px; line-height: 17.3186px; text-align: left;">, Florence</span></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"></div></div></div></div></blockquote><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #990000; font-size: x-large;">S</span>andro<span style="font-size: x-large;"> </span>Botticelli's (1445-1510) <i>Birth of Venus</i><span style="text-align: center;"> </span><span style="text-align: center;">(</span>fig.1) was painted for the Florentine <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorenzo_di_Pierfrancesco_de%27_Medici" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: none; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #333333; line-height: 22.4px; text-align: start; text-decoration-line: none;" title="Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de' Medici"><span style="color: black;">Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de' Medici</span></a> (1463-1503) a younger second cousin to Lorenzo di Piero di Cosimo de' Medici (1449-1492) known as <i>il Magnifico</i> (the Magnificent). </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: justify;">Because the younger Lorenzo was orphaned at the age of 13 years, </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: justify;">il Magnifico</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: justify;"> had his cousin schooled in the ways of the court and tutored by (among others) Angelo (Agnolo) Poliziano and Marsilio Ficino. Extracted from the Media Library of the Palazzo Medici Riccardi (advisory editor Elena Capretti), the early life of Lorenzo runs thus:</span><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, "Palatino Linotype", Palatino, serif; font-size: 13.2px;"><br /></span></div><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: justify;"></span></span><blockquote><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: justify;">"</span><span style="line-height: 16.9px; text-align: left;">When his father Pierfrancesco died prematurely (1476), Lorenzo was left an orphan at the age</span><span style="line-height: 16.9px; text-align: left;"> of </span><span style="line-height: 16.9px; text-align: left;">13. Consequently he and his brother came under the tutelage of </span><a href="http://www.palazzo-medici.it/mediateca/en/Scheda_Lorenzo_il_Magnifico" style="color: #333333; font-weight: bold; line-height: 16.9px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: left; text-decoration-line: none;" title="Lorenzo il Magnifico (1449-1492)">Lorenzo il Magnifico</a><span style="line-height: 16.9px; text-align: left;">, who raised his protegés along with his own children, ensuring that they were given an education of refined culture. In fact, the tutors of Lorenzo </span><em style="line-height: 16.9px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">junior</em><span style="line-height: 16.9px; text-align: left;"> included the poet </span><strong style="line-height: 16.9px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">Naldo Naldi</strong><span style="line-height: 16.9px; text-align: left;">, the humanist </span><strong style="line-height: 16.9px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">Giorgio Antonio di Amerigo Vespucci</strong><span style="line-height: 16.9px; text-align: left;">, the philosopher </span><strong style="line-height: 16.9px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">Marsilio Ficino</strong><span style="line-height: 16.9px; text-align: left;"> and the erudite intellectual </span><strong style="line-height: 16.9px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">Agnolo Poliziano</strong><span style="line-height: 16.9px; text-align: left;">. </span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 16.9px;">Between 1476 and 1490 Ficino addressed to his pupil, whom he called </span><em style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 16.9px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Laurentius minor</em><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 16.9px;">, a number of letters laden with advice, ethical admonitions, religious exhortations and eulogies, which reflect the founding principles of Lorenzo’s education. Moreover the philosopher was in the habit of presenting his pupil with books designed to mould his character, including his own </span><em style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 16.9px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Liber Vita </em><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 16.9px;">and a manuscript containing Plato’s </span><em style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 16.9px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Dialogues</em><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 16.9px;">. </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 16.9px;">Poliziano - the principal tutor of the Medici progeny, in whom he infused a love of classical antiquity - dedicated to Lorenzo the </span><em style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 16.9px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Manto</em><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 16.9px;"> of his </span><em style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 16.9px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Silvae</em><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 16.9px;">, published in 1482, two epigrams in 1484 and an elegy entitled </span><em style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 16.9px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Ad Laurentium Medicem juniorem</em><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 16.9px;">. Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco therefore grew up in the heart of the cultural and philosophical ambit of the Magnifico’s entourage, sharing its frequentations, interests and ideals. </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: justify;">http://www.palazzo-medici.it/mediateca/en/Scheda_Lorenzo_il_Popolano</span></blockquote><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 16.9px;"></span><br /><br /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: justify;">It was believed by Professor E. Gombrich that Ficino was the 'spiritual mentor' of the young Lorenzo </span></span><span style="text-align: center;">during</span><span style="text-align: center;"> the period when both t</span><span style="text-align: center;">he <i>Primavera (c.1482)</i> and the </span><i>Birth of Venus (c.1484-86)</i><span style="text-align: center;"> </span><span style="text-align: center;">were produced. </span>Where Poliziano may have assisted with the <i>Primavera </i>(there is no proof that he did not) the <i>Birth of Venus</i> </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: justify;">may well bear the stamp of Ficino's influence.</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: justify;"> Gombrich believed in the possibility that the influential proximity of Ficino at the court of the Medici may have allowed Ficino to assert his Neo-Platonic influence on either or both the </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: justify;">Primavera</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: justify;"> and the </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: justify;">Birth of Venus. </i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: justify;">Gombrich states:</span><br /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: justify;"></span><blockquote><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: justify;">What can be argued from the proximity of Botticelli's patron to Ficino and from the circumstances which may have accompanied the first commission of this kind of mythology is that these images were seen as something more than decorations. </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: justify;">[Gombrich, 1972, p. 35].</span></blockquote><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: justify;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: justify;">Considering the argument for that claim and the evidence presented by Gombrich - and under the popular acceptance of the paintings as yet unidentified Neo-Platonic meaning - those possibilities must remain theoretical until proved otherwise. However of the <i>Birth of Venus </i>Gombrich is not simply in the ball park; he is already at second base! </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: justify;">According to the Uffizi web site (</span><a href="http://www.uffizi.org/artworks/the-birth-of-venus-by-sandro-botticelli/" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: small; text-align: center; text-decoration-line: none;">www.uffizi.org</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: justify;">) the <i>theme</i> of the </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: justify;">Birth of Venus</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: justify;"> is described by Ovid in the Metamorphoses, and the brief reference there refers to the goddess recalling in the first person as it were, the reference to the Greek word for 'sea foam' which is called </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: justify;">Aphrodite:</i><br /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: justify;"></span><blockquote><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: justify;">"I, too, have some influence with the sea, for I was once fashioned from foam, in its divine depths, and my Greek name recalls that origin."</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 25.34px;"> Metamorphoses Book IV, p.108</span></blockquote><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 25.34px;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: justify;">Further, the Uffizi also claims that the Birth of Venus</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: justify;"> </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: justify;">is</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: justify;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: justify;">a Neo-Platonic allegory:</span><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 25.34px;"></span><blockquote><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 25.34px;">'We can find clear references to the “Stanzas”, a famous poetic work by Agnolo Poliziano, a contemporary of Botticelli and the greatest Neo-Platonic poet of the Medici court. Neoplatonism was a current of thought that tried to connect the Greek and Roman cultural heritage with Christianity.' </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.uffizi.org/artworks/the-birth-of-venus-by-sandro-botticelli/" style="color: #333333; text-decoration-line: none;">www.uffizi.org</a></span></blockquote><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.uffizi.org/artworks/the-birth-of-venus-by-sandro-botticelli/" style="color: #333333; text-decoration-line: none;"></a></span></div><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: justify;">If the painting bears any stamp of Neo-Platonic influence it must contain a certain robustness of debate, something more than the tenuous link to a Renaissance zeitgeist, and because the <i>Birth of Venus</i> and the <i>Primavera</i> differ enormously in subject matter. N</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: justify;">either painting is at all like the other so is it the</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: justify;"> </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: justify;">Birth of Venus or the </i><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: justify;">Primavera</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: justify;"> which contain (or lack) Poliziano's neo-Platonic content? Does Poliziano's poem really contain 'the smoking gun' that can definitively link the brush to the pen? The fact that these two paintings share nothing in conceptual intent is reflected in the interpretative methods that shall be employed to extract their different meanings which is to say the method must participate in the meaning. The Uffizi's claim requires focus & reconsideration.</span><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #333333;"><br /></span></div><span style="color: #333333;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div></span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, Palatino Linotype, Palatino, serif;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 13.2px;"><br /></span></div></span><div style="text-align: justify;"><img height="68" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-LrOGFU73pQc/U5vA73YJEwI/AAAAAAAADCw/IGOtZN0tRNg/s200/pagebreak+2.jpg" style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, "Palatino Linotype", Palatino, serif; font-size: 13.2px; padding: 5px; text-align: center;" width="200" /></div><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, Palatino Linotype, Palatino, serif;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 13.2px;"><br /></span></div></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 13.2px;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">I</span>n most interpretations of the <i>Birth of Venus</i> the description of the arrival of Venus near the shore of Cyprus is somewhat accepted to have been located in Poliziano's '<i>Stanze per la Giostra</i>', an epic poem which itself is believed to have been sourced from several ancient authors </span><span style="font-size: 13.2px;">(Gombrich, </span><i style="font-size: 13.2px;">Botticelli's Mythologies</i><span style="font-size: 13.2px;">, p.74.)</span><span style="font-size: 13.2px;"> </span></div></span><span style="color: #333333;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div></span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, Palatino Linotype, Palatino, serif;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 13.2px;"><br /></span></div></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 13.2px;">Poliziano's writing describes the goddess </span><i style="font-size: 13.2px;">Aphrodite</i><span style="font-size: 13.2px;">/Venus as 'carried across waves on a</span><b style="font-size: 13.2px; font-style: italic;"> conch shell</b><span style="font-size: 13.2px;"> and </span><span style="font-size: 13.2px; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">wafted to shore </span><span style="font-size: 13.2px; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">by</span><span style="font-size: 13.2px; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;"> playful</span><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;"> </span><b style="font-size: 13.2px; font-style: italic;">zephyrs </b><span style="font-size: 13.2px;">(the bold type is to place emphasis on the points to be verified). He writes of the</span><b style="font-size: 13.2px; font-style: italic;"> Hours</b><span style="font-size: 13.2px;"> (</span><i style="font-size: 13.2px;">Horae</i><span style="font-size: 13.2px;">) </span><span style="font-size: 13.2px;">and of</span><b style="font-size: 13.2px; font-style: italic;"> </b><span style="font-size: 13.2px;">Venus</span><span style="font-size: 13.2px;"> receiving her </span><b style="font-size: 13.2px;"><i>celestial</i> </b><b style="font-size: 13.2px;"><i>raiment</i></b><span style="font-size: 13.2px;"> by the </span><b style="font-size: 13.2px;"><i>three</i></b><span style="font-size: 13.2px;"> sisters (</span><i style="font-size: 13.2px;">Horae/Hours</i><span style="font-size: 13.2px;">). </span></div></span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: georgia, times new roman, serif;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 13.2px;"><br /></span></div></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 13.2px;"><span style="text-align: center;">The problems ascribing the <i>Birth of Venus </i>to Poliziano's writing are these: There is no conch shell; there are not three hours (sisters - the Horae), and Zephyrs... is the plurality a mistake in translation? Zephyr<i><b>u</b></i>s (or Zephyr) is the god of the west wind; and the garment about to clothe the naked goddess is earthly and not celestial. However: It does appear to be Zephyr and his wife Khloris - the goddess of flowers who surrounds herself and Zephyr with wind blown roses.<span style="font-family: roboto, sans-serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.8px; word-spacing: 1.6px;"> </span></span></span></span><span style="font-size: 13.2px; text-align: center;">The three relevant stanzas presented below - </span><strong style="font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 21.6px;">XCIX 99, </strong><strong style="font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 21.6px;">C 100, & </strong><strong style="font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 21.6px;">CI 101,</strong><span style="font-size: 13.2px; text-align: center;"> describe the </span><i style="font-size: 13.2px; text-align: center;">Birth of Venus</i><span style="font-size: 13.2px; text-align: center;"> according to Poliziano's pen:</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 13.2px; text-align: center;"><br /></span></div></span><strong style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><strong style="font-size: 13.2px;">XCIX 99</strong></div></strong><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px; font-weight: inherit;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 13.2px; font-weight: inherit;">In the stormy Aegean, the genital member is</span></div></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px; font-weight: inherit;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 13.2px; font-weight: inherit;"> seen to be received in the lap of</span><a href="http://www.theoi.com/Titan/TitanisTethys.html" style="color: #333333; font-size: 13.2px; font-weight: inherit; text-decoration-line: none;"> Tethys</a><span style="font-size: 13.2px; font-weight: inherit;"> to drift</span></div></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px; font-weight: inherit;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 13.2px; font-weight: inherit;"> across the waves, wrapped in white foam, be-</span></div></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px; font-weight: inherit;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 13.2px; font-weight: inherit;"> neath the various turnings of the planets; and</span></div></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px; font-weight: inherit;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 13.2px; font-weight: inherit;"> within, both with lovely and happy gestures, a</span></div></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px; font-weight: inherit;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 13.2px; font-weight: inherit;"> young woman with nonhuman countenance, is</span></div></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px; font-weight: inherit;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 13.2px; font-weight: inherit;"> carried on a conch shell, wafted to shore by</span></div></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 13.2px;"><span style="border: 0px; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> playful zephyrs; and it seems that heaven </span></span><span style="border: 0px; font-size: 13.2px; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">re</span><span style="border: 0px; font-size: 13.2px; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">joices in her birth.</span></div></span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, Palatino Linotype, Palatino, serif;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 13.2px;"><br /></span></div></span><b style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: justify;">Explanation: <span style="line-height: 21.6px; text-align: left;">XCIX 99:</span></b><strong style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 21.6px;"> </strong><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: justify;">The </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: justify;"><b>genital member</b></i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: justify;"> were the testicles of Uranus which were 'received in the lap of </span><a href="http://www.theoi.com/Titan/TitanisTethys.html" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 21.6px; text-decoration-line: none;">Tethys</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: justify;"> (poetically, the sea) now fertilised by the sea foam (the Greek word for sea-foam = </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: justify;"><b>Aphrodite</b></i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: justify;">). The </span><b style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: justify;"><i>'non-human countenance</i></b><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: justify;">' describes a goddess who is carried along by the </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: justify;"><b>conch shell</b></i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: justify;"> and </span><b style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: justify;"><i>wafted to shore</i></b><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: justify;"> by the </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: justify;"><b>playful 'zephyrs'</b></i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: justify;"> (actually Zepyrus = the west wind?). In this stanza there is a cultural conflict because the translation claims </span><b style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px; font-style: italic; text-align: justify;">conch shell </b><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: justify;">and not a cockle or scallop as portrayed by Botticelli.</span><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: georgia, times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: 13.2px;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><strong style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px;">C 100</strong></div><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px; font-weight: inherit;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 13.2px; font-weight: inherit;">You would call the foam real, the sea real, real</span></div></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px; font-weight: inherit;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 13.2px; font-weight: inherit;"> the conch shell and real the blowing wind; you</span></div></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px; font-weight: inherit;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 13.2px; font-weight: inherit;"> would see the lightning in the goddess’s eyes,</span></div></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px; font-weight: inherit;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 13.2px; font-weight: inherit;"> the sky and the elements laughing about her; the</span></div></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px; font-weight: inherit;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 13.2px; font-weight: inherit;"> Hours treading the beach in white garments, the</span></div></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px; font-weight: inherit;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 13.2px; font-weight: inherit;"> breeze curling their loosened and flowing hair;</span></div></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px; font-weight: inherit;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 13.2px; font-weight: inherit;"> their faces not one, not different, as befits sisters.</span></div></span><strong style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 21.6px;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><strong style="font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 21.6px;">Explanation: C 100:</strong><span style="font-size: 13.2px; text-align: justify;"> Emphasis is seemingly placed on the realism [but is in fact laying down the iconology of] </span><b style="font-size: 13.2px; text-align: justify;"><i>the</i></b><span style="font-size: 13.2px; text-align: justify;"> </span><i style="font-size: 13.2px; text-align: justify;"><b>foam</b></i><span style="font-size: 13.2px; text-align: justify;">, </span><b style="font-size: 13.2px; text-align: justify;"><i>the sea</i></b><span style="font-size: 13.2px; text-align: justify;">, the </span><i style="font-size: 13.2px; text-align: justify;">conch shell </i><span style="font-size: 13.2px; text-align: justify;">and the </span><b style="font-size: 13.2px; text-align: justify;"><i>blowing wind</i></b><span style="font-size: 13.2px; text-align: justify;">.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 13.2px; text-align: justify;"><br /></span></div></strong><strong style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><strong style="font-size: 13.2px;">CI 101</strong></div></strong><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px; font-weight: inherit;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 13.2px; font-weight: inherit;">You could swear that the goddess had emerged</span></div></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px; font-weight: inherit;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 13.2px; font-weight: inherit;"> from the waves, pressing her hair with her right</span></div></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px; font-weight: inherit;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 13.2px; font-weight: inherit;"> hand, covering with the other her sweet mound</span></div></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px; font-weight: inherit;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 13.2px; font-weight: inherit;"> of flesh; and where the strand was imprinted by</span></div></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px; font-weight: inherit;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 13.2px; font-weight: inherit;"> her sacred and divine step, it had clothed itself</span></div></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px; font-weight: inherit;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 13.2px; font-weight: inherit;"> in flowers and grass; then with happy, more than</span></div></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px; font-weight: inherit;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 13.2px; font-weight: inherit;"> mortal features, she was received in the bosom</span></div></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px; font-weight: inherit;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 13.2px; font-weight: inherit;"> of the three nymphs and cloaked in a starry gar-</span></div></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px; font-weight: inherit;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 13.2px; font-weight: inherit;"> ment.</span></div></span><strong style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 21.6px;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><strong style="font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 21.6px;">Explanation: CI 101:</strong><strong style="font-size: 12px; line-height: 21.6px;"> </strong><span style="font-size: 13.2px; text-align: justify;">Reference is made to her hand covering her</span><span style="font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 21.6px;"><span style="font-size: 12px;"> </span>'<i>sweet mound</i><b>'</b><b style="font-size: 12px;"> </b><span style="font-size: 12px;">(</span>a</span><span style="font-size: 13.2px; text-align: justify;"> reference to the pudica pose)</span><strong style="font-size: 12px; line-height: 21.6px;">. </strong><span style="font-size: 13.2px; text-align: justify;">Venus is received by the (</span><b style="font-size: 13.2px; text-align: justify;">three</b><span style="font-size: 13.2px; text-align: justify;">) </span><b style="font-size: 13.2px; font-style: italic; text-align: justify;">Horae</b><span style="font-size: 13.2px; text-align: justify;"> and is cloaked in a </span><b style="font-size: 13.2px; text-align: justify;"><i>starry garment</i></b><i style="font-size: 13.2px; text-align: justify;">.</i></div></strong><span style="color: #333333; font-family: georgia, times new roman, serif;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 13.2px; font-style: italic; font-weight: 700;"><br /></span></div></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 13.2px;">Surprisingly the three <i>Horae</i> (hours or seasons) are only very briefly referred to in Ovid's fourth book of the Metamorphoses, and although endorsed in the <a href="http://www.uffizi.org/artworks/the-birth-of-venus-by-sandro-botticelli/" style="color: #333333; text-decoration-line: none;">Uffizi</a> interpretation the Ovidian reference is of little value. </span><span style="font-size: 13.2px;">In fact the reference quoted of Ovid by the Uffizi is of the sea-born goddess reiterating the origin of her identity through the Greek name for 'sea-foam' (<i>Aphrodite</i>). It is a rather loose cultural association </span><span style="font-size: 13.2px;">and </span><span style="font-size: 13.2px;">seems </span><span style="font-size: 13.2px;">hardly worth the gravitas awarded it</span><span style="font-size: 13.2px;"> by the official </span><a href="http://www.uffizi.org/artworks/the-birth-of-venus-by-sandro-botticelli/" style="color: #333333; font-size: 13.2px; text-decoration-line: none;">Uffizi</a><span style="font-size: 13.2px;"> web site.</span></div></span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: georgia, times new roman, serif;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 13.2px;"><br /></span></div></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 13.2px;">That there is only one attendant '<i>Hora'</i> in Botticelli's painting and not three is extremely problematic. </span><span style="font-size: 13.2px;">For example it is as though we are expecting to see the Supremes and what we get is Diana Ross; i</span><span style="font-size: 13.2px;">t is still an excellent performance so the public</span><span style="font-size: 13.2px;"> is not complaining, but the image on the poster <i>does not coincide with the reality</i>. Similarly, in iconographic terms, one female attendant does not equate to the motif of the three -</span><span style="font-size: 13.2px;"> therefore</span><span style="font-size: 13.2px;"> the singular female attendant's identification as a <i>Hora</i> remains questionable. Botticelli may well have had another persona in mind for a critical reason.</span></div></span><span style="color: #333333;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div></span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, Palatino Linotype, Palatino, serif;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 13.2px;"><br /></span></div></span><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, "Palatino Linotype", Palatino, serif; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; padding: 5px; position: relative; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Bf3vqmjrErs/Xb5hsc6M1GI/AAAAAAAAEvY/yD-hIErnaekFnor3idnmWObheLDNKHiqgCNcBGAsYHQ/s1600/Botticelli_Venus%2B-%2BCopy%2B%252823%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="color: #333333; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-decoration-line: none;"><img border="0" data-original-height="558" data-original-width="507" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Bf3vqmjrErs/Xb5hsc6M1GI/AAAAAAAAEvY/yD-hIErnaekFnor3idnmWObheLDNKHiqgCNcBGAsYHQ/s640/Botticelli_Venus%2B-%2BCopy%2B%252823%2529.jpg" style="background: transparent; border: none; box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 0px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative;" width="580" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 10.56px;"><span style="background-color: #f9f9f9; color: #252525; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 12.3704px; line-height: 17.3186px; text-align: left;">Fig. 2. Sandro Botticelli, </span><i style="background-color: #f9f9f9; color: #252525; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 12.3704px; line-height: 17.3186px; text-align: left;">The Birth of Venus</i><span style="background-color: #f9f9f9; color: #252525; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 12.3704px; line-height: 17.3186px; text-align: left;"> (Detail)</span></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, Palatino Linotype, Palatino, serif;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 13.2px;"><br /></span></div></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 13.2px;">Another problem is the pinkish garment which is held near to the figure of Venus by the single '<i>nymph</i>'. Botticelli's Venus is about to receive her garment from the lone female figure standing on the shore, but that robe looks decidedly <i>earthly</i>. </span><span style="font-size: 13.2px;">The issue here is that the garment presented by Botticelli is not a 'starry robe', as described by Poliziano in </span><span style="font-size: 13.2px;">in the</span><span style="font-size: 13.2px;"> '</span><i style="font-size: 13.2px;">Stanze per la Giostra</i><span style="font-size: 13.2px;">':</span><span style="font-size: 13.2px;"> it</span><span style="font-size: 13.2px;"> is o</span><span style="font-size: 13.2px;">n the contrary most definitely 'earthly' and t</span><span style="font-size: 13.2px;">o emphasise this point the garment is covered with flowers and vegetation - </span><span style="font-size: 13.2px;">distinctly</span><span style="font-size: 13.2px;"> marking an iconographic departure from </span><span style="font-size: 13.2px;">Poliziano's</span><span style="font-size: 13.2px;"> original description in </span><span style="font-size: 13.2px;">stanza </span><strong style="font-size: 12px; line-height: 21.6px; text-align: left;">CI 101:</strong><span style="font-size: 13.2px;"> </span></div></span><span style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><blockquote><span style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;">"...cloaked in a starry </span><span style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;">garment."</span></blockquote><span style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: center;">In the painting Botticelli has not simply creatively deviated from the iconography established in Poliziano's verse, he</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: center;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: center;">has completely <i>reversed</i> the cloaks iconographic meaning which now</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: center;"> destroys any credible adherence to the literalism of the supposed source. Therefore it can be said that </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: center;">Poliziano's verse is not the source behind Botticelli's inspiration. N</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: center;">ot honouring the cloak as being celestial in nature completely changes the iconographical import of the action and is an extremely powerful comment that has been iconographically underestimated. </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: center;">If - as Gombrich had suggested - the iconography for both the poem and the painting sourced ancient references which were then composed as a new 'mosaic', these stones, convenient as they might be to modern art-history, simply do not fit. </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px;">As starry garments and robes go, the first that springs to mind is the cloak of Mithras, and where that robe is portrayed the</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px;">iconography is of course integral to the image.</span></div><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, Palatino Linotype, Palatino, serif;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 13.2px;"><br /></span></div></span><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, "Palatino Linotype", Palatino, serif; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; padding: 5px; position: relative; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-0CSQ1tfYYd8/VlBM6rwoELI/AAAAAAAADpU/QjmQC5TtM5E/s1600/csencjQ.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="color: #333333; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-decoration-line: none;"><img border="0" height="285" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-0CSQ1tfYYd8/VlBM6rwoELI/AAAAAAAADpU/QjmQC5TtM5E/s400/csencjQ.jpg" style="background: transparent; border: none; box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 0px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative;" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 10.56px;"><span style="background-color: #f9f9f9; color: #252525; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 12.3704px; line-height: 17.3186px; text-align: left;">Fig. 3. </span><span style="background-color: #f1f1f1; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;"> Fresco from the mithraeum at Marino, Italy (third century)</span></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, Palatino Linotype, Palatino, serif;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 13.2px;"><br /></span></div></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 13.2px;">The iconographic</span><span style="font-size: 13.2px;"> rule <u><i>there</i></u> must be no less important <u><i>here</i></u> in understanding the meaning of the <i>Birth of Venus.</i></span><span style="font-size: 13.2px;"> </span><span style="font-size: 13.2px;">What we actually see in the <i>Birth of Venus</i> - in direct contrast to the paintings supposed </span><span style="font-size: 13.2px;">literal </span><span style="font-size: 13.2px;">source - are two missing nymphs and a substitute for what should have been a specifically 'starry' robe. </span></div></span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: georgia, times new roman, serif;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 13.2px;"><br /></span></div></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 13.2px;"><span style="text-align: center;">Writers of art history have accommodated this fracture in reason, perhaps in the name of <i>art</i>, which is to conclude that an artist may have flights of fancy or that it is within the imaginative power of the artist to alter at will in the cause of whimsy or pictorial balance etc., and so at first this does not appear to diminish the speculated symbolism. After all, Venus does emerge from a shell near to shore blown by the breezes and there you are; all else is apparently inconsequential - but this is wrong. </span></span><span style="font-size: 13.2px; text-align: center;">Iconographically, sensible rules make common sense and the iconographic rule will</span><span style="font-size: 13.2px; text-align: center;"> still make sense across all time and across all disciplines because it needs understanding not compensation. </span></div></span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: georgia, times new roman, serif;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 13.2px;"><br /></span></div></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 13.2px;">We are in the privileged position of being able to, at the click of a mouse, consider the cloak of Mithras in direct comparison to the cloak of Botticelli's Venus. As an </span><span style="font-size: 13.2px;">interdisciplinary exercise</span><span style="font-size: 13.2px;"> w</span><span style="font-size: 13.2px;">e can see that the methodological approach of a fourteenth century Franciscan friar is not incompatible with twentieth century physics. Stephen Hawking in the popular book 'A Brief History of Time' quotes his variation of the method of </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_of_Ockham" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: none; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #0b0080; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 22.4px; text-align: justify; text-decoration-line: none;" title="William of Ockham">William of Ockham</a><span style="font-size: 13.2px; text-align: justify;">:</span></div></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 13.2px;"></span><blockquote><span style="font-size: 13.2px;">'It seems better to employ the principle of economy known as Occam's razor and cut out all the features of the theory that cannot be observed</span><span style="font-size: 13.2px;">." Hawking. p. 59.</span><span style="font-size: 13.2px; text-align: center;"> </span></blockquote><span style="font-size: 13.2px; text-align: center;"></span></div></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 13.2px;"><span style="text-align: center;">It is this very frugality in regard to iconographical interpretation that is required here; two of the three nymphs </span></span><span style="font-size: 13.2px; text-align: center;">cannot be observed </span><span style="font-size: 13.2px; text-align: center;"><i>because they are not there</i> and neither can the starry robe</span><span style="font-size: 13.2px; text-align: center;"> be observed </span><span style="font-size: 13.2px; text-align: center;"><i>because it is not there</i> either. So according to the populist </span><span style="font-size: 13.2px; text-align: center;">meaning of the </span><span style="font-size: 13.2px; text-align: center;"><i>Birth of Venus</i> there are </span><span style="font-size: 13.2px; text-align: center;">two missing nymphs and a substitute for what should have been a starry robe and unfortunately to compensate for these anomalies the <i>Birth of Venus</i> has become over time an '</span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hoc_hypothesis" style="background-image: none; color: #0b0080; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 22.4px; text-decoration-line: none;" title="Ad hoc hypothesis"><i>ad hoc hypothesis</i></a><span style="font-size: 13.2px;">'.</span></div></span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: georgia, times new roman, serif;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 13.2px;"><br /></span></div></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 13.2px;">Why and how, when iconography and iconology are taken as serious pursuits by historians, has this extraordinary lack of critical judgement perpetuated? A</span><span style="font-size: 13.2px;">fter much emphasis by historians on the painting as <i>the</i> product of </span><span style="font-size: 13.2px;">that</span><span style="font-size: 13.2px;"> </span><span style="font-size: 13.2px;">noble and </span><span style="font-size: 13.2px;">erudite environment of </span><span style="font-size: 13.2px;">the Court of the Medici, </span><span style="font-size: 13.2px;">one begins to sense now the ego of the scholar as the erudite performer. No longer merely the academic, but now</span><span style="font-size: 13.2px;"> a hybrid creature</span><span style="font-size: 13.2px;"> half scholar and </span><span style="font-size: 13.2px;">half artist,</span><span style="font-size: 13.2px;"> </span><span style="font-size: 13.2px;">the </span><i style="font-size: 13.2px;">art historian</i><span style="font-size: 13.2px;"> desires to be seen (by proxy) as an artist in his/her own right, in a sense pursuing a careerist agenda developed as a corollary of academic inflation. </span></div></span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: georgia, times new roman, serif;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 13.2px;"><br /></span></div></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 13.2px;">The association with Poliziano's poem has been wheeled out time and again uncritically, as though that original hypothesis had been held between two mirrors (portraying <i>infinite regress</i>) and where it is reflected through time and academia </span><i style="font-size: 13.2px;">ad infinitum</i><span style="font-size: 13.2px;">. </span><span style="font-size: 13.2px;">Jan Assman stated in his book 'Moses the Egyptian':</span></div></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 13.2px;"><blockquote>"Disciplines develop questions of their own and by doing so function as a mnemotechnique of forgetting with regard to concerns of a more general and fundamental character." Assman, p.6</blockquote></span></div></span><span style="background-color: white; text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px;">And this is precisely what has occurred in these academically acceptable interpretations of the <i>Birth of Venus</i>. </span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px;">Perhaps institutionally, i</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: georgia, times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: 13.2px;">t is actually easier to create </span></span><i style="color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px;">ad hoc</i><span style="color: #333333; font-family: georgia, times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: 13.2px;"> propositions and seen to be producing than it is to find the time in very busy schedules to go it alone and to tease out those tiny inconsistencies that left unexamined incrementally develop into bureaucratic maxims. </span></span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px;">S</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px;">upport can only be forthcoming from those who have </span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px;">the time and</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px;"> the <i>spatial</i> <i>intelligence</i> to </span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px;"><i>see</i> the vision;</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px;"> to bother to tread outside a well beaten path, </span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px;">and u</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px;">niversity culture (certainly in the arts) seems to have created an almost </span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px;">hostile</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px;"> environment towards innovation and enthusiasm and the spatial mindset which is the cornerstone of creativity. </span></div></span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: georgia, times new roman, serif;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 13.2px;"><br /></span></div></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 13.2px;">Because t</span><span style="font-size: 13.2px;">he <i>Birth of Venus</i> is missing </span><span style="font-size: 13.2px;">a starry robe and </span><span style="font-size: 13.2px;">two Horae, the</span><span style="font-size: 13.2px;"> conclusion can only be that Poliziano's verse is more of a stage prop which has critically very little to do with the more meaningful iconography of Botticelli's painting. </span><span style="font-size: 13.2px;">These points represent two major iconographic issues in the painting as regards interpretation and we must now become more sensitive and open to any further insights that might be gleaned from the culture that spawned this icon of art history. </span><span style="font-size: 13.2px;">But to expand upon and elucidate further possibilities there are some rather intense cultural issues to consider.</span></div></span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: georgia, times new roman, serif;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 13.2px;"><br /></span></div></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 13.2px;"><span style="text-align: center;">Please see my post: </span></span><a href="https://pauldoughton.blogspot.com/2017/03/the-coronation-of-venusaphrodite.html" style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, "Palatino Linotype", Palatino, serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: small; text-decoration-line: none;">The Coronation of Venus/Aphrodite</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: arial, tahoma, helvetica, freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 24px; text-decoration-line: none;">.</span></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div></span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, Palatino Linotype, Palatino, serif;"><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-LrOGFU73pQc/U5vA73YJEwI/AAAAAAAADCw/IGOtZN0tRNg/s1600/pagebreak+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="color: #333333; font-size: 13.2px; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: justify; text-decoration-line: none;"><img border="0" height="68" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-LrOGFU73pQc/U5vA73YJEwI/AAAAAAAADCw/IGOtZN0tRNg/s1600/pagebreak+2.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="200" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 13.2px;"><br /></span></div></span><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, "Palatino Linotype", Palatino, serif; font-size: 13.2px; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: justify; text-decoration-line: none;"><br /></div><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, Palatino Linotype, Palatino, serif;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 13.2px;"><br /></span></div></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 13.2px;">Bibliography:</span></div></span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: georgia, times new roman, serif;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 13.2px;"><br /></span></div></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: justify;">Ovid, Metamorphoses. </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: justify;">Trans. M.M. Innes 1955. Penguin Books Australia.</span><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px;"><br /></span></div><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: justify;">E. H Gombrich, Symbolic Images (enter details)</span><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px;"><br /></span></div><span style="background-color: #fbf9f4; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px; font-variant-caps: small-caps; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-align: right;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 13.2px; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal;">Mediateca di Palazzo Medici Riccardi. </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 16.9px; text-align: justify;">(Advisory editor Elena Capretti),</span><span style="color: #fbf9f4; font-size: 13.2px; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal;">i</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 16.9px; text-align: justify;">Lorenzo il Popolano. http://www.palazzo-medici.it/mediateca/en/Scheda_Lorenzo_il_Popolano</span></div></span><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: center;">Hawking, Stephen. 1988. A Brief History of Time. Bantam Press, Great Britain.</span></p><div class="post-body entry-content" id="post-body-8933450747506807482" itemprop="description articleBody" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, "Palatino Linotype", Palatino, serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 1.4; position: relative; width: 830px;"><div dir="ltr" trbidi="on"><div style="text-align: justify;"><div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; text-align: justify;"><span style="line-height: 19.2px; text-align: right;">Assman. J. </span><span style="text-align: right;">1998. </span><span style="font-size: small; text-align: right;">Moses the Egyptian: The Memory of Egypt in Western Monotheism.</span><span style="font-size: small; text-align: right;"> </span><span style="line-height: 19.2px; text-align: right;"><span style="font-size: small;">Harvard University Press.</span></span></span><br /></div></div></div></div></div></div>Paul Doughtonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12560227637710387418noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7323403459729776769.post-59575205395522232982012-10-27T04:55:00.456-07:002020-08-22T02:36:57.282-07:00The Zodiacal Metaphors: Unveiling the Sacred and Profane Love's Astrological programme.<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="color: #660000;"><span face="" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-style: italic; text-align: center; text-indent: 0cm;">T</span><span style="font-style: italic; line-height: 19.2px;">he circle is the key to unveiling the </span><i style="font-style: italic; line-height: 19.2px;">Sacred and Profane Love's</i><span style="line-height: 19.2px;"><span style="line-height: 19.2px;"><i> complex allegorical subject matter. In a design sense a circle unites several unique graphic patterns as structures to which the painted image corresponds. W</i></span></span></span></span><em><span style="color: #660000;"><span face="" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;"><span style="line-height: 19.2px;">hen understood as a constellation map, t</span></span></span></em><em><span style="color: #660000;"><span face="" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;"><span style="line-height: 19.2px;">he small painted ciphers located within the given circle are revealed as a sequence of zodiacal metaphors, each of which resonate with the paintings grand design. Information gleaned from the painting elucidates a fusion of</span></span><span face="" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; line-height: 19.2px;"> </span></span></em><em><span style="color: #660000;"><span face="" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; line-height: 19.2px;">astronomy to </span></span></em><em><span style="color: #660000;"><span face="" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;"><span style="line-height: 19.2px;">c</span></span><span face="" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; line-height: 19.2px;">osmogony; </span></span></em><em><span style="color: #660000;"><span face="" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; line-height: 19.2px;">astro-mythology to</span></span></em><em><span style="color: #660000;"><span face="" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; line-height: 19.2px;"> classical myth; and alchemy blended with h</span><span face="" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; line-height: 19.2px;">ermeticism</span><span face="" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; line-height: 19.2px;">.</span><span face="" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; line-height: 19.2px;"> </span></span></em><br />
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<em><span style="color: #660000; font-size: x-large;"><b>~</b></span></em>
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<span style="color: #cc0000;">Edited 8/22/2020</span></div>
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<span face="" lang="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; line-height: 19.2px; text-indent: 0cm;"><span style="text-align: center; text-indent: 0cm;"><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="text-align: justify;">T</span><span style="font-size: 16px; text-align: justify;">he celestial globe is the apparent two-dimensional panorama of the starry canopy seen with the naked eye from an Earthbound point of view.</span><span style="text-align: justify;"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Earth itself can be supposed to lie at the centre of this imaginary celestial sphere where her </span></span></span></span><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: center;">Northern & Southern </span><span face="" lang="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; line-height: 19.2px; text-indent: 0cm;"><span style="text-align: center; text-indent: 0cm;"><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">terrestrial poles </span></span></span></span><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: center;">correspond </span><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; text-align: center; text-indent: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">to the poles of that celestial globe</span></span><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 0cm;"> (fig. 1.). </span><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 0cm;">A direct line </span><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16px;">emerging through our planets North pole would by extension, </span><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 0cm;">pierce</span><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16px;"> the centre of the <i>North Celestial Pole</i>, just as the Southern extension of that line would pierce</span><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 0cm;"> the centre of the </span><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 0cm;">South Celestial Pole</i><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 0cm;">. Each half of the celestial sphere is divided and bound by a circle which represents the <i>Celestial equator</i> as a boundary (see fig. 1.) which divides the <i>Northern hemisphere</i> from the <i>Southern hemisphere</i>. </span><br />
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<span face="" lang="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; line-height: 19.2px; text-indent: 0cm;"><span style="text-align: center; text-indent: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; text-align: justify;"><br /></span></span></span>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ONtfj403ics/WAS9MIiv_mI/AAAAAAAAD8Q/HbGZlmaiP9EmRzRtu0cltix_LruNGM2HwCLcB/s1600/Figer.gif" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ONtfj403ics/WAS9MIiv_mI/AAAAAAAAD8Q/HbGZlmaiP9EmRzRtu0cltix_LruNGM2HwCLcB/s400/Figer.gif" width="355" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">fig 1. The poles of the celestial sphere correspond with Earth's terrestrial poles.</td></tr>
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<span face="" lang="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; line-height: 19.2px; text-indent: 0cm;"><span style="text-align: center; text-indent: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; text-align: justify;"></span></span></span><br />
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<span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><span lang="" style="line-height: 19.2px; text-indent: 0cm;"><span style="text-align: center; text-indent: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; text-align: justify;">T</span></span></span><span style="font-size: 12pt; text-align: center; text-indent: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 19.2px; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0cm;"><span style="text-align: center;">he contents of the</span><i style="text-align: center;"> South Celestial Hemisphere </i></span></span></span><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16px;">[hemisphere = half-sphere] </span><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; text-align: center; text-indent: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 19.2px; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0cm;"><span style="text-align: center;">(see</span></span></span><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; text-align: center; text-indent: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 19.2px; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0cm;"><span style="text-align: center;"> </span></span></span><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: center;">fig. 1, </span><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; text-align: center; text-indent: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 19.2px; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0cm;"><span style="text-align: center;">above)<i> </i></span></span></span><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; text-align: center; text-indent: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 19.2px; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0cm;"><span style="text-align: center;">contains all of t</span></span></span><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; text-align: center; text-indent: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 19.2px; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0cm;"><span style="text-align: center;">he constellations visible with</span></span></span><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; text-align: center; text-indent: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 19.2px; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0cm;"><span style="text-align: center;">in the longitudinal lined area d</span></span></span><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; text-align: center; text-indent: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 19.2px; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0cm;"><span style="text-align: center;">esignated as 'Celestial sphere'. The constellations visible within the <i>South Celestial Hemisphere</i> are </span></span></span><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: center;">exclusively relevant to understanding the </span><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: center;">Sacred and Profane Love </i></div>
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<span face="" lang="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 19.2px; text-indent: 0cm;"><span style="text-align: center; text-indent: 0cm;"><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: center;"><br /></span></span></span>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-4SFoCl8coEU/XEUUDMIUFzI/AAAAAAAAEes/oDqjMr-afIY7kpejcwwyS3ulgwBe2v0QwCLcBGAs/s1600/888%2B%25281%2529.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="636" height="400" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-4SFoCl8coEU/XEUUDMIUFzI/AAAAAAAAEes/oDqjMr-afIY7kpejcwwyS3ulgwBe2v0QwCLcBGAs/s400/888%2B%25281%2529.jpg" width="397" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">fig. 2. Two dimensional constellation map of the South Celestial Hemisphere <br />
replete with the South Celestial pole at the centre. </td></tr>
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<span face="" lang="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 19.2px; text-indent: 0cm;"><span style="text-align: center; text-indent: 0cm;"><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 0cm;"><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; text-align: justify;">The </span><i style="text-align: justify;">South Celestial Hemisphere</i><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 19.2px; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0cm;"> has a specific point of view being as it were an eye located in an infinite position looking toward the earth from above the</span><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: center;"> </span><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: center;">South Terrestrial Pole</i><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: center;"> which is here represented as a two dimensional image</span></span></span></span><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: center;"> </span><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; text-align: center; text-indent: 0cm;"><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: center;">within a circle (See fig. 2). The boundary of that circle is known as </span></span><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: center;">the C</span><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: center;">elestial equator </i><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; text-align: center; text-indent: 0cm;"><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: center;">(see figs. 1 & 2) and it is the boundary and contents of this same celestial circle that is represented in the <i>Sacred and Profane Love</i>.</span></span><br />
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<span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; text-align: center; text-indent: 0cm;"> </span><em style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #660000; font-size: x-large;"><b>~</b></span></em></div>
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<span face="" lang="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 19.2px; text-indent: 0cm;"><span style="text-align: center; text-indent: 0cm;"><br /></span></span>
<span lang="" style="line-height: 19.2px; text-indent: 0cm;"><span style="text-align: center; text-indent: 0cm;"><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: x-large;">A</span><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"> </span><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">direct line drawn from the <i>South Celestial Pole</i> at centre, to the partly visible constellation of Taurus - located in the upper left quadrant at the maps edge - defines </span></span></span><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><span style="text-align: center;">the radial line of the circle. This</span><span lang="" style="line-height: 19.2px; text-indent: 0cm;"><span style="text-align: center; text-indent: 0cm;"> limitation is actually describing </span></span><span style="text-align: center;">the radial line of the </span><i style="text-align: center;">Celestial Equator</i><span lang="" style="line-height: 19.2px; text-indent: 0cm;"><span style="text-align: center; text-indent: 0cm;">. On the painting of the <i>Sacred and Profane Love</i> this line can be located by drawing a straight line beginning at the mouth of the <i>spigot</i></span></span><i style="line-height: 19.2px; text-align: center;"> </i><span style="line-height: 19.2px; text-align: center;">(</span><span style="line-height: 19.2px; text-align: center;">at the front of </span><span style="line-height: 19.2px; text-align: center;">the</span><span style="line-height: 19.2px; text-align: center;"><i> fountain</i>)</span><span lang="" style="line-height: 19.2px; text-indent: 0cm;"><span style="text-align: center; text-indent: 0cm;"> </span></span><span style="line-height: 19.2px; text-align: center; text-indent: 0cm;">and ending at the <i>body of the</i> <i>rider on horseback</i> at the paintings upper left</span><span style="line-height: 19.2px; text-align: center; text-indent: 0cm;">. This line refers to the boundary of the <i>Southern constellation map</i> (see fig. 2.) The corresponding circle in the <i>Sacred and Profane Love</i> uses select information (constellations) found within that map. </span></span><br />
<span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><span style="line-height: 19.2px; text-align: center; text-indent: 0cm;"><br /></span></span>
<span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><span style="line-height: 19.2px; text-align: center; text-indent: 0cm;">Using the <i>spigot</i> and the <i>traveller on horseback</i> as references,</span><span style="line-height: 19.2px; text-align: center; text-indent: 0cm;"><i> </i>t</span><span style="line-height: 19.2px; text-align: center;"><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">he boundary of a large circle may be</span><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"> located over the familiar image of the <i>Sacred and Profane Love</i></span><span face="" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;"> </span></span><span style="text-align: center;">(see fig. 3)</span><span style="text-align: center; text-indent: 0cm;">. Both the <i>boundary of the constellation map</i> and the <i>boundary of the circle</i> refer precisely to the constellational information </span><span style="text-align: center;">contained within the </span><i style="text-align: center;">South Celestial Hemisphere</i><span style="text-align: center; text-indent: 0cm;"> - and therefore this same information relates directly to the content of the </span><i style="text-align: center; text-indent: 0cm;">Sacred and Profane Love</i><span style="text-align: center; text-indent: 0cm;">. This is to say that fundamentally, the foundation of the <i>Sacred and Profane Love</i> is a circle and that circle refers to a celestial map.</span></span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-mTjh5tKpkSs/XEcU8u4u7ZI/AAAAAAAAEgs/1JjSLT_jwuwupn_hUOa8o3wt_QKWcBPSACLcBGAs/s1600/77.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="965" height="512" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-mTjh5tKpkSs/XEcU8u4u7ZI/AAAAAAAAEgs/1JjSLT_jwuwupn_hUOa8o3wt_QKWcBPSACLcBGAs/w308-h512/77.jpg" width="308" /></a></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: 13px;"><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">Fig. 3.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 13px;"><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">This radial line (<i>c - a</i>) is the key to unlocking the paintings mysteries.</span></span></div>
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<span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><span style="text-indent: 0cm;">This line </span>(refer to fig. 3.) <span style="text-indent: 0cm;">drawn </span><span style="text-indent: 0cm;">between the mouth of the spigot (<i>c</i>) at the front of the fountain/sarcophagus and the body of the <i>rider on horseback</i> at position (<i>a</i>) corresponds</span><span style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="" style="line-height: 19.2px; text-indent: 0cm;"> with the radial line from the <i>South Celestial pole</i> to the constellation of Taurus on the constellation map of the <i>Southern Celestial Hemisphere (</i>fig. 2. & fig 4.).<i> </i>It is clear that a</span></span><span style="line-height: 19.2px;"> </span><span style="line-height: 19.2px; text-indent: 0cm;">direct correspondence can be made between the <i>Sacred and Profane Love's</i> iconography and the map of the <i>South Celestial Hemisphere. </i>The position of the spigot directly corresponds to the position of the </span><i>South Celestial pole, </i><span style="text-align: justify;">while </span><span style="text-align: justify;">the <i>rider on horseback</i> directly corresponds to the constellation of Taurus</span><i>.</i></span></div>
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<span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><span style="line-height: 19.2px; text-indent: 0cm;"><br /></span>
<span style="line-height: 19.2px; text-indent: 0cm;">Once the existence of this circle is accepted, <b><i>n</i></b><i><b>ine</b></i> references to <i><b>eight</b></i> zodiacal constellations can be revealed. However there are nine indicators for only eight existing astrological existing references because one was deleted and later reconsidered and then re-positioned. This point (see Scorpio on this list)</span> carries its own curious implications, but<span style="text-indent: 0cm;"> even without the latter correction<b> </b></span><span style="text-indent: 0cm;"><b>eight</b> zodiacal correspondences to the <b>eight</b> visible constellations occurring in the <i>South Celestial Hemisphere</i> is compelling - which is to say - <b>there is a 100% direct correspondence</b>.</span></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-PTteEE6cJzA/VTcAHw3W_sI/AAAAAAAADbc/vE1XQGX_enc/s1600/p%2B(2).jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="625" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-PTteEE6cJzA/VTcAHw3W_sI/AAAAAAAADbc/vE1XQGX_enc/s640/p%2B(2).jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: small;">Fig.4 The <i>Southern Constellation map</i> with all of the non-zodiacal constellations removed and</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">correctly positioned over the Sacred and Profane Love's rectangular dimensions, </span></div>
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<span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><span lang="" style="line-height: 19.2px; text-indent: 0cm;"></span></span><br />
<span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><span lang="" style="line-height: 19.2px; text-indent: 0cm;"></span></span><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><span lang="" style="line-height: 19.2px; text-indent: 0cm;"><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">Using the same constellation map presented earlier (fig. 2.) </span><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; text-align: center;">all non zodiacal constellations have been removed (fig. 4.) leaving</span><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; text-align: center;"> </span><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">only the zodiacal constellations that are present in the <i>South Celestial Hemisphere</i>.<i> The </i>constellation</span><span face="" style="font-family: "times new roman"; text-align: center;"><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"> map is approximated in position (</span></span></span></span><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; text-align: center;">fig. 4.) </span><span face="" lang="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; line-height: 19.2px; text-indent: 0cm;"><span face="" style="font-family: "times new roman"; text-align: center;"><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">over the <i>Sacred and Profane Love's</i> </span></span><span face="" style="font-family: "times new roman"; text-align: center;"><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">rectangular dimensions although in the painting these positions are compressed into the paintings rectangular format. Nevertheless the anti-clockwise zodiacal sequences that underlie the <i>Sacred and Profane Love</i> can be seen to rotate in the same anti-clockwise direction as the zodiacal belt. The flow of the entire figurative organisation of the </span></span></span><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; text-align: center;">Sacred and Profane Love</i><span face="" lang="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; line-height: 19.2px; text-indent: 0cm;"><span face="" style="font-family: "times new roman"; text-align: center;"><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"> mimics this circular flow. </span></span></span><br />
<span face="" lang="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; line-height: 19.2px; text-indent: 0cm;"><br /></span>
<span face="" lang="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; line-height: 19.2px; text-indent: 0cm;">Again, i</span><span face="" lang="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 19.2px; text-indent: 0cm;">n both the constellation map and the painting it is the position of the constellation of Taurus at the upper left that </span><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 19.2px; text-align: center;">limits the boundary</span><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 19.2px; text-align: center;"> of the </span><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 19.2px; text-align: center;">circle. </span><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: 16px; line-height: 19.2px; text-align: center;">While </span></span><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 19.2px; text-align: center;">the circles boundary</span><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 19.2px; text-align: center;"> is defined at the position of the </span><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: center;">traveller on horseback, more importantly, <b>it is </b></span><b><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: center;">the diagonal road upon which the rider on horseback is travelling</span><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: center;"> </span></b><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: center;"><b>which mimics the visible diagonal remnant of Taurus</b> as seen in the <i>Southern Constellation Map</i>. It is t</span><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 19.2px; text-align: center;">he intersection of the constellation of Taurus (see fig. 2) which reveals the pattern of the iconolgy used (the road).</span><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 19.2px; text-align: center;"> </span><br />
<span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 19.2px; text-align: center;"><br /></span>
<span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 19.2px; text-align: center;">As the circle extends well below the picture frame the <i>Sacred and Profane Love's</i> iconography is allowed to accommodate the paintings given dimensions having been pictorially adjusted to suit the paintings rectangular format. </span><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; text-align: center; text-indent: 0cm;">It may well be that due to the rigid programme that <i>is</i> the </span><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; text-align: center; text-indent: 0cm;">Sacred and Profane Love</i><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; text-align: center; text-indent: 0cm;"> the painting was intended originally as a site specific artwork destined to have been mounted in a site specific environment where the circular section might have been accommodated with wall decoration. </span><br />
<span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><br /></span>
<span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">In the</span><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"> </span><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">Sacred and Profane Love</i><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"> </span><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">the mouth of the spigot </span><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">corresponds to </span><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">position '</span><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">c</i><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">' the <i>South Celestial Pole</i> at the constellation maps centre which is marked by a cross hair (see fig. 4.) </span><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: center;">Locating this circle is the key which unlocks the proportion and inherent meaning of the </span><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: center;">Sacred and Profane Love</i><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: center;">.</span><br />
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<b style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">~</span></b></div>
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<b style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="text-align: center;"><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"></span></span></span></b>
<b style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="text-align: center;"><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"></span></span></span></b>
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<span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">L</span>ooking to the <i>Sacred and Profane Love</i> the c</span><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">ircles centre corresponds to the spigot at the front of the fountain </span></span><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">(see fig. 3.) Again, the spigot is the circles centre and the boundary is made finite at the position of the traveller on horseback and the radial line of the circle is presented as a line which connects</span><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"> positions <i>c-a</i> (fig. 3.) which corresponds with the line <i>c-a</i> at the centre of the constellation map of the<i> South Celestial Hemisphere (fig 4). </i></span></div>
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<span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><span lang="" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 19.2px; text-indent: 0cm;"></span></span><br />
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<span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 19.2px; text-indent: 0cm;"></span>
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 19.2px; text-indent: 0cm;">The main points designated by the mouth of the spigot are:</span></span><br />
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<span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 19.2px; text-indent: 0cm;">1. </span><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 19.2px; text-indent: 0cm;">The mouth of the spigot corresponds to the position of the </span><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 19.2px; text-indent: 0cm;">South Celestial Pole</i><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 19.2px; text-indent: 0cm;"> on a constellation map of the </span><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 19.2px; text-indent: 0cm;">South Celestial Hemisphere. </i><br />
<span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 19.2px; text-indent: 0cm;"><br /></span>
<span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 19.2px; text-indent: 0cm;">2. The</span></span><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 19.2px; text-indent: 0cm;"> circles radius </span><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 19.2px; text-indent: 0cm;">shall be limited at </span><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 19.2px;">the <i>rider on horseback</i> racing toward the fortress in the <i>Sacred and Profane Love. </i>T</span><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16px;">he road upon which the horse gallops mimics the (forward slash) constellation of Taurus. </span><br />
<span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 19.2px; text-indent: 0cm;"><br /></span></span>
<span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 19.2px; text-indent: 0cm;">3. </span></span><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 19.2px; text-indent: 0cm;"> </span></span><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 19.2px; text-indent: 0cm;">The </span><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16px;">centre of the circle - r</span><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 0cm;">emains equidistant from the circles nominated boundary. </span><br />
<span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 19.2px; text-indent: 0cm;"><br /></span></span>
<span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 19.2px; text-indent: 0cm;">4. </span></span><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 19.2px; text-indent: 0cm;"> </i><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 19.2px; text-indent: 0cm;">The</span><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 19.2px;"> boundary of the <i>South Celestial Hemisphere</i> intersects </span><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 19.2px; text-indent: 0cm;">the constellation of Taurus on a map of the <i>South Celestial Hemisphere</i> (see figs. 2, 3, 4) thereby </span><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 19.2px; text-indent: 0cm;">designating Taurus as the <b>first zodiacal sign on the round of visible constellations</b>.</span><br />
<span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 19.2px; text-indent: 0cm;"><br /></span>
<span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 19.2px; text-indent: 0cm;">5. </span><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 19.2px; text-indent: 0cm;"> </i><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 19.2px; text-indent: 0cm;"> </i><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 19.2px;">The road imitates the 'forward slash' dynamic of the constellation of Taurus as seen on the map of the </span><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 19.2px;">South Celestial Hemisphere</i><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 19.2px;">.</span><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 19.2px;"> </span><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 19.2px; text-indent: 0cm;"> In figs </span><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; line-height: 19.2px; text-indent: 0cm;">2, 3, & 4 the circles intersection at the position of Taurus can be seen to explicitly correspond with the <i>Sacred and Profane Love</i> and the constellation map. </span><span face="" lang="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 19.2px; text-indent: 0cm;">Taurus </span><span face="" lang="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 19.2px; text-indent: 0cm;">is the only truly accurate <i>site specific </i>constellation on the round (see fig. 4) and that</span><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; text-align: center;"> where the circles perimeter is defined (position (<i>a) </i>at the sign of Taurus)</span><span face="" lang="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 19.2px; text-indent: 0cm;"> highlights this constellations foremost </span><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 19.2px;">purpose</span><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 19.2px; text-indent: 0cm;"> as the</span><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 19.2px; text-indent: 0cm;"> point~of~departure.</span><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; text-align: center;"> Taurus is the 'lock' that reveals the circle and uncovers the paintings stunning geometric complexities.</span><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="text-align: center;"><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><br /></span></span><span style="text-align: center;"><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">Very importantly, those constellations</span></span><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"> produced in the <i>Sacred and Profane Love</i> were<i> </i>discussed by Firmicus Maternus <span style="line-height: 19.2px;">(A.D. 334 - 37) </span>in the eighth book on judicial astrology: <i>The <a href="https://archive.org/details/matheseoslibrivi01firmuoft">Matheseos Libri VIII</a></i> (<i style="background-color: white; color: #252525; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.4px; text-align: start;">c.</i><span face="" style="background-color: white; color: #252525; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.4px;"> 334-</span> <span face="" style="background-color: white; color: #252525; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.4px;">37</span>) and several of these descriptions by Firmicus are relevant to decoding the zodiacal iconology employed in the<i> Sacred and Profane Love. </i></span><br />
<span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><i><br /></i></span>
<span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">T</span><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">his being so, those astrological correlations between the iconology of the </span><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">Sacred and Profane Love </i><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">and</span><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"> </i><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">the text of the </span><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">Matheseos Libri VIII</i><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"> find a third correspondence in </span><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">the ceiling of the </span><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">Sala dei Vent</i><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">i in the </span><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">Palazzo del Te, </i><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">Mantua, and<i> t</i></span><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">his will form the basis of the next stage of this analysis.</span><br />
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span face="" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;"><span style="color: #990000;"><i>Several descriptions written by Firmicus are in direct correspondence with the ceiling of the Sala dei Venti in the Palazzo del Te. This is to say that the ceiling of the Sala dei Venti and the Sacred and Profane Love share a common source - and that source is the </i></span><span style="color: #660000;"><i>Matheseos Libri </i><i>VIII </i>of <i>Firmicus Maternus.</i></span></span></blockquote>
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<span style="color: #660000; font-size: x-large;">T</span>he ceiling of the<span style="color: #0b5394;"> </span></span><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 19.2px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0cm;"><a href="http://www.oliverus.de/opencosmos/Alben/Mantuate/album/"><span style="color: #0b5394;">Sala dei Venti</span></a></i><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"> in the <i>Palazzo del Te</i> in Mantua was designed and completed by Giulio Romano (1499-1546). </span><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">Professor Ernst Gombrich i</span><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">n his 1972 publication </span><em style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">Symbolic Images</em><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">,</span><em style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"> </em><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">announced the source of Romano's zodiacal programme as being the </span><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">Matheseos Libri </i><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">VIII </i><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">of Firmicus. </span><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; line-height: 19.2px;">The </span><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; line-height: 19.2px;">Matheseos</i><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; line-height: 19.2px;"> is known to historians as the eighth and final book on<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judicial_astrology"> judicial astrology</a></span><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">:</span><br />
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<span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><span style="text-align: center;">"the last book of which contains a conveniently coded catalogue of these [zodiacal] constellations and their influence on human destiny."</span><i> </i></span></blockquote>
<span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><i><br /></i>The <i>Sacred and Profane Love</i> leans heavily on the <i>Matheseos</i> as a constellation catalogue both in selection, and through the adoption of several of the unusual interpretations 'celestial influences' which were described by Firmicus. The result of Firmus' writings distinguish the catalogue<span style="line-height: 19.2px;"> from being specifically describing a constellation map or a celestial atlas, it's reason for being is to <i>interpret</i><i> </i>the influences of the constellations. It is not comprised of traditional zodiacal iconography, for example; the bull to represent Taurus and the hunter to represent Orion etc., which make the observation of star groups the more recognisable. </span></span><span lang="" style="line-height: 120%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">D</span><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; line-height: 19.2px;">uring the early part of the sixteenth century the development of the modern star map was still in its infancy, and those celestial atlas’s which achieved popularity during the later sixteenth century were generally sourced from earlier catalogued forms of celestial cartography such as the </span><em style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; line-height: 19.2px;">Matheseos</em><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; line-height: 19.2px;">. </span><br />
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On a star map of the southern constellations with the<i> South Celestial Pole</i> at centre, nine zodiacal references inhabit the<i> </i>map at the same time. The only signs not actually announcing a direct relationship to the zodiacal name (in the Latin) is the constellation <i>Lepus</i> - which refers to Gemini and of <i>Canis Major </i>(the latter would refer to Leo - later deleted). Of these two constellations Gombrich relates this very important observation in his publication <i>Symbolic Images</i> which is of keystone relevance to the understanding of the <i>Sacred and Profane Love's</i> iconography:</span><br />
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<em style="line-height: 19.2px; text-align: center;"><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><em> “</em><span lang="">The only constellation rising with Gemini is the Hare (Lepus)".</span></span></em></blockquote>
<span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">And of Leo, Gombrich again details the text of Firmicus:</span><br />
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<em style="line-height: 19.2px;"><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"> “The dog-star (Canicula), which rises in the fifth degree of Leo..."</span></em></blockquote>
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<span style="text-indent: 0cm;">But the most important link between the <i>Sacred and Profane Love</i> and the <em>Sala dei Venti</em> is that in the <i>Sacred and Profane Love</i> Firmicus' interpretative and often fantastical commentary has, in the hands of Guilio Romano, become </span>visual literalism, which is to say that Romano has simply<span style="text-indent: 0cm;"> </span><span style="text-indent: 0cm;">migrated those direct interpretations of Firmicus from the textual to the pictorial. But the abstract plan of the ceiling made by Mr Charles Redfield for Gombrich and published in <i>Symbolic Images </i>abstracts the geometry of the plan from the virtuosity of Romano: we can see clearly in diagrammatic clarity the idea and sequences without the beguilement of Romano's talent. </span></span><br />
<span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><span style="text-indent: 0cm;"><br /></span></span><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><span style="text-indent: 0cm;">Through Redfield's </span></span><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">simplified analysis t</span><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><span style="text-indent: 0cm;">he</span></span><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; text-indent: 0cm;"> ceilings complexity reveals the zodiacal plan easily confirmed by the anti-clockwise sequence of zodiacal procession. It is within this sequence that will found the unique correspondences that declare Firmicus' </span><em style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; text-indent: 0cm;">Matheseos </em><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; text-indent: 0cm;">to be a common source between the </span><em style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; text-indent: 0cm;">Sala dei Venti, </em><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; text-indent: 0cm;">a star map of the southern sky, </span><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; text-indent: 0cm;">and the <i>Sacred and Profane Love.</i></span><br />
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<span style="text-indent: 0cm;">Of the zodiacal references that occur in the <i>Sacred and Profane Love, </i>four accord directly with Firmicus' literal interpretations. A</span>s an allegory t<span style="text-indent: 0cm;">he five remaining interpretations were likely considered too cumbersome </span><span style="text-indent: 0cm;">and fanciful for the </span><i>Sacred and Profane Love</i>. One only has to view Romano's images of the <i>Sala dei Venti</i> to find visual transliterations of the absurd. In contrast to the <i>Sacred and Profane Love</i>, Romano's execution of the <i>ready-made </i>plan has been entirely inspired by Firmicus' strange interpretations of the planetary influences; following those fantastical interpretations more literally and applying them to the walls and ceiling of the <em>Sala dei Venti </em>with an emphasis on decorative order rather than simple constellational accuracy.</span><br />
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Nothing about the <i>Sacred and Profane Love</i> appears unnatural or overtly peculiar. <span style="text-indent: 0cm;">The remaining zodiacal references appear to employ the catalogue of Firmicus purely as a sequential, cosmographic source - but that they are sourced from the same catalogue is evident. Naturally, a</span><span style="text-indent: 0cm;">ll of the constellations of the </span><i style="text-indent: 0cm;">Sacred and Profane Love</i><span style="text-indent: 0cm;"> place emphasis on those specific selections that would confirm the viewpoint of the </span><i style="text-indent: 0cm;">South Celestial Hemisphere</i><span style="text-indent: 0cm;"> with the </span><i style="text-indent: 0cm;">South Celestial Pole</i><span style="text-indent: 0cm;"> positioned at the centre. </span><span style="text-indent: 0cm;"> </span></span></div>
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All this is not to say that the <i>Sacred and Profane Love</i> entirely ignores Firmicus. It is possible that the 'fallen ivy covered pillar' noted by the author and (maligned) historian Harold E. Wethey may have been an attempt to visually reconcile the main star of Scorpio - <em>Ara</em> (Altar) - with an interpretation of Firmicus, and if so this appears to have been thought better of and deleted through over painting. </span><br />
<span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><span style="text-indent: 0cm;"><br /></span></span>
<span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><span style="text-indent: 0cm;">The inclusion of Gemini and Leo in the <i>Sacred and Profane Love's</i> programme accord with the </span><i style="text-indent: 0cm;">Matheseos. </i><span style="text-indent: 0cm;">Harold </span>Wethey announced the 'dogs head' as an over painted symbol (in this analysis that over painted symbol was the iconograph for the constellation of <i>Canis Major</i> being the reference to Leo) and his sightings must now be given their due. </span><br />
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Scorpio will reappear next to Sagittarius therefore it may be assumed that the painter was working left to right. Firmicus states that Scorpio (under a different planetary influence) can be regarded as a breeder of horses and so that constellations form has been given proximity to each other and so pairing these two equine symbols; Scorpio with the constellation of Sagittarius (The Centaur) -<b> </b>imitating their cosmographical relationship to each other which can be seen by<b> </b>using a modern star map of the <i>southern celestial constellations </i>(see fig. 4).</span></div>
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<span face="" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-auWTPQ5HI-o/UzlqpDY4C2I/AAAAAAAACk4/YXtL3Hx0dpo/s1600/pagebreak+2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="68" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-auWTPQ5HI-o/UzlqpDY4C2I/AAAAAAAACk4/YXtL3Hx0dpo/s1600/pagebreak+2.jpg" width="200" /></a></span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px;"><span face="" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: small;">Fig 5. Ceiling of the <a href="http://marinni.livejournal.com/469550.html?thread=4722222">Sala dei Venti</a> in the Palazzo del Te.</span><br />
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<span face="" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 19.2px; text-indent: 0cm;"><i style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: medium; line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0cm;"><span face="" style="color: #990000; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">Before this outline of the zodiacal metaphors begins, those direct visual comparisons can also be made between the Sacred and Profane Love, the constellation map of the South Celestial Hemisphere, and the Sala dei Venti at the Palazzo del Te, Mantua.</span></i></span></span>
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<span face="" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 19.2px; text-indent: 0cm;"><i style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: medium; line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0cm;"><span face="" style="color: #990000; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><br /></span></i></span></span></div>
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<span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; line-height: 19.2px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0cm;">Within </span><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; line-height: 19.2px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0cm;">the </span><em style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; line-height: 19.2px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0cm;">Sala dei Venti</em><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; line-height: 19.2px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0cm;"> at the Palazzo del Te in Mantua (fig. 6.) Giulio Romano - a friend of Titian's - painted the ceiling [fig. 5] of the </span><em style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; line-height: 19.2px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0cm;">Sala dei Venti</em><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; line-height: 19.2px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0cm;"> in thirty seven sections. </span><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; line-height: 19.2px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0cm;">Twelve of these sections were given to the months of the year; another twelve were alternately allocated to the signs of the zodiac, while the remaining thirteen central divisions were given to deities of the Roman pantheon. </span><span face="" lang="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; line-height: 19.2px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0cm;">Cradled by the months of the year and in direct relationship to each zodiacal sign is a circular 'medallion' or ‘roundel’ that interprets the texts of the<i> Matheseos</i></span><span face="" lang="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; line-height: 19.2px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0cm;"> of Firmicus</span><span face="" lang="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; line-height: 19.2px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0cm;">.</span><br />
<span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><span style="line-height: 19.2px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0cm;"><br /></span></span>
<span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><span style="line-height: 19.2px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0cm;">Here the interest is neither in Romano’s stylism or virtuosic capabilities and neither is it Romano’s pictorial interpretation of the plan which he has acquired. What is relevant to the</span><i style="line-height: 19.2px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0cm;"> </i><span style="line-height: 19.2px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0cm;">purpose of this essay is that a plan can be abstracted from the ceiling of the </span><em style="line-height: 19.2px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0cm;">Sala dei Venti</em><span style="line-height: 19.2px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0cm;"> which was sourced, in part at least, from the </span><em style="line-height: 19.2px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0cm;">Matheseos</em><span style="line-height: 19.2px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0cm;"> </span><em style="line-height: 19.2px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0cm;">Libri VIII</em><span style="line-height: 19.2px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0cm;"> of Firmicus - and which are presented as those diminutive iconographs that populate the </span><i style="line-height: 19.2px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0cm;">Sacred and Profane Love's </i><span style="line-height: 19.2px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0cm;">bucolic landscape</span><em style="line-height: 19.2px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0cm;">. </em><span style="line-height: 19.2px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0cm;">This is to say that the programme for the ceiling of the <i>Sala dei Venti</i> and the </span><i style="line-height: 19.2px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0cm;">Sacred and Profane Love</i><span style="line-height: 19.2px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0cm;"> are based on the same source - the </span><i style="line-height: 19.2px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0cm;">Matheseos </i><span style="line-height: 19.2px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0cm;">of Firmicus, and all of these zodiacal references are to be found in a star map of the</span><i style="line-height: 19.2px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0cm;"> South celestial Hemisphere.</i></span><br />
<span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; line-height: 19.2px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0cm;"><br /></span>
<span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; line-height: 19.2px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0cm;">Gombrich's analysis of the </span><em style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; line-height: 19.2px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0cm;">Sala dei Venti</em><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; line-height: 19.2px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0cm;"> </span><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; line-height: 19.2px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0cm;">ceiling</span><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; line-height: 19.2px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0cm;"> associated each of the pictorial elements of the ceiling with appropriate selections from the works of Firmicus and Manilius. That</span><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; line-height: 19.2px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0cm;"> graphic diagram of the ceiling designed by Charles Redfield for Gombrich’s publication </span><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; line-height: 19.2px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0cm;">Symbolic Images </i><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; line-height: 19.2px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0cm;">in 1937 is reproduced below in Fig 6:</span></div>
<span face="" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;"><span lang="" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 19.2px;"><span lang="" style="line-height: 19.2px;"><br /></span></span></span>
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<tr><td><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-KEMjm4GTUUE/U0lVS_0GJ5I/AAAAAAAACyg/jOFQe2O66lU/s1600/034.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span face="" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-KEMjm4GTUUE/U0lVS_0GJ5I/AAAAAAAACyg/jOFQe2O66lU/s1600/034.jpg" width="468" /></span></a></td></tr>
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<span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: small;">Fig 6. Charles Redfield's simplified design of the ceiling of the<i> Sala dei Venti </i>in the Palazzo del Te. </span><br />
<span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: small;"><span style="text-indent: 0cm;">(Source: Symbolic images E. H. Gombrich, Phaidon Press Limited, London, 1975. p.113</span><span style="text-indent: 0cm;">).</span></span></div>
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<span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 19.2px; text-indent: 0cm;">With Redfield's plan turned on its side, the correspondence between the ceiling of the </span><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; text-align: center; text-indent: 0cm;"><i>Sala dei Venti</i> and</span><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; text-align: center; text-indent: 0cm;"> the format of the </span><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 19.2px; text-indent: 0cm;">Sacred and Profane Love</i><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 19.2px; text-indent: 0cm;"> </i><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 19.2px; text-indent: 0cm;">becomes more easily discernible. </span><br />
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Fig. 7 Redfield's diagram of the <i>Sala dei Venti</i> showing the positions of</div>
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Venus (Proserpine) Mercury, and Ceres at the centre of the plan.</div>
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<span style="text-indent: 0cm;"><span style="line-height: 19.2px; text-indent: 0cm;"><span face="" style="color: #990000; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: x-small; font-style: italic;"> </span></span></span><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 19.2px; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0cm;">In the centre of Redfield's plan</span><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 19.2px; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0cm;"> </i><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 19.2px; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0cm;">there are several deities, and isolated from these are Venus, Mercury, and Ceres (see fig. 7) </span><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 19.2px; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0cm;">again corresponding with the format of the </span><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 19.2px; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0cm;">Sacred and Profane Love.</i><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 19.2px; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0cm;"> In the </span><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 19.2px; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0cm;">Sacred and Profane Love </i><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 19.2px; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0cm;">Venus has been replaced by </span><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 19.2px; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0cm;">Proserpine (who is a version of the terrestrial Venus) </span><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 19.2px; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0cm;">and</span><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 19.2px; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0cm;"> </i><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 19.2px; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0cm;">so</span><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 19.2px; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0cm;"> <i>confirm</i> the classical identities</span><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 19.2px; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0cm;"> of the two women and the child positioned </span><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; line-height: 19.2px; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0cm;">a</span><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; text-align: center; text-indent: 0cm;">round the fountain/sarcophagus. </span><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; text-align: center; text-indent: 0cm;">As in the</span><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; text-align: center; text-indent: 0cm;"> finished</span><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 12.8px; text-align: center; text-indent: 0cm;"> </span><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 19.2px; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0cm;">Sacred and Profane Love </i><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 19.2px; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0cm;">painting (</span><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; text-align: center; text-indent: 0cm;">fig. 1.)</span><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 19.2px; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0cm;"> ) </i><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 19.2px; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0cm;">this</span><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; text-align: center; text-indent: 0cm;"> central suite of figures is surrounded by those diminutive, figurative, metaphors, which all refer to signs of the zodiac</span><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; text-align: center; text-indent: 0cm;">. It is clear that this format appears to be derived from the same source as the</span><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 12.8px; text-align: center; text-indent: 0cm;"> </span><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 19.2px; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0cm;">Sacred and Profane Love, </i><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 19.2px; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0cm;">but a very basic version. Here presents another argument for collaboration in the </span><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 19.2px; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0cm;">Sacred and Profane Love; </i><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0cm;"><span style="line-height: 19.2px;">for while the format is similar and the references clearly derived from the </span><i style="font-size: 16px; line-height: 19.2px;">Matheseos,</i><span style="line-height: 19.2px;"> the iconological subtlety make Romano's ceiling simply an illustrated version of Firmicus. But this same plan having passed through the hands of Bellini (briefly) formatted and geometrised by Giorgione (</span></span><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0cm;">the geometric code, the artists substitution of Proserpine for Venus) was</span><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0cm;"> only 'finished' (read authenticated) by the very silent Titian. Bellini & Giorgione expose the conceptual mind of an artist - rather than the Sacred and Profane Love being an apparently solo effort by Titian - the painter. Again it is Giorgione's masterwork more connected to Bellini than Titian.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 13px;"> <span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"> Fig. 8</span></span><span style="font-size: 13px;"> </span><b><i><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: x-small;">b</span></i></b></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 13px;"><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">Fig. 8</span> </span><b><i><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: x-small;">a</span></i></b></td></tr>
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<tr><td><span face="" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-jdW7nh0ZqJs/U0qUVd3aI2I/AAAAAAAAC1A/mfX3HBOoIGw/s1600/bub+11.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="385" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-jdW7nh0ZqJs/U0qUVd3aI2I/AAAAAAAAC1A/mfX3HBOoIGw/s1600/bub+11.jpg" width="400" /></a><br />Fig. 8<i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: small;"><b>c</b></i><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: small;">.</span><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /></span></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption"><span face=""><div style="clear: both; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: medium; text-align: justify;"><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">Fig. 8 </span><i><b><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: x-small;">a.</span></b></i><span face="" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;"> Shows t</span><span face="" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;">he locations of the first four zodiacal metaphors found in the </span><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: small;">Sacred and Profane Love.</i></div><div style="clear: both; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: medium; text-align: justify;"><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: small;"><br /></i></div><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: medium; text-indent: 0cm;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span face="" style="text-indent: 0cm;">Fig. 8 <i><b><span style="font-size: x-small;">b</span></b></i></span><span face="" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; text-indent: 0cm;">. Is the </span><span face="" style="text-indent: 0cm;"><span face="" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;">descriptive comparison as laid out in Charles Redfield's plan of the </span><span face="" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;"><i>Sala dei Venti.</i></span></span></div></span><span face="" style="text-indent: 0cm;"><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: medium; text-indent: 0cm;">Fig<i>. 8</i></span><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: medium; font-style: italic; text-indent: 0cm;"><b>c</b></i><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: medium; font-style: italic; text-indent: 0cm;">.</span><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: medium; font-style: italic; text-indent: 0cm;"> </span><span style="font-family: times;"><span face="" style="text-indent: 0cm;">S</span><span face="" style="text-indent: 0cm;">ited over the rectangular format of the </span><span face="" style="text-indent: 0cm;"><i>Sacred and Profane Love</i>, the zodiacal constellations have been i</span><span face="" style="text-indent: 0cm;">solated from the constellations not relevant to this study. T</span><span face="" style="text-indent: 0cm;">he circle as constellation map is </span><span face="" style="text-indent: 0cm;">showing </span><span face="" style="text-indent: 0cm;">the correct celestial positions of the zodiacal metaphors.</span></span></div></span></span></td></tr>
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<span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: large; line-height: 19.2px; text-indent: 0cm;">P</span><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 19.2px; text-indent: 0cm;"><b>osition no. 1</b> </span><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 19.2px; text-indent: 0cm;">of the </span><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 19.2px; text-indent: 0cm;">Sacred and Profane Love</i><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 19.2px; text-indent: 0cm;"> </span><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; text-align: left;">(detail </span><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; text-align: center;">Fig. 8 </span><span style="text-align: center;"><b><i><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">a</span></i><span face="" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;">) </span></b></span><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 19.2px; text-indent: 0cm;">corresponds to the painted </span><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span face="" style="font-size: 16px; line-height: 19.2px; text-indent: 0cm;">'traveller on horseback' which actually indicates the position of <b>Taurus</b> as seen </span><span face=""><span style="font-size: 13px; text-align: center;"> </span><span style="text-align: center;">in</span><span style="font-size: 13px; text-align: center;"> </span></span><span style="text-align: center;"><span face="">Fig 8</span></span><span style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span><i style="font-size: small; font-weight: bold;"><span face="">b</span>. </i>on </span></span><span style="line-height: 19.2px; text-indent: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Redfield's</span><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16px;"> </i></span><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 19.2px; text-indent: 0cm;">plan of the Sala dei Venti </span><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 19.2px; text-indent: 0cm;">(here there is an important clue and an odd mistake by Gombrich regarding his translation of the text of Firmicus - it is a mistranslation to refer to this as 'fission of Taurus hooves', rather it should read 'fissure'). </span><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 19.2px; text-indent: 0cm;">But in the plan of the Sala dei Venti </span><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 19.2px; text-indent: 0cm;">(Fig 8.</span><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 19.2px; text-indent: 0cm;">b</i><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 19.2px; text-indent: 0cm;">) position no.<b>1</b> is described by Firmicus as the 'Fission of Taurus hooves' which is ascribed to zodiacal <b>Taurus</b>. </span><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 19.2px; text-indent: 0cm;">On the </span><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 19.2px; text-indent: 0cm;">abstracted star map (Fig 8. <b>c</b>) position no. <b>1</b> indicates the constellation of <b>Taurus</b>.</span></div>
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<span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; line-height: 19.2px;"><span style="font-size: large;">P</span></span><b><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><span style="line-height: 19.2px;">osi</span><span style="line-height: 19.2px;">tion no.</span></span><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 19.2px;"> </span></b><b style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 19.2px;">2</b><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 19.2px; text-indent: 0cm;"> of the </span><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 19.2px; text-indent: 0cm;">Sacred and Profane Love</i><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 19.2px; text-indent: 0cm;"> </span><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; text-align: left;">(detail </span><span style="text-align: center;"><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">Fig. 8. </span></span><span style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span face=""><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">a</span></span><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">)</span></span><span style="font-size: 13px; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;"> </span></span></span><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 19.2px;">the two rabbits </span><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 19.2px;">correspond to the position of <b>Gemini. </b></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 19.2px;">I</span><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 19.2px; text-indent: 0cm;">n the plan of the Sala dei Venti </span><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 19.2px; text-indent: 0cm;">(Fig 8.</span><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 19.2px; text-indent: 0cm;">b</i><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 19.2px; text-indent: 0cm;">)</span><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 19.2px; text-indent: 0cm;"> </i><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 19.2px; text-indent: 0cm;">at</span><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 19.2px; text-indent: 0cm;"> </i><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 19.2px; text-indent: 0cm;">position <b>2,</b></span><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 19.2px; text-indent: 0cm;"> </i><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 19.2px; text-indent: 0cm;">Firmicus offers the word 'Hare' under the area ascribed to zodiacal <b>Gemini</b>. This action occurs exactly at the right of Venus/Proserpine. </span><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 19.2px; text-indent: 0cm;">On the </span><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 19.2px; text-indent: 0cm;">abstracted star map (Fig 8. <b>c</b>) position no. <b>2</b> indicates the constellation of <i>Lepus</i> (the Hare).</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;">
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<span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: large; line-height: 19.2px;">P</span><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 19.2px;"><b>osition no.</b> <b>3</b> of the<i> Sacred and Profane Love</i> (</span><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; text-align: left;">detail </span><span style="text-align: center;"><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">Fig. 8 </span></span><span style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><i style="font-weight: bold;">a</i>)</span><span style="font-size: 13px; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;"> </span></span></span><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 19.2px;">is also Harold Wethey's 'head of a dog or a cow...' which was overpainted by either Giorgione or Titian, and which refers to </span><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 19.2px;"><a href="https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Canicula">Canicula</a> - the</i><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 19.2px;"> Dog star, symbol for <b>Leo</b>.</span><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 19.2px;"><i> </i></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 19.2px;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; line-height: 19.2px;">An observation made by Harold Wethey in 1972 in his publication where Wethey claimed to have detected the overpainted animal was obviously correct. We must now ask the question 'what does a painting lose through restoration now that we can actually compare...?' </span><br />
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<span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 19.2px;">In the plan of the <i>Sala dei Venti</i> </span><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 19.2px;">(Fig 8.</span><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 19.2px;">b</i><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 19.2px;">) at position <b>3,</b> Firmicus simply offers the words 'Dog Star' and gives the zodiacal sign to <b>Leo</b>. </span><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 19.2px; text-indent: 0cm;">On the </span><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 19.2px; text-indent: 0cm;">abstracted star map (Fig 8. <b>c</b>) position no. <b>3 </b>indicates the constellation of <i>Canis Major</i> (Great Dog).</span></div>
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<span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">P</span><b>osition no.</b> <b>4</b> is allocated to <b>Virgo</b>. In the<i> Sacred and Profane Love </i></span><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; text-align: left;">(detail, </span><span style="text-align: center;"><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">Fig. 8 </span></span><span style="text-align: center;"><span><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: small;"><i style="font-weight: bold;">a</i>) </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">this is the area occupied by the small rose bush (which is being watered by the all-important spigot)</span><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: small;"> </span></span></span><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; text-align: center;">at the front of the sarcophagus/fountain</span><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; text-align: center;">.</span></div>
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<span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 19.2px;">In the plan of the Sala dei Venti </span><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 19.2px;">(Fig 8.</span><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 19.2px;">b</i><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 19.2px;">) at position <b>4</b> under the zodiacal area of <b>Virgo</b> is the word 'Wreath'.</span></div>
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<span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 19.2px;">On the </span><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 19.2px;">abstracted star map (Fig 8. <b>c</b>) position no. <b>4</b> indicates the constellation of Virgo.</span></div>
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<span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">When comparing Fig. 8 </span><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><b>a,</b></i><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"> </span><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><b>b,</b> & <b>c</b></i><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"> note; </span><b style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">all three diagrams correspond. </b></div>
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<i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 19.2px;"><span style="color: #990000;">Each of the zodiacal metaphors are discussed in greater detail in the next section, but here is the brief presentation of each plan as they compare directly. The remaining four metaphors take a slightly different turn, and in this one may assume that the artist was working from left to right, and perhaps, a little more quickly..</span><span style="color: #990000;">.</span></i></blockquote>
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<span face="" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: x-large;">The Zodiac: Sequence and selections.</span></div>
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<span face="" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; line-height: 19.2px;"><br /></span><span face="" style="color: #990000; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: x-large; line-height: 19.2px;">T</span><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">here are nine references to the zodiac within the<i> Sacred and Profane Love's</i> programme: </span><br />
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<b><span lang="" style="font-family: centaur; line-height: 19.2px;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"> </span><span style="font-size: large;">1.</span><span style="color: maroon; font-size: x-large;"> </span></span></b><b style="font-size: xx-large;"><span lang="" style="color: maroon; font-family: wingdings; line-height: 38.4px;">_</span></b><span lang="" style="font-family: centaur; line-height: 19.2px;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"> </span><span style="font-size: large;">Taurus</span><b style="font-size: xx-large;"><o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<b><span lang="" style="font-family: centaur; line-height: 19.2px;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"> </span><span style="font-size: large;">2</span></span></b><span lang="" style="font-family: centaur; line-height: 19.2px;"><span style="font-size: large;">.</span><span style="color: blue; font-size: x-large;"> </span></span><span lang="" style="color: maroon; font-family: wingdings; font-size: x-large; line-height: 38.4px;"><b>`</b> </span><span lang="" style="font-family: centaur; line-height: 19.2px;"><span style="font-size: large;">Gemini</span><span style="color: maroon; font-size: x-large;"></span><b style="font-size: xx-large;"><o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<b><span lang="" style="font-family: centaur; line-height: 19.2px;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"> </span><span style="font-size: large;">3</span></span></b><span lang="" style="font-family: centaur; line-height: 19.2px;"><span style="font-size: large;">.</span><span style="color: maroon; font-size: x-large;"> </span></span><span lang="" style="color: maroon; font-family: wingdings; font-size: x-large; line-height: 38.4px;"><b>b</b> </span><span lang="" style="font-family: centaur; line-height: 19.2px;"><span style="font-size: large;">Leo (deleted)</span><b style="font-size: xx-large;"><o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<b><span lang="" style="font-family: centaur; line-height: 19.2px;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"> </span><span style="font-size: large;">4.</span></span></b><span lang="" style="color: blue; font-family: centaur; font-size: x-large; line-height: 38.4px;"> </span><span lang="" style="color: maroon; font-family: wingdings; font-size: x-large; line-height: 38.4px;"><b>c</b> </span><span lang="" style="font-family: centaur; line-height: 19.2px;"><span style="font-size: large;">Virgo</span><b style="font-size: xx-large;"><o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<b><span lang="" style="font-family: centaur; line-height: 19.2px;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"> </span><span style="font-size: large;">5</span></span></b><span lang="" style="font-family: centaur; line-height: 19.2px;"><span style="font-size: large;">.</span><span style="color: blue;"> <span style="color: maroon; font-family: wingdings; font-size: x-large;"><b>e</b></span><span lang="" style="font-family: centaur; line-height: 19.2px;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"> </span><span style="font-size: large;">Scorpio</span></span></span></span></span><span lang="" style="font-family: centaur; line-height: 19.2px;"><span style="font-size: large;"> (a) (deleted)</span><b style="font-size: xx-large;"><o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<b><span lang="" style="font-family: centaur; line-height: 19.2px;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"> </span><span style="font-size: large;">6</span></span></b><span lang="" style="font-family: centaur; line-height: 19.2px;"><span style="font-size: large;">.</span><span style="color: blue; font-size: x-large;"> </span></span><span lang="" style="color: maroon; font-family: wingdings; font-size: x-large; line-height: 38.4px;"><b>e</b></span><span lang="" style="font-family: centaur; line-height: 19.2px;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"> </span><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><span style="font-size: large;">Scorpio (b) (reappearing next to Sagittarius)</span><b style="font-size: xx-large;"><o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<b><span lang="" style="font-family: centaur; line-height: 19.2px;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"> </span><span style="font-size: large;">7</span></span></b><span lang="" style="font-family: centaur; line-height: 19.2px;"><span style="font-size: large;">.</span><span style="color: blue; font-size: x-large;"> </span></span><span lang="" style="color: maroon; font-family: wingdings; font-size: x-large; line-height: 38.4px;"><b>f</b></span><span lang="" style="font-family: centaur; line-height: 19.2px;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"> </span><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><span style="font-size: large;">Sagittarius</span><span style="color: maroon; font-size: x-large;"></span><b style="font-size: xx-large;"><o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<b><span lang="" style="font-family: centaur; line-height: 19.2px;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"> </span><span style="font-size: large;">8.</span></span></b><span lang="" style="color: blue; font-family: centaur; font-size: x-large; line-height: 38.4px;"> </span><span lang="" style="color: maroon; font-family: wingdings; font-size: x-large; line-height: 38.4px;"><b>g</b></span><span lang="" style="font-family: centaur; line-height: 19.2px;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"> </span><span style="font-size: large;">Capricorn</span><span style="color: maroon; font-size: x-large;"></span><b style="font-size: xx-large;"><o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<b><span lang="" style="font-family: centaur; line-height: 19.2px;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"> </span><span style="font-size: large;">9.</span></span></b><span lang="" style="color: maroon; font-family: centaur; font-size: x-large; line-height: 38.4px;"> </span><span lang="" style="color: maroon; font-family: wingdings; font-size: x-large; line-height: 38.4px;"><b>h</b></span><span lang="" style="font-family: centaur; line-height: 19.2px;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"> </span><span style="font-size: large;">Aquarius</span></span></div>
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<span face="" style="color: #660000; font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: x-large; line-height: 19.2px; text-align: justify;">T</span><span face="" lang="" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; line-height: 19.2px; text-align: justify;">o present the zodiacal references according to the sequential structure of the painting, Taurus is the first on the round followed by Gemini, Leo, Virgo, Scorpio, Sagittarius, Capricorn, and Aquarius. Each metaphor is consistent with zodiacal sequence, proceeding successively in an anti-clockwise direction with only Pisces, Aries, Cancer and Libra missing from the arrangement. Although there are nine iconologic references to signs the zodiac, only eight are truly represented, and that explanation (see Scorpio) shall follow in its turn.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-duABSfh2ZeQ/VdKXnk86QxI/AAAAAAAADkc/eBaEsFq5WyU/s1600/Tiziano_-_Amor_Sacro_y_Amor_Profano_%2528Galer%25C3%25ADa_Borghese%252C_Roma%252C_1514%2529%2B%252861%2529.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="288" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-duABSfh2ZeQ/VdKXnk86QxI/AAAAAAAADkc/eBaEsFq5WyU/s400/Tiziano_-_Amor_Sacro_y_Amor_Profano_%2528Galer%25C3%25ADa_Borghese%252C_Roma%252C_1514%2529%2B%252861%2529.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">Fig. 9. Taurus.</span></td></tr>
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<span face="" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;"><span lang="" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 19.2px;"><o:p></o:p></span><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span lang="" style="color: maroon; line-height: 38.4px;">Taurus </span></span></span><b style="font-size: xx-large; text-align: left; text-indent: 0cm;"><span lang="" style="color: maroon; font-family: wingdings; line-height: 38.4px;">_</span></b><br />
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<span face="" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;"><i><span lang="" style="line-height: 19.2px;">Taurus is the key to the paintings programme </span></i><i style="text-indent: 0cm;"><span lang="" style="line-height: 19.2px;">which </span></i><i style="text-indent: 0cm;"><span lang="" style="line-height: 19.2px;">opens </span></i></span><br />
<span face="" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;"><i><span lang="" style="line-height: 19.2px;">the lock </span></i><i style="text-indent: 0cm;"><span lang="" style="line-height: 19.2px;">to reveal the circle - the boundary of the star map.</span></i></span></blockquote>
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<span face="" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;"><span style="color: #660000; font-size: x-large;">E</span><span style="color: black;">ither B</span><span style="color: black;">ellini or </span>Giorgione (the painting in its formative stages was almost certainly a collaboration) has positioned the road to intersect - and so indicate - the boundary of a circle and placed the traveller on horseback on that road to fulfil the text of Firmicus 'fission of Taurus hoofs'. From the centre of the icon of the 'horse and rider' a circle's perimeter may be scribed.</span></div>
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<span face="" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;">Pictorially it is the ‘forward slash' gesture<u> of the road on which the rider and horse are travelling</u> that mimics the form of the constellation of Taurus according to a map of the southern sky (see </span><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; text-align: center;">Fig 8</span><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; text-align: center;"><b>c</b></i><span face="" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;">).</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Fig. 10. Taurus as a split or 'fissure' on the celestial globe.</td></tr>
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<span face="" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #990000; font-size: x-large;">F</span>or the word <em>fissione,</em> (and here is the mistranslation of the word <i>fissione</i> by Gombrich) think <em>fission</em> - as in nuclear fission; to <em>split</em> the atom. <em>Fissione </em>would be better interpreted as 'fissure' or </span><span face="" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; text-align: left; text-indent: 0cm;">'split'</span><span face="" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; text-align: left; text-indent: 0cm;"> </span><span face="" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; text-align: left; text-indent: 0cm;">caused by the hoofs; so a 'fissure caused by Taurus hoofs' and refers to the constellational form of Taurus </span><span face="" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; text-align: left; text-indent: 0cm;">[see Fig. 10]</span><span face="" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; text-align: left; text-indent: 0cm;"> as a 'split' or 'crack'</span><span face="" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; text-align: left; text-indent: 0cm;"> </span><span face="" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; text-align: left; text-indent: 0cm;">that intersects the </span><span face="" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; text-align: left; text-indent: 0cm;">celestial globe</span><span face="" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; text-align: left; text-indent: 0cm;"> in the<i> </i></span><span face="" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; text-align: left; text-indent: 0cm;"><i>South Celestial Hemisphere</i></span><span face="" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; text-align: left; text-indent: 0cm;">. It references the road upon which the rider on horseback is travelling, the fissure being caused by 'hoofs'. Imagine a white billiard ball with a small split then rotate the ball to mimic the position of Taurus. It would appear to mimic a fissure - not fission.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">Fig. 11. The twin hares on the right of Proserpine/Venus.</span></td></tr>
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-s9lrlLEF4yY/U0qnh3FuPFI/AAAAAAAAC1s/afk_mUyzYvo/s1600/Titian+Sacred+Profane+-+Copy+(5).jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span face="" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;"></span></a></div>
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<span face="" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;"><span lang="" style="color: blue; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 19.2px;"> </span><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span lang="" style="color: blue; line-height: 19.2px;"> </span><span lang="" style="color: maroon; line-height: 38.4px;">Gemini </span></span></span><b style="color: maroon; font-family: wingdings; line-height: 38.4px; text-indent: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">`</span></b></div>
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<span face="" lang="" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; line-height: 19.2px;"><em><em>“</em><span lang="">The only constellation rising with Gemini </span></em></span></blockquote>
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<em style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; line-height: 19.2px; text-indent: 0cm;"><span lang="">is the Hare (Lepus)".</span></em><br />
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<span face="" lang="" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; line-height: 19.2px;"><em>E. Gombrich</em></span></div>
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<span face="" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;"><span lang="" style="line-height: 19.2px;"><span style="color: #990000; font-size: x-large;">T</span>he form of the constellation of <i>Lepus</i> (The Hare) suggests elongated 'ears'</span></span><span face="" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; line-height: 19.2px; text-indent: 0cm;"> and</span><span face="" lang="" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; line-height: 19.2px; text-indent: 0cm;"> is situated below the constellation of Taurus </span><span face="" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; line-height: 19.2px; text-indent: 0cm;">(refer to Fig. 8.<b><i>c</i></b>)</span><span face="" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; text-indent: 0cm;"><span lang="" style="line-height: 19.2px;">. Iconographic analysis demands that the inquirer must not accept <i>things - </i>in this case two rabbits - at face value and must exhaust all possibilities as to <i>why</i> the artist has chosen to paint not one, six or five, but </span></span><span face="" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; text-indent: 0cm;">specifically - </span><i style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; text-indent: 0cm;">two</i><span face="" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; text-indent: 0cm;"> rabbits.</span><br />
<span face="" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;"><span lang="" style="line-height: 19.2px;"></span><br /></span><span face="" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;"><span lang="" style="line-height: 19.2px;">These are in fact two hares which are the reference to the zodiacal constellation of Gemini as the Twins. </span><span lang="" style="line-height: 19.2px;">Mythologically Gemini symbolises Castor and Pollux, those brothers egg-born by Leda after Jupiter’s notorious amour with her while assuming the form of a swan.</span></span></div>
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<span face="" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;">Referring to Redfield's diagram of the <i>Sala dei Venti,</i> (</span><span style="font-size: 13px; text-align: center; text-indent: 0cm;"><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">Fig. 8</span></span><span style="font-size: 13px; text-align: center; text-indent: 0cm;"> </span><b style="font-size: 12.8px; text-align: center; text-indent: 0cm;"><i><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: x-small;">b (detail)</span></i></b><span face="" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; text-indent: 0cm;">) 'The Hare' is located next to Gemini, and</span><span face="" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; line-height: 19.2px; text-indent: 0cm;"> </span><span face="" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; line-height: 19.2px; text-indent: 0cm;">at the right of the hares is Venus/Proserpine.</span><span face="" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; text-indent: 0cm;"> In </span><span style="font-size: 13px; text-align: center; text-indent: 0cm;"><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">Fig. 8</span> </span><span style="text-align: center; text-indent: 0cm;"><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 12.8px; font-weight: bold;">a, </i><span face="" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;">a</span></span><span face="" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; text-indent: 0cm;">bove</span><span face="" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; text-indent: 0cm;"> Gemini is Taurus </span><span face="" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; text-indent: 0cm;">and to the right there is Venus/Proserpine (a detail showing the proximity of </span><span face="" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; text-indent: 0cm;">Venus/Proserpine</span><span face="" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; text-indent: 0cm;"> can be clearly seen (in Fig.11) above. In the plan of the Sala dei Venti, (</span><span face="" style="text-align: center; text-indent: 0cm;"><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">Fig. 8</span><span><span style="font-family: times;"><i style="font-weight: bold;">b</i>) at position</span> <b style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">2</b><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: x-small;"> </span></span></span><span face="" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; text-indent: 0cm;">the roundel directly below </span><span face="" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; text-indent: 0cm;">Gemini </span><span face="" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; text-indent: 0cm;">states simply 'Hare'</span><span face="" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; text-indent: 0cm;"> and is again sited next to</span><span face="" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; text-indent: 0cm;"> Venus. </span></div><div class="DefaultText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 15pt; text-indent: 0cm;">
<span face="" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; text-indent: 0cm;">The sigil for Gemini is </span><b style="color: maroon; font-family: wingdings; line-height: 38.4px; text-indent: 0cm;">`</b><span face="" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; text-indent: 0cm;">. This idea is replicated in the twin hares of the<i> Sacred and Profane Love</i>.</span></div>
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<tr><td><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ZTV_rdIcFzM/U0uCUPOAUKI/AAAAAAAAC2I/nqQ5NIkaXlw/s1600/dog+star.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span face="" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;"><img border="0" height="260" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ZTV_rdIcFzM/U0uCUPOAUKI/AAAAAAAAC2I/nqQ5NIkaXlw/s1600/dog+star.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption"><span face="" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: x-small;">Fig 12. The constellation of <i>Canis Major;</i> </span><span face="" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: x-small; text-indent: 0cm;"> [deleted</span><span face="" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: x-small; text-indent: 0cm;">]</span></td></tr>
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<span lang="" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 19.2px;"><o:p><span face="" style="color: maroon; font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Leo </span></span></o:p></span><b style="color: maroon; font-family: wingdings; font-size: xx-large; line-height: 38.4px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0cm;">b</b><span face="" style="color: maroon; font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 25.6px; text-indent: 0cm;"> (O</span><em style="color: maroon; font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 25.6px; text-indent: 0cm;">verpainted</em><span face="" style="color: maroon; font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 25.6px; text-indent: 0cm;">)</span></div>
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<span lang="" style="color: blue; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 19.2px;"><span face="" lang="" style="color: black; font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; line-height: 19.2px;"><em> “The dog-star (Canicula), which rises in the fifth degree of Leo..."</em></span></span></div>
<span face="" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;"><span lang="" style="line-height: 19.2px;"><span style="color: #660000; font-size: large;"></span></span><br /></span><span face="" lang="" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; line-height: 19.2px;"><span style="color: #990000; font-size: x-large;">T</span>he Princeton scholar Harold E. Wethey claimed to have discovered two iconographs that had been over painted on the surface of the <i>Sacred and Profane Love.</i> This fact was derided as false by historians to become the most uncritical and appalling example of fratricide in art historical circles there has probably ever been. After thirty-seven years it is pleasing to be able to reinstate the view of Harold Wethey (and his wife Alice) who in 1973 announced: </span></div>
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<span face="" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;"><span lang="" style="line-height: 19.2px;">“At the lower left beside the clothed woman is the head of an animal in profile about 35 cm. broad, variously interpreted as that of a dog or a cow. This detail was first discovered by the author [Wethey] in June 1973 when he had a colour transparency made of this section of the picture. The animals head appears to have been painted over, either by Titian himself or at a later date… Now that the head is known to exist, it can be vaguely detected with the naked eye…".</span><span lang="" style="line-height: 19.2px;"></span></span><br />
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<span face="" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;"><span lang="" style="line-height: 19.2px;">After the restoration work carried out on this painting in 1993-94, the above observation of Wethey was now considered suspect. </span><span lang="" style="line-height: 19.2px;">A very curious situation because Wethey had stated that the head could be “...vaguely detected with the naked eye.” The only answer here must be that the painting has gone beyond mere cleaning, and that the paint may have been rendered more opaque, a point in contrast to Titian’s manner of painting as he appears to have laid on many glazes, however these deleted iconographs should be considered to have been precisely what Harold Wethey stated they were - clear and studious observations.</span></span><br />
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<tr><td><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-WwkK5N0fBEE/U1Zg7X0K5sI/AAAAAAAAC3o/AGElp5LsenQ/s1600/leo+sala+dog+star.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span face="" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-WwkK5N0fBEE/U1Zg7X0K5sI/AAAAAAAAC3o/AGElp5LsenQ/s1600/leo+sala+dog+star.JPG" width="160" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 13px;"><span face="" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: small;">Fig 13. The Sala dei Venti reference for Leo (Detail).</span></td></tr>
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<span face="" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;"><br /></span><span face="" lang="" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; line-height: 19.2px;">Turning again to the plan of the <i>Sala dei Venti</i> murals [Figs 6&7], one can see that the medallion directly under the zodiacal sign of Leo refers to <i>Sirius</i> (<i>L.</i> <i>Canicula</i>) - the <i>Dog-Star</i>. </span><span face="" lang="" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; line-height: 19.2px;">It is the text of Firmicus to which the author of this <i>invenzione</i> has referred, and contextually it is a dogs head (and not a cows) that Wethey saw prior to the paintings restoration. Firmicus [as quoted by Gombrich] states:</span></div>
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<span face="" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;"><span lang="" style="color: blue; line-height: 19.2px;"> </span><span lang="" style="color: blue; line-height: 19.2px;"> </span><span lang="" style="line-height: 19.2px;">‘…the dog-star which rises in the fifth degree of Leo…'</span></span></div>
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<span face="" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;"><span lang="" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 19.2px;"><o:p>There can only be one reference to the Dog Star (<em>Sirius</em>) because <em>Sirius</em> forms in part the constellation of <em>Canis Major</em>. </o:p></span><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 19.2px; text-align: center; text-indent: 0cm;">Most importantly though, the observation of Harold Wethey</span><em style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 19.2px; text-align: center; text-indent: 0cm;"> </em><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 19.2px; text-align: center; text-indent: 0cm;">noted an animals head in that position and contextually Wethey was correct because he nailed the position of the fifth zodiacal house in perfect sequence. (Poetically this is akin to the discovery of Planet X now known as Pluto in 1930 which was first discovered by a chance 'blinking' and later mathematically calculated.) </span></span></div>
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<tr><td><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-dxyezSCm6y0/U1Zm42AOisI/AAAAAAAAC34/PNIGqavRmjg/s1600/Titian+Sacred+Profane+-+Copy+(30nn).jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span face="" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-dxyezSCm6y0/U1Zm42AOisI/AAAAAAAAC34/PNIGqavRmjg/s400/Titian+Sacred+Profane+-+Copy+(30nn).jpg" width="335" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption"><span face="" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: x-small;">Fig 14. <i>Sacred and Profane Love</i> (Detail); the rose bush.</span></td></tr>
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<span face="" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;"><span lang="" style="color: maroon; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 25.6px;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"> Virgo </span></span></span><b style="color: maroon; font-family: wingdings; font-size: xx-large; line-height: 38.4px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0cm;">c</b></div>
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<span face="" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;"><span lang="" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 19.2px;"> <i> The Rose Bush.</i></span><span lang="" style="color: blue; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 25.6px;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span face="" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;"><i><span lang="" style="font-size: 12pt;">In the fifth degree of Virgo rises the Wreath (</span></i><st1:city><st1:place><i><span lang="" style="font-size: 12pt;">Corona</span></i></st1:place></st1:city><i><span lang="" style="font-size: 12pt;">). Whoever is born when this constellation rises, will be engaged in various voluptuous pleasures, intent on the study of the womanly arts, an inventor of flowers and wreaths, a lover of gardening, passionately craving for scents, ointments and perfumes.</span></i><span lang="" style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span><b><span lang="" style="color: maroon; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></span></div>
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<span face="" lang="" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> Matheseos Libri: VIII, II, I.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption"><span face="" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Fig 15. The constellation of </span><em><span style="font-size: small;">Virgo</span><span style="font-size: x-small;">.</span></em></span></td></tr>
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<span lang="" style="font-size: 12pt;"><span face="" lang="" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="color: #990000; font-size: x-large;">P</span>ositioned at the front of the fountain/sarcophagus is the small rose bush watered by the spigot </span></span><span face="" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16px; text-indent: 0cm;">(see Fig. 14) </span><span lang="" style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 0cm;"><span face="" lang="" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">at the front of the fountain/sarcophagus</span></span><span face="" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 0cm;"> (that critical emblem that refers to the </span><i style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 0cm;">South Celestial Pole)</i><span face="" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 0cm;">. The odd shaped rose bush... it is possible that the bush has not been rotated enough to suit the South Celestial format as the forms were taken from a catalogue and not a map in the round (if the image were rotated another quarter to sit on the semi-rectangular 'base' it may better mimic the painted rose bush) - which has had several flowers torn by Venus/Proserpine, the remnants of which rest in the lap of the clothed figure of Proserpine.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption"><span face="" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: x-small;">Fig 16. <em>Sala dei Venti</em> (Detail); Virgo and 'Wreath'.</span></td></tr>
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<span face="" lang="" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: x-large;">T</span><span face="" lang="" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">urning to the plan of the <em>Sala dei Venti</em> murals (Figs 6&7) it is the reference to the constellation of Virgo that commands the central lower position, again in imitation of this constellations position on a star map. On the plan of the <em>Sala dei Venti</em> the medallion directly below states simply: <i>Wreath, </i>and this is precisely what the idea of the rose bush alludes to; things womanly and the love of gardening.</span><span face="" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 0cm;"> </span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption"><span face="" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: x-small;">Fig 17. Virgo is the most 'southern' or 'lowest' constellation on the star map.</span></td></tr>
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<span face="" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;"><span lang="" style="font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span><span lang="" style="font-size: x-large;">A</span><span lang="" style="font-size: 12pt;">t the level of the <i>Sacred and Profane Love</i> referencing an astrological map, the position of the rose bush at the paintings lower centre agrees well enough with the position of Virgo on a star map (see Fig 17). The text of Firmicus suggests cultivation of the beautiful garden:</span></span></div>
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<em><span face="" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;"> ...intent on the study of the womanly arts, an inventor of flowers and wreaths, a lover of gardening...</span></em></blockquote>
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<span face="" lang="" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Therefore this unusual rosebush is a relevant motif to employ when considering the brief of flowers, wreaths and gardening. The shape of the rosebush is curious. Both it and the icon for Scorpio seem to be reversed, which may disclose further links. </span><br />
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<span face="" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; text-align: center; text-indent: 0cm;">In Fig. 17 (above), there has been a progression beginning with Taurus, Gemini, Leo, and now Virgo. Sequentially, the next sign should be Libra - or will it be Scorpio?</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption"><span face="" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: small;">Fig 18. The constellation of Scorpius is positioned at the lower mid right of the celestial hemispher</span><span face="" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: x-small;">e</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span face="" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: x-small;">Fig 19.</span><span face="" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: x-small; text-indent: 0cm;">Scorpio. </span><i style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: small; text-indent: 0cm;">Sacred and Profane Love</i><span face="" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: x-small; text-indent: 0cm;"> (detail). </span></td></tr>
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<span face="" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;"><span lang="" style="font-size: 12pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span lang="" style="color: maroon; line-height: 38.4px;">Scorpio</span><span lang="" style="color: blue; line-height: 38.4px;"> </span></span></span><b style="color: maroon; font-family: wingdings; font-size: xx-large; line-height: 19.2px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0cm;">e</b></div>
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<i><span face="" lang="" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 19.2px;">“In the twelfth degree of Scorpio rises the Centaurus. Whoever is born under this sign will be a charioteer or a feeder and breeder of horses...<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span face="" lang="" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 17.6px;"> Matheseos Libri: (VIII, 13, 3)</span></div>
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<span face="" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;"><span style="text-align: left;">[T</span><span style="text-align: left;">he choice of a horse is the key here, for according to Firmicus those born in the twelfth degree of Scorpio will be '...a feeder and breeder of horses...'. But there is something specific here because also in this twelfth degree '...rises the Centaurus...']</span></span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span face="" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Fig 20. Constellation of Scorpio</span></span><span face="" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; text-indent: 0cm;">.</span><span face="" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; text-indent: 0cm;"></span></td></tr>
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<span face="" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span lang="" style="color: maroon; line-height: 38.4px;">Scorpio</span><span lang="" style="color: blue; line-height: 38.4px;"> </span></span><span lang="" style="color: blue; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 25.6px;"></span></span></div>
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<span face="" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; text-align: justify;"> '...breeder of horses...' </span><span face="" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0cm;">Firmicus'</span></div>
<span face="" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;"><b><span lang="" style="color: maroon; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 19.2px;"><o:p></o:p></span></b><br /></span>
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<span style="color: #990000; font-family: georgia; line-height: 19.2px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0cm;">T</span><span face="" lang="" style="line-height: 19.2px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="text-indent: 0cm;"><span>he problem is that the next zodiacal sign in sequence is Sagittarius the Centaur; half man - half horse. I</span></span><span>gnoring the traditional appellation of the Scorpion, the painter has given the sign of Scorpio the form of a horse [fig 19], no doubt influenced by Firmicus’s interpretive association of the rising of </span><i>Centaurus</i></span><span><span style="font-family: georgia;"> with this sign. Because the texts of Firmicus suggest the equine reference <span style="font-size: small;">t</span></span></span></span><span lang="" style="font-family: georgia; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 19.2px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0cm;">he artist has chosen to refer to the sign of Scorpio as horse and rider which also compacts these two constellations together because on the star map of the South Celestial Hemisphere </span><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: 16px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0cm;">(refer to fig. 16) </span><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: 12pt; text-align: left; text-indent: 0cm;">they appear stacked one atop the other.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0un12I5wCzA/VdLHuXsmaXI/AAAAAAAADk4/lxWmYzRZDyQ/s1600/Tiziano_-_Amor_Sacro_y_Amor_Profano_%2528Galer%25C3%25ADa_Borghese%252C_Roma%252C_1514%2529%2B2%2B%25281%2529.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="272" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0un12I5wCzA/VdLHuXsmaXI/AAAAAAAADk4/lxWmYzRZDyQ/s400/Tiziano_-_Amor_Sacro_y_Amor_Profano_%2528Galer%25C3%25ADa_Borghese%252C_Roma%252C_1514%2529%2B2%2B%25281%2529.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span face="" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: x-small;">Fig 21. Sacred and Profane Love (Detail); Scorpio & Sagittarius</span></td></tr>
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<span face="" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">M</span>aintaining the close cosmographic relationship between Scorpio and Sagittarius is imitated here; their two dimensional constellational proximity </span><span face="" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; text-indent: 0cm;">(refer to Figs 6&7) </span><span face="" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; text-indent: 0cm;">to each other.</span><span face="" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; text-indent: 0cm;"> </span><span face="" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; text-indent: 0cm;">The artist has paired Scorpio with the traditional centaur of the zodiac,</span></div><div class="DefaultText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 15pt; text-indent: 0cm;">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span face="" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: x-small;">Fig 22. Sacred and Profane Love (Detail); Scorpio & Sagittarius</span></td></tr>
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<span face="" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">E</span>arlier it was stated here that there were two constellations that seem to be 'reversed'; the first is Virgo. If that constellation were reversed, it would better mimic the 'strange' form of the rose bush at the front of the fountain. The second is Scorpio. In fig 21 the horse (Scorpio) has been reversed and placed next to Sagittarius to mimic the positions found in the <i>Sacred and Profane Love </i>(compare with fig 19). Because this possibility has a precedent in Virgo, the chance of this occurring twice lessen the chance of analytic mistake (though certainly not entirely!) and may indicate mistake in the positioning of the constellation, because whomsoever designed the Southern Celestial Hemisphere 'in the round' for the artists reference, was working upside down and in reverse from a catalogue - to develop an accurate star map in the round which had never been seen (and which in its painted form was of no practical use as a star map so accuracy was somewhat plastic). </span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="text-indent: 0cm;">Fig 23. </span><span style="text-indent: 0cm;">Sagittarius: </span><span style="text-indent: 0cm;">Sacred and Profane Love (Detail) & sigil for Sagittarius.</span></span></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px;"><span face="" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Fig 24. </span><span style="font-size: 13px;">Sagittarius: The form of the constellation.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span face="" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;"><span lang="" style="color: maroon; line-height: 25.6px;"></span><span lang="" style="color: maroon; line-height: 25.6px;"> Sagittarius</span><span lang="" style="color: blue;"> </span></span><b style="color: maroon; font-family: wingdings; line-height: 38.4px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0cm;">f</b></span></div>
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<span lang="" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 19.2px;"><span face="" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: large;"><span style="color: #990000; font-size: x-large;">S</span></span></span><span lang="" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 19.2px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0cm;"><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">agittarius, the next sign in sequence is represented in profile directly referencing both sigil</span></span><span lang="" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 19.2px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0cm;"><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">and the constellations form. Sagittarius is commonly represented as a centaur, half man, half horse. </span></span><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; text-align: left; text-indent: 0cm;">With little imagination, and just as it was to the ancients, the form of the constellation sees the centaur aiming a bow and arrow (see Fig 24) to the sky. The form of the rearing horse of the Sacred and Profane Love is reflected in the sigil for Saggitarius </span><span face="" style="color: maroon; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0cm;"><span style="color: black;">which takes </span></span><span face="" style="color: maroon; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0cm;"><span style="color: black;">aim to</span></span><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; text-align: left; text-indent: 0cm;"> </span><span face="" lang="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 19.2px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0cm;">the right in accordance with the visual suggestion.</span><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; text-align: left; text-indent: 0cm;"> </span><span face="" lang="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 19.2px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0cm;">There is a camaraderie between the constellations of Scorpio and Sagittarius and they have been dealt with as a pair in direct <span lang="" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 19.2px;">reference to the proximity of their cosmographic relationship [Fig 22] and further bonded by Firmicus' equine interpretation. This bond is reflected </span></span><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 19.2px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0cm;">(see Fig 21)</span><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 19.2px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0cm;"> in the </span><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 19.2px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0cm;">Sacred and Profane Love's</i><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 19.2px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0cm;"> iconology.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 19.2px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0cm;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 19.2px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0cm;"><span face="" style="font-size: medium; text-indent: 0cm;"><span style="text-indent: 0cm;"> </span></span></span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Fig 25. (Detail) The Shepherd guarding his herd.</span><br />
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<span face="" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: small;"><span lang="" style="color: maroon; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 25.6px;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Capricorn </span></span></span><b style="color: maroon; font-family: wingdings; font-size: xx-large; line-height: 38.4px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0cm;">g</b></td></tr>
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<em style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;">Capricornus</em><span face="" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;"> is the triangular constellation at the upper right on the zodiacal </span></div>
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<span face="" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;">round and located between Sagittarius and Aquarius</span></div>
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<span face="" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; line-height: 19.2px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0cm;"><span style="color: #990000; font-size: x-large;">T</span></span><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: 16px; line-height: 19.2px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0cm;">o the right of Scorpio and Sagittarius is a shepherd with his herd.</span><span style="line-height: 19.2px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0cm;"> F</span><span lang="" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 19.2px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0cm;">rom this point the texts of Firmicus have been abandoned entirely and the remaining signs of Capricorn and Aquarius depart from the texts in favour of the goat and sigil respectively. Importantly t</span><span style="font-size: 16px; line-height: 19.2px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0cm;">he </span><span style="font-size: 16px; line-height: 19.2px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0cm;">shepherd has no direct association with the sign of Capricorn, rather, he is the visual</span><span style="font-size: 16px; line-height: 19.2px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0cm;"> balance to the traveller on horseback at the paintings upper left (see Taurus). Having fulfilled the geometric role required to reveal the child as <i>Mercurius/Hermes</i>, and to define the limit of the scalene triangle (point <i><b>b) </b></i>the herdsman is here to guard his herd of sheep and goats. This figure is as much a goatherd as a shepherd - and the goat is the key to Capricorn and t</span><span style="font-size: 16px; line-height: 19.2px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0cm;">his bucolic scene is familiar to both Giorgione and Titian. The</span><span style="font-size: 16px; line-height: 19.2px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0cm;"> </span><em style="font-size: 16px; line-height: 19.2px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0cm;">Fête champêtre; </em><span style="font-size: 16px; line-height: 19.2px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0cm;">c. 1508, Musée du Louvre, Paris, is the instance that may be drawn upon.</span></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-s1QLrhqaPgo/Vc3peOlfu0I/AAAAAAAADio/E309tYPOu9U/s1600/Fete_champetre.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="513" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-s1QLrhqaPgo/Vc3peOlfu0I/AAAAAAAADio/E309tYPOu9U/s640/Fete_champetre.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span face="" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 13px;">Fig 26. </span><em style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 13px;">Fête champêtre</em><span face="" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 13px;">.</span><span face="" style="background-color: #f0f6ff; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 13.2px; text-align: left;">1508-09</span><br />
<span face="" style="background-color: #f0f6ff; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 13.2px; text-align: left;">Oil on canvas, 110 x 138 cm</span><br />
<span face="" style="background-color: #f0f6ff; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 13.2px; text-align: left;">Musée du Louvre, Paris</span></td></tr>
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<span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: 16px; line-height: 19.2px; text-align: left;">Looking to the </span><em style="font-size: 16px; line-height: 19.2px; text-align: left;">Fête champêtre</em><span style="font-size: 16px; line-height: 19.2px; text-align: left;"> [Fig 26], several motifs found in the <i>Sacred and Profane Love</i> are repeated, though at a different angle. In the foreground there is a well; two women; and in the background a </span><span style="font-size: 16px; line-height: 19.2px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0cm;">bucolic landscape including a </span><span style="font-size: 16px; line-height: 19.2px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0cm;">shepherd and his herd. These basic symbols are repeated in the </span><i style="font-size: 16px; line-height: 19.2px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0cm;">Sacred and Profane Love </i><span style="font-size: 16px; line-height: 19.2px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0cm;">. </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 19.2px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0cm;">As Gombrich had stated:</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: maroon;"><span face="" style="color: black; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">“Symbols do not carry meaning as trucks carry coal... Their function is to select from alternatives within a given context...”</span></span></blockquote><br />
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<span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: 16px; line-height: 19.2px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0cm;">T</span><span style="font-size: 16px; line-height: 19.2px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0cm;">hrough context and association, one can assume that the shepherd is guarding a herd of sheep and goat. The main ciphers are repeated, but in the </span><i style="font-size: 16px; line-height: 19.2px; text-align: left;">Sacred and Profane Love </i><span style="font-size: 16px; line-height: 19.2px; text-align: left;">they become direct symbols. </span><span style="text-align: left;">But are they sheep or are they goats?</span></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-YgoM8NnS0wQ/Vc3phWEcv9I/AAAAAAAADiw/P08Mi_bSRqo/s1600/Fete_champetre%2B2.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="341" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-YgoM8NnS0wQ/Vc3phWEcv9I/AAAAAAAADiw/P08Mi_bSRqo/s400/Fete_champetre%2B2.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 13px;">Fig 27. </span><em style="font-size: 13px;">Fête champêtre</em><span style="font-size: 13px;"> (Detail):</span></td></tr>
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<span lang=""><span style="text-align: left;"><span face="" lang="" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: x-large; line-height: 19.2px;">T</span><span face="" lang="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 19.2px;">he animal nearest to the back of the nude [Fig 28] which can be seen in the </span></span><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: 16px; line-height: 19.2px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0cm;">lower foreground</span><span style="text-align: left; text-indent: 0cm;"><span lang="" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 19.2px;"> [</span></span><span style="font-size: 16px; line-height: 19.2px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0cm;">Detail, Fig. 27]</span><span style="text-align: left; text-indent: 0cm;"><span lang="" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 19.2px;"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 19.2px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0cm;">looks like a goat - in contrast to the full coated woolly-haired sheep between it and the piping shepherd. Again, context is the guide here. </span><span style="text-align: left; text-indent: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 19.2px;">Italian cuisine, particularly in the southern regions, ate as much goat as they did sheep, (whereas in the mountainous, forested Northern area one might substitute goat for forest deer and boar). So where we do not have an </span><span style="line-height: 19.2px;">emblematic</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 19.2px;"> 'goat' or even more correctly a 'sea-goat', the piping shepherd is minding a mixture of sheep and goat. In fact what we actually see is an arrangement of paint where the mind can narrate a logical sequence appropriate to </span></span><span style="font-size: 16px; line-height: 19.2px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0cm;">context - and the context here is zodiacal and here in sequence, the herdsman and the herd and therefore; Capricorn.</span></span></span></div>
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<span face="" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: x-small;">Fig 28. <i>Sacred and Profane Love</i> (Detail) </span><span face="" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: x-small; text-indent: 0cm;">An isthmus divides a body of water.</span></div>
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<span face="" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: x-small;">Corresponds </span><span face="" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: x-small; text-indent: 0cm;">with the astrological symbol for Aquarius </span><b style="font-family: wingdings; font-size: 12.8px; line-height: 38.4px; text-indent: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: small;">h</span></b></div>
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<span face="" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: x-large;"><span lang="" style="color: maroon; line-height: 38.4px;">Aquarius </span></span><b style="color: maroon; font-family: wingdings; font-size: xx-large; line-height: 38.4px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0cm;">h</b></div>
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<span face="" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; line-height: 19.2px; text-align: left;">Water divided by an isthmus</span><span face="" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;"><i> </i>infers the form of the Aquarian sign.</span><span face="" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;"></span></div>
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<span lang="" style="color: maroon; line-height: 19.2px;"><span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span face="" style="color: #660000;">A</span><span face="">quarius is the sign of the waters divided which is mimicked by the unusual lake at the paintings upper right [see fig 28]</span></span><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: small;">. T</span></span></span></span><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">he two squiggly lines</span><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; text-indent: 0cm;"> represent the very bones of the idea, and Aquarius is without doubt the briefest metaphor used in the <i>Sacred and Profane Love </i>with the isthmus imitating the astrological symbol for divided water. Sagittarius (the archer), was dealt with in a similar manner with the position of the horse forming the arrow and cross as the sign for Sagittarius. Those two - Sagittarius and Aquarius - stand out as a pair, and are rather different from the signs that mimic the shape of their constellations such as Scorpio and Taurus and Virgo.</span></div>
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<span face="" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;"><i><span style="font-size: x-large;">A</span>s Titian (who was a friend of Romano's) completed the Sacred and Profane Love after Giorgione's death, the likely source of Romano's programme would have been Titian. It can be postulated that the Sacred and Profane Love was a collaborative work, beginning with Bellini, moving to Giorgione, and concluded by Titian. Perhaps, because Romano, likely having gained the programme in a clandestine manner, was not given the entire programme of which there were probably several 'layers'. This is to say that the programme may have been presented in various working formats that could have been layered upon one another - as achieved in modern technology by the use of acetate sheets. </i></span><br />
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The proportions of the rectangular canvas having been outlined, the circle; the pentacle; the circle with the zodiac and constellations as references; the sarcophagus/fountain; the two women and the child; each layer would have been presented separately. Romano appears to have received the invenzione with the complete zodiacal references. This can tell us which selections were made to maintain the allegorical narrative and which were omitted or deleted (or thought better of...). This is to say that a collaborative effort between the artists of the Sacred and Profane Love selectively chose those zodiacal references suitable to allegoric construction rather than the visual transliteration of Firmicus - as executed by Romano. We can see the subtlety that Romano's work lacks and inversely, take note of a certain lack of information that may have inspired Romano to be more adventurous.</i></span><br />
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<span face="" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;"><i>It is my conclusion that the Sacred and Profane Love was likely to have been developed collaboratively in the studio from the same source plan given to Romano, but which has been extracted and presented as the Sacred and Profane Love. The plan speaks of a certain character; a sensibility and the contained power the Sacred and Profane love employs is not merely Giorgionesque - it is pure Giorgione; the classical interest, esoterica, the abiding serenity and the atmosphere of mystique. But t<span style="text-indent: 0cm;">he very thing that makes the </span><span style="text-indent: 0cm;">Sacred and Profane Love</span><span style="text-indent: 0cm;"> so entirely readable is the paintings strict adherence to geometric pattern as the underlying narrative; the constellation map, circle, pentacle and the relationship to myth. The Months at Schifanoia, the ceiling of the Sala dei Venti in the Palazzo del Te at Mantua, the </span><span style="text-indent: 0cm;">Hypnerotomachia Poliphili sh</span></i></span><i style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; text-indent: 0cm;">ould</i><i style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; text-indent: 0cm;"><span style="text-indent: 0cm;"> be all seen as primary influences and sources.</span></i><br />
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<span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16px;">The question here is how did a star map of the </span><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16px;">South Celestial Hemisphere</i><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16px;"> turn up in a 16th century Renaissance painting? </span><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"></span></div>
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<span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: center;"><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: center;">[To continue this unfinished line of inquiry see: </span><a href="http://www.pauldoughton.com/2012/08/part-ii-of-sacred-and-profane-loves.html" style="font-family: arial, tahoma, helvetica, freesans, sans-serif; font-size: medium; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: black;">Venice, Tenochtitlan and the Quest for the New World: The importance of the Twin Venuses in Maritime Cartography</span>.</a>]</span></blockquote>
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<b>1. The origin of the </b><b style="font-style: italic;">Sacred and Profane Love </b>and the likely development through collaboration passing from Giovanni Bellini to Giorgione, and finally Titian. Allows Giorgione the major iconographic authorship & Titian the final plastic authorship (this includes the final editing of the zodiacal symbols). A brief overview of the <i>Sacred and Profane Love's</i> programme is presented.<br />
<span face=""><b></b></span><br /><span face=""><b></b></span><span face=""><b>2. Collaboration in Giorgione's <i>Orpheus</i> and in the <i>oeuvre</i> of Giorgione: The Conch shell</b></span> was first published here in 2012 as '<b>Musings on the Widner <i>Orpheus'</i></b> and is pretty much as it was delivered, The aim of that post was to expand upon the late Wendy Stedman Sheard's hypothesis of collaboration within Giorgione's <i>Orpheus</i> (known as the 'Widener' <i>Orpheus</i>) and argue that the <i>Sacred and Profane Love </i>is<i> </i>arguably the missing<i> 'una nocte' </i>and the result of a<i> </i>collaboration begun in the studio of Bellini. Stedman Sheard's essay also presented an opportunity to introduce the myth of Venus <i>Marina </i>as the point or 'lesson' of the <i>Orpheus</i>.<br />
<br /><b>3. Mythology: The allegory of Venus <i>Marina </i>(the sea born).</b>The association of the Roman Venus with geometric astronomy and the later distinction between the Roman Venus and the sea-born myth of the Greek <i>Aphrodite</i>,<br />
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<b style="font-size: xx-large;">Section 1.</b><span style="font-size: x-large;"> </span><b style="font-size: xx-large;">Collaboration: The origin of the Widener <i>Orpheus </i>reflective of the origins of the<i> </i></b><b style="font-size: xx-large; font-style: italic;">Sacred and Profane Love. </b><b style="font-size: xx-large;">Giorgione implicated.</b><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Fig 1. <strong style="font-size: 12.8px;">Orpheus</strong><span>, School of Giovanni Bellini, c.1515. </span><strong style="font-size: 12.8px;">National Gallery of Art</strong><span> </span><strong style="font-size: 12.8px;">Washington</strong><span>.</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: times; font-size: x-large;">T</span><span style="font-family: times;">he late Wendy Stedman Sheard co-edited a collection of articles published as Collaboration in Renaissance Art (1978).<span style="color: #990000;"><span style="color: #990000; font-weight: bold;"> </span></span></span>In the preface to this collection on collaboration between artists of the renaissance Sheard suggests that collaborative possibilities surround the Widener<i> Orpheus:</i><br />
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"...I have studied a greater and lesser master at work on the Widener <i>Orpheus</i>. This small painting, which was never completely finished, nevertheless bears a frequency noticed yet unanalysed stamp of significance in the ferment of change that characterized Venetian art at the turn of the century (1490s). By locating the composition in a type sequence and exploring the picture's tight integration of visual means, psychological effects, and intellectual structure, I argue that Giorgione authored its conceptual and pictorial inventions, leaving their execution largely to a collaborator during a time when both belonged to Bellini's shop."</blockquote>
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Sheards collection of essays<i> </i>pursue the idea<i> </i>that<i> </i>the renaissance period was instead a far more collaborative environment than previously thought by renaissance historians.<i> </i>In this similar spirit the<i> Sacred and Profane Love </i>was likely born through an <em>invenzione</em> given to Giovanni Bellini on the behalf of Isabella d'Este in 1506. The <i>invenzione</i> set out the framework which was to be the foundation of a nativity - <span style="font-family: times;">k</span><span style="font-family: times;">eeping in mind a 'nativity' could also be termed a '</span><i style="font-family: times;">night</i><span style="font-family: times;">' - but which </span><span style="font-family: times;">was in every probability the graphic plan for the painting now known as the <i>Sacred and Profane Love</i></span><span style="font-family: times;">. </span><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-CJgalRC1pFU/WmQTHysGhJI/AAAAAAAAEOU/YrDIfSMlrWIzqwEVaoA6z3DVyfKjdDHiQCLcBGAs/s1600/orpheus%2B%25282%2529.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="276" data-original-width="232" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-CJgalRC1pFU/WmQTHysGhJI/AAAAAAAAEOU/YrDIfSMlrWIzqwEVaoA6z3DVyfKjdDHiQCLcBGAs/s640/orpheus%2B%25282%2529.jpg" width="537" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"> Fig 2. <strong style="font-size: 12.8px;">Orpheus</strong><span>, (Detail). School of Giovanni Bellini </span><strong style="font-size: 12.8px;">National Gallery of Art</strong><span>, </span><strong style="font-size: 12.8px;">Washington</strong><span>, </span><strong style="font-size: 12.8px;">Widener</strong><span> Collection.</span></td></tr>
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S<span style="font-family: times;">heard chose as an example of collaboration, the painting known as </span><i style="font-family: times;">Orpheus </i><span style="font-family: times;">(</span><span style="font-family: times;">Fig. 4.)</span><i style="font-family: times;"> </i><span style="font-family: times;">(at the time attributed to Giorgione) and which now forms part of the Widener collection at the NGA, Washington, DC. Sheard explains her reasoning behind the selection of the </span><i style="font-family: times;">Orpheus</i><span style="font-family: times;">:</span></div>
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"...a collaboration between at least two painters seems feasible to postulate, given numerous differences in the proportions, extremities, and modelling employed in the two figure groups...".</div>
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Sheard also discusses the possibility that an <em>invenzione,</em> by studying its cohesive structure, might be separated from its end result and agrees that the painting has technical strengths and flaws which can be detected and therefore isolated all which appears to reinforce the collaborative theory:</div>
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"George Martin Richter long ago separated the <i>invention</i> of the <i>Orpheus</i> from its <i>execution</i>, maintaining that its invention ought to be attributed to Giorgione while still in Bellini's studio." p.190 Sheard W.S. The Widener Orpheus: Attribution, type, Invention. Collaboration in Renaissance Art.</div></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: times;">Sheard supports this hypothesis and draws stylistic parallels between an 'interest in poses..' which specifically reference the torsion implicit in the pose of <i>Orpheus</i> and ascribes this feature to be evident in the frescoes on the <i>Fondaco dei Tedeschi. </i>Sheard writes:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: times;">'The foreground nude's head and the satyr's are shaped quite differently from Orpheus's. They are closer to idealized ovoid's, and their hands, small, broad and limp, are more typically Giorgionesque. Somewhat differently conceived, the rather angular contour describing Circe may depend on a figure from antique relief sculpture, probably a nereid. Though perhaps somewhat awkwardly rendered, the extreme nature of this figure's torsion is remarkable, and indicates that the interest in poses in which animated balance is attained in part by contrasts in the positioning of limbs, so evident in the <i>Fondaco dei Tedeschi</i> frescoes, stemmed from the very earliest phases of Giorgione's brief career, when the Orpheus was designed.' <i>pp. 190-91</i> <i>Collaboration</i>. Ibid</span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: times;">It is valuable to consider </span><span style="font-family: times;">that just as it is possible that if indeed Giorgione played a leading hand in the development of the Orpheus,</span><i style="font-family: times;"> </i><span style="font-family: times;">it also allows </span><span style="font-family: times;">the great possibility that <i>Sacred and Profane Love</i> had also been a collaboration. This general theme of collaboration during the Renaissance implies through Sheard's considered analysis that like many artists of the Renaissance, Giorgione was sympathetic to collaboration in the workshop environment:</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><blockquote><span style="font-family: times;">"I argue that Giorgione authored its conceptual and pictorial inventions, leaving their execution largely to a collaborator during a time when both belonged to Giovanni Bellini's shop." p. xviii (Preface) W. Stedman Sheard <i>Collaboration in Italian Renaissance Art</i>.</span></blockquote></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: times;">We know that through the silence (obscurity, brevity) of Giorgione's works [Vasari, Anderson] that Giorgione was attracted to subject matter that might consider </span><span style="font-family: times;">esoteric & </span><span style="font-family: times;">pagan themes. Returning to the <i>Orpheus</i> </span>Sheard pushes the envelope further:</div>
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"I believe [...by looking closely at the structure of the <i>Orpheus</i>] that the understanding which results may, moreover, offer several clues to the evolution of Giorgione's approach to subject matter.<i> p.190</i> <i>Collaboration</i>. Ibid.</div></blockquote>
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This is the direction from which this understanding of Sheard's considerations of the Widener <i>Orpheus </i>may hope to gain insight and to suggest strongly that the <i>Sacred and Profane Love</i> is also a collaborative work which, like the Orpheus likely had originally evolved in the studio of Bellini and then later moved to the studio of ill fated Giorgione. How so? To consider this is to recall a painting referred to as a <i>Night </i>which disappeared<i> </i>from Giorgione's studio after his death in 1510. But what does the title of a Night infer and how can this paintings subject matter be deduced?<span style="font-family: times;">Author Peter Burke </span><span style="font-family: times;">[Tradition and Innovation in Renaissance Italy p.190</span><span style="font-family: times;">] </span><span style="font-family: times;">cites the instance of a 'nativity' by </span><span style="font-family: times;">Correggio</span><span style="font-family: times;"> (c.1530) as being alternatively known as a 'Night'. T</span><span style="font-family: times;">here are (in my analytic deconstruction of the </span><i style="font-family: times;">Sacred and Profane Love) </i><span style="font-family: times;">s</span><span style="font-family: times;">everal</span><span style="font-family: times;"> strong indications that this painting is dedicated to the theme of '<i>night</i>'</span><span style="font-family: times;"> on several levels, one of those important components being that the paintings <i>invenzione</i> is (strikingly) based on a map of the night sky of the Southern celestial constellations. Still, </span><span style="font-family: times;">tracking, </span><span style="font-family: times;">synchronizing, and re-evaluating </span><span style="font-family: times;">historical events with a possible timeline is also required.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: times;">The </span><i style="font-family: times;">Sacred and Profane Love</i><span style="font-family: times;"> (the <i>Night</i> called the<i> 'una nocte'</i> & <i>'notte'</i>) was most likely begun by Bellini, because it was Bellini whom Isabella's merchant initially approached in 1506. After Giorgione's death in 1510, Isabella d'Este sent her merchant to recover a 'night' from Giorgione's studio:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: times;">'We are informed that among the stuff and effects of the painter Zorzo (Giorgione) of Castelfranco there exists a picture of a night (<i>una nocte</i>) very beautiful and singular; if so it might be we desire to possess it...' Peter Burke p.134. </span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: times;">Clearly, the 'night' was at or at least near a stage of resolution to be called 'singular and beautiful. Whomsoever informed Isabella is postulated elsewhere on this site, suffice it to recall here the dissatisfaction of Giovanni Bellini with the rigidity of an <i>invenzione</i> supplied to him on Isabella's behalf. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: times;">L</span><span style="font-family: times;">ooking to the complex graphic programme (<i>invenzione</i>) that form the basis for the </span><i style="font-family: times;">Sacred and Profane Love, </i><span style="font-family: times;">and being aware of certain hermetic and alchemical</span><span style="font-family: times;"><i> </i>themes, </span><span style="font-family: times;">one might conjecture that Bellini was also concerned with losing his prestigious title </span><span style="font-family: times;">of 'Painter to the City of Venice' </span><span style="font-family: times;">bestowed on him by the Venetian Council of Ten. Because i</span><span style="font-family: times;">n 1488 that same body to which Niccolo Aurelio was a secretary had outlawed the practice of alchemy so perhaps for Bellini the task </span><span style="font-family: times;">was too great a professional risk. It is known through the recorded applications to the Council of Ten that there was a protracted bitterness between the two artists; Bellini was aware that Titian appears to have been circling his aging prey the painting is not strictly alchemical. Still, there are certainly enough references to form an accusation should any rival have desired to be troublesome. One would certainly be on one's toes so to speak.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: times;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: times;"></span><span style="font-family: times;">It is also extremely possible that Isabella had never seen the programme and was merely forwarding the <i>invenzione</i> on the behalf of her brother Alfonso (the subsequent plan as a map including a <i>star map</i> of the <i>South Celestial Hemisphere</i> seems to intimate </span><span style="font-family: times;">political intrigue</span><span style="font-family: times;"> and Alfonso d'Este - this is covered in a post on The New World).</span><span style="font-family: times;"> Now e</span><span style="font-family: times;">nter Giorgione</span><span style="font-family: times;"> who has taken Bellini's <i>'Night'</i> to near resolution and which was - after Giorgione's death in 1510 - hidden and finished by the ambitious young Titian. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: times;">This is to suggest of the <i>Sacred and Profane Love </i>that there were three collaborators - Bellini, Giorgione and Titian</span><span style="font-family: times;"> - and in that order. This painting now known as the </span><i style="font-family: times;">Sacred and Profane Love</i><span style="font-family: times;"> is presumed to have been executed around 1514 based on the wedding date of Niccolo Aurelio whose coat~of~arms appears on the front of the sarcophagus/fountain. But the date of the paintings collaborative beginnings must reasonably start from the date where Bellini received the invenzione from Isabella's merchant. Perhaps the date of the paintings 'resurfacing' after the death of old Giovanni Bellini - the last of the collaborators </span><span style="font-family: times;">who shared the intimate knowledge of the paintings shrouded history and the last </span><span style="font-family: times;">who could have challenged Titian. With both Giorgione and now Bellini gone, Titian is free to claim Bellini's title of painter to Venice and either add or rework </span><span style="font-family: times;">the coat~of~arms</span><i style="font-family: times;"> </i><span style="font-family: times;">for Aurelio</span><i style="font-family: times;">. </i></div>
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<span style="font-family: times;">For what remains of the original programme refer to the post on the <i>Zodiacal Metaphors</i> on this site and note the plan of the ceiling of the <i>Sala dei Venti</i> in the <i>Palazzo del Te</i>, Mantua. Titian handed - in part only - the original </span><em style="font-family: times;">invenzione</em><span style="font-family: times;"> to Giulio Romano for the design of that ceiling, and the structural steps of both the <i>Sacred and Profane Love</i> and the ceiling of the <i>Sala dei Venti</i> are traceable through analysis. Because of this last fact Titian has left a trail for which he can be taken to task.</span><br />
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<b><span style="font-size: x-large;">Section 2. Collaboration in Giorgione's Orpheus repeats in the oeuvre of Giorgione: The Conch shell.</span></b><div style="text-align: justify;">
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<span style="font-family: times; font-style: normal;">In Giorgione's <i>Orpheus</i> Sheard identifies the satyr as <i>Pan</i>, and the female as [a form of] Venus <em>pudica</em>. The term <i>pudica</i> refers to the classical pose where the hand of Venus covers her <i>pudenda </i>and breasts to suggest modesty, but this is an attitude; a pose, and not a myth in itself, and therefore this as an attribution is challengeable because Venus is sitting in the midst of a wood and not emerging from her bath. </span><span style="text-align: center;">In the </span><i style="text-align: center;">Orpheus</i><span style="text-align: center;">, Venus is only technically in the </span><i style="text-align: center;">pudica</i><span style="text-align: center;"> pose because the breasts are 'censored' by the arm of Faunus reaching across the young Venus to present the conch shell to her view. This pictorial play is rather clever and relies on a graphic technicality when reduced to the two points critical to the terms of the </span><i style="text-align: center;">pudica</i><span style="text-align: center;"> motif; the breasts and pudenda must be covered. Pictorially Giorgione has achieved this albeit unconventionally - clever graphic manipulation of the terms of that motif. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: times;">This essay also suggests that Pan should be substituted for </span><span style="font-family: times;">Faunus. </span><span style="font-family: times; font-style: normal;">Likened to</span><span style="font-family: times;"> </span><span style="font-family: times; font-style: normal;">the Greek</span><span style="font-family: times;"> Pan, Faunus</span><span style="font-family: times; font-style: normal;"> was the Roman god of the woods and forests, historically a former King of</span><span style="font-family: times;"> Latium </span><span style="font-family: times;">who seems to have died peacefully old. </span><span style="font-family: times;">(R</span><span style="font-family: times;">aised to the level of deity after his death he was considered to have been the husband of the </span><span style="font-family: times;"><a href="https://books.google.ca/books?id=i_F5e3lnUjsC&pg=PA86&lpg=PA86&dq=Bona+Mater&source=bl&ots=ZPdNQED3_6&sig=-hwH98Lijherh5CdokX7FA5et7M&hl=en&sa=X&ei=6zzYVL7MKY6E8gXP4YCIAg&ved=0CD4Q6AEwBTgU#v=onepage&q=Bona%20Mater&f=false">Bona Mater</a>.) Faunus appears a</span><span style="font-family: times;">s</span><span style="font-family: times;"> </span><span style="font-family: times;">a mixture of the historical personage of the king of</span><span style="font-family: times;"> Latium and mythologically exalted to aquire </span><span style="font-family: times;">the character of Roman god of the woods and forests (</span><a href="http://www.geni.com/people/Faunus-II-King-of-Latium/6000000006744536554" style="font-family: arial, "helvetica neue", helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; text-align: left;">Faunus, as a deity, originated in Italy itself. As such Faunus was one of the di indigetes, or native deities.</a><span style="font-family: times;">). </span><span style="font-family: times;">Giorgione has portrayed <i>Faunus</i> as a mixture of an aged man of regal countenance with the hinds of a goat - without horns. </span><span style="font-family: times;">Of </span><span style="font-family: Times;">Faunus, the </span><span style="font-family: Times;">classicist</span><span style="font-family: Times;"> </span><span style="font-family: times;">John Lempriere wrote:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: times;"><i>"Faunus... </i>reigned<i> </i> in Italy about 1300 years B.C. He raised a temple in honour of the god <i>Pan </i>called by the Latins <i>Lupercus... </i></span></div>
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<span style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: times; text-align: justify;">[Also see my post on the</span><i style="font-family: times; text-align: justify;"> Lupercalia </i><span style="font-family: times; text-align: justify;">as being relevant to the reliefs on the fountain/sarcophagus of the</span><i style="font-family: times; text-align: justify;"> Sacred and Profane Love</i><span style="font-family: times; text-align: justify;">]</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: times;">Venus must - due to the presence of the conch shell - </span><span style="font-family: times;">become associated with the myth of the Venus </span><i style="font-family: times;">Marina</i><span style="font-family: times;">. Similar cultural identifications/issues will be found in Botticelli's <i>Birth of Venus </i>where the Venus <i>M</i></span><i style="font-family: times;">arina </i><span style="font-family: times;">is also present</span><i style="font-family: times;"> </i><span style="font-family: times;">in the <i>pudica</i> pose, and yet the presence of the scallop shell introduces her as a form of the Greek <i>Aphrodite</i>.</span><br />
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But from here the argument shall be presented that by focusing on the motifs of the Venus of Giorgione's <i>Orpheus</i> (for it is certainly her in the debatable <i>pudica</i> attitude) and in proximity of the conch shell and by drawing meaning from <i>Faunus's</i> inclusion in this enigmatic drama, this analysis may help to understand Giorgione's approach to the often obscure subject matter of several of his works.<br />
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Finally, the subject matter that defines the <i>Orpheus </i>will be compared with Botticelli's <i>Birth of Venus</i>; t<span style="font-family: times;">he object held in the hand of the satyr of the </span><i style="font-family: times;">Orpheus</i><span style="font-family: times;"> is the pivot upon which meaning is revealed. </span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"> Fig 3. <strong style="font-size: 12.8px;">Orpheus</strong><span>, (Detail).</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: times;">Sheard claims the object held by<i> Pan [Faunus]</i> to be a conch (</span><span style="font-family: times;">Fig 5)</span><span style="font-family: times;"> and she is most certainly correct and further, Sheard has completely grasped the meaning represented by this mythological pair:</span></div>
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"...the pair represents the male and female principles of nature, the dichotomy of their sexual difference - a primal one, after all, in the human perception of the world and indeed of the cosmos - now fused by union in a shared rapturous experience which is a visual equivalent of their essential primordial unity beneath the world of appearances." W. Stedman Sheard. Collaboration in Renaissance Art. p.196.</div>
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What Giorgione is indicating by <i>Faunus</i> presenting the conch shell to (a budding) Venus is that the shells outward appearance' recalls the cleft form of the pudenda. This association is a very particular motif of the sea-born myth that recalls the Venus<em> Marina</em> and refers to<i> </i>that<i> </i>area of the female anatomy which reflects the matrix and archetypal form of the goddess; the form of her primary sexual differentiation<i>.</i> The conch is the metaphoric link to the pudenda/vulva and the associated properties reflected in nature - water, salinity, fecundity. The vulva then is linked to this divine form unique in nature and to which these multiple associations are attributed the wondrous cause of her power over men.<br />
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<span face="">In the Widener </span><em style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;">Orpheus </em><span face="">it is the metaphor of the conch shell which links the myth to the physical and so confirms a point of intersectionality between the physical relationship (conch/vulva) the mythological/philosophical relationship (the sea-birth of Venus) and at a deeper level, the alchemical relationship of Venus to water (in all philosophical alchemy she will become the 'moist radical').</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: times;">The Sheard essay notes a narrative/anti-narrative argument which suggests that this painting illustrates a story from classical mythology, which might have steered attribution away from Giorgione as it is known that he was not fond of simply illustrating narratives, but there is no narrative that leaps to mind that might encompass all these players in this setting - and so Sheard's essay suggests </span><span style="font-family: times;">to my mind </span><span style="font-family: times;">a constructed, obscure complexity. Portrayed here in their archetypal aspects as the twin Venuses it is t</span><span style="font-family: times;">he myth of Ceres and Proserpine which allows full disclosure of the paintings programme.</span></div>
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Paul Doughtonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12560227637710387418noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7323403459729776769.post-82185270643625002782012-02-29T04:05:00.002-08:002020-02-07T21:27:43.433-08:00Meaning of the Fondaco dei Tedeschi murals: Giorgione's 'Cupid/Mercury' prototype from the Fondaco reappears in the Sacred and Profane Love: Reliefs on the Fountain/Sarcophagus (Fountain Cyane) explained.<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<i style="font-size: 12.8px;">Nuda,</i><span style="font-size: 12.8px;"> Giorgione, Fresco c.1507. Galleria Franchetti, Venice.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: x-large;">Discerning the narrative of the Fondaco dei Tedeschi murals:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times";"><em>"...I for my part have never been able to understand his figures, nor for all my asking, have I ever found anyone who does."</em> </span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: "times";"> Vasari: <em>Lives of the Artists.</em> </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times";"><span style="font-size: x-large;">W</span>hen the <em>Fondaco dei Tedeschi</em> (the trading and accommodation centre of the German merchants) was destroyed by fire in Venice 1506, the city fathers quickly decided to build a new structure that would reflect the sites prominent position on the <st1:place>Grand canal. </st1:place></span><span style="font-family: "times";">Giorgione received the commission to decorate the external walls of the new building in fresco, while t</span>he young Titian seemed to have been employed as an assistant to Giorgione, although according to <span style="font-family: "times";">Giorgio </span>Vasari (1511-1574), Titian achieved his commission independently:</div>
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"...through Barberigo Titian was commissioned to paint some scenes for the same building, above the Merceria." Vasari: The <em>Lives,</em> 445.</blockquote>
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Either way, almost all of the murals have been destroyed by sea and salt. On this subject Vasari, himself a painter, remarked:</div>
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"...I know nothing more harmful to fresco painting painting than the sirocco, especially near to the sea where it carries a salt moisture with it." Vasari: The <em>Lives,</em> 274.</blockquote>
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For Vasari, the murals must have been showing early signs of corrosion, as he was writing perhaps only thirty or forty years after their completion. Now, over f<span style="font-family: "times";">ive hundred years later and with the murals long since destroyed or removed, the <em>Fondaco</em> stands stark and undecorated on the Grand Canal adjacent to the Rialto bridge. </span> <br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Fig 1.The Fondaco dei Tedeschi.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "times";">Fortunately in<span style="font-family: "times new roman";"> 1966 a plaster facing was removed that had been installed over the facade of the building and some damaged relics were recovered from under the plaster and removed to the <em>Galleria Franchetti</em> in Venice. </span>The recovered murals portrayed some large and very brightly coloured figures though typical of Giorgione, the </span><span style="font-family: "times";">identity and </span><span style="font-family: "times";">meaning of those figures and the narratives they were to inhabit have long since been lost.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Fig. 2. <i>Nuda,</i> Giorgione, Fresco c.1507. Galleria Franchetti, Venice.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "times";">But there should be no doubt as to </span><span style="font-family: "times";">Giorgione's </span><span style="font-family: "times";">manipulation of the site through the boldness of colour and the jewelled reflections that would have been cast across the waters of the Grand Canal.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Fig 3. Venice; Fondaco dei Tedeschi; engraving after fresco; Giacomo Piccini after Giorgione, Titian; 17th c.</td></tr>
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Of the life of Giorgione Da Castelfranco and those murals on the<em> Fondaco</em>, Giorgio Vasari wrote:</div>
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<em><span style="font-family: "times"; font-style: normal;">“…over the main door which opens into the Merceria there is the seated figure of a woman who has at her feet the [severed] head of a dead giant, as if she were meant to be a Judith; she is raising the head with a sword and speaking to a German standing below her.”<span style="font-family: "times";"> Vasari: The <em><span style="font-family: "times";">Lives</span></em>, p. 275</span></span></em></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "times";"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Vasari appears to have been embellishing quick notes taken from an earlier observation and these most likely had been taken back to the writing room for refinement because he states:</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">"...she is raising the head with a sword..." Vasari Ibid.</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"></span></div>
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<strong><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span></strong><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">This statement is clearly incorrect and cannot be considered directly observational. Vasari attempted to align the iconography of the figure to a <em>Judith </em>figure that had been<st1:place> known to belong to the <i>oeuvre</i> of Giorgione. But then</st1:place></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><st1:place> Vasari, wavering in the veracity of his conviction,<span style="font-family: "times";"> abandons the Judith attribution to suggest <em>Germania - </em>the feminine representation of Germany:</span></st1:place></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "times";">“I have not been able to interpret the meaning of this, unless Giorgione meant her to stand for </span><st1:place><span style="font-family: "times";">Germania</span></st1:place><span style="font-family: "times";">.”<span style="font-family: "times";"><em> </em>Vasari: The <em>Lives</em></span>, p. 275</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><st1:place>If in the beginning Vasari was</st1:place><span style="font-family: "times";"> uncertain, he was now completely confused. Perhaps Vasari was confronted by the figure of the German soldier who, in a classic display of dramatic irony holds a dagger behind his back to telegraph the idea of <em>treachery</em> to the observer (Fig 3). Putting aside the identity of the woman or the context of the remaining figures on the <em>Fondaco </em>for just a moment, this simple act of dramatic irony will stand alone as a small piece of theatre in a much larger play.</span> </span> </div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: justify;">Fig 4. Giorgione: </span><span style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;">Judith with the Head of Holofernes c.1507.</span><span style="text-align: justify;"> Hermitage, St. Petersberg</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "times";">It is easy to understand why Vasari's attribution of a </span><em style="font-family: times;">Fondaco Judith</em><span style="font-family: "times";"> might seem plausible, after all, it can be seen that in Giorgione's earlier </span><em style="font-family: times;">Judith</em><span style="font-family: "times";"> (Fig 4), there is also a sword; an exposed left leg; and a severed head with a foot placed upon it. But three apparent motifs do not necessarily a </span><em style="font-family: times;">Judith</em><span style="font-family: "times";"> make, and what Vasari really noted in the reappearance of the three motifs of the earlier </span><em style="font-family: times;">Judith</em><span style="font-family: "times";"> was the </span><i style="font-family: times;">iconographic superficiality</i><span style="font-family: "times";"> because in the mural on the </span><em style="font-family: times;">Fondaco</em><span style="font-family: "times";"> Giorgione has chosen to contextually re-invent three similar motifs from his <i>oeuvre</i> (so drawing from known competency) to form a new narrative. </span></div>
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The grasp that is required (in the same manner of the winged prepubescent cupid/mercury under discussion shortly) is the <em>twist</em> that Giorgione brings to the invention in the development of his own visual language. This 'tampering' belongs as much the <i>oeuvre</i> of Giorgione as does genius of colour or stroke of the brush; perhaps it is even more so because like any symbolic language (which includes common text) it is simply a system of signs contextualised and re-contextualised - fluctuating between sign, context, logic, and disambiguation in the ardent desire to advance meaning through purely visual communication. <span style="font-family: "times";">Therefore if </span>Giorgione chooses to incorporate the motifs of sword, severed head etc. there is every reason to consider that these motifs were intentionally disconnected from the original information cluster for which they were once employed, and then re-contextualised to deliver quite different meaning to the <i>Fondaco</i> 'Judith'. Divorced from all preconception these motifs are merely combinations of sets of visual imagery which are completely within the power of the artist to draw upon to weave fresh narrative - albeit from the same spool of thread. Besides, the works were for two different audiences, one very private and the other very public, and even then one would be hard pressed to find complaint even in iconographic similarity. We just need to look at Vasari's situation; confusion definitely - but complaint, no.</div>
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<span style="font-family: "times";">There were many other figures and scenes on the Fondaco which could have been mentioned by Vasari but weren't, so it is fair to say that Vasari only intended to raise an important highlight in the careers of Giorgione and Titian rather than structure a critical elucidation on the facades possible grand theme. This again indicates that Vasari was working from notes made at an earlier time and was not able to consider more than those brief descriptions he had previously sketched.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times";"><span style="font-family: "times";"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">Was Vasari too preoccupied with the Judith/Germania attribution to note the arrangement of the </span><span style="font-family: "times";">two woman that were supposed to have occupied the position on the upper level directly above the woman brandishing the sword? </span></span></span><br />
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<em>[As noticed by Paul Joannides and brought to my notice in Dr Stefano's blog </em><a href="http://giorgionetempesta.blogspot.com.au/2011/12/giorgione-titian-and-fondaco-dei.html"><em>here</em></a><em> - these figures (Fig 5.) imitate (or vice versa) the physical attitudes of the two women at the sarcophagus /fountain in the Sacred and Profane Love.] </em><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "times";">Fig. 5. </span><span style="font-family: "times";">Venice; Fondaco dei Tedeschi; etching after fresco; Antonio Zanetti; after Giorgione, 18th c.</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Fig 6. Fondaco dei Tedeschi,Venice. Etching after fresco; Antonio Zanetti; after Giorgione.18th c.</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "times";"><span style="font-size: x-large;">A</span>ccording to Joannides and Stefano, the two women (Fig 5) were positioned above the seated figure with the sword (Fig 6), by and large appearing together as those figures are presented on this page i.e, the two women look down onto the scene below involving the German soldier and Vasari's <em>Judith/Germania </em>figure who holds a sword while her foot is supported on the severed head of a dead 'giant'. We will return to this pair further along in this post, but it </span><span style="font-family: "times";">is imperative to find a context that does not rely on the singular attribution of this persistent iconographic speculation i.e., <em>Judith/Germania</em>. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times";">It will be helpful to list any evidence that can be introduced to form a unifying umbrella theme or grand narrative. Fortunately </span><span style="font-family: "times";">Vasari has also thrown off a quick sketch of two other images present on the <em>Fondaco</em>. These were:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times";">“…one figure accompanied by the head of a lion, another by an angel in the guise of a cupid…”<span style="font-family: "times";"><em> </em>Vasari: The <em>Lives</em></span>, p. 275</span></div>
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<span style="text-align: center;">These two iconographs are contextually illuminating and critical to this reading but n</span><span style="font-family: "times";">ow, by combining six available evidence based reasons (two textual and four visual) it is possible to suggest an alternative identity to the woman holding the sword.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times";">Below, numerated and in list form are the observations under consideration. Only those </span><span style="font-family: "times";">which are documented to have existed through either textual record or sketches can be considered. Again; </span><span style="font-family: "times";">six evidence based reasons - two textual and four visual: </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> 1. The identities of the two women above the figure with the raised sword.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">3. The identity of the severed head.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: Times;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">4.<span style="font-stretch: normal;"> </span></span></span>The figure accompanied by the head of a lion.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: Times;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">5.<span style="font-stretch: normal;"> </span></span></span>The 'angel in the guise of a cupid'.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: Times;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-stretch: normal;"> 5a. </span></span></span>This ‘cupid’ is in the vicinity of apples.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: Times;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"> 5b.<span style="font-stretch: normal;"> </span></span></span>This 'cupid' also holds a wand, short rod, or staff.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times"; mso-fareast-font-family: Times;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">6a. </span></span><span style="font-family: "times"; text-indent: -18pt;">One of</span><span style="font-family: "times"; text-indent: -18pt;"> t</span><span style="font-family: "times"; text-indent: -18pt;">wo remnants of the </span><i style="font-family: times; text-indent: -18pt;">Fondaco</i><span style="font-family: "times"; text-indent: -18pt;"> murals were revealed when an old plaster covering was removed.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; text-indent: -18pt;">The very colourful Nuda</span><span style="font-family: "times"; text-indent: -18pt;"> (see fig. 2) appears to be solitary and emblematic. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times"; text-indent: -18pt;">6b. The other is </span><span style="font-family: "times"; text-indent: -18pt;">the</span><span style="font-family: "times"; text-indent: -18pt;"> remnant of a battle frieze which is depicting</span><span style="font-family: "times"; text-indent: -18pt;"> the slaying of the Stymphalides of Arcadia by Hercules.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times";">These observations must be responded to number to number:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times";">Numbers 1, 2, 3, belong to the (visual) series of etchings by Antonio Maria Zanetti (c.1771). Number 1 assumes that placing the two women above the figure brandishing the sword is the intentional and correct position.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times";">Numbers 4 & 5 are described (textual evidence) by Vasari in the <em>Lives</em>. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times";">Finally, number 6 (a & b) are remnants of the <i>Fondaco</i> murals that were uncovered during the 1966 renovation.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: x-large;">The Murals on the Fondaco dei Tedeschi refer to the 12 Labours of Hercules.</span></div>
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<strong>1.</strong> <strong>Juno/Lucina:</strong> Those two women (Fig 7) seated above the figure holding the sword are <em>Lucina</em> (at left), and <em>Juno</em> (bearing the raised arm). </div>
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The myth:</div>
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<em>Juno</em>, <span style="font-family: "times";">jealous of Jupiter's amour with <em>Alcmena</em>, made <em>Jupiter</em> swear an oath that the first child born (<em>Hercules</em> and <em>Eurystheus</em> were cousins) would hold dominion over the other. <em>Juno's</em> cunning was rewarded by the goddess <em>Lucina</em> the daughter of <em>Juno </em>(thereby recalling the mother/daughter theme of <em>Ceres/Proserpine</em> of the <em>Sacred and Profane Love</em>) sitting at the door of Amphitryon's house with her arms and legs crossed when <em>Alcmena</em> was labouring, and so withholding the birth of <em>Hercules </em>and therefore allowing time for <i>Eurystheus</i> to become the first born, and the reason for this had been willed by Jupiter:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times";"></span> "...the younger of the two was doomed by Jupiter to be subservient to the will of the other" J. Lempriere p.235</div>
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<span style="font-family: "times";">Juno then hastened the birth of <em>Eurystheus</em>; the tyrant to whom <em>Hercules</em> was now subordinate </span></div>
<span style="font-family: "times"; text-align: justify; text-indent: -24px;"> and who, jealous of </span><em style="font-family: times; text-align: justify; text-indent: -24px;">Hercules</em><span style="font-family: "times"; text-align: justify; text-indent: -24px;">, sent the latter on the fabled twelve labours intending his demise.</span><br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-De8q_0Q6Gls/U1tlIYmyA2I/AAAAAAAAC7Y/_WoKVDERRwo/s1600/titian_ngexh1990_cat1a.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="402" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-De8q_0Q6Gls/U1tlIYmyA2I/AAAAAAAAC7Y/_WoKVDERRwo/s1600/titian_ngexh1990_cat1a.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Fig 8. Fondaco dei Tedeschi; The [so-called] Triumph of Justice; Giorgione, Titian Galleria Francetti, Venice.</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "times";"><span style="font-family: "times"; mso-fareast-font-family: Times;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><strong>2.</strong><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> <span style="font-family: "times";"><strong>Alcmena:</strong> </span></span></span></span>The woman above the doorway is <em>Alcmena</em>, the mother of <em>Hercules</em> by <em>Jupiter. </em><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><em>Alcmena</em> recieves the severed head of the tyrant <em>Eurystheus</em> - killed by the son of <em>Hercules </em>- and attacked it furiously knowing the ill will the tyrant held toward her dead son.</span><br />
</span></div>
<br />
<span style="font-family: "times";">The myth: </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times";"> <em>Alcmena</em> was deceived by <em>Jupiter</em> who took the form of her betrothed <em>Amphitryon</em> while he was away. Later in heaven, <em>Jupiter</em> boasted that a son would soon be born to whom he would give absolute power over men. Jealous <em>Juno</em> delayed the birth of <em>Hercules</em> and quickened the birth of his cousin <em>Eurystheus</em>. </span>The now first-born <em>Eurystheus</em> imposed the twelve labours upon <em>Hercules</em> in the hope that the hero would meet his doom. <br />
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<div style="margin-left: 36pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo2; tab-stops: list 36.0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18pt;">
The narrative on display here in the <i>Fondaco</i> mural (that little piece of dramatic irony referred to earlier) is that this almost <i>deified</i> Italian matrona <em style="font-family: 'times new roman'; text-align: left; text-indent: -18pt;">Alcmena -</em><span style="text-indent: -18pt;"> mother of </span><em style="text-indent: -18pt;">Hercules</em><span style="text-indent: -18pt;"> - would treat any deception against her kin with the same vengeance shown toward the tyrant </span><em style="text-indent: -18pt;">Eurystheus</em><span style="text-indent: -18pt;">. </span><i style="text-indent: -18pt;">Alcmena</i><span style="text-indent: -18pt;"> would be seen as saying: </span></div>
<div style="margin-left: 36pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo2; tab-stops: list 36.0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18pt;">
<br /></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<em>'If this is how I treat a tyrant of my own kin, any foreign tyranny will be met with full fury of the mother (the Venetian state) for her wronged children'.</em></div>
</blockquote>
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<br /></div>
<div style="margin-left: 36pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo2; tab-stops: list 36.0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18pt;">
This barely concealed threat seems to articulate a mistrust between the Italians and Germans and it should be noted that in just ten years Luther will have (supposedly or actually) nailed his <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ninety-Five_Theses">Ninety-Five Theses</a> to the door of the Wittenberg church, an act which would successfully announce the frustrations of the Germans toward the <span style="font-family: "times"; text-indent: -18pt;">Italians</span><span style="text-indent: -18pt;"> and undermining Papal authority in Germany. </span><br />
<span style="text-indent: -18pt;"> By placing <i>Alcmena </i>in position as the prominent player in this theatrical comment Giorgione actually confronts German animosity and in position above the door might even be seen as both accusing and threatening. Did the government now put to repair the damage quickly, have any suspicions surrounding the cause of the fire at the <i>Fondaco? </i> The fire ultimately led to an improvement in the site and the bettering of conditions for the Germans staying and trading there - all done at the expense of the Italians.</span></div>
<div style="margin-left: 36pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo2; tab-stops: list 36.0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18pt;">
<span style="font-family: "times";"> </span></div>
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<div style="margin-left: 36pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo2; tab-stops: list 36.0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18pt;">
<span style="font-family: "times"; mso-fareast-font-family: Times;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><strong>3.</strong><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> <strong>Eurystheus:</strong> The severed head is that of <em>Eurystheus</em>:</span></span></span><br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-sor83GspDuo/U1tmqxFUQyI/AAAAAAAAC7k/17lDR2COyNo/s1600/AH_0304_008_688.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="264" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-sor83GspDuo/U1tmqxFUQyI/AAAAAAAAC7k/17lDR2COyNo/s1600/AH_0304_008_688.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Fig 9. Detail. Justice. <span style="font-size: x-small;">Etching after fresco; Antonio Zanetti; after Giorgione.18th c.</span></td></tr>
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<div style="margin-left: 36pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo2; tab-stops: list 36.0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18pt;">
The myth:<br />
"He [<em>Eurystheus</em>] was killed... by <em>Hyllus</em> the son of <em>Hercules</em>. His head was sent to <em>Alcmena</em> the mother of <em>Hercules</em>, who, mindful of the cruelties which her son had suffered, insulted it and tore out the eyes with the most inveterate fury." J. Lempriere, p.235.</div>
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</div>
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<strong>4.</strong> The lion of Nemea: </div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="margin-left: 36pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo2; tab-stops: list 36.0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18pt;">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "times";">“…one figure accompanied by the head of a lion..."</span> </div>
</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "times";"><em> Lives of the Artists</em>, p. 275</span></div>
</blockquote>
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Contextually, t<span style="font-family: "times";">he figure with the head of a lion should refer to the first labour forced upon <em>Hercules</em> by <span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><em>Eurystheus</em>,</span> which was to slay the <em>Nemean lion.</em></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="margin-left: 36pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo2; tab-stops: list 36.0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18pt;">
The myth:</div>
<div style="margin-left: 36pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo2; tab-stops: list 36.0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18pt;">
"The hero, unable to destroy him with his arrows, boldly attacked him with his club, pursued him to his den, and after a close and sharp engagement he choked him to death".</div>
<div style="margin-left: 36pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo2; tab-stops: list 36.0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18pt;">
J. Lempriere p.268</div>
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<br />
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-left: 36pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo2; tab-stops: list 36.0pt; text-align: left; text-indent: -18pt;">
<span style="font-family: "times"; mso-fareast-font-family: Times;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><strong>5.</strong><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> Winged cupid:</span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "times"; mso-fareast-font-family: Times;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"></span></span><br />
<div style="margin-left: 36pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo2; tab-stops: list 36.0pt; text-align: center; text-indent: -18pt;">
<span style="font-family: "times";">"...an angel in the guise of a cupid…”</span></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "times";"><em> Lives of the Artists</em>, p. 275</span></div>
</blockquote>
<div style="margin-left: 36pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo2; tab-stops: list 36.0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18pt;">
<span style="font-family: "times";"><span style="text-indent: -18pt;">The angel in the guise of a cupid is a winged </span><em style="text-indent: -18pt;">Mercury </em><span style="text-indent: -18pt;">- and who is also the prototype of the child at the Fountain/sarcophagus represented in the </span><i style="text-indent: -18pt;">Sacred and Profane Love.</i><span style="text-indent: -18pt;"> </span> </span><span style="font-family: "times"; text-indent: -18pt;"> </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "times";"><span style="text-indent: -18pt;">It is uncommon to find </span><em style="text-indent: -18pt;">Mercury</em><span style="text-indent: -18pt;"> prepubescent and winged - iconographically he was generally cast as a bearded youth, yet </span></span><span style="font-family: "times"; text-indent: -18pt;">in the </span><em style="font-family: times; text-indent: -18pt;">Sacred and Profane Love </em><span style="font-family: "times"; text-indent: -18pt;">and</span><span style="font-family: "times"; text-indent: -18pt;"><span style="text-indent: -18pt;"> here</span><span style="text-indent: -18pt;"> </span><span style="text-indent: -18pt;"><i>Mercury</i> is represented as a winged babe</span></span><span style="font-family: "times"; text-indent: -18pt;">.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; text-indent: -18pt;"> </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "times";"><span style="text-indent: -18pt;">As the murals on the </span><em style="text-indent: -18pt;">Fondaco</em><span style="text-indent: -18pt;"> were documented to have been given to Giorgione to execute, Giorgione can be considered as the author of this peculiar iconological take, both on the </span><em style="text-indent: -18pt;">Fondaco</em><span style="text-indent: -18pt;"> and in the </span><em style="text-indent: -18pt;">Sacred and Profane Love.</em> </span></div>
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<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "times";"><span style="text-indent: -18pt;">.</span> </span></div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
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<div style="margin-left: 36pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo2; tab-stops: list 36.0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18pt;">
<span style="font-family: "times"; mso-fareast-font-family: Times;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><strong>5</strong>(a).<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> <span style="font-family: "times";"><em>Mercury </em>the 'god of cunning and theft' in the vicinity of apples recalls the theft of the <em>Hesperidean Apples</em> - the eleventh labour of <em>Hercules</em>.</span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times"; mso-fareast-font-family: Times;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "times";"><br /></span></span></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "times"; mso-fareast-font-family: Times;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "times";"><br /></span></span></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times";"><span style="text-indent: -18pt;"><span style="text-align: left;">The myth: </span><span style="text-align: left; text-indent: -18pt;">Of</span><span style="font-family: "times"; text-align: left; text-indent: -18pt;"> several accounts, this simplicity will suit:</span></span></span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; text-indent: 0px;">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "times";"><span style="text-indent: -18pt;"><span style="font-family: "times"; text-align: left; text-indent: -18pt;"><span style="font-family: "times";"><span style="font-family: "times";">"Hercules gathered the apples himself, without the assistance of Atlas, and he previously killed the watchful dragon (<em>Ladon</em>) which kept the tree."</span></span></span></span></span></div>
</blockquote>
<span style="font-family: "times";"><span style="text-indent: -18pt;"><span style="font-family: "times"; text-align: left; text-indent: -18pt;">
</span></span></span>
<br />
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; text-indent: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times";"><span style="text-indent: -18pt;"><span style="font-family: "times"; text-align: left; text-indent: -18pt;"><span style="font-family: "times";"><span style="font-family: "times";"></span></span></span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "times";"><span style="text-indent: -18pt;"><span style="font-family: "times"; text-align: left; text-indent: -18pt;">
</span></span></span>
<br />
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; text-align: center; text-indent: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times";"><span style="text-indent: -18pt;"><span style="font-family: "times"; text-align: left; text-indent: -18pt;"><span style="font-family: "times";"> J. Lempriere p.274</span></span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "times";"><span style="text-indent: -18pt;"><span style="font-family: "times"; text-align: left; text-indent: -18pt;">
</span></span></span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: "times";"><span style="text-indent: -18pt;"><span style="font-family: "times"; text-align: left; text-indent: -18pt;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times";"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; text-indent: -24px;">The reason that Mercury is in the vicinity of the apple tree (also the Hesperidean apple was actually an </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; text-indent: -18pt;">orange - the</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; text-indent: -18pt;"> </span><i style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; text-indent: -18pt;">medici mala</i><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; text-indent: -18pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; text-indent: -18pt;">- the apple of health from the Hesperides (West = Spain)). By employing Mercury and not Hercules to create the idea of 'theft' actually involves Giorgione's commitment to allegory over direct narrative:</span></span></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times";"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; text-indent: -18pt;"></span></span><br />
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "times";"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; text-indent: -18pt;"><span style="text-indent: -18pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "times"; text-indent: 0px;">"[Mercury] was also the god of thieves, pickpockets, and all dishonest persons"</span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "times";"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; text-indent: -18pt;">
</span></span>
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; text-align: center;">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times";"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; text-indent: -18pt;"><span style="font-family: "times";"></span></span></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "times";"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; text-indent: -18pt;"><span style="font-family: "times";"> J. Lempriere p.364</span></span></span></div>
</blockquote>
<span style="font-family: "times";"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; text-indent: -18pt;">
</span></span></blockquote>
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times";"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; text-indent: -18pt;"><span style="font-family: "times";">Giorgione is referencing the art of theft using the veil of allegory, whereas a brute act by Hercules might render the work as a narrative rather than an allegory which should be a system of </span><em style="font-family: times;">v</em><span style="font-family: "times";">e</span><span style="font-family: "times";">ils</span><em style="font-family: times;">.</em></span></span></div>
</div>
</div>
<div style="margin-left: 36pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18pt;">
<div dir="rtl" style="text-align: left;">
<div style="text-align: right;">
<br /></div>
</div>
</div>
<div style="margin-left: 36pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18pt;">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<div dir="rtl" style="text-align: right;">
<br /></div>
</div>
</div>
<div style="margin-left: 36pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18pt;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<strong style="font-family: times; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18pt;">5</strong><span style="font-family: "times"; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18pt;">(b). (digression) This is not an 'angel with a wand' because in context with the allegorical reading the winged child holds the <i><b>caduceus</b></i> of </span><em style="font-family: times; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18pt;">Mercury </em><span style="font-family: "times"; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18pt;">and</span><em style="font-family: times; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18pt;"> contextually</em><span style="font-family: "times"; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18pt;"> the cherub <i>is </i>Mercury.</span></div>
</div>
<div style="margin-left: 36pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18pt;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "times"; text-align: justify;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "times"; text-indent: -18pt;">The myth:</span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: "times"; text-indent: -18pt;"><span style="text-align: justify;">"[The caduceus] was the attribute of</span><em style="text-align: justify;"> </em><span style="text-align: justify;">Mercury and the emblem of power, and it had been given him by Apollo in return for the lyre".</span></span></blockquote>
</div>
<span style="font-family: "times"; mso-fareast-font-family: Times;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"> J. Lempriere p.114<br /><br />
</span></span></div>
<div style="margin-left: 36pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18pt;">
</div>
<span style="font-family: "times"; mso-fareast-font-family: Times;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times"; mso-fareast-font-family: Times;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"></span></span><span style="font-family: "times"; text-align: justify; text-indent: -24px;">Traditionally here were two serpents wound around the wand in two semi-circles and two full circles.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times"; mso-fareast-font-family: Times;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"></span></span><br />
<div style="margin-left: 36pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18pt;">
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-8yK_JyAtvRI/U1tnWd7Bd5I/AAAAAAAAC7s/rJPZp2E3hCs/s1600/caduceus.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-8yK_JyAtvRI/U1tnWd7Bd5I/AAAAAAAAC7s/rJPZp2E3hCs/s1600/caduceus.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="text-indent: 0px;">Fig 10. The caduceus. </span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times"; text-indent: -18pt;">However in art, the serpents do not always appear in this strict format - as in <em>Botticelli's </em></span><em style="font-family: Times; text-align: left; text-indent: -18pt;">Primavera</em><span style="font-family: "times"; text-align: left; text-indent: -18pt;"> - which </span><span style="font-family: "times"; text-align: left; text-indent: -18pt;">is a far more decorative invention (and which is ripe for analysis in </span><span style="font-family: "times"; text-align: left; text-indent: -18pt;">due course...). It can also be simply a 'wand'. </span><em style="font-family: times; text-indent: -24px;"><span style="font-family: "times"; font-style: normal;">Again; Giorgione is referencing Mercury and the art of theft using the veil of allegory. </span></em></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times"; text-indent: -24px;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; text-indent: -18pt;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times"; text-indent: -24px;">Professor J. Anderson reproduced the original image of the 'angel in the guise of a cupid'</span><span style="font-family: "times"; text-indent: -18pt;"> in</span><span style="font-family: "times"; text-indent: -18pt;"> the 1997 </span><span style="font-family: "times"; text-indent: -18pt;">publication </span><em style="font-family: Times; text-indent: -18pt;">Giorgione: The painter of poetic brevity. </em><br />
<span style="font-family: "times"; text-indent: -18pt;"><br /></span>
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<span style="font-family: "times"; text-indent: -18pt;">Fig. 11</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times"; text-indent: -18pt;">Taking the lead from Vasari, Anderson describes this child (Fig. 11) as a 'cupid tapping apples'</span><em style="font-family: Times; text-indent: -18pt;">.</em><span style="font-family: "times"; text-indent: -18pt;"> Yet what we <i>actua</i></span><em style="font-family: Times; text-indent: -18pt;">lly</em><span style="font-family: "times"; text-indent: -18pt;"> see is a winged babe in the vicinity of apples holding a rod or wand; a tri-referential iconograph. He is not 'tapping apples' because this is a still image and to make that claim is to anticipate the sequence of logical frames which we moderns might attribute to the medium of film; but that presumption cannot exist here.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times"; text-indent: -18pt;"><span style="font-family: "times"; mso-fareast-font-family: Times;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><strong>6.</strong><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-stretch: normal;"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: "times";">The fragment representation (Fig. 12) shows the ninth labour of Hercules - the slaying of the Stymphalides of Arcadia:</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times";">The myth:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times";">"For his sixth* labour he was ordered to kill the carnivorous birds which ravaged the country near the lake Stymphalis (sic) in Arcadia."</span></div>
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J. Lempriere p.268</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small; text-indent: 0px;">Fig 12. Venice; Fondaco dei Tedeschi; Battle frieze; Giorgione; c.1508</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "times";">:Lempriere describes these creatures</span></div>
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"...voracious birds, like cranes or storks, which fed upon<br />
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In Fig 12. Giorgione has created them as monstrous beasts with swan or crane like necks. The image at the left sees the birds overcoming a yielding figure, and to the right stands the dominating figure of Hercules in the role of vanquisher with the hero's right arm raised above the height of the bird.<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">I</span>f it can be said that these three Labours - the Nemean lion, the Hesperidean apples, and the Stymphalides are represented - and then combine them with the drama of Juno/Lucina & Alcemena/Eurystheus, there should be little doubt as to the meaning.<br />
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<span style="font-family: "times";">There are two main points to pursue in regard to this interpretation, t</span><span style="font-family: "times";">he first is to insist on allegory as the defining form of communication found in this work and (several other works) by Giorgione.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times";">But the second and main thrust (which is the fundamental interest here) is to expose the authorship of Giorgione in regard to the motif of Mercury as the winged babe in both the <i>Fondaco</i> murals and the <em>Sacred and Profane Love</em>. </span><span style="font-family: "times";"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">As Giorgione was the known author of the <i>Fondaco</i> murals, his processes, his thoughts and plastic interests are a telling part of his <i>oeuvre: </i>Both the <i>Fondaco</i> murals and the <em><span style="font-family: "times";">Sacred and Profane Love</span></em> inform each other through Giorgione's peculiar iconology.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times";">Whether or not the </span><em style="font-family: Times;">Sacred and Profane Love</em><span style="font-family: "times";"> can be ultimately accepted as the 'una nocte' sought by Isabella d'Este shortly after the death of Giorgione (although it very likely is) one would surmise the </span><em style="font-family: Times;">Sacred and Profane Love</em><span style="font-family: "times";"> and Fondaco murals may have been in a stage of mutual development. These Giorgionesque themes; the placements of the dual feminine (in nudity & posture), the exposed left leg surrounded by a red gravity defying fabric (<i>Judith & Ceres</i>) and the child cupid/mercury portrayed as a winged babe (<i>Sacred & Profane Love</i> and the <i>Fondaco</i>) - all of these elements </span><span style="font-family: "times";">re-articulate previous iconological statements and are directly </span><span style="font-family: "times";">related as a body of work. Giorgione's </span><i style="font-family: times;">oeuvre </i><span style="font-family: "times";">has </span><span style="font-family: "times";">developed</span><span style="font-family: "times";"> a</span><span style="font-family: "times";"> visual language peculiar to his personal interests, selecting from the past and re-wrapping it in the creative, intellectual and classically inspired milieu that was the Venetian Renaissance. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times";">There are many other figures on the <i>Fondaco</i> walls that do not qualify an interpretation. Within the narrative that can be reconstructed there are several solitary figures that in isolation appear to present as 'emblematic grandeur'. Not every component need participate in a works overall meaning; the enigma of silence is as profound as it is provocative and this silence can instil an atmosphere of stateliness and of splendour.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times";">The link below reproduces the watercolours of Zaccaria Dal Bo and contains some interesting images before the Fondaco frescoes complete ruin. <a href="http://venezia-emilia.blogspot.com.au/2010/05/gli-affreschi-di-tiziano-e-di-giorgione.html">http://venezia-emilia.blogspot.com.au/2010/05/gli-affreschi-di-tiziano-e-di-giorgione.html</a></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times";">This consideration concludes that the </span><em style="font-family: Times;">Sacred and Profane Love</em><span style="font-family: "times";"> was likely<i> begun</i> by the reluctant Giovanni Bellini who, hesitant to offend the Council of Ten who had recently outlawed alchemical works, then passed it and the paintings rigidly defined programme to Giorgione. Titian possibly absorbed many of Giorgione's works after the latter's death in 1510 - including authorship - but </span><span style="font-family: "times";">with only a superficial understanding of the complexity involved in the paintings</span><span style="font-family: "times";"> programme.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-large;">Comparative motifs: <i>The Fondaco dei Tedeschi</i> and the <i>Sacred and Profane Love</i>.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Fig 12. Venice; Fondaco dei Tedeschi: Detail Etching after fresco; A. Zanetti; after Giorgione, 18th c</td></tr>
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The two women of the <em>Sacred and Profane Love </em>are identified in this blog - and this blog alone - as Ceres and Proserpine. These representations of the dual feminine encapsulate the notions of the earthly and the divine, and in the Fondaco mural it is Juno - the Great Mother archetype - who is semi-nude with upraised arm while her daughter Lucina (goddess of childbirth) is clothed. A comparison must be considered.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Fig 14. Giorgione: <em>Judith</em> (Detail) <span style="font-style: italic;">c.1507.</span> </td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "times";">Comparing details of Giorgione's <em>Judith</em> and the Ceres of the <em>Sacred and Profane Love </em></span><span style="font-family: "times";">(figs. 14 & 15) note t</span><span style="font-family: "times";">he exposed left leg and a billowing red fabric. </span>If one were to write a visual analysis of Giorgione's <em>Judith with the Head of Holofernes,</em> the same mystical breeze floats the garment to expose the left leg of a Giorgione 'Great feminine' archetype. Distinct from the Great mother, Judith is a beautiful widow whose husband bequeathed her valuables for her comfort. </div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Fig 16. The Sleeping Venus, c. 1510. Oil on canvas, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gem%C3%A4ldegalerie_Alte_Meister" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: none; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #0b0080; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 12.32px; text-align: start; text-decoration-line: none;" title="Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister">Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister</a><span style="background-color: #f8f9fa; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 12.32px;">, Dresden</span></td></tr>
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On the one hand Judith is not the archetypal equivalent of the <em>Sleeping Venus</em> (fig. 16) or <em>Ceres (fig 15) </em>but<em> </em>archetypally she would have more in common with the <em>Venus of Urbino (fig. 17)</em>.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px; text-align: center;">Fig. 17. Venus of Urbino, c. 1534. Oil on canvas, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uffizi" style="background: none rgb(248, 249, 250); color: #0b0080; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 12.32px; text-align: left;" title="">Uffizi</a><span style="background-color: #f8f9fa; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 12.32px; text-align: left;">, </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florence" style="background: none rgb(248, 249, 250); color: #0b0080; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 12.32px; text-align: left;" title="Florence">Florence</a>.</td></tr>
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Take note of the exposed left legs on <i>all</i> of these goddesses and consider whether Giorgione has initiated the form as an archetype.</div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-large;">The reliefs on the sarcophagus/fountain (Fountain Cyane) - fully explained.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">Ceres as mare:</span><span style="font-size: large;"> (viewers left)</span><span style="font-size: x-small;"> </span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="text-indent: -24px;">Fig 19. </span><em style="text-indent: -24px;">Sacred and Profane Love</em><span style="text-indent: -24px;"> (Detail).</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">O</span>n the sarcophagus/fountain at the viewers left (divided into two halves by the rose bush) is a horse (a mare) surrounded by dancing youths.<span style="text-indent: -18pt;">The myth:</span><br />
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"Ceres, when she travelled over the world in quest of her daughter Proserpine, had taken the figure of mare, to avoid the importuning addresses of Neptune. The god changed himself also into a horse, and from their union arose a daughter called Hera, and the horse Arion..." Lempriere, <em>Arion</em> p.75</blockquote>
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Of three reasons why this is a relevant emblem on the front of the <em>Fountain Cyane</em>, the first can be stated (yet in fact there is no real order of importance). <span style="text-indent: -18pt;">The first reason is that of the attributes of Neptune:</span></div>
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<span style="text-indent: -18pt;"> </span><span style="text-indent: -18pt;">"Not only the ocean, [but] rivers, and</span><span style="text-indent: -18pt;"> </span><strong style="text-indent: -18pt;"><i>fountains</i></strong><span style="text-indent: -18pt;"> </span><span style="text-indent: -18pt;">were subjected to him [Neptune]...".</span> <span style="text-indent: -18pt;"> Lempriere, </span><em style="text-indent: -18pt;">Neptunus</em><span style="text-indent: -18pt;"> p.391.</span></blockquote>
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The second reason for this attribution is that here on the <em>Fountain Cyane</em>, is the reference to the search of Ceres for Proserpine, recalling that Neptune<b> </b>had<b> </b>assumed the form of a horse and<b> </b><i style="font-weight: bold;">took advantage of Ceres while she was searching for Proserpine.</i><br />
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The third reason is that only occasion that Ceres ever assumed the form of a mare.</div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">The Demetria</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: x-large;">:</span><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></span></span><span style="text-indent: -18pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">(viewers right)</span></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-58-wC81vcw0/U31oKoWJrQI/AAAAAAAAC-o/Ibxy_URmPts/s1600/Titian+Sacred+Profane+-+Copy+(8).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="540" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-58-wC81vcw0/U31oKoWJrQI/AAAAAAAAC-o/Ibxy_URmPts/s1600/Titian+Sacred+Profane+-+Copy+(8).jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="text-indent: -18pt;">Fig 20. </span><em style="text-indent: -18pt;">Sacred and Profane Love</em><span style="text-indent: -18pt;"> (Detail).</span></td></tr>
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<o:p><span style="text-align: center; text-indent: -18pt;"> </span><span style="text-align: center; text-indent: -18pt;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">D</span>uring</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> the <em>Demetria,</em> a festival in honour of Ceres, Lempriere states:</span></o:p><br />
<o:p><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></o:p>
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<o:p><o:p><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">"it was customary for the votaries (both male and female) of the goddess to lash themselves with whips made from the bark of trees".</span></o:p><br />
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<o:p><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; text-align: justify;"> John Lempriere. p.196</span></o:p></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; text-indent: -18pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; text-indent: -18pt;">Most importantly whipping in one form or another, seems to have been a consistent religious practice around the </span><st1:place style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; text-indent: -18pt;">Mediterranean, but the rites of the Demetria </st1:place><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; text-indent: -24px;">specifically </span><st1:place style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; text-indent: -18pt;">refer to Ceres: </st1:place><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; text-align: left;">Demetria = (Demeter in the Greek </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; text-align: left;">= Ceres)</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; text-align: left;"> and here is t</span><span style="text-align: left;">he reason behind the motif of the enigmatic</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; text-align: left;"> mare; the whipping, and the link to the tree. The reliefs on the sarcophagus/fountain again </span><span style="text-align: left;">confirm Ceres as the Great Mother of the </span><em style="text-align: left;">Sacred and Profane Love.</em><br />
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<a href="http://forum-venise.hostonet.org/viewtopic.php?t=2098&sid=f60a606858152212a096204ac7b2f797">http://forum-venise.hostonet.org/viewtopic.php?t=2098&sid=f60a606858152212a096204ac7b2f797</a><br />
<br />
<a href="http://gritti.provincia.venezia.it/cittadinanza_europea/il_fondaco_dei_tedeschi.htm">http://gritti.provincia.venezia.it/cittadinanza_europea/il_fondaco_dei_tedeschi.htm</a><br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-H3F1P3DLOok/U1tcou6e8RI/AAAAAAAAC6c/kOVwxFraC1c/s1600/pagebreak+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="68" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-H3F1P3DLOok/U1tcou6e8RI/AAAAAAAAC6c/kOVwxFraC1c/s1600/pagebreak+2.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
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By the way a gentle reminder that all written content on this site is copyright so please feel free use the blog as a reference but please do acknowledge this source.</div>
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Step out of the pantaloons, drop the lute,<br />
and take a well earned break with my<br />
unrelated yet relaxing site on tumblr:</div>
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<a href="http://lemprieres-lovechild.tumblr.com/"><span style="color: #444444; font-size: x-large;">POURQUOI</span></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><em> cheese...</em></span><br />
<em><span style="font-size: x-large;"> pAuL</span></em></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times";"><v:shape id="_x0000_i1028" style="height: 225pt; width: 315pt;" type="#_x0000_t75">
<v:imagedata o:title="AH_0304_008_71" src="file:///C:\Users\User\AppData\Local\Temp\msohtml1\01\clip_image005.jpg">
</v:imagedata></v:shape><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Paul Doughtonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12560227637710387418noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7323403459729776769.post-58548515251254032282012-01-06T02:55:00.001-08:002020-02-08T16:59:41.850-08:00Titian: A study in character. The 'una nocte' (Night) surreptitiously removed from the studio of the late Giorgione.<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: "times";"><em>'A man is a method, a progressive arrangement; a selecting principle, gathering his like unto him wherever he goes.'</em></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times";"> Ralph Waldo Emerson</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times";">(Where the events of history fail in documented consistency, a resort to continuity might be found by considering the more fully developed character of the aged individual.)</span></div>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-bvFI0S2VQg0/Uzq0IQjIA6I/AAAAAAAACm8/dv7YUIHiZH8/s1600/pagebreak%2B2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="68" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-bvFI0S2VQg0/Uzq0IQjIA6I/AAAAAAAACm8/dv7YUIHiZH8/s1600/pagebreak%2B2.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
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<i style="text-align: justify;">The most popular (yet by no means conclusive) interpretation of the Sacred and Profane Love's origin is that it was a gift from one Niccolo Aurelio to his bride Laura Bagarotto. There is no documented evidence of any contract or commission and all conclusions and assumptions are based solely on the existence of the Aurelio coat~of~arms at the front of the fountain.</i></blockquote>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-bDvlWJYJU1M/Uzq3AIAePLI/AAAAAAAACnQ/4dvtteXhl18/s1600/S%26PLove%2Bdetail.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="292" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-bDvlWJYJU1M/Uzq3AIAePLI/AAAAAAAACnQ/4dvtteXhl18/s1600/S%26PLove%2Bdetail.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Fig 1. The Aurelio coat~of~arms:<i> Sacred and Profane Love</i> (Detail)</td></tr>
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<span style="color: #990000; font-size: x-large;">T</span>here is no doubt that it is the Aurelio coat~of~arms (see fig. 1) that is prominently displayed on the front of the sarcophagus next to the spigot<i>, </i>yet it has been
suggested that Aurelio could not have afforded this painting
and that if it were a wedding gift, only Laura Bagarotto's dowry could have
purchased this commission. Laura's father Bertuccio Bagarotto was a professor at the Padua University who was publicly executed for treason against Venice during the War of the League of Cambrai (1508-16) and the Bagarotto dowry which had been confiscated by Venice was restored to Laura the day before her marriage to Aurelio. It seems Laura's father, Bertuccio was a victim of a pogrom against certain notable figures of Padua and was posthumously exonerated some time after these events.<br />
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However the thought that Nicolo Aurelio used his new brides dowry to purchase the<i> Sacred and Profane Love </i>was dashed after the publication of Aurelio's will by the late Rona Goffen. (A very good summary of Aurelio which includes a reproduction of this will can be found here at Dr Frank's blog: <a href="http://giorgionetempesta.blogspot.com.au/2011/12/giorgione-titian-and-venetian-humanist.html">Giorgione et al...</a>). At this point then, it appears that Aurelio did not use the Bagarotto dowry to acquire the <i>Sacred and Profane Love</i>.<br />
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If as is speculated here, the <i>Night</i> (<em>una nocte</em> & <em>notte</em>) that went missing from the studio of Giorgione and the <i>Sacred and Profane Love,</i> are one and the same painting, there was also a four year period in which the painting was missing, eventually reemerging as the painting endorsed for Aurelio which now included the Aurelio coat~of~arms.<br />
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Because of a complete lack of documented evidence, it is as realistic as any other hypothesis to consider whether Aurelio might have used his position as the Secretary to the
Council of Ten to achieve leverage in attaining an almost resolved Giorgione<i>, </i>recalling that Aurelio was - as the writer Charles Hope declared:</div>
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"...one of the most important civil servants in <st1:city><st1:place>Venice</st1:place></st1:city>..." Hope, C. p.34</blockquote>
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An official relationship between Aurelio and
Giorgione can be noted after 1505 when <st1:city><st1:place>Venice</st1:place></st1:city>'s
<em>Fondaco dei Tedeschi,</em> the warehouse, administration and accommodation
centre of the German traders was burnt down. The city undertook to rebuild the
Germans a far grander headquarters on the original, prominent site located on
the <st1:place>Grand Canal, and t</st1:place>he external walls of this new <em>Fondaco</em>
were given to Giorgione to decorate according to his design and manner. <st1:city><st1:place>Anderson</st1:place></st1:city>
noted:<br />
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"...in the transcriptions of the documents relating to Giorgione's frescoes on the <em>Fondaco dei Tedeschi, </em>Nicolo Aurelio is always the signatory..." <st1:city><st1:place>Anderson</st1:place></st1:city>, p.233.</blockquote>
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As well, the signature of Niccolo Aurelio appeared
on all of the documents relating to Giorgione's first major commission at the <em>Palazzo
Ducale</em>, Venice in 1507, but as also proposed by Anderson, this should not
suggest any undue concern; Aurelio's position as the Secretary to the Council
of Ten 'would require his accurate documentation of public patronage'. But it does seem rather curious to find that Aurelio, a man to whom documentation must have been a daily standard, supposedly bequeathed to posterity the <em>Sacred and Profane Love</em> itself as the only evidence of a contract between he and Titian - again, a relationship based solely upon the integrity of the coat~of~arms upon the escutcheon. At this point it would be timely to again recall an observation of Professor <st1:city>Anderson</st1:city>:<br />
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'Aurelio's taste was initially formed by Giorgione's large nudes on the Fondaco...'</div>
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The prominent coat~of~arms announces (as it was always intended to do) Aurelio as the ultimate possessor of the <em>Sacred and Profane Love</em>. Historians agree - purely on the basis of that coat~of~arms - that Aurelio must have commissioned the painting, but if so, just how much and in what form of payment such an arrangement was to gain Titian remains unknown to this day. Of the many possibilities that might be propounded regarding Aurelio's acquisition of the <em>Sacred and Profane Love -</em>and if the suggestion that Aurelio could not have afforded this painting is even slightly accurate - one must look to other arrangements to speculate that which may have been of mutual benefit to both Titian and Aurelio.<br />
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Aurelio's rise to a position of influence within the fertile culture of Venetian art was no doubt due to the types of patronage systems operating in the <st1:city>Venice</st1:city> of the Quattrocentro and Cinquecento. There were the guilds, <em>(scuole), </em>royal patronage, and both ecclesiastical and lay patronage. The Venetian state also pursued a system of 'patronage by committee', [Peter Bourke p. 101] that committee being the politically powerful Council of Ten. In a culture where success was ultimately reduced to basic financial equations, patronage by the Council of Ten could be viewed in contemporary terms as a prestigious and sometimes lucrative form of public recognition endorsed by a distinguished and powerful corporate collective. As the Secretary to the Council of Ten, Aurelio was definitely in a position of power and was most certainly 'connected'.</div>
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It is well
known that Titian's personality was attracted to the conceits of gain and
power: Is it possible that Titian comprehended in a relationship with Aurelio
an advantage equal to cash? Oscar Fischel made this strychnine observation of
the aged Titian's character:<br />
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"...He was reproached with his insatiable lust for gain. Reading his bulky correspondence is painful, for he ceaselessly asked his protectors to grant him subsidies, to pay him money and - which comes to the same - grant him privileges and advantages: and he obliged them to keep their promises..." Tietze p.13</div>
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When entertaining possible alternate methods of
payment in the form of 'privileges and advantages', the <em>sinecure</em> granted to
Titian by the Council of Ten in 1513 - the year before the wedding of Aurelio
and Bagarotto and three years after the death of Giorgione - leaps to the
foreground. Titian had petitioned the Council of Ten in 1513 to paint a battle scene for the Hall of the Great Council in the palace of the Doge, a sinecure awarding the successful applicant 100 ducats a year plus tax exemption. A brief outline of this event is as follows:</div>
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'A resolution accepting Titian's offer was carried (10 votes to 6); Bellini protested. In March 1514 the decree was revoked (14 votes to 1) and Titian's assistants were struck off the payroll; Titian protested. In November the revocation was revoked (9votes to 4) and the assistants reappeared on the payroll. It was then reported that three times as much money was spent as need have been, and all arrangements were cancelled. Titian made a new offer, which was accepted in January 1516: he was to have only one assistant. The battle scene was still unfinished in 1537." Bourke, P. pp. 101-102.</div>
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It was the aged Giovanni Bellini (<em>c.</em>1430-1516),
former master of both Giorgione and Titian, whose protest to the Council of Ten
was to foil Titian's sinecure for some three years. Bellini, born the youngest son of a distinguished family of painters, had his own workshop in <st1:city><st1:place>Venice </st1:place></st1:city>by the mid 1460s, and from this workshop emerged both Giorgione and Titian, the two sons of the new Venetian painting. In 1483 Bellini rose to the position of official Painter to the <st1:place><st1:placetype>Republic</st1:placetype> of <st1:placename>Venice</st1:placename></st1:place>, a position the master would hold until his death in 1516. Titian's later documented relationship with his former master in Bellini appears to have degenerated to the level of rancour, a result that invites the questions:</div>
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<li class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo1; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list 36.0pt;">Why, three years after the death of Giorgione, would Bellini desire to deny Titian a particular commission that Bellini himself did not seem to covet?</li>
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<li class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo2; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list 36.0pt;">What might it be that had so roused the ire of Bellini toward his former pupil?</li>
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Charles Hope believed that Titian did not have any difficulty at all with Bellini, Hope declaring Carpaccio to be the rival in this scenario. Still, Hope offers this relevant information:</div>
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'In November 1514 Titian was given an undertaking that he would inherit Bellini's <em>senseria</em> if he had not already obtained another in the normal course of events.' Hope. P.38.</div>
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Titian's only surety is that he will inherit the position upon Bellini's death, which is simply another way of saying that the one, singular obstacle to Titian's ambition was Bellini. This seems a rivalry 'to the death' and bears the hallmarks of a protracted feud between the two rather than some trifling squabble. After Bellini's death Titian's offer was resubmitted and of course, accepted.</div>
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The argument against this scenario is that Titian was already famous and after the death of Giorgione and then Bellini in 1516, he was one of the most talented painters in <st1:city><st1:place>Venice</st1:place></st1:city>. But as the date of Titian's birth is currently considered to have been c.1488-90, his promotion to the official role of 'Painter to the State of Venice' contrasts dramatically to Bellini purely on the basis of age: Bellini rose to the position at 54 years of age whereas Titian was probably around 33 years old. </div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">I</span>n an article on the later life of Titian, Panofsky
refers to the much coveted <em>senseria</em> with an overview that contributes
further information to this ongoing affair. Earlier it was tabled
that Titian's b<st1:city><st1:place>attle</st1:place></st1:city> scene was
still unfinished in 1537, but another thirty-two years after this date Titian
actually transferred the rights to the <em>senseria</em> to his son Orazio.
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"With an insistence painful to the sensitive, the aged Titian collected money from all sides, and finally, in 1569, he persuaded the Venetian authorities to transfer his <em>senseria</em> - the brokers patent which had been awarded to him more than fifty years before and carried an annual stipend of one hundred ducats as well as sizable tax exemptions - to his devoted son Orazio...". </blockquote>
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Is the real reason that Bellini sought to foil
Titian's ambitious schemes knowing that Titian had conspired to remove a <em>'night'</em> (the <i>Sacred and Profane Love</i>) which was destined for another<em> </em>from
Giorgione's studio and authenticated it to
broker a deal with Niccolo Aurelio; a possible deal worth one hundred ducats a year; sizable tax exemptions; <i>plus</i> the <em>guarantee</em> that he would inherit the prestigious role of Painter
to the State of Venice? What was the cost of the <i>Sacred and Profane Love</i> to Aurelio? Where could have Aurelio secured the finance needed to afford the <i>Sacred and Profane Love</i>? It is said that he may have used his wife's dowry but there is no evidence! Rather, there is every chance that Aurelio never had the need to part with a penny, and even with the privileges and advantages that came with the <em>senseria</em> the price of reworking the painting was
negligible, after all it had been described as <i>'very beautiful and singular'</i> by Isabella to her merchant, so this <i>'Night'</i> must have been at a stage of near resolution. No wonder the embittered Bellini was foiling Titian ambitions in the trials with the Council of Ten. He knew.</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">Had Titian only held the official position for one year he would have made 100 ducats (Giorgione was paid 150 ducats for the entire <em>Fondaco</em> murals -see Giorgione et al). </span>100 ducats a year over 35 years is of course 3,500.00 ducats (n<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">ot bad work if you can get it...) and the <i>'sizeable tax exemptions'</i> continuing over the course of a lifetime should not be overlooked.</span><br />
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">Titian positioned himself as the 'rival' to both Giorgione and later to Giovanni Bellini where he believed himself to be the obvious heir apparent to the Bellini <em>senseria. </em>Aurelio was in a position to </span>ultimately<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> <em>guarantee </em>Titian<em> </em>both<em> </em>the position and the <em>senseria</em>. For Titian, youth has no idea know how long life will be and this certainly appears a crime of opportunity as much as it was a crime of deceit and unfortunately offered to one whose cunning and ambitions made that opportunity irresistible. </span>Titian's ambitious traits in league with his tedious penny-pinching and fondness for arrangements-other-than-cash display the <i>avaristic character</i> that will always be associated with the aged Titian, and one can infer from his impatience surrounding the trials with Bellini and the Council of Ten that he was even in youth, Titian was ever hungry to secure his side of the bargain.<br />
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Could it be that in old age Titian's character actually reflects the younger man? For as well as being an astute and ambitious talent, his maturity suggests the character of a sociopath; a fiscal omnivore whose appetite for social and pecuniary advantage appear to have been insatiate.<br />
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Johannes Wilde's posthumous notes (Venetian Art from Bellini to Titian Oxford University Press 1974) tells the tale of Titian in his last years: There was a young pupil living in Titian's house, and Wilde cites a report written by an Art dealer from Venice:<br />
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"...his name is Emmanuel; he is a German... he is quite excellent; and Titian just touches up his works, <i>which he then sells as being of his own hand, </i>[my italics] cheating wherever he can." p.220 </blockquote>
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Titian, now more than eighty years old can barely see the canvas let alone paint due to a shaky hand, and this claims the dealer, was known to all Venice. Titian's all-consuming drive for gain mark his character well into old age and so perhaps reveals ambitions and conceits that were very likely present in his youth.<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">I</span>f <o:p>Aurelio had conspired to remove the painting from the studio of the late Giorgione, Titian was certainly compliant with the situation and obviously willing to authenticate the<i> Sacred and Profane Love</i> with the Aurelio coat~of~arms. </o:p><o:p>It is also not unreasonable to suggest that Aurelio would have had the support of numbers within the council willing to wrench the work from (possibly) Alfonso's grasp - albeit to Aurelio's own advantage. Why?</o:p></div>
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<o:p>At the time there was a hatred of Alfonso and his association with the league of Cambrai who had been at war with Venice. Strangely, Bertuccio Bagarotto the father of Aurelio's bride Laura Bagarotto, was publicly hanged (wrongly and later exonerated) in front of Laura for suspected treason with the league. Was the Council wielding its retaliatory power in a hate driven pogrom against possible and even <em>imagined</em> traitors and why had they wronged the Bagarotto family? </o:p><o:p>Now <em>there</em> is motivation for a the son of a humanist (Aurelio) to right a wrong; recalling that the Bagarotto dowry (2000 ducats) was only restored to Laura the day before her wedding to Aurelio. Are we to believe that Aurelio was so convinced of both the wedding <i>and</i> the painting that this unlikely and very doubtful deal was Aurelio's pathway to gaining the <i>Sacred and Profane Love</i>? It seems absurd so why hasn't it been called as such? What part did Aurelio's influence play in Laura's restoration? There is still far more here than meets the eye.</o:p></div>
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<o:p>There are several reasons why the <i>Sacred and Profane Love</i> qualifies as the <em>night</em>. It will be argued that the painting is Ferranese in character; it is 'mens business' in that it was painted for a man and not a woman. Furthermore the <i>Sacred and Profane Love</i> is precisely the sort of work that distinguishes the deep seated nobility, wisdom and responsibility of a cultural elite from those that were merely wealthy and socially advantaged. We must also be prepared to acknowledge an idea by Giles Robertson - that Bagarotto may have had some involvement with the <i>Sacred and Profane Love's</i> programme - if so how could this have been intended to play out? Did Bagarotto have </o:p><span style="text-align: center;">any connection to Ferrara, Duke Alfonso, and/or Isabella?</span><br />
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<o:p>The child (Cupid/Mercury/Hermes) of the <i>Sacred and Profane Love</i> returns to Giorgione as the iconological source; now to discover the prototype of this child, we must turn to the meaning of the murals on the <em>Fondaco dei Tedeschi.</em></o:p></div>
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Next post will be an alternative reading of the
<em>Fondaco dei Tedeschi</em> murals.</div>
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<em><span style="font-size: large;"> cheese... </span></em><em><span style="font-size: 18pt;">pAuL</span></em><br />
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Of the many interpretations of the Sacred and Profane Love it is Erwin Panofsky's hypothesis of the Twin Venuses that has persisted as the most enduring and referenced theory of the twentieth century, but over time that theory's popularity appears to have lost some influence in favour of the paintings apparent association with an historical wedding. Several evidence based discoveries by the American historians Harold E. Wethey and his wife Alice would for a time overshadow Panofsky's intuitive guesswork.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-NVaxMS-v7sc/UzqzpWR15WI/AAAAAAAACmw/IXl5zTn_oBA/s1600/Harold+E+Wethey.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-NVaxMS-v7sc/UzqzpWR15WI/AAAAAAAACmw/IXl5zTn_oBA/s1600/Harold+E+Wethey.jpg" width="234" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Professor Harold E Wethey</td></tr>
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Alice Wethey announced the existence of the Bagarotto coat~of~arms in the silver <em>phiale</em> sited on the ledge of the sarcophagus/fountain which seemed to confirm that the painting was most probably commissioned by Niccolo Aurelio, the Secretary to the Venetian Council of Ten to celebrate his wedding to Laura Bagarotto. But was it really so?<br />
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After the 1993-94 restoration of the <em>Sacred and Profane Love</em>, the Bagarotto coat~of~arms in the silver <i>phiale</i> apparently disappeared, a point which was later confirmed in Professor Jaynie Anderson's 1996 publication <em>Giorgione: The painter of Poetic Brevity.</em> Anderson states there that the restoration of the painting by Anna Marcone in 1993-94 proved Alice Wethey's claim to be fanciful:<br />
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"...the coat~of~arms had never been present..." Anderson p.231</div>
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But the more obvious coat~of~arms upon the escutcheon at the centre-front of the sarcophagus had already been confirmed (see Minerbi, Wethey) as belonging to Niccolo Aurelio, the Secretary to the Venetian Council of Ten, and this has remained the case to this day.<br />
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There had also been other discoveries announced by the Wethey's. Around the same time Harold Wethey claimed to have discerned two formerly indistinct iconographs that appeared to have been overpainted. According to Wethey these iconographs were altered or deleted:</div>
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"either during the painting's construction - or at a later date". </div>
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Wethey describes these iconographs:</div>
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<em>"... a head of a dog or a cow..."</em> [at the paintings left next to the silver/white dress of the clothed figure] and a<em> "...fallen ivy covered pillar..."</em> (Wethey, 1972, p.177).</div>
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After the Marcone restoration the sighted 'head of a dog or a cow' and the 'ivy covered pillar' claimed by Harold Wethey also seemed to disappear raising doubts as to whether they too had ever actually existed. <br />
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But there <em>is</em> a problem here. According to the sequence of the zodiacal constellations present in the constellation map of the Southern Hemisphere, it is highly likely that the head of a dog or a cow was present next to the clothed figure. In a star map of the Southern Celestial Hemisphere (with the South Celestial Pole at the centre) zodiacal sequence indicates that it was a dog intended to represent Leo as Sirius - the Dog Star. Not only this but it is also possible that the fallen ivy covered pillar might also be reinstated. </div>
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Harold Wethey claimed to have first noted the head of a dog (or cow) and the fallen ivy covered pillar after examining photographic slides that he had personally made of the painting which was then in a state of pre-restoration. As Professor Wethey originally noticed these iconographs on film they may very well exist as a part of the late Mr Wethey's body of work. Their reappearance would prove invaluable, because it was after carefully studying those slides that the Wethey's were able to claim that those iconographs could actually be confirmed with the naked eye. Locating and gaining access to those photographs would be a very significant step in judging the veracity of the Wethey claims. However these claims by the Wetheys are secondary to the strength of context and sequence announced by the geometric and zodiacal sequence outlined in this essay.</div>
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According to this analysis it appears logical that the first of Mr Wethey's observations is contextually correct. That second discovery - the fallen ivy covered pillar - is arguably a motif of Giorgione's and can be paralleled with an associated text from which the programme for the <em>Sacred and Profane Love</em> is sourced. Even if one of Harold Wethey's observations can be reinstated it is possible to conclude that Alice Wethey's observation may too have had merit.<br />
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It is extremely plausible to consider those escutcheon's belonging to Aurelio and Bagarotto may have been added by Titian at a later date to authenticate the painting for Aurelio, after all, it was Titian who reworked and completed several of Giorgione's works after his early death in 1510. Has Titian deleted two iconographs and added two more? <br />
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By challenging that predetermined authority which the coat~of~arms historically implies, what can actually be said of the <em>Sacred and Profane Love </em>without reaching for this apparently evidential 'fact' for support? This is a very important question because the Aurelio coat~of~arms has determined the direction of all historical discourse. As an argument must participate and agree with certain aspects of previous arguments, the apparent integrity of this one glaring piece of evidence is constantly repeated and therefore seemingly endorsed when perhaps the existence of the Aurelio coat~of~arms needs to be read quite differently. The Aurelio coat~of~arms has developed all the painful thrill of an upturned garden rake that is consistently stepped on by those following a well trodden art historical path and seeking to make a sense of the <em>Sacred and Profane Love's </em>true history and authorship<em>. </em></div>
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Without access to Harold Wethey's early slides the major problem for the reinstatement of the Wethey's observations is that after 1994, the <em>Sacred and Profane Love</em> that had been scrutinised by the Wethey's no longer exists - at least in a condition that can now only be termed pre-restoration. The painting is now in a state of post-restoration, and the former observable condition irrevocably altered.</div>
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Were those iconographs visible prior to the paintings restoration, or were they simply figments of Harold Wethey's scholarly and up to this point - untarnished reputation? Untarnished, because Professor Wethey was now considered 'unreliable' and any work that attempted to pursue the notion of the missing or false iconographs would ostensibly be tarred by the same brush. Conceptual analysis is the only critique available to the inquirer.<br />
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The late <a href="http://artwatchinternational.org/">Mr James Beck</a> was one of a literally dying breed of scholars who had seen the <em>Sacred and Profane Love</em> both <em>pre</em> and <em>post</em> restoration. In an e-mail response Beck condemned the restoration of the <em>Sacred and Profane Love </em>('terrible' was the descriptive) but to be fair others such as Jaynie Anderson appear to champion the Marcone restoration. Either way the restoration has removed the option of returning to the painting in the identical, unrestored physical state to which the Wethey's and Beck and Anderson were all once privy. Mr Beck's personal opinion on the quality of restoration is recorded here as a matter of interest and balance.<br />
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Still, how can something so important be found by two eminently qualified people just disappear? This analysis will suggest that Harold Wethey's observations should not be dismissed. Materially and methodologically, an oil painting is bound by certain parameters.<br />
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In defence of the Wethey's it is fair to say that oil paint can lose its opacity over long periods of time (in accordance to the materials used and the technique employed) and it is physically possible that a form of 'ghosting' may have been occurring in the <em>Sacred and Profane Love</em>. An excellent example of oil transparency is found in Antoine Watteau's <em>Venetian Pleasure</em>. (Fig 1.)</div>
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In Watteau's <em>Venetian Pleasure</em> (Fig 1.) observe the gentleman wearing eastern theatrical garb (opposite the standing female in white dress) and in particular note the original stance of the legs where the paint has become transparent. Both legs have been altered.</div>
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In fig 2., the transparent paint exposes the original stance of the left leg which now being clearly visible, is ghosted and bent (backward) at the knee. This is a markedly different pose. Watteau has decided to point the left leg to rest it on the ball of the foot.<br />
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While the <i>Sacred and Profane Love</i> and Watteau's <i>Venetian Pleasure</i> emerge from different times in different countries and further, that every artist has an individual approach to the laying down of oil paint, the purpose here is to show that age & oil paint & a loosely similar technique can produce transparency. Watteau was a notoriously quick painter who worked in excessive amounts of oil, mixtures of oil & varnish, and semi-transparent glazes.<br />
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If the <em>Sacred and Profane Love</em> were the <em>Night</em> (which is the developing argument here) it was according to Isabella's informant - 'very singular and beautiful' and so at a stage of near resolution, implying that the painting was finished and drying or dried because such an observation could not be made of a work still at a formative stage. Titian had four years after the death of Giorgione (1510) in which to rework and authenticate the <em>Sacred and Profane Love</em> for Nicolo Aurelio - and this is where things may have gone awry; has Titian used an oil and varnish technique similar to Watteau and thereby made the same technical mistake?</div>
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Because the paint was dry Titian may have used an oil/varnish glaze mixture to detail that which was already resolved (and so, '...beautiful...') and by increasing pigment of the glazes increase the opacity of specific areas without the need to totally repaint. This is reworking rather than repainting, and quite possibly - because of high oil and varnish glazes those deleted areas have returned to haunt Titian in the findings of the Wethey's. </div>
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The Marcone restoration - as with any restoration - has altered the surface of the paint: This is to say the surface of the painting is no longer <em>unrestored;</em> the paintings appearance has altered; is now <em>restored </em>and can never again be considered otherwise (i.e. unrestored). Let us be clear that restoration and cleaning are not necessarily compatible or even friendly terms. In Australia in 2002, the criticism of an exhibition entitled 'The Italians' by Mr <a href="http://italianmedia.com.au/w4/index.php/english-magazine/english-features/italian-profiles/5420-benjamin-genocchio">Mr Benjamin Genocchio</a> claimed that a number of paintings included in that exhibition had been questionably restored:</div>
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“cleaned and repainted, destroying much of their original colour and brushwork” </blockquote>
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If memory serves correctly, the comment 'cleaned to within an inch of their lives' was in there too, and one can understand and respect the concerns of <a href="http://artwatchuk.wordpress.com/about/">Artwatch</a>, the organisation founded by the aforementioned - now the late - Mr James Beck (1930-2007).<br />
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There can be no doubt that Titian's masterly input has added to the complexity that is the <em>Sacred and Profane Love</em>, but whether he is deserving of the paintings outright poetic arrangement is the point here. Even if Giorgione were working from a programme (he was), that painters poetic sensibility wrought the 'singular' beauty which was evident and readily apparent. Again we know this was so because Isabella's letter to her merchant described the painting as 'very singular and beautiful' which could not be said of a work that was less than half baked so to speak.<br />
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Titian's deletions made the work more obscure - which was probably his intent and also, by altering it, he could (to himself at least) claim a certain authorship. If the worst scenario here is possible and Titian has conspired with Aurelio to advance his career and assure himself of attaining the much coveted <i>sensaria </i>(held by Giovanni Bellini which came with an annual stipend, sizeable tax breaks and enormous prestige) the behaviour could be seen as an enormous mistake by Titian - the opportunistic ambition of a precocious youth and would seem to herald a sordid beginning to Titian's relationship between art and state.<br />
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Of the relationship between Titian and Aurelio, just how much can be said of the character of both? How could Aurelio have afforded this painting and just how politically powerful was he? And if Titian can be found to have reworked the <i>Sacred and Profane Love </i>to further his own ends, why stop at one? Might any other of the works considered '<i>Giorgionesque'</i> that are given to the oeuvre of Titian be in fact the reworked hand of Giorgione himself?<br />
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To be continued... (next post in January - Happy New Year!)<br />
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<em><span style="font-size: large;"> pAuL</span></em><br />
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Paul Doughtonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12560227637710387418noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7323403459729776769.post-20757905893883368722011-11-03T12:38:00.000-07:002020-04-06T19:21:57.151-07:00Sacred and Profane Love: Presepio, Nativity, Night, Una Nocte, and the Alchemic Night.<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<em><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Night the voluptuous, Night the chaste,</span></em><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span><em><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Spreads Her dark limbs, a vaulted splendour</span></em><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span><em><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Above the intolerable waste.</span></em></div>
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<em><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Night the August one: Night the tender,</span></em></div>
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<em><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Queens it and Brides it unto me.</span></em></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><em> </em><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"> A.C.*<o:p></o:p></span></span></span><br />
<i style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; text-align: justify;">[In Crowley's poem, the Queen and the Bride are two aspects of the one great Mother: <b>Night</b>. The Queen would be read as the mother Ceres while the Bride is read as Proserpine - again </i><i style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; text-align: justify;">presented as the two aspects of the One. This is Alchemical esoteria reinvigorated in the form of occultism.]</i><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-large; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0cm;"><b> </b></span><b style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: xx-large; text-align: justify;">~</b><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-small; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0cm;"> </span></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: x-large;">"Darkness preceded light and She is Mother"</span><span style="color: #333333; font-size: 12px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0cm;"> </span></b></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-size: 12px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0cm;">(Inscription on the altar of the cathedral, Salerno Italy.)</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">O</span>ne way to read the <span style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Sacred and Profane Love</span> is as a rigidly constructed Alchemic <span style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Night</span>, which is an Alchemic narrative based upon the <span style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Nigredo</span> and the ancient notion of <span style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Night</span> as the one fertile</i><span style="color: #878787;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px;"><b><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"> </span></b></span></span></span></span><i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">primordial presence; the engenderer.</span></i></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>Historically this will involve that great female art patron of the Renaissance, Isabella d’Este and her quest to acquire a painting from the studio of Giorgione; a 'Night' (una nocte) immediately after hearing of Giorgione's untimely death from the plague in 1510. Being mindful of the complexity of the Alchemic tradition and the Alchemic implications that contribute to the <span style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Sacred and Profane Love</span>, an imaginative historical environment is required to populate all possible relationships surrounding Isabella and the Sacred and Profane Love, and in particular those references that might refer to the Sacred and Profane Love as a <span style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">presepio [</span></i></span></span><i style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;">a nativity] or as the</i><i style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;"> una nocte [a night]. </i></div>
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<i><span lang="EN-US" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">To set the wheels of inquiry in motion, a series of events were taking </span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">shape late in the Quattrocentro which would produce revelatory documented communication between Isabella d'Este and Giovanni Bellini some seven or so years preceding those agitated tribunals involving Titian & Bellini and the Council of Ten in 1512.</span></span></i><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: x-large; mso-spacerun: yes;"><u>The search for a '<i>night</i>' and/or a '<i>presepio</i>' by Isabella d'Este. </u> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; text-align: center; text-indent: 0cm;"> </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">A</span>round 1497 a merchant, armed with a programme <em>(invenzione)</em> was employed by Isabella d’Este to procure the services of the aging Giovanni Bellini and acquire a painting for Isabella's <em>studiolo</em>. In 1501 and again in 1502 the clavichord maker Lorenzo da Pavia became involved in further attempts to secure the painting from the seemingly reluctant Bellini. It appears that Bellini did not wish to follow the design which had been given to him. </span><span lang="EN-US" style="line-height: 150%;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 150%;">That Bellini was struggling with the design of the painting was outlined by Pietro Bembo in a letter from January of 1506. That letter from Bembo to Isabella is well known to historians and is as follows:</span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">[‘<span lang="EN-US" style="line-height: 120%;">The subject which your Excellency writes to me that I should devise for the design must be suited to the fancy of the person who has to execute it;] whose pleasure is that sharply defined limits should not be set to his style, being wont, as he says to wander at will in paintings..." Bourke. pp119-120</span></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">All alchemical works had been outlawed by the Council of Ten in 1488, which would have created a conflict of interest for Bellini when considering his highly coveted position as the Official Painter to the Venetian State, a prestige which had been awarded to him only five years earlier in 1483. </span><span style="font-family: "times";"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Could the reason behind Bellini's reluctance to provide Isabella with her painting be because that request (actually the programme outlining her request) could be interpreted as being alchemical in nature? </span>We know that a programme had been left with Bellini:</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times"; text-align: center;">'the artist then expressed a reluctance to follow the program which had been drawn up for his use.'</span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: "times"; text-indent: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; text-indent: 0cm;">Was this why the work was so distasteful for Bellini to execute? </span>Through a letter from Bembo to Isabella, Bembo writes that he has almost secured Bellini’s interest in producing Isabella’s commission if only she could write directly to Bellini. On the 19th of October Isabella did so, and curiously, for the second time, refers to the as yet unseen painting as a ‘</span><em style="font-family: times; text-indent: 0cm;">presepio</em><span style="font-family: "times"; text-indent: 0cm;">’.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;"><u>The Sacred and Profane Love is a <i>presepio</i>.</u></span></span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-large;">A</span><em style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;"> Presepio</em><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> is an enclosure</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-small;">**</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> such as a group formed around the </span><em style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;">manger</em><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> though not necessarily requiring the architecture of a stall.</span></span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ieEUfPoacIk/U0U4grQF-RI/AAAAAAAACwI/lwZ9r5FUj3g/s1600/Adoration+of+the+Shepherds+%25281482-1485+-+Domenico+Ghirlandaio%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="395" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ieEUfPoacIk/U0U4grQF-RI/AAAAAAAACwI/lwZ9r5FUj3g/s400/Adoration+of+the+Shepherds+%25281482-1485+-+Domenico+Ghirlandaio%2529.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Fig 1. Domenico Ghirlandaio, The Adoration of the Shepherds,1485.</span><span style="line-height: 150%;"> </span></td></tr>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="line-height: 24px;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 24px; text-indent: 0cm;"><span style="text-indent: 0cm;">In the Adoration of the Shepherds</span> (see </span></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; text-indent: 0cm;">fig 1.) </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; text-align: center; text-indent: 0cm;">Ghirlandaio's arrangement of the group of figures</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.8px; text-align: center; text-indent: 0cm;"> </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 24px; text-indent: 0cm;">forms a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">presepio</i> (<i>locus</i>) which reveals</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; text-indent: 0cm;"> </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 24px; text-indent: 0cm;">the <em>manger</em> as the <i>focus</i>. <em>Presepio</em> and <em>manger</em> are the core motifs </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 24px; text-indent: 0cm;">of a nativity figurative arrangement. Etymologically the word <em>presepio </em>also reveals the form:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #333333; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 24px;">'…In the ancient word, a combination of prae, "in front," and saepire, "to enclose,"... <a href="http://italian.about.com/library/weekly/aa120899a.htm"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Ibid.</span></a></span></span></div>
<span lang="EN-US" style="line-height: 150%;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 150%;">So, an enclosure - in itself the <i>location</i> which reveals in its midst a <i>focus</i> - the <i>manger</i> - which in the Adoration is actually the feedbox: </span></span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="line-height: 150%;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; text-align: left;">“</span><a href="http://italian.about.com/library/weekly/aa120899a.htm" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-align: left;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Manger</span></a><span style="color: black; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; text-align: left;"> in strict usage — though today also used for the Nativity scene —actually refers to the trough or open box used for livestock feed in which the Infant Jesus rests."<span style="font-size: x-small;"> </span><span style="font-size: x-small;"><a href="http://italian.about.com/library/weekly/aa120899a.htm">http://italian.about.com/library/weekly/aa120899a.htm</a></span></span></span></span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Though differing in source, the words <em>manger</em> and <em>presepio</em> are comparably thematic in that the former occupies the <i>focus</i> while the latter forms the <i>locus</i> or the stage of a [nativity] setting; which is to say that a <i>presepio</i> forms the <i>locus</i> (think <i>location</i>) which surrounds and so intends to indicate a specific <i>focal</i> point. In the nativity setting this focus would be the manger, and in the <i>Sacred and Profane Love</i> the <i>focus</i> is the <i>sarcophagus/fountain</i> while the figures (in concert with the underlying circular geometry) form the <i>presepio</i>. </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; text-indent: 0cm;">Peter Bourke, referring to the Night (</span><em style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; text-indent: 0cm;">una nocte)</em><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; text-indent: 0cm;"> in Giorgione's studio, had this to say:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; text-indent: 0cm;">“It is intriguing to know that at Giorgione’s death there was a picture in his studio which Isabella’s agent called ‘a night’ (<i>una nocte</i>); was this a landscape? It may equally well have been a ‘holy night’, that is, a Nativity. Corregio’s <i>Nativity</i> of 1530 has often been called a ‘Night’ " P.B. p.190.</span> </blockquote>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Isabella's </span><em style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;">presepio</em><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> has been indicated through the correspondence of Isabelle to be a type of '<i>night</i>' or '<i>nativity</i>', and t</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; text-indent: 0cm;">he design of the </span><em style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; text-indent: 0cm;">Sacred and Profane Love</em><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; text-indent: 0cm;"> mimics the structure of a </span><em style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; text-indent: 0cm;">presepio </em><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; text-indent: 0cm;">because</span><em style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; text-indent: 0cm;"> </em><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; text-indent: 0cm;">the centrally placed sarcophagus (the symbolic </span><i style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; text-indent: 0cm;">manger</i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; text-indent: 0cm;">) alludes to the motif of the manger (as the focal point) by the 'enclosure' form of the </span><i style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; text-indent: 0cm;">presepio - </i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; text-indent: 0cm;">the</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; text-indent: 0cm;"> horseshoe arrangement of the figures about the trough. Structurally, the <i>Sacred and Profane Love</i> <b>is</b> a <i>presepio</i>.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px;">Fig. 2. The Sacred and Profane Love is a nocturne</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">S</span>ubsequently, as the streaked sky is sunless the </span><em style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;">Sacred and Profane Love</em><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> should be regarded as a</span><em style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;"> nocturne </em><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">and </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">can also </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">therefore be considered as both </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">a <i>nativity</i> and/or a '<i>night</i>'. </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">As the term 'a night' was used by Isabella's agent on her behalf that term </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">could </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">equally be describing the </span><i style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;">Sacred and Profane Love, </i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">though</span><i style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;"> </i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">as yet unseen by the public eye</span><i style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;">. </i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">I</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">f this 'night' were actually a near resolved yet still formative version </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">of 'Titian's'</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> so-called </span><em style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;">Sacred and Profane Love, </em><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">t</span>his</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> would insinuate Giorgione as the paintings primary artist; the </span><i style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;">auteur </i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">of the</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span><em style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;">Sacred and Profane Love </em><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">through</span><em style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;"> </em><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">what could only be termed as a surreptitious collaboration.</span><i style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;"> </i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">It is the underlying geometric scaffold upon which meaning is draped where the paintings underlying subject matter will be eventually revealed.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">To summarise here; visually the </span><em style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;">Sacred and Profane Love</em><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> participates in the category of a </span><i style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;">nativity </i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">b</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">ecause t</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">here is no sun or direct shadow in the painting and the streaked cloud indicates that the time is either pre-dawn or twilight. Therefore the painting is clearly a <i>nocturne</i></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> and as a nocturne then can again be referred to as a '<i>night</i>'. As a </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">type of figurative grouping</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> the <i>Sacred and Profane Love</i> can structurally be termed as a </span><i style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;">presepio.</i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> This is to say that the terms <i style="font-weight: bold;">night</i>, <i style="font-weight: bold;">presepio</i>,<b> </b>and<b> <i>nativity</i></b> are <b>all </b>applicable when describing the <i>Sacred and Profane Love</i>. It has been said of the <i>Sacred and Profane Love</i> that it is the most Giorgionesque of Titian's paintings. Is this the reason?</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;"><u>Isabella's programme not pursued by Bellini.</u></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">I</span>sabella never received the original painting that was asked of Bellini <i>from the programme that she supplied to him</i> and instead settled for a nativity of a rather standard Christian theme. This is known from a letter of reply sent to her agents by Isabella. The agents had suggested that Isabella give Bellini 'liberty' to create his own unfettered painting:</span></div>
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"If Giovanni Bellini is as reluctant to paint his history as you say, we are content to leave the subject to him, provided that he paints some history or ancient fable." P.B. p.120</blockquote>
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The author peter Bourke concludes the above entry with this comment:</div>
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"In fact, Bellini was able to beat her down even further; she ended by accepting a Nativity." <span style="text-align: left;">P.B. p.120</span></div>
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It appears that this final, work accepted by Isabella was not a pagan nativity but rather, a standard Christian Nativity. But what became of the painting (a <i>night</i>) by G<span style="text-align: left;">iorgione that had been described to Isabella as 'very beautiful and singular'? </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;"><u>The disappearance of the <em>una nocte,</em> Isabella's haste, Bellini and Alfonso.</u></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">A</span>lternatively, the <em>Night</em> in Giorgione's studio may have been derived from the original programme, the importance of which Isabella was not aware, though this seems </span></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">unlikely. Still, Bellini was approached by Alfonso while Isabella was still in negotiation with Bellini. Obviously Bellini had prioritised Alfonso.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Giorgione most likely pursued the <em>Sacred and Profane Love</em> as an uncommissioned piece for two reasons: </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Firstly, had Giorgione chosen to pursue the commission it would not compromise Bellini's position as Painter to the Republic of Venice because alchemical works had become illegal in Venice in 1488 and Bellini would understandably have been reluctant to lose his <i>sensaria</i>. </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Secondly, Giorgione had an interest in mythological esoteria <span style="font-family: "times new roman";">(this is</span> discussed in the <i>Fondaco</i> post.) </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">On hearing of Giorgione's death Isabella wrote to her agent:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">"...we are informed that among the stuff and effects of the painter Zorzo of Castelfranco there exists a picture of a night <em>(una nocte) </em>very beautiful and singular; if so it might be, we desire to possess it and we therefore ask you, in company with Lorenzo da Pavia and any other who has judgement and understanding, to see whether it is a really fine thing and if you find it such, go to work ... to obtain this picture for me, settling the price and giving me notice of it. P. B. p.134</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Isabella seemed to have been unaware of this painting's existence <i>prior</i> to being informed of Giorgione's death and the 'stuff and effects' that remained in his studio. It seems that the information of the <em>Night's</em> existence came from another <i>primary</i> source. If Isabella were unaware of this almost resolved painting that was 'very beautiful and singular' and it was not designed from her original programme, then where did it come from? Also, whose word was it that so inflamed Isabella's imagination that she would act with such expedience to secure a work that she had no prior awareness of? It seems she was acting in good faith for someone whom she must have absolutely trusted. Only Alfonso could fit this description. And how did Alfonso become aware? Bellini...</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Upon arriving at Giorgione's studio, Isabella's agent was informed that there were two paintings that fitted the description, one owned by Taddeo Contarini, and the other by a Victor Beccaro, but added that they were 'not for sale at any price'. Was this a simple deception organised to 'throw the dogs of the scent' as it were?</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;"><u>Alfonso d'Este, The Council of Ten & Nicolo Aurelio.</u></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">T</span>urning back the clock again, it seems that during the time of Isabella's initial negotiations with Bellini, Alfonso d'Este, duke of Ferrara had also requested a painting from Bellini. As the programme for the <em>Sacred and Profane Love</em> seems to have its roots in Ferrara - and due to the duke's involvement in the Venetian wars, it is not clear whether this request was ever delivered (with every chance it would not have been). Perhaps</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">even Nicolo Aurelio himself had been made aware of Alfonso's request for as Professor Anderson had noted:</span></div>
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'Aurelio's taste was initially formed by Giorgione's large nudes on the Fondaco...'</blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Niccolo Aurelio was the secretary to the Council of Ten, but </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">to add to Niccolo Aurelio's impressive political advantage in supposedly receiving the </span><i style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;">Sacred and Profane Love</i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> as a 'wedding commission', </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Alfonso was also the most despised man in Venice:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times";">"Among the confederate powers, no one had exited the resentment of the Venetians in so great a degree as Alfonso, duke of Ferrara..." W. Roscoe. p.241</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Of the several reasons behind the resentment toward Alfonso was that he had joined the League of Cambrai in the war against Venice and in 1510, assisted by the French, crushed the army of Venice in an ambush along the Po river, causing a loss to the Venetians of upward of 'three thousand men'. Life of Leo X. W. Roscoe p.241.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">If the Council of Ten had been informed of the existence of a painting for Alfonso, they would certainly not have allowed him that prize. Here would be the perfect leverage for Aurelio to negotiate and claim the painting for himself. This would be effected with Titian's complicity of course, for it would be he who would be required to authenticate the painting for Aurelio in the form of the coat~of~arms. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">As everything about this painting is pervaded by and has its source in Ferrara, the painting which became known to Isabella after Giorgione's death as the <em>Night</em>, may well have been the same painting requested by Alfonso and which is now come to be known as the <em>Sacred and Profane Love.</em> </span><br />
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<u style="font-size: xx-large;">The <i>Sacred and Profane Love</i> as a Collaborative work.</u></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">W</span>hen (in hindsight) Lorenzo da Pavia criticised the figures in Giovanni’s ‘presepio’ [The Letters] as being too small, he may well have unwittingly provided a service to Bellini, iconology, and art history:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">'...he thought that the artist should have been required to have submitted several sketches before having begun the painting. This would have allowed Isabella to have chosen from among them thereby correcting a certain imbalance by having the figures relatively small with regard to the overall pictorial field.' P.B. p.</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">If this were the <em>Sacred and Profane Love</em> at an earlier stage of resolution, Bellini would have been quietly pleased that his artifice had hidden the programme that had become so distasteful for himself to execute. Secondly, the balance of figures to landscape that was considered by da Pavia 'disproportionate' suggests an earlier working stage of the <i>Sacred and Profane Love</i> - because the <em>Sacred and Profane Love</em> does not participate in the popular use of ‘perspective’ or ‘optics’ as the method was then called. From this criticism da Pavia has possibly indicated a stage of the paintings resolution at the time of his recording that observation. </span></div>
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</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">There is every reason to consider the <em>Sacred and Profane Love</em> as a collaborative work.</span><br />
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<li><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Bellini may have been responsible for the painting at an earlier stage of completion and this would account for the diminutive figures noticed by da Pavia. He would not have wished to continue because the painting embraced alchemic philosophy - which had been outlawed by the Venetian state.</span></li>
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<li><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Giorgione was most likely to have been responsible for the larger figures of the women and child - the child being the key to that consideration because of the unusual relationship to the winged babe of the <i>Fondaco murals</i> and the child portrayed in the <i>Sacred and Profane Love</i>.</span></li>
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<li><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Titian had the third and final hand in the paintings construction, harmonising the paintings overall design, as though it were a poesie, and being far less critical and less challenged by an intellectual adherence to any programme. </span></li>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">This collaborative proposition may best suggest the reason behind the enigma that is the </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><em>Sacred and Profane Love, </em>because Titian, by treating the work as being intellectually irrelevant<em> -</em> a mere<em> poesie - </em>the original intent was made all the more obscure.<em> </em>Further, the plan for the </span><em style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;">Sacred and Profane Love's </em><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">geometric proposition reappears several years later in Gulio Romano's ceiling in the <i>Fondaco dei Tedeschi </i>- and Romano was a known friend of Titian.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Finally, the una nocte/presepio/<em>Sacred and Profane Love</em> was removed from the workshop of Giorgione of which Titian had complete access. Although the <em>Night</em> was not directly removed by Titian who was in Mantua at the time of Giorgione's death, taking this tack implies a political involvement because anything to do with Aurelio and this aquisition should be seen as political.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times";">If, as is being proposed here, the <em>Sacred and Profane Love</em> and the <em>presepio/una nocte</em> are one and the same painting, it may not be too difficult to find Giorgione’s hand, after all, the <em>Sacred and Profane Love</em> has been considered to be Titian at his most Giorgionesque.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">T</span>here is a curious footnote to this: </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">In 1516 Titian stayed at the Duke's castle in Ferrara with two assistants, and in a letter to the Duke, Titian wrote:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">"[that he had gone] ...without delay to the well of which your excellency had written and made a sketch of it... including another with it, of a well after the fashion of this country" J. Williams. p.83</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Why, of all things, would Alfonso ask Titian to sketch a well, unless of course, Alfonso was hoping to detect a certain level of discomfort...? While Alfonso's well no longer exists, the idea of the </span><em style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;">Sacred and Profane Love</em><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> also being the </span><em style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;">presepio</em><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> adds to the allegory</span><em style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;"> </em><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">because of the unusual stone sarcophagus/well/manger motif. Did that well exist on Alfonso's estate at Ferrara? It would be below a man of Alfonso's standing to engage a paid worker - Titian - in an accusative manner, and yet by deliberately sending Titian to this well and to have him sketch it sends direct a message to the seat of any possible guilt. It would be the aristocratic manner befitting Alfonso to rise above the engagement of direct accusation yet still having expressed his attitude and through authoritative menace trial Titian's honesty. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">The <em>Sacred and Profane Love </em>as an allegory with several levels now encompasses three more metaphors: <em>Presepio</em>, <em>Nativity</em> and <em>Night</em>. To reiterate a point from</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> an earlier post; the <em>Sacred and Profane Love</em> is dedicated to Venus and the time of day represented by the sun-streaked sky is dawn. Therefore the <em>Sacred and Profane Love</em> qualifies in its own right as a nocturne which is also and quite literally a <em>Night;</em> but it is most definitely a <em>Pagan Night.</em></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times";"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><em>Night</em> belongs to the Goddess lineage of the Egyptian Nut, whereas Nox is the etymological source of equinox, meaning (day) of equal night. As Nox was one of the oldest of the Roman gods, there is a sense of Egypto/Hermetic recovery here, which is the essence of the Renaissance zeitgeist.</span></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: x-large;"><i> ~ </i></span></b> </div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">O</span>n several levels, the <em>Sacred and Profane Love</em> appears to this writer to have been intended for Alfonso d'Este, but without documented evidence, we can never be certain simply because we weren't there. This area of conjecture, this reconstruction of a history, while interesting - must make absolutely no difference to the revealed content of the <em>Sacred and Profane Love, </em>but to be sure, all considerations presented here are presented with an understanding of the meta-narrative and all associated implications.<br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">From where did the <em>Sacred and Profane</em> <em>Love</em> originate? There is an argument forthcoming that will suggest Ferrara, and so, Alfonso d'Este. </span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 150%;">*['<em>Night the voluptuous, Night the chaste'</em> are nineteenth century poetic references to the <em>Twin Venuses</em> (here, Proserpine and Ceres)</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"> though in the guise of a pseudo Egyptian mythology. Those stanzas formed a part of a nineteenth century poem intended for an initiate entering the Order of the Golden Dawn, and were written by Aleister Crowley. Of the elite social groups bonded by this interest in esoteria, perhaps the most interesting was the groups arms-length association to the philosopher Henri Bergson. (<em>Intuition as Method)</em>.]</span></span></div>
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** <span style="font-size: x-small;">An acknowledgement is due here to Dr Frank over at </span><a href="http://giorgionetempesta.blogspot.com/2011/06/giorgione-and-giovanni-bellini.html"><span style="color: #660000; font-size: x-small;">Giorgione et al</span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"> for his thoughts on the presepio as a manger. Thank you Dr Frank, I hope you feel this revision better articulates the difference.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Bourke, P. 1974<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">. Tradition and Innovation in Renaissance Italy. </i>Fontana/Collins, London.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Williams, J. 1968. <em>The World of Titian.</em> Time-Life, Amsterdam.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times";">Roscoe, William.1853. The Life and Pontificate of Leo the Tenth. Henry G. Bohn, London.</span><br />
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Paul Doughtonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12560227637710387418noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7323403459729776769.post-584867845945822082011-08-15T03:41:00.001-07:002020-01-25T04:33:31.994-08:00The Feminine as Flower: Metaphor and Hermeneutics:<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<em><span style="color: #660000; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> We are as flowers in a garden hidden from all men's eyes, </span></em><em><span style="color: #660000; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">no </span></em></div>
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<em><span style="color: #660000; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">creature of the field walks in this place,</span></em></div>
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<em><span style="color: #660000; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> no plow divides us; only the gentlest wind, rain from a soft</span></em></div>
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<em><span style="color: #660000; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> warm cloud and the quickening sun to nourish us.</span></em></div>
<span style="color: #660000; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> Catullus c. 84-54 BCE</span></blockquote>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-DBGxpaR4k8s/UzvvBKLbRoI/AAAAAAAACn4/JTBm8EVLeE4/s1600/Titian+Sacred+Profane+-+Copy+%252814%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="254" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-DBGxpaR4k8s/UzvvBKLbRoI/AAAAAAAACn4/JTBm8EVLeE4/s1600/Titian+Sacred+Profane+-+Copy+%252814%2529.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Fig 1. The Sacred and Profane Love. c.1514, Galleria Borghese, Rome. Attributed to Titian.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #660000; font-size: x-large;">H</span>ere in the <i>Sacred and Profane Love</i> (Fig 1.) can be found the discussion of an ancient Italian religion most accessible through the traditional structures that define the polarities of Eve and Mary. It is <span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Eve who like Proserpine, belongs to the sexual, <em>deflowered,</em> and/or <em>fallen</em> female mythotype. This word <em>flower</em> is a recurring motif in the language of the feminine as Erich Neumann claimed:</span> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="line-height: 120%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">“The bond between woman and plant can be followed through all stages of human symbolism. The psyche as flower, as lotus, lily, and rose, the virgin as flower in </span><st1:city><st1:place><span lang="EN-US" style="line-height: 120%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Eleusis</span></st1:place></st1:city><span lang="EN-US" style="line-height: 120%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">, symbolise the flowerlike unfolding of the highest psychic and spiritual developments. Thus birth from the female blossom is an archetypal form of divine birth...”</span></span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">But in the <i>Sacred and Profane Love</i>, the meaning of the flower is divided between the sacred and the profane. </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Life is not only the psyche and its unfolding, so w</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">hile Neumann's cited take encompasses the psychological, it unfortunately denies the sensual by breezing over this legitimate necessity in favour of a grand spiritual potentiality. </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">When the feminine is referred to and portrayed through the flower metaphor, it often means to reference the vulva as the primary sexual characteristic of the female and/or more broadly, to that creative force which rises from the vivifying power of the body. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">We cannot have Sacred fire without the Profane spark; Ceres without Proserpine; or one Twin Venus without the other. So here, couched in the language of the </span><em style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;">Sacred and Profane Love</em><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> is the opportunity to clearly state the difference between the iconology of the flower </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">as (1.) a symbol to </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">describe</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;">metaphorically </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">the </span><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;">sensual form</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> of the vulva. (2.) This is distinct from</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> the </span><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;">endogenous metaphor (the</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> flower unfolded</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">) - the</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> grand spiritual metaphor and symbol of undefiled purity eg., the white lily and lotus. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">John Milton writing in<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> the epic poem <em>Paradise Lost</em> (c.1657) </span>employed both </span><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;">a celestial metaphor (planet & stars) and</span><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;"> also flowers as as a carnal reference to emphasise the physicality of a loss, not the least of virginity, but certainly of childhood.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> Proserpine, gath'ring</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> Flowers with friends</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> Herself a fairer flower,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> By gloomy Dis was plucked</span><span style="text-align: left;"> </span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> John </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Milton</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> <i>Paradise Lost</i> </span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Dis (Pluto) ravages the picturesque setting and the child/flower is torn and discarded. Because gathering flowers is a childish innocence the metaphor here infers not so much that children are innocent flowers but that</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span><i style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;">c</i><em style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;">hildren</em><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> (as is inherently known) are the</span><em style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;"> flowers of innocence </em><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">itself</span><em style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;">. </em><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Milton is here speaking of Venus </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">on a celestial level (thereby </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">identifying Proserpine as the planet </span><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;">Venus</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">) because he refers to her metaphorically as a celestial entity. </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Venus appears alone as the <i>bright star</i> [actually a planet but </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">to the naked eye </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">appears as large moving star] set wandering through the celestial fields of the '<i>fixed stars</i>' who are her companions.</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> Venus glides across the starry fields of the night sky. </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Fig 2. Detail; Torn flowers (roses & foliage).</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "times";">Catullus and Giorgione will be shown to be in dialogue with the ravish metaphors of the torn flower and the ruined rose which are dramatically distinct from those stainless lilies belonging to the Great Mothers of Botticelli or Tintoretto and which as floral symbols represent the idealised psychological and spiritual symbols to which Neumann refers.</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> It could be assumed that Milton's consideration of the rape of Proserpine was likely inspired by a wedding poem written sixteen hundred years earlier by Catullus (c. 84 c.54. BC) when he penned his epithalamium:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> We are the treasure that many girls and boys desire; </span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> but once </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">deflowered (the flower stained and torn)</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> the virgin's body rancid, neither boys nor girls will turn to</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> her again </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">nor can she wake their passion.</span> </span></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Catullus </span></span></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">(Trans. </span></span></span><a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/horace-gregory" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;"><span style="color: #0b5394; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">H. Gregory</span></a><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> ) p. 169</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times";">These emblems of the Great Virgins, of Juno (see fig. 12) and of the Madonna (see fig 13) must be associated with the celestial Mother or celestial Venus (<em>Venere Celeste)</em>; whereas the opposite pole of the normally physically active sexual life can be associated with Proserpine </span><em style="font-family: times;">(Venere Vulgare) </em><span style="font-family: "times";">and Eve</span><em style="font-family: times;">.</em><span style="font-family: "times";"> </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times";">Between these poles of the sacred (</span><span style="font-family: "times";">celestial</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times";">; </span><span style="font-family: "times";">virginal</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times";">, psychological, philosophical) and the profane (</span><span style="font-family: "times";">physical</span><span style="font-family: "times";">; </span><span style="font-family: "times";">libidinous</span><span style="font-family: "times";">, taboo) morality and social mores are constantly being redefined and modulated by acceptable cultural norms.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="color: #660000; font-size: x-large;">J</span>ohn Donne, like Giorgione, ushered in the landscape as a simile for the feminine form (a perception that was addressed in the first post '<a href="http://www.pauldoughton.com/2011_02_20_archive.html">'Finding the Way In'</a> (see Donne's (<span style="color: #0b5394;"><a href="http://www.luminarium.org/sevenlit/donne/elegy20.htm">Elegy XX: On his mistress going to bed</a></span>). We know that libidinous nature to which Donne refers is pursued through a marital contract and mutual consent, and where there is consent there is no immorality. Donne, extending his range through metaphor can barely contain the sensual revelation of his ecstatic <span style="color: black;">secret:</span> pleasure, gentle suffering, and the potential gain through love of 'psychic and spiritual developments'.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">How blest I am in thus discovering thee!</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">To enter into these bonds, is to be free...</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Donne associates the flowers and hills with the feminine, and Giorgione's <i>Sleeping Venus</i> [fig 3] sets the undulating lines of the background to the sensual curves of the female form reclined; again to Donne:</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Your gown going off such beauteous state reveals,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">As when from flowery meads th' hill's shadow steals.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Combined, both poet and painter display the feminine as curvaceous, fecund, and mystical, but it is also at this point a division in attitude occurs between the youthful Giorgione and the mature husband in Donne. and this is revealed in the metaphor of the flower. Giorgione's flower metaphors were to influence the youthful Titian who would return to employ their language on several occasions. More than fifty years </span></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">after the <i>Sleeping Venus</i> of Giorgione Titian returns to employ the language of flowers </span><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">but t</span></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">here were several steps to take </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">which would again present</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">specifically in Titian's </span></span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19.2px;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>Danaë</i></span></span><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i> and the Shower of Gold</i>, 1564.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #660000; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-large;">G</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">iorgione's Sleeping Venus (Fig. 3) asserts an immature and indulgent male</span><em style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;"> </em><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">idea, which is that the feminine is a cornucopia of sensory delight which of itself is passively innocent, incapable of assertion (as a yielding, natural landscape) and therefore the property of the male visual field. </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">That her eyes are closed states that she is not receptive to his presence (he has clearly created her thus) and yet this is not to say that he is unreceptive to her form, rather, this portrayal allows Giorgione (and any other observer) to consider the sensuality of form anonymously and free from confrontation. As is often observed of this work, the lines of the nude participate with the undulations of the landscape.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">The youthful </span></span><span style="font-family: "times";">Giorgione can be nobly portrayed and defended as a young man discovering that within this primarily visual articulation of </span><span style="font-family: "times";">life, the sensuality of <span style="font-family: "times";">nature i</span><span style="font-family: "times";">s all-encompassing and essentially feminine yet this does not and should not always lead to sensual gratifications.</span></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> This work is actually by a young man crossing the threshold to maturity and is a work of philosophical consideration and self restraint.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">I</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">n the lower left foreground n</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">otice the small flowers. </span><span style="font-family: "times";">Noticeably Giorgione's Venus (Fig 3.) has not torn any of those tiny flowers that are within her grasp (lower left foreground, Fig 4. Detail) which would - according to the logic of the flower motif found in the oeurves of both Giorgione and Titian - have indicated a sexual union or violation, and Giorgione's Venus remains pure; an untouched and unviolated vision.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times";">Giorgione is at a different level of being to Donne (Giorgione is the seeking student while Donne is the illumined master) but it is through Giorgione's willingness to learn and by methodologically retracing the conceptual and structural pathways of the <i>Sacred and Profane Love</i>, that we are able to walk with him as Dante walked with Virgil. </span><span style="font-family: "times";">In Giorgione's development, this is the beginning of control - which bonds him to Donne in a deep respect of the feminine and the discovery and exaltation of the goddess.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;"><strong>Reclining Venuses</strong></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times";"><span style="font-size: x-large; font-style: normal;">T</span>he Sleeping Venus of the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili (c.1499, Venice) and of Dresden are clearly most objectified while sleeping and certainly both are objects of the male sexual gaze. Giorgione's<i> Dresden Venus </i>was first designed in oils, reclined, asleep and semi-nude rather than naked.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Fig 5. Hypnerotomachia Poliphili; Nymph and Satyr. Aldine Press, Venice, c.1499. </td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Giorgione's sleeping, reclined Venus appears to have had its origin in a woodcut* (Fig. 4) taken from the Francesco Colonna novel <em>The</em> <em>Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, </em>the same unusual though popular novel from which the Sarcophagus/Fountain of the <em>Sacred and Profane Love</em> was undoubtedly sourced. This commonality declares the influence that the novel had on Giorgione's grand motifs in both the form of the <i>Sleeping Venus</i> (aka <i>Dresden Venus</i>) and the sarcophagus/fountain of the <i>Sacred and Profane Love</i>. </span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Fig 6. Giorgione: The Dresden (or Sleeping) Venus c. 1510.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">The <em>Woodcut of Nymph and Satyr</em> (Fig. 5) predates the <em>Dresden Venus</em> (Fig. 6) so chronologically it is not difficult to find a progression or source from one to the other (both sleep, are semi-nude,and reclined). In the <i>Dresden Venus</i>, the gaze has shifted from the </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">apparent </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">observation of the leering (in <i>facino erecto</i>) </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">satyr and therefore the viewer of the woodcut is absolved from any associated guilt because he is observing a <i>scenario</i> and only </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">indirectly</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> studying the nude form of Venus. But in Giorgione's Venus</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> the observer casts their gaze directly and self consciously in the first person. This is to say that the major difference between the two (the woodcut and the Dresden Venus) is that the viewer of Giorgione's very sensual painting has become the satyr of the earlier woodcut. But it must also be said that this is not an unnatural or even unappealing situation for a respectful, enamoured male (that is to say; the lover) to desire to consider the</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">naked</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> female form.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">In these works, beginning with the woodcut and progressing through to the <em>Sacred and Profane Love</em> (Fig 1.) and the <em>Venus of Urbino</em> (Fig 8), the one continuous motif of Giorgione's is the exposed left leg of the Venus. This motif of Venus becomes an emblem under Giorgione's influence and will be most pronounced in the leg of Ceres in the <i>Sacred and Profane Love </i>where the reason and the likely source of this motif is identified as originating <i>cosmographically</i>.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">[*</span><span style="font-size: 13px; text-align: center;">It was common in past ages and as a point of decorum, to censor the erect penis of the satyr and replace the area with a more abstract concept of </span><em style="font-size: 13px; text-align: center;"> facino </em><em style="font-size: 13px; text-align: center;">erecto</em><em style="font-size: 13px; text-align: center;"> </em><span style="font-size: 13px; text-align: center;">].</span><br />
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<strong><em><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: x-large;"><u>The Flower Motif <span style="font-size: large;">(Venere Vulgare):</span></u></span></em></strong></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="font-family: "times";"><em>The<strong> </strong></em></span><em>Sacred and Profane Love:</em></span></div>
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<em><span style="font-size: x-large;">The Venus of Urbino:</span></em><br />
<i style="background-color: white; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 19.200000762939453px; text-align: start;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Danaë</span></i><em><span style="font-size: x-large;"> and the shower of Gold:</span></em></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times";"><span style="color: #660000; font-size: x-large;">B</span>eginning with the Woodcut of <i>Nymph and Satyr</i> (Fig. 5), and the <i>Sleeping Venus</i> (Fig. 6), the next stage of development is the introduction of flowers as a metaphor for sexual blossoming and then plucked flowers as the metaphor of sexual </span><span style="font-family: "times";">de-flowering - the latter being the accepted mythological narrative (the rape of Proserpine) that occurs in the myth of Pluto and Proserpine.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Fig 7. Detail; flower (roses).</td></tr>
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The 'loaded' theme of the torn flower metaphor was first developed in oil by Giorgione in the <em>Sacred and Profane Love</em>, and thereafter pursued by Titian in the <em>Venus of Urbino</em> c.1538 (fig. 8). The image of Proserpine seated at the sarcophagus/fountain with the flowers held in her lap by the gloved hand marks a division between these chronologically developing groups and introduces the motif of the torn flower as a sign of ravishment. Of his own initiation Titian employs this flower metaphor in <i style="background-color: white; font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; line-height: 19.2px;">Danaë</i><em> and the Shower of Gold</em>, c. 1564.<br />
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: x-large;"><em>The Venus of Urbino</em></span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: small;">Fig 8. The Venus of Urbino c.1538. Galleria Degli Uffizi, Florence, Italy</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "times";"><span style="color: #660000; font-size: x-large;">A</span>s the flower theme progresses, so does a clear design motif indicating a sexual distinction. Reclined again, the <em>Venus of Urbino</em> (Fig. 8)*, clasps torn roses to indicate sexual consummation. Titian's <em>Venus of Urbino</em> c.1538 is again in dialogue with the <em>Venus Vulgare</em> through flower symbolism - note the torn or fallen roses under the left hand (Fig 9). Taking the lead from the interpretation of the flowers under Proserpine's hand (Fig 7), the <em>Urbino Venus</em> appears post libidinal, uninhibited, and so, naturally unashamed. </span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Fig 9. Titian's Venus of Urbino c.1538. (Detail).</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">The surroundings suggest that this scene is domestic. </span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Importantly, this Venus (<em>Vulgare</em>) appears to be invisible to the other women in the room and seemingly luxuriates contentedly in her role as the all consuming goddess of sexual ardour. </span></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">This Venus appeases the drives of her erotic nature, and is here perhaps indicating that the bed is the source of marital contentment. By her invisible presence she is, in a sense, eroticising the scene of conjugal harmony.</span></div>
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<i style="background-color: white; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 19.200000762939453px; text-align: start;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Danaë</span></i><em style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"> and the Shower of Gold</span></span></em><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times";"><span style="color: #660000; font-size: x-large;">T</span>he myth of </span><i style="background-color: white; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 19.200000762939453px; text-align: start;">Danaë</i><span style="font-family: "times";"> and the shower of Gold belongs to one of the many deceitful amours of Jupiter, who by turning himself into a shower of gold, seduced the beautiful Danae. From this liaison Danae became the mother of Perseus; slayer of Medusa.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Fig 10. <i style="background-color: white; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium; line-height: 19.200000762939453px; text-align: start;">Danaë</i> and the Shower of Gold c. 1564. <span style="font-family: "times";">Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, Austria.</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "times";">In Titian's </span><i style="background-color: white; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 19.200000762939453px; text-align: start;">Danaë</i><em style="font-family: Times;"> and the Shower of Gold</em><span style="font-family: "times";"> (Fig. 10), </span><i style="background-color: white; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 19.200000762939453px; text-align: start;">Danaë</i><span style="font-family: "times";"> is reclined while the roses appear to balance delicately on the beds edge. As the shower of gold falls from the sky, the roses appear to be about to fall; these discarded roses on the verge of falling from the bed indicate the prior moment of </span><i style="background-color: white; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 19.200000762939453px; text-align: start;">Danaë</i><span style="font-family: "times";"> yielding to Jupiter's sexual advances which will result in </span><i style="background-color: white; font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; line-height: 19.2px;">Danaë's</i><span style="font-family: "times";"> subsequent pregnancy (in this myth </span><span style="font-family: "times";">myth mother and child (Perseus) are set adrift in a <i>chest</i> which suggests this story is an archetypal myth </span><span style="font-family: "times";">reminiscent of the Isis & Osiris and Moses myths </span><span style="font-family: "times";">rather than recalling an historical event.)</span><br />
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<i style="background-color: white; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 19.200000762939453px; text-align: start;">Danaë</i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> will fall pregnant to Jupiter after this liaison and so it is clear from </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 19.200000762939453px;"><i>Danaë</i></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>'s</i> subsequent conception that the flower symbolism (Fig. 11, Detail) refers to a sexual violation. Of five paintings on the myth of </span><i style="background-color: white; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 19.200000762939453px; text-align: start;">Danaë</i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> <i>and the Shower of Gold</i> by Titian and his workshop the 1564 version (fig 11) is the only one of the five </span><i style="background-color: white; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 19.200000762939453px; text-align: start;">Danaë</i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> paintings by Titian where flower symbolism participates in a narrative referring to a theme of sexual violation. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">These paintings; the <em>Sacred and Profane Love</em>; the <em>Venus of Urbino</em>; and </span><i style="background-color: white; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 19.200000762939453px; text-align: start;">Danaë</i><em style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> and the Shower of Gold</em><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">, share the same intent in the metaphor of the flowers, which is to say; the presence of flowers initiated in the work of Giorgione* and later Titian, is distinctly a sexual metaphor.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">[There will be an argument presented in a later post that the <em>Sacred and Profane Love</em> was Giorgione's project up until his death in 1510.]</span></blockquote>
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<strong><span style="font-size: x-large;"><em>Flower of Purity</em> </span><span style="font-size: large;"><em>(Venere Celeste)</em></span></strong><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #660000; font-size: x-large;">I</span>n a broader religious overview the falls of Proserpine and </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Eve are essentially sexual and therefore human. It is those sexual initiations which have confirmed their falls from reveries in the otherworldly realms and firmly grounded their physicality. They belong to the polarity of Venere Vulgare as a fecund sexual force embodied and are the counterparts to the idealism <span style="background-color: white;">of</span> the Great Mother or Celestial Virgin<em>.</em></span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">The cult of the <em>Great Mother/Celestial Virgin</em> finds contemporary expression in the cult of the Virgin Mary who again belongs to the lineage of the ancient and continually metamorphosing Great Mother cult, and this is the religious stream from which Mary - the Great Virgin Mother - directly descends. T</span>o the anthropologist Edmund Leach:</span></span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">“In an objective sense, as distinct from theoretical theology, it is the Virgin Mary, human mother of God, who is the principal object of devotion in the Catholic Church.”</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">The lily flowers sacred to the Virgin Mary belie her lineage. Looking to the </span><em style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Origin of the Milky Way</em><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> by Tintoretto, c.1575-1580 (Fig 12). The mythology's narrative tells of the infant Hercules being placed upon the sleeping Juno's breast by Jupiter to be suckled, thereby immortalising the child</span> </div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Fig 12. Origin of the Milky Way. Jacopo Tintoretto. c.1575<br />
The National Gallery London.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">So voracious a feeder was Hercules and abundant the milk of Juno that droplets spurted across the sky and formed the Milky Way (galaxy). Where each of those droplets fell to earth the Lily Flower was formed which were sacred to the Great Virgin. </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">(The bottom edge of Tintoretto's canvas was water damaged and the painted lilies cut away.)</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Fig 13. Botticelli. Madonna and Child with Eight Angels c.1465-67.<br />
<a class="mw-redirect" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spedale_degli_Innocenti" title="Spedale degli Innocenti"><span style="color: #0b5394;">Spedale degli Innocenti</span></a> of <span style="color: black;">Florence.</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Botticelli's Madonna and Child with Eight Angels c.1465-67 (Fig 13), presents the Great Virgin with Eight Angels holding the lilies sacred to her. Mary's flower motif of white lilies define her as the symbol of purity. </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Her flower motif accords with Neumann's point of view of the flower as metaphor for the 'flowerlike unfolding of the highest psychic and spiritual developments', and is a parallel to the meaning of the lotus flower of eastern religion.</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">N</span>ox; Bona dea; Isis; Cybele; Demeter; Venus; and Ceres; these Great Mother cults of ancient Rome, inasmuch as they reference the continuing Italian tradition of the cults of the feminine, are revealed extant in the contemporary guise that defines Mary as the counterpart of Eve.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Meaningful conversation of the <em>Sacred and Profane Love</em> will either be restricted or elucidated through religious considerations to raise the question 'What is religion'? This question is one of the fundamental propositions demanded by the <em>Sacred and Profane Love</em>, and the answer may be that religion is not at all that which we expect religion to be. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times";">Finally, it remains unclear as to whether the flower motif was the conceptual property of Giorgione or Titian at the point where it becomes obvious in the <em>Sacred and Profane Love, </em>but Giorgione remains the most likely author, and Titian, the follower. There will be further considerations to be made during the course of this investigation which may prove helpful.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">*</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "times"; text-align: center;">The Venus of Urbino is </span>a painting which intuits to this writer a rework of something wrested from the studio of Giorgione after his death.<br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">This is a reference to the narrative of Proserpine and Ceres as an agricultural myth. Around September at the onset of autumn the crops are reaped. </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "centaur"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: ZH-CN;">In the constellation of Virgo the major star is Spica, L. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Spica</i>, = corn. Ceres (<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "centaur"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: ZH-CN;">the Celestial Virgin) </span>who as the rising
Virgo (Virgin) appears at the time of Proserpine’s disappearance in the September night
sky holding <em>Spica</em> - the ear of corn. The reaping of the crops is complete, and in the ensuing winter months the ground will lay barren while the sorrowful Mother searches for her
daughter.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "centaur"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: ZH-CN;">This has particular alchemical implications because Proserpine was never the fruit, but rather the<em> </em>(cold)<em> moisture </em>within,<em> </em>which must plump the fruit and bring about its maturity<em>.</em> No plant - or even cut flower - can survive without moisture.<em> </em>Alchemically this has a parallel in the concept of the<em> 'moist radical'. P.</em></span></span><br />
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Paul Doughtonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12560227637710387418noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7323403459729776769.post-4511768759119264662011-07-21T21:58:00.001-07:002023-01-16T00:09:17.277-08:00Esoteric Schema in Early Religious Art: Presenting an overview of the work of K. H. De Haas (re edited 2015).<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="color: #660000;"> <em>'<span style="color: black;">Since God is intellectual, and all intellect returns into itself.'</span></em></span></div>
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<span style="color: black;"> Sallust</span></div>
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HEPTA-ANGLES </div>
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PRESENT IN OLD </div>
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RELIGIOUS ART</div>
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by K. H. DE HAAS. (Rotterdam, 1947)</div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "centaur";"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "centaur";"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "centaur";">[<i>These small publications were discovered at a library discard sale in remote Western Australia. The thrill of the find was tempered some time later after noting the library date ticket inside the hardcover was clear - these books had never once been borrowed.</i>] </span></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "centaur";"><span style="font-size: x-large;">P</span></span><span style="font-family: "centaur";">ublished</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "centaur";"> as two small memorandums, t</span><span style="font-family: "centaur";">hese booklets are a </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "centaur";">compilation of several studies that record the presence of symbolic geometry in 13th - 15th century oil paintings, missals and (in one instance) architecture). Printed </span><span style="font-family: "centaur";">in </span><st1:city style="font-family: Centaur;"><st1:place><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "centaur";">Rotterdam</span></st1:place></st1:city><span style="font-family: "centaur";"> </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "centaur";"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "centaur";">1947/48,</span> author </span><span style="font-family: "centaur";">K. D. De Haas</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "centaur";"> </span><span style="font-family: "centaur";">claims to have found</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="font-family: "centaur";">hepta-angle geometry (a form of symbolic geometry) in works by </span><span style="font-family: "centaur";">the Italians </span><span style="font-family: "centaur";">Cimabue (1240/50-1302?), </span><span style="font-family: "centaur";">Duccio (1255-1318), </span><span style="font-family: "centaur";">Giotto (1266/67-1337), </span><span style="font-family: "centaur";">and Fra Angelico (1400-1455) a</span><span style="font-family: "centaur";">s well as declaring other examples found in </span><span style="font-family: "centaur";">early </span><span style="font-family: "centaur";">German, Northern and French art.</span><span style="font-family: "centaur";"> </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "centaur";">D</span><span style="font-family: "centaur";">e Haas notes a clear relationship between early </span><span style="font-family: "centaur";">religious art and</span><span style="font-family: "centaur";"> number symbolism which has its basis in geometric structure and which differs from that exoteric form of geometry known as 'perspective'. Through</span><span style="font-family: "centaur";"> this exposure to the work of de Haas, three accessible geometries will be exampled. </span><span style="font-family: "centaur";">We begin with two works by the Flemish painter </span><span style="font-family: "centaur";">Rogier van der Weyden (1399/1400-1464) painting</span><span style="text-align: center;"> </span><em style="text-align: center;">Christ Appearing To His Mother</em><span style="text-align: center;"> c.1436-40,</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> <i>The</i> <i>Seven Sacraments </i></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Triptych (</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Altarpiece c. 1440 - 1445), </span><span style="font-family: "centaur";">Fra Angelico's</span><span style="text-align: left;"> <i>Lamentation over Christ</i> (c</span><em style="text-align: left;">.</em><span style="text-align: left;">1436-41), </span><span style="font-family: "centaur";">and</span><span style="font-family: "centaur";"> </span><span style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Duccio di Buoninsegna's Triptych,<i> </i>(Altarpiece, </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">c. </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">1300-05). </span></span><br />
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<span style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">There will be a link to that area of the <i>Sacred and Profane Love's</i> analysis showing the development of the hepta star located at the centre of that painting. The confirmation of what I discovered in my own analysis of the <i>Sacred and Profane Love</i> was somewhat validated through the discovery of de Haas's geometric complexities and is the reason these works are being shared here. P. </span></span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">Fig 1. Van der Weyden. </span><em style="font-size: 12.8px;">Christ Appearing To His Mother</em><span style="font-size: 12.8px;"> c.1436-40. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.</span></td></tr>
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<span style="text-align: left;">The earlier book discusses the work of several artists, the first being Rogier van der Weyden's beautifully toned and crisply executed </span><em style="text-align: left;">Christ Appearing To His Mother</em><span style="text-align: left;"> c. 1436-40.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 12.8px;"><b>Fig. 2. Christ appearing to His Mother c.1440. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. </b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 12.8px;">(Detail with the inclusion of a triangular graphic). </span></td></tr>
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Fig 2. shows the form of the triangle referred to by de Haas in Fig 3.<span style="font-size: x-small;"> (<span style="text-align: justify;">This painting is now thought not to be an original, but a copy of the original by v</span><span style="text-align: center;">an der Weyden'</span><span style="text-align: justify;">s studio.)</span></span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 12.8px;"><b>Fig. 3. (Detail) excerpted from the first memorandum.</b></span></td></tr>
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In the above excerpt taken from the memorandum, De Haas has isolated, measured and calculated the distances, conjunctions relating to the stigmata points on the hands and left foot of Christ [see fig. 2]. De Haas muses:<br />
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"The present writer has found hepta-a. only in, or in connection with pictures in which Christ is represented."</blockquote>
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Is this a programme of Van Der Weyden a rule of the guilds perhaps, or simply a self-affirming observation on the behalf of De Haas?<br />
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<b><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">Fig. 4. <i>The</i> <i>Seven Sacraments </i>Altarpiece (Triptych) </span><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">c. 1440 - 1445) by Rogier v</span><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">an der Weyden . Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Antwerp.</span></b> </div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><i style="font-size: 12.8px;">Fig. 5. The</i><span style="font-size: 12.8px;"> </span><i style="font-size: 12.8px;">Seven Sacraments </i><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">Altarpiece. (Detail of centre panel with marked triangle graphic.)</span></b></td></tr>
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In <i>The </i><i style="text-align: center;">Seven Sacraments</i><span style="text-align: center;"> </span><span style="text-align: center;">(Altarpiece triptych) </span><span style="text-align: center;">c.1440 - 1445)</span><span style="font-size: 12.8px; text-align: center;"> </span><span style="text-align: center;">by Rogier </span><span style="text-align: center;">Van Der Weyden (fig.4 is a detail with a triangle annotation)</span><span style="text-align: center;"> </span>De Haas is focusing on the measurements obtained from the triangle formed by the three nails in the hands and feet of Christ.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>Fig. 6. Page 16 from the memorandum of De Haas.</b></td></tr>
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De Haas is quite frugal with information here, the reason being that the measurements were taken directly from the painting via a tracing: The author allows the measurements to speak for themselves, but the <span style="text-align: left;">work has been assisted by the Head curator of the Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Antwerp - as can be seen on the lower right facing page of the memorandum.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b style="font-size: 12.8px;"><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">Fig 7. Fra Angelico Lamentation over Christ (c</span><em style="font-size: 12.8px;">.</em><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">1436-41)</span></b></td></tr>
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<span style="text-align: left;">De Haas’s second memorandum focuses exclusively on an analysis of Fra Angelico’s </span><i style="text-align: left;">Lamentation over Christ</i><span style="text-align: left;"> (c</span><em style="text-align: left;">.</em><span style="text-align: left;">1436-41) - (see larger image here at: </span><a href="http://www.wikipaintings.org/en/fra-angelico/lamentation-over-christ-1441#supersized-artistPaintings-204015" style="text-align: left;">Fra Angelico</a><span style="text-align: left;"> . Please wait for the image to load).</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>Fig. 8.<i> Lamentation over Christ</i> (</b><b style="font-size: 12.8px;">Detail</b><b style="font-size: 12.8px;"> with arrows indicating the positions of the two stars.) </b></td></tr>
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<span style="text-align: center;">In the above image there are two arrows pointing to the location of the <b>eight pointed star</b> in St Dominic's halo (upper left quadrant - Fig. 2), and two arrows indicating the <b>twelve pointed star </b>on the Virgins head-dress (Mary's arms are supporting the head and neck of Christ) mark the diagonal line that continues to the paintings upper-left corner.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: small;">Fig. 9. De Haas's computations on the paintings proportions.</span></b></td></tr>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "centaur";">The author discusses the hepta circle - a circumference evenly divided by seven regular sections - as indicated by the presence of the 8 pointed star in the halo about the head of Saint Dominic (Fig. 2); and the 12 pointed star that is placed upon the head cloth of the Virgin. </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "centaur";">By using the Virgins 12 pointed star as an axis, a circle may be established that order the rectangular measurement of the painting.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>Fig. 10. <span style="font-size: 12.8px;">Lamentation over Christ (detail). Note de Haas' positions of X, O & W above and refer again to the memorandum</span></b></td></tr>
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<span style="text-align: center;">Within the rectangular form described <b>H,I,J,K</b> by De Haas (<b>W</b> marks the horizontal line in Fig. 9) t</span><span style="text-align: center;">he letters <b>X, O</b>, refer to the stars of St Dominic & the Virgin as presented by the arrows in fig. 8. and are present. </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "centaur";">De Haas notes that the 12 pointed star on the Virgins head marks the centre of a cross (<b>X</b>) - invisible in the finished painting but nevertheless present in this artworks schematic execution and is </span><span style="font-family: "centaur";">the paintings 'centre of symmetry'. </span><span style="text-align: center;">Employing De Haas's considerations of the eight pointed star as the apex of circle the painting can be divided into seven equal sections with the line <b>H</b>-<b>O</b> with the angle between <b>X</b> & <b>W</b> being the first of the seven sections. (see below Fig 10). </span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>Fig. 10. The measurements (=red rectangle) of the painting analysed </b><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "centaur";">Regarding the number symbolism (i.e; the number seven) used by Angelico as a means of sacralizing both process and the finished work De Hass offers this suggestion:</span></div>
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...it becomes clear to us that, in Catholic symbolism, no lasting tangible or visible result of an act of consecration is required in order to provide an enduring effect of the use of the number 7, if once this number had part in the act. Similarly, Fra Angelico’s temporary use of a hepta-circle and his placing of the permanent stars, whose <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">loci </i>reveal the stars’ connection with the circle and its division points were apparently considered by this pious artist to bestow on his painting a lasting consecration worthy of its Subject.</blockquote>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "centaur";">This </span><span style="font-family: "centaur";">theurgical (and so </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "centaur";">religious) operation employs number symbolism to indicate and implicate the mystical properties of (in this instance) the number seven. <span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "centaur";">Number symbolism stands in direct relationship to conceptual structure and physical structure, yet occupies a category distinct from the geometry of perspective. </span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "centaur";"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "centaur";">The twelve & eight pointed stars are signifiers placed in geometric arrangement with the intention to synthesise the structure with the substructure and complete design with the intention to elevate, harmonise and sanctify the final work.</span></span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>Fig. 11.Duccio di Buoninsegna Triptych Altarpiece <span style="font-size: 12.8px;">Tempera on wood </span><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">1300-05. </span></b></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>Fig. 12. The analysis by de Haas.</b></td></tr>
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<span style="text-align: center;">Duccio's triptych of 1300-05 </span><span style="text-align: center;">is the subject of the this last featured presentations reproduced from the memorandums of de Haas. </span></div>
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<span style="text-align: center;">The above study was the impetus behind assessing the possibility of a hepta star within the <i>Sacred and Profane Love's</i> structure from the conjunction of two angles - refer to the top left of the four diagrams (and/or refer to the post <a href="http://www.pauldoughton.com/2012_04_01_archive.html">Sacred and Profane Love: Unravelling the Geometry & Locating the Heptagram</a> - (Figs. 12-20)).</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b style="font-size: 12.8px;">Fig. 13. </b><b style="font-size: 12.8px;">The location of the hepta star in the a</b><b style="font-size: 12.8px;">nalysis of the <i>Sacred and Profane Love:</i><br />The scalene triangle and the circle.</b></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>Fig 13(a)</b></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b style="font-size: 12.8px;">Fig 13(b)</b></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "centaur";">The circle at the centre of the <i>Sacred and Profane Love </i> can be progressed from the </span><span style="font-family: "centaur";">(fig. 13: fig.13</span><span style="font-family: "centaur";">(a) and fig. 13(b)</span><span style="font-family: "centaur";">) to conclude as the hepta star. The key to the circles circumference is the small track winding back over the rise near the right arm of Ceres.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "centaur";">Perhaps it should come as no surprise that monastic origins elucidate the reason as to why the older form of geometric consideration in art (symbolic geometry) seems to almost exclusively fall under the spell of Religious expression. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "centaur";">These complexities are the result of a focus dedicated to contemplation of the divine and a firm belief in an invisible order to the phenomenal world which involves teleology. While the plastic images of art may be shared by all, the rigorous intellectual order remains hidden as a devotional contract of servitude and humility between the mind of man and the Mind of God.</span></div>
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<span style="text-align: center;">The other de Haas studies not reproduced from the memorandums here are: </span></div>
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<span style="text-align: center;">Hans Memling: </span><i style="text-align: center;">Shrine of St Ursula. g</i><span style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">ilded and painted wood </span>- c.</span><span face=""arial" , sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #545454; font-size: x-small; line-height: 20.2222px;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #545454; line-height: 20.2222px;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-small;">1489.</span></span><i style="text-align: center;"> </i></div>
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<li><span style="text-align: left;">Fr Angelico: </span><i style="text-align: left;">Last Judgement</i><span style="text-align: left;">. </span><span style="background-color: #fffde8; color: #00131e; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 16.64px; text-align: left;">tempera on panel - c. 1435 - 1440.</span></li>
<li><span style="text-align: left;">Bartholo di Fredi: </span><i style="text-align: left;">Adoration of the Shepherds</i><span style="text-align: left;">. t<span style="font-size: x-small;">empera on wood - c. 1483.</span></span></li>
<li><span style="text-align: left;">Jean Picaud I: </span><i style="text-align: left;">Madonna and Child</i><span style="text-align: left;">. no information to date.</span></li>
<li><span style="text-align: left;">Cimabue: </span><i style="text-align: left;">Madonna Rucellai. (Incorrectly attributed to Cimabue by Vasari - actually Duccio)</i></li>
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There are also two missal frontispiece - German and Venetian, and a cross section of a column from Englise Saint-Remi. </div>
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<em>Cheese...</em> <span style="font-size: large;"><em>pAuL </em></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , "freeserif" , serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22.4px; text-align: center;">©1997 - 2020</span><br />
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Paul Doughtonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12560227637710387418noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7323403459729776769.post-1192458942459694132011-06-26T18:04:00.065-07:002022-08-04T18:09:58.274-07:00Sacred and Profane Love: Symbolic and Geometric Substructures<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span lang="" style="color: maroon; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><em><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;">"A modern spectator, still under the influence of [a] Romantic interpretation of art, finds it uninteresting, if not distressing, when the historian tells him that a rational system of proportions, or even a definite geometrical scheme, underlies this <span lang="" style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">or that representation."<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></span></span></em></span></span></div>
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<span lang="" style="color: maroon; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;"><em> </em>Erwin Panofsky</span></span></span></span></div>
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<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-FElSD2cvxuc/XEmixTg72XI/AAAAAAAAEhI/EYAN5gagSvcmugxlI-qPgu0npefcG_DPgCLcBGAs/s1600/Titian%2BSacred%2BProfane%2B-%2BCopy%2B%252894a%2529k.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1529" data-original-width="1600" height="609" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-FElSD2cvxuc/XEmixTg72XI/AAAAAAAAEhI/EYAN5gagSvcmugxlI-qPgu0npefcG_DPgCLcBGAs/s640/Titian%2BSacred%2BProfane%2B-%2BCopy%2B%252894a%2529k.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span lang="" style="color: #990000; font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: x-large;">T</span><span lang="" style="font-family: centaur;"><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;">urning to the <i>Sacred and Profane Love</i>, there are no indicators to any structured demands of perspective, rather, the sculptural volume of the centrally placed figurative suite (the two women, the child and the fountain/sarcophagus) appear almost unrelated to the surrounding iconography. Perceived<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>‘distance’ is implied by the diminutive pastoral iconography (so, background) which surrounds the grand suite of figures (foreground) and the eye rationalises and accepts this presentation. But u</span></span><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;">pon closer scrutiny</span><span lang="" style="font-family: centaur;"><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;"> the background iconography does appear to be mathematically unrelated to the central grouping - for example; due to the smaller proportions of the castle at the paintings left it appears to be at a distance, as do (to a lesser degree) the two hares directly below the castle. To the right of the painting various idyllic and pastoral themes are at play and yet, </span></span><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;">perceived </span><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;">distance or </span><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;">relative </span><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;">tension</span><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;"> between those ciphers seem to be randomly scattered around that large suite of figures. Now, examining t</span><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;">his scheme</span><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;"> with a critical eye it certainly does appear to be disconcertingly disproportionate - particularly in an era that was dominated by mathematical perspective. T</span><span style="font-family: centaur;">he more one ponders the </span><i style="font-family: centaur;">Sacred and Profane Love</i><span style="font-family: centaur;"> the more one becomes literally <i>disillusioned</i> in accepting this work as a form of artifice developed around a central vanishing point (or points) in accordance with the laws of perspective.</span></div>
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<span lang="" style="font-family: centaur;">No doubt an overall sense of harmony greets the eye, but to the mind the proportions appear mathematically illogical. </span><span lang="" style="font-family: centaur;">There are several types of pictorial arrangements where symbol and motif rely on radically different systems of design; one may be a patterned symbolic arrangement and another, </span><span style="font-family: centaur;">a geometric pattern,</span><span style="font-family: centaur;"> </span><span style="font-family: centaur;">or (more common to the Renaissance) the</span><span style="font-family: centaur;"> mathematically based </span><span style="font-family: centaur;">system</span><span style="font-family: centaur;"> of proportion. </span><span style="font-family: centaur;">During the Renaissance, that system which we now term ‘perspective’ was then known as ‘optics’. As a recorder of </span><i style="font-family: centaur;">idea</i><span style="font-family: centaur;">, perspective was not necessarily based around the elocution of subject matter, which is to say; the primary idea of the structure of perspective is optical. Perspective is a visual, optical elocution historically tied to an end result of design formality rather than a form of narrative or communication in itself. This fundamental structure of sixteenth century painting was commented on by the historian</span><span style="font-family: centaur; mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="font-family: centaur;">Heinrich Wölfflin:</span><div class="DefaultText" style="margin: 1em 0px;">
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<span lang="" style="font-family: centaur;">“What is peculiar to all pictures of the sixteenth century is that the vertical and horizontal are not only present as directions, but that they are made to dominate the picture.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="" style="font-family: centaur;">Again; taken individually, the use of perspective law offers no intended or direct communicative value in practice because the science of perspective may be visually appreciated regardless of subject matter. This is not because we are ignorant of the idea, but because we already know that perspective law <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">was</i> the idea. </span><span style="font-family: centaur;">Perspective in the general context of the Renaissance is (tellingly) as a visual vehicle rather than specific language beyond its genre. There are distinct approaches to the execution of perspective that over time, reveal development from one era to the next - but this is not often a narration or conversation by the artist on a specific topic that perspective alone can articulate; it is more a 'warp and weft' system into which design and idea are interwoven: See </span><a href="http://literaria.net/RP/L3/RPL3.htm" style="font-family: centaur;"><span style="color: #990000;"> </span><em><span style="color: #0b5394;">C</span><span style="color: #0b5394;">hronological shifts and individual takes of linear perspective.</span></em></a></div>
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<span lang="" style="font-family: centaur;">The discipline of perspective be thought of as conceptually superior to a patterned symbolic geometry or two dimensional representation. In hindsight, and before the promise of <em>langue,</em> visual constructions begin as foundations; systems that develop design structures as points of departure. </span><span lang="" style="font-family: centaur;">It must be remembered that the illusions created by the science of perspective did not imitate optical reality at all. (</span><span style="text-align: left;">See </span><em style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #0b5394;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filippo_Brunelleschi" style="text-align: left;">Invention of Linear Perspective.</a>) </span></em><span lang="" style="font-family: centaur;">This 'single eye' viewpoint of perspective law appeared to announce what was to later become the western way of seeing and appears to be endorsed by the emergence of the single lens reflex camera. But </span><span lang="" style="font-family: centaur;">mathematical accuracy does not equate to visual experience from the human perspective - as was accurately conveyed by the Venetian scholar, Professor Cesare Molinari</span><span lang="" style="font-family: centaur;">:</span></div>
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<span lang="" style="font-family: centaur; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">“...perspective science was based on an analysis of monocular vision, the mathematical and visual space it created did not coincide with the empirical reality of psycho-physically normal, binocular vision.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: centaur;"><span style="text-align: left;">Molinari's clarification reminds us that the mathematical method is as artificial as any other method: a method which at worst probably bears the stamp of a voyeuristic, keyhole culture - which in part began with Brunelleschi's hole in the baptistery panel. </span>Because a painting is more a plot than a photograph, the symbolic is the ideal where there are those who understand the import of the particular symbol as an indicator of metaphoric language. Number symbolism, perspective, geometric schema; all of these methods, distinct in intention as they are, may be placed under the qualification of ‘substructural geometry’, because the visually unifying nature of geometry (or pattern or plot), are really the development of a ‘methodology of foundation’ and are of an equitable value when reduced to formularized schematic intentions or considered as 'conceptual armatures'.</span></div>
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<span lang="" style="font-family: centaur;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">A</span>n interesting digression on the importance of foundation can be seen in the life of Galileo and who, in this excerpt, is exampling a friend whose shallow approach to the construction of a painting paralleled an equally shallow manner of philosophising. Galileo appears to be criticising random marking as the basis for a type of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">poesie</i> - which is conspicuously different from the rigorous planning required as the basis for visual or scientific foundation, and it can be readily assumed that he is berating an absence of considered structure as lacking in intellectual merit. Galileo writes:</span><br />
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“...this mode of philosophising has a great sympathy with the style in which one of my friends used to paint: on one part of the canvas he would write with chalk - there I will have a fountain, with Diana and her nymphs; here some harriers; in this corner I will have a huntsman, with a stag’s head; the rest may be a landscape of wood and mountain; and what remains to be done may be put in by the colourman: and thus he flattered himself that he had painted the story of Act<span lang="" style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">æ</span><span lang="" style="font-family: centaur; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">on, having contributed nothing to it beyond the names.” P.71gal<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="" style="font-family: centaur;">In the above excerpt, it appears that to Galileo - who had himself considered donning the painters mantle - a paintings conceptual arrangement should be no less rigorous than any logical argument advanced by the most ardent thinker. Although Galileo was certainly at the later end of the Renaissance, these thoughts express a learned distaste for random marking posing as erudition.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="" style="font-family: centaur;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">C</span>learly now, there is an appreciable distinction between the design of the<i> Sacred and Profane Love</i> and the precise, geometric mathematics of perspective. When able to differentiate between these structures, one is better equipped to comprehend the propositions that were being advanced - bearing in mind that these artworks were created for individuals or groups that had the financial means to commission them and the capacity to appreciate them - and this narrow field certainly indicates privilege. It is also highly likely that certain cliques within society excluded the mainstream to avoid religious and governmental scrutiny, and to also ensure the incorruptibility of certain ideas and 'truths'. (Peter Bourke citation here). </span><span style="font-family: centaur;">In specific regard to the </span><i style="font-family: centaur;">Sacred and Profane Love</i><span style="font-family: centaur;">, Charles Hope’s timeless monograph on Titian noted this distinction:</span><br />
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"The design and structure of the Sacred and Profane Love appears to bear no relationship to the design structures based around visual perspective that were being produced in the painters workshops of the period."</div>
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<span lang="" style="font-family: centaur;">As a conceptual schematic of a religious type, the <i>Sacred and Profane Love</i> has been stripped of any possible religious passion and traced to the most abstract of geometric sources. Overall one can conclude that the proposition of the <i>Sacred and Profane Love</i> is religious, but only in the driest, academic sense of scrutiny tempered by emotional neutrality - a curious feat to achieve in fifteenth century Venice. </span><span lang="" style="font-family: centaur;">All of this will lend gravity to the notion that during the Renaissance, the humanist advisor could be responsible for advancing learned considerations on the behalf of the patrons who were the financial source for a great deal of commissioned artworks. </span><br />
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<span lang="" style="font-family: centaur;">The influence of the humanist advisor can be found in the conceptual structures of the <i>Sacred and Profane Love </i>where the advisor appears to have devised an entire symbolic programme <em>(invenzione)</em>. While it is most unlikely that the advisor would tread upon the artists ground by forwarding a programme outlining a preferred method of perspective, it is extremely plausible that a programme could be advanced where both classical narrative and symbolism were synthesized into a rigid form of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">invenzione</i>. It should also be considered that the while the advisor might desire the design to be inflexible, the patron may well have had leanings toward a more decorative - and so flexible - sensibility. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="" style="font-family: centaur;"><o:p><span lang="" style="font-family: centaur;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">A</span>mong the many names associated with the Italian lineage of geometric perspective were Brunelleschi (1377-1446), often considered the father of perspective; his influence on Donatello (1386-1446)and Massaccio (1401-1428). The writings of and works of Alberti (1404 - 1474) were also influential and the works of Vitruvius (1st century </span><span lang="" style="font-family: centaur; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">B.C.E.</span><span lang="" style="font-family: centaur;">) were available and clearly influenced da Vinci (1452-1519) - as evidenced in the work known as the Vitruvian man. </span></o:p></span><span style="font-family: centaur;">Again, symbolic and perspective schematics within the history of painting can only have been created within the context of a cultures capacity to develop these systems of construction and the same cultures enthusiasm and appreciation of such works. We know that the advance of the Renaissance was created and marked with the rise of wealth and education: Under these conditions it might be prudent to consider all forms of geometric complexity as an intellectual hunger satiated by the desire to improve one’s conceptual capacity beyond the boundaries of simple objective representation and find a means to participate </span><i style="font-family: centaur;">in</i><span style="font-family: centaur;"> and align the arts </span><i style="font-family: centaur;">to</i><span style="font-family: centaur;"> the driven intellectualism that was the Italian Renaissance.</span></div>
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While the ‘scientific’ area of perspective geometry evolved into a studious methodology for religious and secular painting under the direction of the guilds, curious forms of geometric consideration were most likely born of Byzantine and medieval monastic manuscripts and their disciplined two dimensional representations. But to where and to whom might we turn to definitively determine a lineage of symbolic geometry?</div>
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<em><span style="font-size: large;">cheese... </span></em><span style="font-size: x-large;"><em>pAuL</em> </span></div>
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Paul Doughtonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12560227637710387418noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7323403459729776769.post-13765946217893015392011-05-18T04:57:00.000-07:002018-01-20T05:09:24.321-08:00Sacred and Profane Love: Pagan & Marion Symbology: The Cult of the Feminine.<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">M. Buonarroti. Night (detail) 1526-33:<span style="font-size: 12.8px;"> (Source WGA)</span></td></tr>
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"Darkness preceded light and She is Mother"</div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "open sans"; font-size: 12px;"><b>(Inscription on the altar of the cathedral, Salerno Italy)</b></span><span style="background-color: #99cccc; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 11px; text-align: left;"></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><i>Nyx</i> (Greek) or <i>Nox</i> (Roman) <i>Night </i>was according to Hesiod's <i>Theogony</i></span></span> was of the earliest of the gods:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">"<span style="background-color: #fffdf9; font-size: 14px;">From Khaos (Chaos) [Air] came forth Erebos (Erebus, Darkness) and black Nyx (Night); but of Nyx (Night) were born (Aether, Bright Upper Air) and Hemera (Day), whom she conceived and bore from union in love with Erebos</span><span style="background-color: #fffdf9; font-size: 14px;">."</span></span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: #fffdf9; color: #333333; font-size: 14px; font-style: italic; text-align: left;">(Hesiod, Theogony 115 ff (trans. Evelyn-White) (Greek epic C8th or C7th B.C.).</span> </span></div>
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<i style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; text-align: left;">http://www.theoi.com/Protogenos/Nyx.html</i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">...a theology unaware of the unconscious origins of the myth on whose behalf it laboured, </span></i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">would both be victims of unconscious possession and so </span></i></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">unwittingly dedicated to the </span></i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">spread of their own unconsciousness...</span></i></span></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">The Illness That We Are</span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #990000; font-size: x-large;">T</span>o understand the agenda that inspires the <i>Sacred and Profane Love</i>, it is not enough to state that Ceres, Proserpine, and the <i>Fountain Cyane</i> are the principle identities of a long sought after classical narrative. Those identities through whom all interpretation must correspond belong to the mythotypes and archetypes of Italian religious culture. The<i> Sacred and Profane Love</i> is a late fifteenth – early sixteenth century ontological investigation into a religious continuum termed the </span></span><i style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;">prisca theologia </i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">that may be presumed to have begun within an ancient theological revelation (a 'big bang' impetus)</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">. Not exactly alternately is the notion of a perennial philosophy which considers a </span><i style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;">prisca theologia </i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">to be</span><i style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;"> </i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">an emergent theology. Rather than accepting a this pairing as separate dualistic agitates it may be better to say that the </span><i style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;">prisca theologia</i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> re-emerges perennially through the aeons as a pre-existing cosmic law which importantly unifies the will-to-good of all religions. It may be telling of the Renaissance cultural </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">milieu (in terms of the mindset of a singularity or first cause)</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> as the coinage of the term <i>prisca theologia</i> is given to the fifteenth century Florentine Marsilio Ficino. </span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Of the religions that had existed in ancient </span><st1:country-region style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;"><st1:place><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Italy</span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> at one time or another, almost all had entered through the influence of Greek civilization whose profusion of colonies in southern </span><st1:country-region style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;"><st1:place><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Italy</span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> had earned that area the name of </span><st1:place style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Magna Graecia</span></i></st1:place><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">. Perhaps the greatest religion introduced by the Greeks was the ancient cult of the <i>Magna Mater</i>, imported from </span><st1:place style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Phrygia</span></st1:place><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> in </span><st1:place style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Asia Minor</span></st1:place><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> and which were later established at </span><st1:city style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;"><st1:place><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Eleusis</span></st1:place></st1:city><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> in </span><st1:place style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Attica</span></st1:place><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> around 1356 BC. </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="color: maroon;"><span style="color: black;">Before</span> </span><span style="color: black;">we go there, the</span> programme devised for the <i>Sacred and Profane Love</i> reveals a Renaissance consideration that aspires to reconcile three models of religious expression: Alchemy; the Mystery Traditions; and that form of Christianity which developed into the authority of the Holy Roman Church as it was during the latter part of the Quattrocentro. Symbolic traces of the two former systems can be found archetypically in certain deities and rituals of modern Christianity, which itself historically rose from the incorporation of those mystery schools that were contemporary with the early cult of Christ. Through accretion, some rites of the mystery schools were absorbed into the politically unifying Holy Roman Church. L</span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">anguage reveals that certain Christian rites were familiar to the pagan ceremonies, which indicates that the Mysteries and the cult of Christ were never strictly opposed in tradition, the Holy Roman Church assimilating and offering a continuation of those older traditions.</span><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> </span><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">According to the writings of Professor Edwin Hatch </span><i><a href="http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=yale.39002004599644;view=1up;seq=326">The Influence of Greek Ideas on Christianity</a></i>, language associates the rite of Baptism with the Greek mysteries:</div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">"So early as the time of Justin Martyr, we find a name given to Baptism which comes straight from the Greek mysteries, the name “enlightenment”, <i>photismos...</i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> </i>The term <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">mysterion</i> is applied to Baptism and with it comes a whole series of technical terms unknown to the </span><st1:place><st1:placename><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">Apostolic</span></st1:placename><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;"> </span><st1:placetype><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">Church</span></st1:placetype></st1:place><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;"> but well known to the mysteries, and explicable only through ideas and usage's peculiar to them. Thus we have words expressive of either the rite or act of initiation, like <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">muesis, telete, teleiosis, mystagogia;</i> of the agent or minister, like <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">mystagogis,</i> of the subject, like <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">muetheis,</i> or, with reference to the unbaptised, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">amuetos.</i> In this terminology we can more easily trace the influence of the mysteries than that of the New Testament...”[1]</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">As a rite that preexisted the </span><st1:place><st1:placename><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">Christian</span></st1:placename><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;"> </span><st1:placename><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">Churches</span></st1:placename></st1:place><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">, the baptism of Jesus by John the Baptist is the first description of an individual being baptized as a rite in itself (the only possible reference to baptism in the Old Testament relies on the symbolism of the flood as a cleansing of sin). </span><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">A further example of accretion or absorption of paganism into the stream of Italian religious thought is the transubstantiation, practiced in the cult of Mithra which also preceded the Christian era. In her book <i>The story of Mysticism</i> author Hilda Graef explains:</span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> <span style="font-family: "times";">“...a sacramental communion between God and man was not unknown among the pagans; in the Persian cult of Mithras, for example, which had become very popular among the Roman soldiers of the first centuries of our era, there was a sacrament of bread and water mixed with wine by which men were believed to partake in the life of Mithras.”[2]</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Predominantly the Mystery religion implied by the figures of the </span><i style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Sacred and Profane Love</i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> - now identified as Ceres, Proserpine, Mercury, [and Pluto] - are the </span><i style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Eleusinian</i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> mysteries. However the </span><i style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Sacred and Profane Love</i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> also sources the </span><i style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Mithraic Mysteries</i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> and also employs the curious iconology of the </span><i style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, </i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">which seems to be an attempt to recover specific religious themes and reconcile these with Italian paganism; Quattrocentro Christianity, and cosmological truths. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Those imported religious themes that found expression through the myths of the feminine had become indigenous to Italy over time because those seasonal truths began to incorporate geographic locales and combine them with celestial phenomena (the transcendent, mythological region) often expressed using a geometric cosmology. This is to say that a</span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">gricultural truths remain truths inasmuch as they respond to the rhythms of the seasons (the mundane or Profane) which in turn synchronise with the rotation of the celestial hemispheres (the supernatural or Sacred). By extension those myths which are associated</span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> with these twin truths of physical existence are essentially those of sex and death are sometimes known as the mysteries of life and death. The anthropologist Edmund Leach made this observation on the duality of religions:</span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">“Religious belief is everywhere tied in with the discrimination between living and dead. Logically, <em>life </em>is simply the binary antithesis of <em>death</em>; the two concepts are the opposite sides of the same penny; we cannot have either without the other. But religion always tries to separate the two.”[3]</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">The roots of the Italian tradition run deep within <em>anima mundi </em>and to merely know the identities at the fountain is not enough to interiorise and so, revitalise them. Without immersing ourselves in the living stream of religious sensibility, Ceres to our modern culture appears little more than a distant etymological reference to a toasted and flaked boxed breakfast. I</span></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">nside the church the wafer of corn is still prepared for the congregation upon the altar - that relic and symbol of the tomb of the dying and reborn God. </span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">[1] </span></span><i><a href="http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=yale.39002004599644;view=1up;seq=326">The Influence of Greek Ideas on Christianity</a></i>, <span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">p. 295-296.</span><br />
[2] <i>The story of Mysticism</i>; Hilda C, Graef Davies, 1965. p.?<br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">[3] <i>Mythology</i>; edited by Pierre Miranda C. Nicholls & Company, G.B.1972 p.50 </span></span><br />
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Paul Doughtonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12560227637710387418noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7323403459729776769.post-42851863589388315202011-05-02T06:28:00.013-07:002021-02-21T15:45:26.571-08:00The Women, Fountain and Child: Ceres, Proserpine and Cupid/Mercury. First level of allegory<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<em><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white;">Q.</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #660000;"> What is a doorway that is both tomb and fountain ? </span></span></em></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-size: large;"><em>A.<strong style="color: #660000;"> </strong><span style="color: #660000;">The Doorway that is symbolically both tomb and fountain, in classical mythology and in context with Proserpine, Ceres, Mercurius/Psychopomp and Pluto is: </span></em><span style="color: #660000;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #660000; font-size: large;"><b>The Fountain Cyane</b><i>.</i></span></div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Wvyu4sjQM9U/YDLs6ujCz4I/AAAAAAAAE_Q/GeHXdXowTkAHANYmxKtCu1txIpzdn40vACNcBGAsYHQ/s1036/Picture4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="472" data-original-width="1036" height="293" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Wvyu4sjQM9U/YDLs6ujCz4I/AAAAAAAAE_Q/GeHXdXowTkAHANYmxKtCu1txIpzdn40vACNcBGAsYHQ/w640-h293/Picture4.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i> The Hypnerotomachia Poliphili was published in 1499 at Venice. In that obscure book the form of a sarchpagus can be found from which the form of the fountain/sarcophagus of the Sacred and Profane Love has been sourced. (Scroll down to see the detailed explanation below: </i><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; text-align: justify;"><i>The Sarcophagus/Fountain:The Fountain Cyane</i></span><i>).</i></td></tr></tbody></table>
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<span style="color: #990000; font-size: x-large;">A</span>s the historian Erwin Panofsky intuitively suggested, the <i>Sacred and Profane Lov</i>e is an allegory that emphasises the concept of the Twin Venuses as outlined by the influential Florentine philosopher Marsilio Ficino (1433-99). One Venus was 'earthly' (<em>Venere Vulgare)</em> while the other was 'celestial' (<em>Venere Celeste).</em><br />
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But what has remained stubbornly silent for over five hundred years is the classical identity of the three figures draped around the odd fountain that shares the unusual form of a classical sarcophagus. Who are the figures in a classical sense; what is the meaning of the strange fountain; and why has it taken so many years to discover the identity of the two women? This post will begin to unravel these complexities, but such an undertaking cannot be achieved in a single post. Each post participates in the unveiling of the <i>Sacred and Profane Lov</i>e and will always (with associated visual references) form a background to other posts on this site.</div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>The Identities of the Figures at the Fountain Cyane.</b></span></div>
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<span style="color: #990000; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-large;">I</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">n terms of Classical Mythology </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">the clothed figure</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> is intended to represent Proserpine, while the semi-nude is her mother Ceres. </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Only w</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">hen these figures are embraced as </span><i style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">archetypes </i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">do</span><i style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"> </i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">they</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> correspond with the notion of the </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Twin Venuses </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">as postulated by </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Panofsky. A</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">rchetypally </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Proserpine </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">is an equivalent of </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">the <em>V</em><em>enere</em><em> Vulgare</em></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> (so vulgar or </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>Profane </i></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>love</i>) while </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Ceres </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">is an archetypal equivalent of</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">the </span><em style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">V</em><em style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">enere</em><em style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"> Celeste</em><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> (therefore </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">celestial or </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-style: italic;">Sacred </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-style: italic;"> </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>love</i>)</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">According to the</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 20px;"> <i>Metamorphoses</i></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> of </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 20px;">Lucius Apuleius (c.155 CE) a</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">ll of the </span><i style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">Great Mother</i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> (and some of the lesser </span><i style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">Goddesses</i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">) are participants in a lineage encompassed by the </span><i style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">Great Mother Goddess </i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Isis (see </span><span style="font-family: times;">the intertwined and various names of the Goddess Isis as presented by </span><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: times;"><a href="http://www.esotericarchives.com/kircher/goddess.htm">Athanasius Kircher</a> </span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 22.4px; text-align: start;"><span style="font-family: times;">(1601/02 – 1680)</span><span style="color: #252525;"><span style="font-size: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"> </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">which is</span><span> <span style="font-family: times;">b</span></span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: times;">ased on</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span><a href="http://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/Latin/TheGoldenAssXI.htm" style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">(Book Eleven)</a><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> of the </span><i style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">Metamorphoses</i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> - otherwise known as the </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Golden_Ass" style="font-style: italic;">Golden Ass</a>)<i>. </i></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 20px;">Although written more than one hundred years after the production of the </span><i style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 20px;">Sacred and Profane Love, </i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 20px;">t</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 20px;">he Kircher link</span><span class="H_Subitle" style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: 0em; line-height: 1.25em; word-spacing: 0em;"> (below) is presented here to visually & contextually introduce</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span><span class="H_Subitle" style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: 0em; line-height: 1.25em; word-spacing: 0em;">the </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 20px;">syncretism</span><span class="H_Subitle" style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: 0em; line-height: 1.25em; word-spacing: 0em;"> of attributes which link the various identities of each of the goddesses. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;">I</span><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;">n Kircher's </span><a href="http://www.esotericarchives.com/kircher/goddess.htm" style="color: #cc0000; font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;">woodcut</a><span class="H_Subitle" style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: 0em; line-height: 1.25em; word-spacing: 0em;"> all godessess come together as aspects of the one <i>Great Mother </i>in the well known visual arrangement </span><span class="H_Subitle" style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: 0em; line-height: 1.25em; word-spacing: 0em;">d</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">esigned to illustrate the <i>text</i> of Apuleius. </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">There the woodcut portrays Isis as the </span><i style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">one</i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">;</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> a singular Goddess</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">arrayed with those select emblems</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> and attributes which describe each </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">individual</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> goddess. Kircher's woodcut</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> illustrates and describes the attributes each goddess then </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">incorporates the many</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> into the one, so becoming the <i>grand </i></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>motif </i>image<i> </i>of </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>the</i> </span><i style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;">Great Mother</i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i> </i></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">in that woodcut</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">. </span></div><div>
<span class="H_Subitle" style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: 0em; line-height: 1.25em; word-spacing: 0em;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">On the left side of Kircher's chart are the words <i style="text-align: start;">Nomina varia </i><i style="text-align: start;">Isidis </i></span><span style="text-align: start;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">(the various names of Isis) and looking down the list are the three names relevant to this argument of identity: 'Venus...; Proserpina; Ceres...' indicating the direct and shared lineage from the one - Isis.</span></span> It is this last book of the <i>Golden ass</i> which is relevant here:<br />
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<span class="H_Subitle" style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: 0em; line-height: 1.25em; word-spacing: 0em;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #252525; line-height: 22.4px;">"In the last book, the tone abruptly changes. Driven to desperation by his asinine form, Lucius calls for divine aid, and is answered by the goddess </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isis" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: none; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; background: none white; color: #0b0080; line-height: 22.4px; text-align: start; text-decoration: none;" title="Isis">Isis</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #252525; line-height: 22.4px;">. Eager to be initiated into the </span><a class="mw-redirect" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mystery_cult" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: none; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; background: none white; color: #0b0080; line-height: 22.4px; text-align: start; text-decoration: none;" title="Mystery cult">mystery cult</a></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #252525; line-height: 22.4px;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> of Isis, Lucius abstains from forbidden foods, bathes and purifies himself. Then the secrets of the cult's books are explained to him and further secrets revealed, before going through the process of initiation which involves a trial by the elements in a journey to the underworld</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14px;">." <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Golden_Ass">Wikipedia: The Golden Ass</a></span></span></span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span class="H_Subitle" style="letter-spacing: 0em; line-height: 1.25em; text-align: start; word-spacing: 0em;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span class="H_Subitle" style="letter-spacing: 0em; line-height: 1.25em; text-align: start; word-spacing: 0em;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-align: justify;">The Renaissance reception to the </span><i style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-align: justify;">Golden Ass </i><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-align: justify;">might be considered as relevant to the development of the </span><i style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-align: justify;">Sacred and Profane Love </i><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-align: justify;">as was the </span><i style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-align: justify;">Hypnerotomachia Poliphili</i><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-align: justify;"> and should therefore be held in the same analytic regard. (</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; text-align: justify;">Critically, the writings of </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Times New Roman";">Apuleius were known to the humanist circles of the Este-Gonzaga courts at Ferrara and Mantua which should be reserved as this may well indicate an historical link to the conceptual origins of the <i>Sacred and Profane Love</i> as<i> </i>an<i> invenzione </i>(a paintings </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-align: justify;"><i>programme</i> or </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-align: justify;"><i>plan</i>)). </span></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span class="H_Subitle" style="letter-spacing: 0em; line-height: 1.25em; text-align: start; word-spacing: 0em;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span class="H_Subitle" style="letter-spacing: 0em; line-height: 1.25em; text-align: start; word-spacing: 0em;">In the above </span></span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Golden_Ass" style="background-color: white; font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 14px;">Wikipedia</a> <span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span class="H_Subitle" style="letter-spacing: 0em; line-height: 1.25em; text-align: start; word-spacing: 0em;">quotation the two keys relevant to the <i>Sacred and Profane Love</i> are those of <i>Isis</i> and the <i>underworld</i>. </span></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 18.2px; text-align: left;">As a funerary deity <i>Isis</i> was </span></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 18.2px; text-align: left;">considered the wife</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 18.2px; text-align: left;"> of <i>Osiris</i> who was 'lord of the </span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 18.2px; text-align: left;"><i>underworld' </i>just as <i>Proserpine</i> was the consort of <i>Pluto</i>.</span></span><span face=""arial" , sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #545454; font-size: x-small; line-height: 18.2px; text-align: left;"> </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span class="H_Subitle" style="letter-spacing: 0em; line-height: 1.25em; text-align: start; word-spacing: 0em;">It is relevant then, that the women are seated on a </span></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">sarcophagus because the underworld journey is of great importance to the myth of </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>Isis</i> and equally important to </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>Proserpine</i> and <i>Ceres </i>(the players vary but the essence of the myth continues). In terms of seasonal and agricultural cycles bear a relation to the grander cosmic cycles of astronomy (the position of the women when placed over a map of the <i>South Celestial Hemisphere </i>will indicate <i>Cosmic Night</i> (<i>Proserpine</i>) and <i>Cosmic Day</i> (<i>Ceres</i>). It is a very exiting selection of information and it is present in the painting.</span></div><div>
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The <i style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;">Sacred and Profane Love</i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span>is a pictorial form of a constantly metamorphosing narrative that is intended to be read allegorically. For exam<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">ple the </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">narratives regarding the </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">child at the fountain metamorphose to </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">reference</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> four distinct identities: 1. <i>Cupid</i> -son of Venus. 2. </span><i style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;">Mercurius</i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>/Hermes -</i> Roman/Greek deity<i> 3. </i></span><i style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;">Mercury</i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i> - </i>quicksilver (the magical element in alchemy). 3.</span> The planet Mercury (astronomical). 4.<i> Hermes/</i><i style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;">Mercury</i> psychopomp - the<i> </i>guide of the newly dead souls to Pluto's underworld - the doorway of which is the fountain Cyane itself. So to say the work is intended to be read on a multiplicity of levels and be intellectually challenging (as per a game or entertainment). It is not a work to gloss over but a repository of information meant to be conceptualised through repeated engagement and consideration. </div><div style="text-align: center;">edit 22-2-21</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>(The painting should be considered in imaginative, spatial visualisations, perhaps as four CD discs where each disc is transparent and located in space, one above the other. The first transparent disc is the pictorial image with its allusions to Alchemy; mercury stirring the waters of the mixts, the colour of the cloths representing the red & white sulfurs etc. On the second disc the circle contains the pentagram which whose horizontal lines form the upper and lower boundaries of the sarcophagus. The third disc has the represented signs of the zodiac (the rider on horseback represents Taurus, the twin hares Gemini, the head of a dog or cow seen by Harold Wethey was a dog - the dog star representing Leo etc., all described in their represented forms as the diminutive iconologies that surround the grand suite of figures (there are four other zodiacal signs represented and each sign is described by Firmicus in the Matheseos Libri IIX )). The fourth and final disc is the most important of all as it is a Celestial map of the Southern Hemisphere with the point of view located directly above the South Celestial Pole. This has as its axis point the mouth of the spigot at the fountain. Clearly this disc has been sourced from ancient catalogues and is the work of a scholar which I strongly speculate was designed for Alfonso de Este and could well fit an astrolabe... Did Alfonso have ambitions to make the port of Ferrara the rival of Venice by discovery of the unknown Southern Lands? Certainly the Venetian ferocity in thwarting de Este of this prize the had no bounds. Was Giorgione murdered? Who told them of the content of the paintings program? I suspect it was Titian who would finish Giorgione's painting </i><i>for Aurelio </i><i>(and how many other paintings of Giorgione's paintings?) to eventually succeed Bellini as Painter to Venice (unfortunately for Titian though, Bellini would live a very long time after these events had transpired). And Aurelio... how fortunate to have a friend near the Council of Ten. Titian would much later sell(?) this zodiacal part of the program used in the Sacred and Profane Love to Giulio Romano as Romano's guide to decorate the walls of the Sala dei Venti in the Palazzo del Te. Romano's interpretations of the text of Firmicus inform the zodiacal selections in the Sacred and Profane Love zodial sequence - indeed they inform each other. </i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>This interpretation of the Sacred and Profane Love forces one to reinterpret history using the painting as the guide. Moreover the use of geometrics, a map, and the plastic figurative to 'speak', allows a maximum amount of data to be invested into the painting: The Sacred and Profane Love's program displays a basic form of q</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #5f6368; font-size: 14px; text-align: left;"><i><span style="font-family: georgia;">uantifiable </span></i></span><i>information stacking (similar idea to </i><i>'bit's' & 'bytes'). It is this</i><i> physically retraceable program which makes this paintings contents the stimulating equal of the paintings figurative surface. </i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>The painting was likely a collaboration between Bellini, Giorgione and Titian - and an unknown scholar. (Dare we suggest Laura Bagarotto's father? What is the dramatic link there? Someone made the map especially..). The Sacred and Profane Love is one of a kind and so incredibly valuable to the renaissance scholar.</i></div>
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The<i> Fountain Cyane</i> is presented as an open capped spring which is contained by the immediately recognisable form of a rectangular sarcophagus. In this open lidded fountain/sarcophagus the arm of the child <i>Cupid</i> (son of Venus) is immersed in water play. But read at an alchemic level now this indicates the metamorphosis of the child from <i>Cupid</i> to the child <i>Mercury</i> and this action of the child's immersed arm indicates that the '<i>mercurial water'</i> is being mixed in the <i>Athanor</i> of the alchemist. At further allegorical level the <i>Fountain Cyane</i> will again jump in meaning and represent the entrance to Pluto's underworld realm of <i>Hades. </i>At that point <i>Mercury - </i>who previously indicated the <i>alchemical </i>element mercury, is to become <i>Mercury psychopomp</i>,<i> </i>the guide of new souls to <i>Hades, </i>the realm of Pluto otherwise known as the abode of the dead.<i> </i>The conversation is pagan; agricultural; ontological; cosmological; philosophical; Hermetico/Alchemic - and therefore the thrust of the work is undoubtedly allegorical. Again, it is a work to ruminate upon.<br />
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<br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-jneJQxI5nAk/YDLiaSBCDLI/AAAAAAAAE_E/RelKIjb-Oi8MbS_AuwA7MYetW7BhUsuVgCNcBGAsYHQ/s608/Titian%2BSacred%2BProfane%2B-%2BCopy%2B%252894a%2529k%2B%25281%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="581" data-original-width="608" height="613" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-jneJQxI5nAk/YDLiaSBCDLI/AAAAAAAAE_E/RelKIjb-Oi8MbS_AuwA7MYetW7BhUsuVgCNcBGAsYHQ/w640-h613/Titian%2BSacred%2BProfane%2B-%2BCopy%2B%252894a%2529k%2B%25281%2529.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: justify;" trbidi="on"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; text-align: center;"><i>The only two horizontal lines found within an upright and inverted pentacle determine the upper </i></span><i><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; text-align: center;">and lower </span></i><i><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; text-align: center;">boundaries of the fountain/sarcophagus presented in the</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; text-align: center;"> Sacred and Profane Love.</span></i><i style="background-color: white; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; text-align: center;"> The circles circumference is </i><i style="background-color: white; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; text-align: center;">determined by the line beginning from the mouth of the spigot and extending to the 'rider on horseback' which</i><i style="background-color: white; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; text-align: center;"> </i><i style="background-color: white; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; text-align: center;">represents Taurus and is the first of nine anti-clockwise zodiacal representations that surround </i><i style="background-color: white; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; text-align: center;">the central suite of figures, each described according to the texts of Firmicus from the Matheseos Libri IIX.</i></div><div dir="ltr" trbidi="on"><br /></div><div dir="ltr" trbidi="on"><br /></div><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times";"><span style="color: #990000; font-size: x-large;">T</span>he fountain/sarcophagus - the <em>Fountain Cyane -</em> is mythologically located between Olympus and Tartarus. Hades - otherwise known as </span><span style="font-family: "times";">the realm of the dead</span><span style="font-family: "times";"> - is actually this terrestrial globe which is positioned halfway between the celestial realm of Olympus and the 'geographic' opposite of Tartarus. This is to say that esoterically, this terrestrial globe - this planet Earth - is actually the 'underworld' to that incorruptible </span><span style="font-family: "times";">spiritual</span><span style="font-family: "times";"> (</span><span style="font-family: "times";">causal</span><span style="font-family: "times";">) </span><span style="font-family: "times";">world of Enna (Eden). Proserpine has been torn from Enna (Eden) and entered this physical sexualised world of matter and of death (the <i>mundane</i> Eden). Proserpine is the <i>Queen of the Dead</i> because in this</span><span style="font-family: "times";"> </span><span style="font-family: "times";">hermetically sealed </span><span style="font-family: "times";">physical</span><span style="font-family: "times";"> environment life feeds upon life and a</span><span style="font-family: "times";">ll must eventually die. </span><span style="font-family: "times";">In a hermetically sealed environment d</span><span style="font-family: "times";">eath sustains life as</span><span style="font-family: "times";"> no life assisting nutrient is ever lost and death feeds the life that springs from decaying matter in a constant cycle of death and regeneration as observed by </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; text-align: left; text-indent: -15px;"><a href="https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Leonardo_da_Vinci#The_Notebooks_of_Leonardo_da_Vinci_.28Richter.2C_1888.29" style="text-align: left; text-indent: -15px;">Leonardo</a> </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; text-align: left; text-indent: -15px;">(Book IV, The Notebooks)</span><span style="font-family: "times";">: </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times";">"</span><span style="background-color: white; font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; font-variant-ligatures: inherit; font-weight: inherit; text-align: left; text-indent: -15px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Our life is made by the death of others."</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span></span></blockquote>
<span style="background-color: white; font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; font-variant-ligatures: inherit; font-weight: inherit; text-align: left; text-indent: -15px;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">This is to say that a</span></span><span style="font-family: "times";">s </span><span style="font-family: "times";">we are sustained by death and</span><span style="font-family: "times";"> live amongst death we are subject to the idea of death as the abiding principle of phenomena: </span></div>
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<span style="text-align: start;">"To the ignorant the body is supreme and they are incapable of realizing the immortality that is within them. Knowing only the body which is subject to death, they believe in death because they worship that substance which is the cause and reality of death." <span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">1.</span></span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: "times";">Although Proserpine as the consort of Pluto is the </span><i style="font-family: Times;">Queen of the Dead</i><span style="font-family: "times";"> she herself is </span><span style="font-family: "times";">not actually death (as is<i> Mors</i>) but rather the moisture found within all living things and the moist vapour which encompasses the planet and sustains all life. Her role is often associated with with dread because of the frightening aspects of decay and those associated images of rotting </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">flesh which without the notion of moisture </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">death </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">would simply appear as a dried mummification. Sensually she is a</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">humid muskiness:</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">"I love that sweet smell of decay that surrounds me in forests and woods. A kind of mulchy, deep, rich rot that has no connotation of death or ending, but rather of life and age. A sense of <i>perpetual destruction </i>and<i> rebirth</i>." (Anon).</span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">There is a star (the sun) which </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">emits <i>ultraviolet rays</i> beyond</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> the terrestrial globe but there is also one within (the fallen star Vulcan/Lucifer/Pluto) which participates in rendering the global environment fertile. </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Pluto's radiant <i>infra red</i> heat emanates from </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Hades - Pluto's realm (aka </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">the planets central 'star') w</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">arms the moisture sealed within the subsurface of</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> the globe and the humidifying result is as a hermetically sealed eco-system where these two principles combine and form the conditions for sustaining and regenerating life. For this reason Vulcan & Venus are parallel gods to Pluto & Proserpine. Vulcan the fire god works the infra red forge where the moisture of Venus 'tempers' the 'dry' male principle in the 'moist' female principle</span><span style="font-family: "times";">. </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Proserpine's</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> cool moisture encompasses the ardour of Pluto</span><span style="font-family: "times";"> </span><span style="font-family: "times";">and from the their archetypal union the principle of life is seen to be generated and sustained </span><span style="font-family: "times";">(see <i>lingam</i></span><span style="font-family: "times";"> - <i>yoni</i> of the Hindu tradition)</span><span style="font-family: "times";">.</span><span style="font-family: "times";"> When understood in terms of Hermetic principles this union indicates the power of <i>generation</i> and <i>regeneration</i>, and from this perspective it is a very small step to advance into the language of philosophical alchemy as well as that of </span><span style="font-family: "times";">tantric philosophy. </span><span style="font-family: "times";">In modern terms all this might be conceived of as an intuitive language </span><span style="font-family: "times";">describing the origins of life in the macrocosm having begun </span><span style="font-family: "times";">as a cellular form (</span><i style="font-family: Times;">gamete - male and female</i><span style="font-family: "times";">) and the</span><span style="font-family: "times";"> fertilised planet </span><span style="font-family: "times";">as a </span><i style="font-family: Times;">zygote</i><span style="font-family: "times";"> (</span><span style="font-family: "times";">being </span><span style="font-family: "times";">the 'ground' or organisation) upon which all earthly life breathes and exists.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times";"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "times";">From the union of Pluto and Proserpine the<i> water</i> within the <i>tomb</i>/<i>Athanor/fountain/bath</i> is warmed and made regenerative and called by the alchemists </span><i style="font-family: Times;">Mercurial. </i><span style="font-family: "times";">Proserpine is a <i>Venus Genetrix </i>and the tomb/sarcophagus may also be described as <i>'</i></span><span style="font-family: "times";"><i>Athanor';</i></span><span style="font-family: "times";"> '</span><i style="font-family: times;">yoni/vulva'; and '</i><span style="font-family: "times";"><i>fountain'</i> (the moisture principle)<i>.</i> Pluto is the all pervading yet </span><i style="font-family: Times;">invisible</i><span style="font-family: "times";"> </span><span style="font-family: "times";">vivifying force</span><span style="font-family: "times";"> (the central sun of the earth) whose radiance emanates from within the tomb.</span><span style="font-family: "times";"> </span><span style="font-family: "times";">Unless we be 'born again' back to into the spiritual (this laboured rebirth is still a death to this realm) the alternative will be to endure the 'second death' which is the cleansing through the realm of Tartarus (Hell). </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times";">Beyond the image of the <i>Sacred and Profane Love</i> the paintings conceptual structure defines the programme as not specific to any one creed or philosophy but rather appears to be an esoteric inquiry where the symbolic and geometric system is suggestive of a synthesis of several religions (a parallel with Judaism is still to be posted here) all of which are perhaps testing the notion of a <i>perennial philosophy</i> rather than attempting to lay claim to a <i>prisca theologia</i>. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times";"><b>The <i>sulfurs:</i></b> <i>White i</i>s the <i>fixed sulfur</i> and<i> Red i</i>s the <i>volotile sulfur</i> and primarily these colours are apportioned to<i> </i>Proserpine and Ceres respectively. </span><span style="font-family: "times";">Proserpine's gown is white and so represents <i>W</i></span><i style="font-family: Times;">hite</i><span style="font-family: "times";"> <i>(sulfur)</i> with a splash of <i>Red (sulfur) </i>at the sleeve and at the flash of red slip at the hem of the dress. Ceres is predominantly surrounded by red fabric and this represents </span><i style="font-family: Times;">Red (sulfur)</i><span style="font-family: "times";"> with a splash of <i>White (sulfur) </i>across her lap. </span><span style="font-family: "times";">Mercury's arm playfully swirls the <i>(mercurial)</i> water within the fountain and this shows that the <i>White</i> and <i>Red sulfurs</i> are</span><span style="font-family: "times";"> being mixed</span><span style="font-family: "times";"><i> </i></span><span style="font-family: "times";">in the </span><i style="font-family: Times;">Athanor. </i><span style="font-family: "times";">All of</span><span style="font-family: "times";"> this is indicated by the mixed primary colours of the women's clothing.</span><i style="font-family: Times;"> </i><span style="font-family: "times";">Again, this painting represents the mystical form of </span><span style="font-family: "times";">Hermetics understood as </span><span style="font-family: "times";">alchemy. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: "times";"><b>Those flowers</b> held in the gloved hand of Proserpine in the <i>Sacred and Profane Love </i>(Fig 2.Detail), refer to her abduction and 'rape' see; etymology (L. <em>rapere = to seize, to grasp* refers to the act of tearing the crops from the field at harvest time)</em> </span><span style="font-family: "times";">which is why, in the <em>Sacred and Profane Love</em>, Proserpine clasps those Catullian flowers which are now 'stained and torn' to her lap. </span></span></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span lang="EN-US">Again this rape is an agricultural <i>truth</i> that refers to the 'reaping' of the harvest crops and the subsequent harvest (abduction)</span></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: "times";">This now references the yearly agricultural cycle - the time of year. Proserpine - who is the moisture within the earth which turns the dust fecund is also the moisture in the crops themselves. </span></span></span><span style="font-family: "times";">The beginning of the quest of Ceres to find Her daughter Proserpine </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: "times";">occurs around the time of the Autumnal equinox when Ceres (who is zodiacally portrayed as </span></span></span><span style="font-family: "times";">as the constellation of Virgo) appearing then as</span><span style="font-family: "times";"> </span><span style="font-family: "times";">the Great Virgin (Virgo) with the ear of wheat in her hand (in actuality the star <i>Spica</i>) and arriving in the September night sky to find the crops have been harvested (and so) the daughter is missing. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: "times";">Importantly, the only time these two women may come together is at the Spring (aka Vernal) equinox. </span></span></span><span style="font-family: "times";">The </span><em style="font-family: Times;">heuresis</em><span style="font-family: "times";"> (aka the </span><em style="font-family: Times;">finding again)</em><span style="font-family: "times";"> of the Daughter by the Mother can only occur at the Spring equinox because throughout the winter months the abducted Proserpine/Persephone has become the consort of Pluto and through their amours the fires of Hades are maintained to warm the seed that have fallen to the ground. When the vernal recovery begins, Proserpine has been found and the recovered daughter may spend time with her mother, and it can be seen in the painting that the clay olive-oil lamp </span><span style="font-family: "times";">(considered here as the star </span><i style="font-family: Times;">Spica</i><span style="font-family: "times";">)</span><i style="font-family: Times;"> </i><span style="font-family: "times";">held aloft by Ceres</span><i style="font-family: Times;"> </i><span style="font-family: "times";">has lost its flame to the</span><span style="font-family: "times";"> dawn</span><i style="font-family: Times;">. </i><span style="font-family: "times";">So</span><i style="font-family: Times;"> </i><span style="font-family: "times";">t</span><span style="font-family: "times";">hat which is being described by the streaked sunlit sky in the painting would refer to dawn</span><span style="font-family: "times";"> and it must be said that without the sun (which has not yet risen) the painting is ostensibly </span><span style="font-family: "times";">a</span><span style="font-family: "times";"> nocturne; that is to say - </span><span style="font-family: "times";">a </span><span style="font-family: "times";"><b style="font-style: italic;">Night</b>, and historically this point may implicate certain extant correspondences between Isabella d'Este and Giovanni Bellini.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: "times";">The search for Proserpine by Ceres begins around autumn and continues during the winter months during which time </span></span></span><span style="font-family: "times";">the earth lay barren, and here lay the key to another truth; the mystery of <i>cosmic night</i> and <i>cosmic day</i> and the correct time cycle of those events.</span><span style="font-family: "times";"> T</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: "times";">he </span></span></span><i style="font-family: Times;">Sacred and Profane Love </i><span style="font-family: "times";">must be read as a</span><i style="font-family: Times;"> nocturne - </i><span style="font-family: "times";">as a</span><i style="font-family: Times;"> <b>night</b> </i><span style="font-family: "times";">- and this also refers to the greater cycle of a <i>Cosmic night. </i>This is to say that the reign of Ceres encapsulates the six month period between the Autumnal Equinox in <i>Virgo</i> to the Vernal Equinox in <i>Pisces.</i></span><span style="font-family: "times";"> Why? </span><span style="font-family: "times";">Because <i>Cosmic Night</i> begins when Ceres (represented by the constellation of Virgo) rises in September to find her daughter (here the planet Venus) missing in the night sky and this marks the beginning of <i>Cosmic Night. </i>At that time Ceres lights her pine torch in the fires of Mt </span><span style="font-family: "linux libertine" , "georgia" , "times" , serif; line-height: 1.3;">Æ</span><span style="font-family: "times";">tna (in the Sacred and Profane Love the pine torch has been substituted for a clay oil-lamp) </span><span style="font-family: "times";">to guide her to Proserpine. <i>Cosmic Day</i> returns with the <i>Heuresis, but while the torch is held aloft </i>the designation still refers to <i>Cosmic Night.</i> (See image below the torchbearers of the Mithraic Tauroctony - the image for the Southern hemisphere remains the same; the Scorpio torchbearer's torch will be facing upward while Taurus will be remains downward). The torchbearers represent Cosmic Day (Ceres) and Cosmic Night (Proserpine). The zodiacal sequence in the <i>Sacred and Profane Love</i> begins with the sign of Taurus - during Cosmic Night. </span><br />
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-PSD7C-VAd4w/VJ9im96lrrI/AAAAAAAADPU/eCpZyucRyqw/s1600/Mithras%2BZodiac.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="356" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-PSD7C-VAd4w/VJ9im96lrrI/AAAAAAAADPU/eCpZyucRyqw/s1600/Mithras%2BZodiac.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times";">In the image above - which is a reversed version of the constellation map at the foundation of the <i>Sacred and Profane Love -</i> one can see the words directly at the left of the image "<b>Scorpio Torch-bearer</b>". In the <i>Sacred and Profane Love</i>, Ceres holds her lamp aloft signalling her reign of <i>Cosmic Day, </i>and to her right the constellations of Sagittarius and Scorpio. In the </span><i style="font-family: Times;">Sacred and Profane Love Ceres </i><span style="font-family: "times";">holds aloft the small lamp</span><i style="font-family: Times;"> - </i><span style="font-family: "times";"><u>that</u></span><span style="font-family: "times";"> contemporary Renaissance variation of the torch that was lit in the fires of Mt </span><span style="font-family: "linux libertine" , "georgia" , "times" , serif; line-height: 20.8px;">Æ</span><span style="font-family: "times";">tna - to search for Proserpine by night. During the time of Scorpio (the Winter months begin at the end of Scorpio's rule) Ceres is searching for her daughter - therefore Ceres represents Cosmic Day.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times";">The Tauroctony and the </span><i style="font-family: Times;">Sacred and Profane Love</i><span style="font-family: "times";"> inform and elucidate each other - Mithras was never Perseus as postulated by Professor David Ulansey in his book </span><i style="font-family: Times;">Origins of the Mithraic Mysteries</i><span style="font-family: "times";">, rather</span><b style="font-family: Times;"> <u><i>Mithras</i> is </u><i><u>Pluto</u>.</i></b><span style="font-family: "times";"> Further, when the torchbearer lowers the torch this indicates nothing more that <i>Cosmic Night</i> - darkness - the reign of Proserpine. The upright torch represents <i>Cosmic Day</i> - illumination, the reign of Ceres - an aspect of the Great Mother. The cosmographical structure of the Tauroctony and the <i>Sacred</i> and <i>Profane Love </i>correlate with each other to elucidate the grand cosmological truths surrounding <i>Cosmic Night</i> and <i>Cosmic Day</i>.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: "times";">That the two women are also the Twin Venuses is indicative of the varying levels of interpretation where all interpretation must link seamlessly and contribute to an articulation of the meta-narrative as a consistent and self referring entity.</span></span></span><br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-_BtMCMsnDNY/Uz93blgatpI/AAAAAAAACsk/61Xs__TD0qc/s1600/pagebreak+2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="68" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-_BtMCMsnDNY/Uz93blgatpI/AAAAAAAACsk/61Xs__TD0qc/s1600/pagebreak+2.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>The Myth of Proserpine and Ceres in four parts.</b></span></div>
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<strong>1.</strong> <span style="font-size: large;">The abduction of Proserpine by Pluto:</span></div>
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The maiden<em> </em>Proserpine, at the time of her abduction by Pluto<em> </em>(god of the underworld), was wandering through the plains of<em> </em>Enna in <st1:state>Sicily</st1:state> gathering flowers with friends. Pluto was inspecting the vaults of his underworld ceiling when he spied Proserpine, became enamoured of her, and moved quickly to forcibly remove her to his realm.</div>
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<strong>2.</strong> <span style="font-size: large;">The Fountain:</span></div>
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To expedite his escape with Proserpine back to his underworld realm, Pluto thrust his trident into the ground to form the fountain<em> </em>Cyane, which became a doorway to Hades (note Proserpine's torn flowers strewn along the fountains ledge). <i>Cerberus,</i> the three headed dog guards the entrance to Hades to prevent the dead from leaving and the living from entering (refer to the translation of fig.1., below). Mercury as <i>Psychopomp</i> can only guide the souls of the dead to the entrance.</div>
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<strong>3. </strong><span style="font-size: large;">Ceres.</span></div>
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The grieving Ceres searched all day, and as evening fell, she lit a torch in the fires of <st1:place><st1:placetype>Mt.</st1:placetype> <st1:placename>Etna</st1:placename></st1:place> to search for her missing daughter by night. The small lamp held aloft in the left hand of Ceres as portrayed in the <i>Sacred and Profane Love</i> is simply a Renaissance improvisation of the original pine torch. </div>
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<strong>4. </strong><span style="font-size: large;">The<em> </em>'Heuresis' (the 'finding again').</span></div>
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Ceres found Proserpine's girdle floating on the waters of the Fountain <i>Cyane</i> and unsuccessfully repaired to Jupiter for the restoration of her daughter. It was also here at the fountain <em>Cyane </em>where Ceres finally learnt of Proserpine's<i> </i>abduction. The <em>heuresis</em> calls attention to the <em>Eleusinean</em> mysteries; of these mysteries at <em>Eleusinea</em> and the <em>heuresis</em>, author Erich Neumann makes the statement:</div>
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"The one essential motif in the Eleusinean mysteries and hence</div>
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in all matriarchal mysteries is the heuresis of the daughter by</div>
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the mother, the finding again of Kore by Demeter, the reunion</div>
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of mother and daughter". (Neumann, 1955, p.308)</div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">When the pieces are collected together, a new picture emerges. The small lamp held aloft by the semi-nude is a Renaissance improvisation of the original pine torch lit by Ceres to continue the search for her daughter at - <i><b>night.</b></i> This is so because the sun streaked sky indicates night, (as in twilight or when the planet Venus is first visible). Ceres lit the pine torch in the fires of Etna to search for Proserpine by <b><i>night</i>.</b> The painting is a <i><b>nocturne</b></i>; a <i><b>night</b></i>; a pagan <b><i>nativity</i></b> and inclusive of each of those historical & mythological complexities. Twilight confirms the Vernal equinox as the only period when the two women are able to co-exist: Proserpine is recovered in the spring, and spring and summer are the seasons governed by </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Proserpine who (in cosmological terms) is the personification of <i>Cosmic Night</i></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">. (This argument is a coming post and yet to be discussed on this site.)</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">T</span>he <i>Sacred and Profane Love</i> was devised by a person (or persons) with an understanding of the design of visual logic and who then passed this to another to construct. Without doubt, at each stage of the paintings development there were considerations, adjustments and as is now known - deletions. It is a collaborative, instructional painting intended for the edification of the viewer, and as a specific system of signs the <i>Sacred and Profane Love</i> represents a visual metamorphoses of several narratives on a single plane.<br />
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Visually, this is achieved because each symbolic reference is its own small narrative, and collectively these narratives reveal meaning in the form of context as a type of visual syntax. The visual source of the grand motif - the suite of three figures and the fountain/sarcophagus - is the first step in revealing this relationship. Nothing can be effectively known until the identities of the two women and the child reveal their obvious symbiotic relationship through contextual relevance to the sarcophagus/fountain and the paintings overall iconology.</div>
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In its totality the <i>Sacred and Profane Lov</i>e is enclosed by a meta narrative; a self referring conceptual entity which at first glance appears to bite into an apple known as the <em>Prisca Theologia.</em> (More on that later). The finished painting is about the midway point between the first narrative and the concluding grand narrative or meta narrative. The (original) proposition is both finite and conceptually sustainable as a self referring entity through interaction with varying narratives and myths which are both seasonal as well as cosmological.</div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><strong>The Sarcophagus/Fountain:The Fountain Cyane</strong></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">T</span>he fountain/sarcophagus is a composite motif, which is to say that while the form of the sarcophagus refers to Pluto, the fountain motif refers to Venus. Two distinct visual sources originate from two woodcuts printed in that very curious book published by <i>Aldus Manutius</i> at Venice in 1499 and popular to the Italian Renaissance, the <em>Hypnerotomachia Poliphili</em>.<br />
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The two sources are [1] The sarcophagus itself which directly relates to Pluto, [2] The fountain directly relates to another woodcut from the same book showing Venus at her bath (alchemically the athanor is also known as the Bath of Venus). These have been combined to describe the form of the sarcophagus/fountain of the <i>Sacred and Profane Love.</i> The first reference considers the form of the sarcophagus (see fig. 1.).<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Fig. 1. Sarcophagus with dedication to Pluto and Proserpine.</td></tr>
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In the <em>Hypnerotomachia, </em>the<em> </em>novels<em> </em>hero,<em> </em><i>Poliphilus,</i> wanders through a graveyard where he gazes into a tomb and ponders the Mysteries of Pluto. From the pages of the <em>Hypnerotomachia,</em> a woodcut of an open lidded sarcophagus (Fig. 1.) bears the inscription:</div>
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<o:p> (</o:p><span style="font-size: x-small;">Trans.):</span></div>
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<o:p> TO THE THREE BODIED PLUTO AMONG US </o:p></div>
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AND FOR HIS <st1:stockticker>DEAR </st1:stockticker>WIFE PROSERPINE</div>
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AND TO THE THREE HEADED CERBERUS.</div>
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif" style="font-size: x-small;"><strong>(Translation generously provided by the Venerable Rodney Oliver, </strong></span></div>
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif" style="font-size: x-small;"><strong> Archdeacon at <st1:city><st1:place>St Paul</st1:place></st1:city>'s Cathedral. <st1:place><st1:city>Melbourne</st1:city>, <st1:country-region>Australia</st1:country-region></st1:place>. 1999)</strong></span></div>
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The inscription states the names of <i>Pluto</i>, <i>Proserpine</i> and <i>Cerberus</i>. '<i>Cerberus'</i> because according to classical mythology this three headed hound guards the entrance to Hades - therefore the inclusion of the name <i>Cerberus</i> confirms the sarcophagus as the <i>doorway</i> or entrance to Hades. In the <i>Sacred and Profane Love</i> this is confirmed by the presence of <i>Mercury</i> at the fountain/sarcophagus - as <i>psychopomp</i>). <i>Pluto</i> is present here in two forms or confirmations: 1. Announced by the inscription and 2.Geometrically as the inverted pentagram which must have been described in the invenzione. A masculine agenda dominates the work at this level which appears to be completely dedicated to <i>Him - Pluto - the invisible god.</i> So, in the <em>Sacred and Profane Love</em> the two women are seated at an entrance to <i>Hades</i>, the realm of <i>Pluto</i>, and in context with the inscription the classical identity of the women is reiterated. </div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><strong>Development of the Composite Motif.</strong></span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Fig 2. The bath of Venus Woodcut sourced from the <i>Hypnerotomachia Poliphili</i> (Venice, c.1499)</td></tr>
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Now that the visual source of the opened tomb is established (Fig. 1.) the second visual reference - the fountain - is found to be sourced from the same novel, the <em>Hypnerotomachia Poliphili.</em> In the above image (Fig 2.) Venus is seen from behind seated at the centre of the woodcut, while below her chair a spigot pours freely into a pool or bath. So again, the 'tomb' aspect of the sarcophagus/fountain refers to Pluto, while the 'fountain aspect refers to Venus (Proserpine).<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Fig 3 (Detail). Spigot below the seat of Venus.</td></tr>
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Fig 3.(Detail). Water flows into the bath from a constantly flowing spigot. The <em>idea</em> of the free flowing spigot is the key here, rather than replicating the actual form. The spigot on the face of the sarcophagus now references the <em>Hypnerotomachia Poliphili </em>and<em> </em>the '<i>Bath of Venus</i>' - the alchemical equivalent is the <i>Bain Marie.</i> Now the dimensions of the sarcophagus/fountain (athanor; <i>bain marie; tomb;</i> entrance to<i> Hades; </i>the<i> Fountain Cyane</i> - will geometrically be determined by the circle and pentacle. This is entirely able to be confirmed. How? Both horizontal lines found in the upright and inverted pentacles determine the upper and lower boundaries of the sarcophagus fountain of the <i>Sacred and Profane Love</i>.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Fig.4 New motif: The sarcophagus/fountain.</td></tr>
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Fig 4. By placing the motif of the spigot at the centre of the sarcophagus with the inscription to Proserpine and Ceres excluded, the new motif of a sarcophagus/fountain is created. By combining the motifs that independently reference the form of a sarcophagus and the action of a fountain, a new motif has been formed. But much more than this; it is not simply the forms that have transmigrated, but the conceptual 'load' that these forms represent.<br />
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fountain/sarcophagus of the<i> Sacred and Profane Love </i>(Detail)</td></tr>
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Pluto, Proserpine, and Cerberus are all announced by the inscription on the sarcophagus, and now the form of the sarcophagus has merged with the spigot sourced from the <em>Bath of Venus</em>. As a 'loaded' motif, the inclusion of the spigot in the <i>Sacred and Profane Love</i> must now reference<i> Venus, </i>which<i> </i>now<i> </i>encompasses the motif of the tomb to reveal<i> </i>a further development in the paintings intended narrative<i>.</i><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Fig. 6. <span style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">The two pentagrams determine the proportions of the fountain/sarcophagus.</span></span></td></tr>
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The gravity of the association with <i>Venus</i> is found in the fact that this spigot provides the apex of the all important circle which has now become a <i>pentacle</i> (a pentagram enclosed within a circle) (see Fig. 6.). Note the small (red) inverted pentagram within the pentacle: <b><i><span style="text-align: center;">The only two horizontal lines in both pentagrams form the upper </span><span style="text-align: center;">and lower boundaries of the sarcophagus/fountain.</span></i></b><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><strong>The Classical Moment Revealed.</strong></span><br />
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The 'classical moment' represented is the <em>heuresis</em> or 'finding again' of Proserpine by Ceres.</div>
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The phrenological similarity of the women indicates the familial stamp, and both Goddesses are ageless. Proserpine's<em> </em>arm rests upon the 'Holy basket of Ceres', used in the nine day procession along the 'Sacred Way' to Eleusinea to celebrate the mysteries; the basket identifies Proserpine as <em>kanephoros</em> (basket carrier)<em> </em>a young maiden whose role in the mysteries was integral to the religious procession. (A more accurate appraisal of the contents of the basket next to Proserpine can be found in Titian's Madonna of the Rabbit c.1525-1530 Musée du Louvre. The <i>Madonna of the Rabbit</i> is a Christianised arrangement of the <em>Sacred and Profane Love</em> and in direct comparison, is simple and rather dull.)<br />
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The physical location is <st1:state><st1:place>Sicily</st1:place></st1:state>, in the fields of Enna (now Castrogiovanni) where the Greeks settled as part of the colonies of Magna Graecia around 800 BC. The actual <i>Fountain Cyane</i> is a deep pool which is now known as the <i>Spring of Cyane</i>. While the drama is takes place in Sicily in another way these events occur simultaneously in the 'heavenly' Enna; the incorruptible, spiritual or astral form of its Earthly (Sicilian) counterpart. Enna exists within eternally recurring time - cyclic time - and the cosmos is reflected through the security of the seasons.<br />
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This myth clearly has its ties with Sicily as the one-time 'ganary of Rome' fertilised by the volcanic plains of the bellicose Etna and the powerful god within - remembering too that Proserpine is not the plant but the deity of moisture within the plant, therefore when the plant is torn from the ground she has been 'reaped and abducted' and the world must lay barren until the time of the vernal equinox when she will reappear as (within) the young shoots - reborn and intact.<br />
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<i>[This work (the Sacred and Profane Love) is a journey through a series of visual and conceptual metamorphoses also indicates two things; firstly the existence of an allegory, and secondly, the possibility of multiple allegories that will unfold a meta narrative (the meta narrative encompasses several narratives to form a master narrative or grand narrative). Cupid - morphing through several guises of Mercury - is a key example of accretion through the multiple rhythms of individual metamorphosis, expanding what appears to be at first a simple </i><i>allegory and the individual metamorphosis, evolving through a series of metamorphoses into a harmonious conceptual narrative</i>. <i>Yet this is a</i> <i>still</i> <i>a very</i> <i>long way from the meta narrative - if indeed such a finite proposition actually exists.]</i><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><strong>Cupid.</strong></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">T</span>he winged infant playing in the waters of the fountain is Cupid, most commonly thought as being the son of Venus and Mars<em> </em>(sometimes Cupid's lineage is attributed to other deities by other writers from different historical eras). To denote Venus, the playful Cupid is depicted near his mother as mostly depicted in the classical tradition: this Cupid directs attention to<em> </em>Venus and so, confirms Venus.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><strong>Cupid/Mercury: </strong></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">F</span>or this allegory to unfold, the cipher that is Cupid does not retain that initial persona and actually dissolves to become the first metamorphosis - from Cupid to Mercurius and then, Mercury/Hermes. <br />
Cupid will disappear and Mercury will appear as the 'guide of the souls of the dead' to Hades. From the inscription citing Cerberus, there are three confirming factors indicating entrance. The first is Cerberus, the second is Mercury, and the third is the narrative taken from the <em>Hypnerotomachia, </em>that the novels hero walks through a graveyard and stares into a tomb while pondering the Mysteries of Pluto. In many ways this construction might be viewed as 'mens business'. This can prove to be relevant later in the analysis.</div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><strong>Mercury: Mercurius/Psychopomp</strong>:</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">M</span>ercury will metamorphose a third and final time to become Alchemical Mercury. As psychopomp, Mercury guides the souls of the dead to the entrance to Hades. This is one of several reasons why he is here at the Fountain Cyane, the entrance/doorway to Hades, and which is why the fountain has the form of the sarcophagus or tomb. <br />
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<strong style="font-size: x-large;">Mercury: </strong><strong style="font-size: x-large;">Alchemical Mercury</strong><span style="font-size: large;">:</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">A</span>s the allegory develops, Mercury's presence at the sarcophagus/fountain will confirm the incoming narrative levels as the alchemical <em>mercury</em>; he will be found to be stirring the waters of the 'mixt'; thus forming the '<i>mercurial water</i>'. In this context, the women will become '<i>sulfurs</i>'. According to the general colour associated pictorially with the women,<i> Proserpine</i> will represent <i>White sulfur, </i>while<i> Ceres </i>represents the<i> red. </i>Both women have a splash of the basic colour of the other; Proserpine wears white with an exposed red sleeve and red undergarment at the hem of the opulent dress. Ceres is surrounded by red fabric with a white lap cloth across the loins. <i>White sulfur</i> is '<i>fixed</i>', whereas <i>red sulfur</i> is '<i>volotile</i>'.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Cosmological Identity of Proserpine and Ceres.</span></div>
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<span style="text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">C</span>eres exposed left leg and the left arm held upright emulate the forms of the serpentine constellations of </span><i style="font-size: medium; text-align: justify;">Serpens Cauda</i><span style="font-size: small; text-align: justify;"> & </span><i style="font-size: medium; text-align: justify;">Serpens Caput</i><span style="font-size: small; text-align: justify;"> (</span>Fig. 1.<i style="font-size: medium;">b</i>) and may be <span style="font-size: small; text-align: justify;">found, along with the nine zodiacal references - only in a star map of the </span><i style="font-size: medium; text-align: justify;">Southern Hemisphere</i><span style="font-size: small; text-align: justify;"> with the </span><i style="font-size: medium; text-align: justify;">South Celestial Pole</i><span style="font-size: small; text-align: justify;"> at the centre.</span> Each of the constellations <i style="font-size: medium;">Hydra</i> (Proserpine/Venus) and <i style="font-size: medium;">Serpens Caput </i>& <i style="font-size: medium;">Serpens Cauda</i> (Ceres) have been highlighted in blue (see Fig. 2.) to explain this serpentine nature <i style="font-size: medium;">in nature</i> i.e. the <i style="font-size: medium;">cosmos</i>. </span></div>
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Fig 1 (<i>b</i>)</div>
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Fig 1 (<i>a</i>)</div>
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<span style="font-style: normal; text-align: center;"><br /></span><i style="font-style: normal; text-align: center;">Hydra</i><span style="font-style: normal; text-align: center;">, with </span><i style="font-style: normal; text-align: center;">Corvus</i><span style="font-style: normal; text-align: center;"> (Fig. 1. <i>a</i>) is portrayed in the </span><i style="font-style: normal; text-align: center;">Sacred and Profane Love </i><span style="font-style: normal; text-align: center;">by the running theme</span><span style="font-style: normal; text-align: center;"> of Proserpine's dress while </span><i style="font-style: normal; text-align: center;">Corvus</i><span style="font-style: normal; text-align: center;"> is indicated by the exposed red slip at the hem of that dress. This correlation </span><span style="font-style: normal; text-align: center;">(Fig. 1. </span><i style="font-style: normal; text-align: center;">a</i><span style="font-style: normal; text-align: center;">)</span><span style="font-style: normal; text-align: center;"> is not perfect; that is, the line of the hem is not entirely strict. However it must be said that the practicality and difficulty of actually painting to a strict line is far more difficult (although familiar) to an artist in</span><i><span style="text-align: center;"> </span><span style="text-align: center;">practice</span><span style="text-align: center;"> </span></i><span style="font-style: normal; text-align: center;">than it might be be to an academic </span><span style="text-align: center;">in</span><i style="font-style: normal; text-align: center;"> </i><i style="text-align: center;">theory</i><i style="font-style: normal; text-align: center;">.</i></div>
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Fig. 1 (c).<strong style="font-size: xx-large; text-align: justify;"> </strong></div>
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The pentacle and the fountain/sarcopha<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">gus with the </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">constellational abstracts</span></div>
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of Proserpine & Ceres<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">in blue highlight </span>(Fig. 1.<i>c</i>) (Fig. 2<i>.</i>) </div>
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Fig. 2. C<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">onstellational abstracts</span><span style="font-size: small;">of Proserpine & Ceres</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"> </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">in blue highlight </span><span style="font-size: small;">(Fig. 1.</span><i style="font-size: medium;">c</i><span style="font-size: small;">)</span><span style="font-size: small;"> & </span><span style="font-size: small;">(Fig. 2</span><i style="font-size: medium;">.</i><span style="font-size: small;">) </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; text-align: center;">The constellation map of the southern hemisphere and the abstracts </span><span style="text-align: center;">of Proserpine & Ceres</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; text-align: center;"> </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; text-align: center;">in blue highlight </span><span style="text-align: center;">(Fig. 2</span><i style="text-align: center;">.</i><span style="text-align: center;">). </span><span style="text-align: center;">Those constellations that form the abstracts of the women at the fountain/sarcophagus </span><span style="text-align: center;">(Fig. 1.</span><i style="text-align: center;">c</i><span style="text-align: center;">) may have Ophian </span><span style="text-align: center;">references or (metaphysically) to the women's serpentine nature as<i> Kundalini</i>, the feminine energy that resides at the base of the spine in philosophical alchemy.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">B</span>ecause the Roman bride is in early teens the wedding might be seen as simply a coming-of-age ceremony rather than a marriage forming a social union and sanctifying a sexual union as understood in our contemporary tradition. But there are themes which strongly indicate an esoteric rite, a mystical wedding such as the <em>heirosgamos;</em> or<em> </em>a type of <em>Chymical</em> <em>wedding</em> of the <em>Alchemico/Hermetic </em>tradition; or similarly, the <em>Maithuna</em> of India. But t</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">here is something else here too, for in another section of the epithalamium Catullus declares:</span></div>
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'...with the help of Venus</div>
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who presides omnipotent at this solemn union... '</div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">and concludes with the line:</span></div>
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'The doors are closed. Husband and wife are joined.</div>
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Their youthful love will breed</div>
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a vigorous generation.'</div>
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The Epithalamium of Catullus</div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span><a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/horace-gregory"><span style="color: #0b5394; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Horace Gregory</span></a> p. 163 </blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Catullus declares that the night within the wedding chamber will be </span><i style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;">consecrated</i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> by Venus '</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; text-align: center;"><i>who presides omnipotent at this solemn union...</i> '. </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Catullus seems to be describing sexual union in specific accord with cosmology: possibly a form of 'biodynamics' where the sexual union is considered an integral component of a grand cosmic ecosystem for it is </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; text-align: center;">Venus (the planet) </span><span style="text-align: center;">who will preside over this union and whose presence</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> may influence a fortuitous birth: </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">'</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Their youthful love will breed a vigorous generation</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">.'Catullus (Ibid)</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">The presence of Venus appearing in the night sky combined with a virgin bride and a young groom in the prime of life. </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">In the most ideal situation is important to note that this celebration is conducted before the rising of Venus from the western sea at the twilight of the </span><i style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;">equinoctial night</i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> and so, consummated during the reign of the Goddess of love. Like the </span><i style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;">Maithuna</i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> of India, there is great meaning here because this is a </span><i style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;">consecrated</i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> wedding ritual in harmony with cosmic observation. To the initiated, this would seek to align the consecrated act with observable principles of nature with the intention and potential to engender the divine birth and create at the very least, the conditions for an offspring who may be the epitome of the human being. Which is to say that this act then, could be seen as one of the prime functions of religion, which is to prepare the human vehicle through which a divine birth might be attracted.</span></div>
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Footnotes.</div>
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<span class="toctext" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit;"><i>1.<a href="https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Leonardo_da_Vinci#The_Notebooks_of_Leonardo_da_Vinci_.28Richter.2C_1888.29"><b> <span style="color: black;">The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci</span></b></a></i><span style="color: black;"><a href="https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Leonardo_da_Vinci#The_Notebooks_of_Leonardo_da_Vinci_.28Richter.2C_1888.29"> (Richter, 1888)</a>, & <a href="http://history-world.org/Davinci.pdf">The Notebooks No. 845 (Project Gutenberg) </a></span></span><span style="font-family: "times";"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times";"><span style="font-family: "times";"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "times";">2<a href="https://books.google.com.au/books?id=FDSab8rWZScC&pg=PA85&lpg=PA85&dq=the+path+to+immortality+is+hard+hermes&source=bl&ots=l_oeR806bB&sig=qXu_VuURCtmrlBshu0ACSxcrqhU&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjih8jgwMzQAhUDmpQKHQyDDZkQ6AEIQDAK#v=onepage&q=the%20path%20to%20immortality%20is%20hard%20hermes&f=false">.</a> </span><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="color: #333333;">Hall, Manly Palmer. </span><a href="https://books.google.com.au/books?id=FDSab8rWZScC&pg=PA85&lpg=PA85&dq=the+path+to+immortality+is+hard+hermes&source=bl&ots=l_oeR806bB&sig=qXu_VuURCtmrlBshu0ACSxcrqhU&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjih8jgwMzQAhUDmpQKHQyDDZkQ6AEIQDAK#v=onepage&q=the%20path%20to%20immortality%20is%20hard%20hermes&f=false" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;"><i><span style="color: black;">Secret Teachings of All Ages</span></i></a></b><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b><i>.</i></b> Attributed to Hermes Trismegistus, p.85 </span></span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">"The Coronation of Venus/Aphrodite" (Venus/Aphrodite crowned by Peitho)</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"> - The true meaning of the Birth of Venus <a href="http://pauldoughton.blogspot.com.au/">(link)</a></span></div>
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<em><span style="font-size: large;">pAuL</span></em></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , "freeserif" , serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22.4px; text-align: center;">Paul Doughton ©1997 - 2021.</span></div>
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Paul Doughtonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12560227637710387418noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7323403459729776769.post-5040090588491347032011-03-13T06:56:00.001-07:002022-08-04T18:25:14.405-07:00Sacred and Profane Love: A visual analysis<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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The purpose of writing a visual analysis is to train the eye to see precisely so that the mind may more accurately perceive that which is being presented by the artist. What is required from a visual analysis should be no more than is necessary to describe what is actually visible. In the situation of the Sacred and Profane Love it is the <a href="http://www.galleriaborghese.it/borghese/en/eamor.htm">Galleria Borghese</a> itself - the home of the Sacred and Profane Love - which has presented an inaccurate visual analysis by describing the clothed female as <em>"the figure with the vase of jewels".</em><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Fig 1. Sacred and Profane Love (Detail) c.1514. Galleria Borghese, Rome. </td></tr>
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<em></em>In fact, because that figure has her arm resting upon a closed container (see Fig 1.) it is incorrect to claim that the <i>vase</i> contains jewels (a <i>vase</i> is an open container) and all corollaries or conclusions which incorporate that claim must be considered inaccurate because <em><strong>it is impossible to tell whether that 'vase' contains anything at all...</strong></em><br />
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<u><strong><span style="font-size: x-large;">The Visual Analysis.</span></strong></u><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Fig. 2. Sacred and Profane Love c.1514. Galleria Borghese, Rome. Currently attributed to Titian</td></tr>
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<span style="color: #990000; font-size: x-large;">T</span>he Sacred and Profane Love is a rectangular oil painting on canvas painted around 1514, (H. 118cm; W. 279cm), and presents an image of two young women seated at either end of a well or fountain carved in the form of a classical sarcophagus (the first impression is simply that of a water-filled sarcophagus) in an open air pastoral setting. One of the women is opulently clothed while the other at the viewers right is semi-nude. Either end of this (apparently) rectangular sarcophagus is obscured by the seated forms of the two women, and has carved relief visible along the face.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Fig 3. (Detail) Winged infant, <em>phiale,</em> &<em> </em>rose bush</td></tr>
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Leaning forward over this unusual sarcophagus/fountain from behind as it were and midway between the women, a winged infant with bowed head has the right forearm immersed in the fountain and is preoccupied in water play. The sarcophagus bears a strong resemblance to a capped spring as it is filled with water, however, a brass free-flowing spigot at the centre front pours this water onto a small flowering rose bush growing there. Therefore under scrutiny, and primarily because of the presence of the spigot, this unusual sarcophagus/well would be more suitably termed as a 'fountain having the form of a classical sarcophagus'. <br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Fig 4. (Detail) Clothed figure, exposed red hem, red sleeve, gloved hands.</td></tr>
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At the viewers left, the stare of the clothed figure gazes forward and while the women's eyes do not engage, the body positions (or language) of these two contrasting figures incline toward each other.<br />
The clothed figure is arrayed in a luxuriant silvery/blue/white dress which is replete with girdle or belt and she appears oblivious to her semi-nude counterpart. The design of this opulent dress is low across the shoulders and chest, full at the sleeves, and the fabric so ample in volume it appears either courtly or formal in this treed setting, and in direct contrast to the semi-nude, the clothed figure presents as theatrical or ostentatious. On the right arm of this same figure the full ample blue/white fabric is folded back to expose a puffed red sleeve which is then tailored or fitted down to the wrist and the same red (perhaps with laced edging) is also exposed at the hem of the white dress. As visual emphasis on duality and contrast the covering garment of the left arm is also rolled back to expose a white sleeve. Overall one may perceive this abundant white gown to be an over garment or a covering gown (see ). Below the wrist the right hand is gloved and rests in the woman's lap. Under this hand are leaves and a flower torn (logically) from the small rosebush watered at the fountains front. Across the ledge of the fountain are strewn a flower, pieces of leaved branch, and single leaves (refer to detail in Fig. 2.) which forms a visual trail between the plant, ending at the sprig of rosebush clasped under the gloved right hand in the woman's lap. Her left arm and gloved hand rests upon the lid of a closed container. Slightly further to the right of the resting hand of the semi-nude figure, a shallow silver bowl (<em>phiale) </em>is placed near the pieces of torn rosebush on the ledge directly above the spigot.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Fig 5. Semi-nude; Oil lamp held aloft in left hand.</td></tr>
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Across to the viewers right and balanced by her right arm resting along the fountains ledge near the <em>phiale</em><em>,</em> the semi-nude is holding aloft a small lighted oil lamp in her left hand. This figure would be fully nude, save for a twisted piece of white fabric wrapped across the hip, lap, and thigh of the fully exposed left leg. The legs are crossed and only one leg (the left) is completely visible. This figure sits upon a billowing red fabric which appears to rise of its own accord as there is no indication of breeze suggested anywhere else in the painting. There is either a phrenological or stylistic similarity between the women and they are comparably youthful in age, possibly eighteen to twenty-five years old. </div>
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As none of these three figures (the two women and the child) directly return the viewers gaze, the eye may roam about the picture unchallenged.<br />
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Compositely, the two women, child, and fountain/sarcophagus comprise a grand figurative suite which dominates and almost overwhelms the surrounding (diminutive) pastoral iconography because of its prominent centrality in the paintings design. The suite forms such a strong design group they might be equally well executed as a three dimensional body sculpted and modelled in the round.</div>
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There is also a sense of seclusion influenced by a shadowed, sombre darkness in the mid-foreground from which this group emerge as though gently illumined from the front. The foreground and mid-ground colours are earth tone (oxides and ochres) browns and greens, appearing as though struck from one another, the exception being the use of primary colours - silver, red and white - to distinguish the women's clothing from those surrounding earth tones. In the apparent distance are the blue and yellows of a lightly streaked clouded sky at sunset. The skin tones are pale though warm, the hair partly dressed with tints of reddish golds. </div>
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Directly behind the group is a towering tree that rises beyond the picture plane slightly branching behind the head of the clothed figure. This trees dark shadowed breadth creates a sombre depth against which to highlight the clarity of silver dress, skin tone, and the cool pale stone of the sarcophagus/fountain. As a design device the tree presents another important distinction between the two women. Because it weighs heavily behind and over the head of the clothed figure, it appears to contain and 'ground' her. <br />
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In contrast, the semi-nude is raised slightly higher than her counterpart - with the airy blue of the clouded sky as her background. This, combined with the billowing red fabric and the lamp held against the lighter blue, white, and yellow hues of a dimming sky, presents a certain lightness or volatility.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0T1bmXkl614/UzkqtPuShrI/AAAAAAAACkc/EQ0YeMqRRDg/s1600/Titian+Sacred+Profane+-+Copy+(34).jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="288" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0T1bmXkl614/UzkqtPuShrI/AAAAAAAACkc/EQ0YeMqRRDg/s1600/Titian+Sacred+Profane+-+Copy+(34).jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Fig 6. (Detail) The reliefs on the Sarcophagus /Fountain</td></tr>
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Carved upon the face of the sarcophagus (see Fig. 5) are reliefs, perhaps indicating a particular narrative. These are (from left to right) of men and women dancing around a prancing mare; further along and just past the rosebush and spigot, a supine male is being whipped; past that scene a female figure stands beside a small tree and looks on. Near her there is another figure, though the specific action is almost indecipherable. The horse and scene of flagellation are divided by the rosebush and the spigot. To the upper-right of the spigot can be seen an escutcheon. With the imposing protection of the tree behind them the location of the central group could be interpreted as a bower within a provincial picturesque.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Fig 7. (Detail) Fountain including suite of figures considered as a sculptural group.</td></tr>
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To recapitulate this central suite of figures must include, as though it were a sculptural group, the sarcophagus /fountain. Surely this must declare the fountain as absolutely critical to the pictorial language of this work, and not merely an incidental prop or device to pose and exploit images of an idealised feminine.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Fig. 8. Sacred and Profane Love c.1514. Galleria Borghese, Rome. Currently attributed to Titian</td></tr>
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To the left and right of the central suite, the rectangular picture plane is surrounded by diminutive images that reference provincial life. </div>
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To the upper left of the picture near the clothed female is a mountainous area which dominates that quarter of the picture, and along a diagonal road around that mountain a rider on horseback races upward toward a castle or fortress.</div>
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Directly below the rider at left mid centre - though comparative size suggests slightly forward in the mid-rear picture plane - two white rabbits sit in an open area.</div>
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At far mid-right of the picture and next to the image of the naked female is an image of two men on horseback; both horses are rearing and below them, a dog chases a rabbit. At extreme mid-right is a shepherd with flocks, and in that bucolic environment a pair of lovers is in reclined embrace. </div>
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Behind and above the two figures on horseback in the apparent distance is a lake divided by an isthmus, beyond which lay a townscape. Receding farther into the distance in the extreme upper-right quarter a church spire and varying roof lines form distant village architecture, and beyond that sea and possibly coves. Concluding the paintings upper-right quarter are the sun streaked clouds; cirrus and stratocumulus run from extreme upper-right across to the extreme upper-left of the picture plane, divided only by the spreading form of the large tree. <br />
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Below is the first of four episodes 'Ways of Seeing' by John Berger for the BBC, 1972. This series by John Berger makes for invaluable viewing and reminds us of the effort to truly <i>see</i> beyond the glamour of 'art'. In this video Berger states:<br />
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"I don't want to suggest that there is nothing left to experience [when standing] before original works of art... except a certain sense of awe... because they have survived, because they are genuine, because they are absurdly valuable. A lot more is possible - but only if art is stripped of the false mystery and the false religiosity which surrounds it."</blockquote>
<span style="text-align: center;">John Berger</span><br />
<i style="text-align: center;"> Ways of Seeing, </i><span style="text-align: center;">episode 1.</span><br />
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As a discipline, art history should only deal with historical facts, <i>meaning</i> is not the realm of art history and yet art historians often succumb to fanciful speculation and educators reiterate these false readings which only contribute to a <span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif; text-align: left;">bureaucratic</span> educational system unwittingly endorsing the 'mystification of art'. Berger might be termed a new historian, a <i>post-modern</i> type whose perceptions bring art historical considerations in line with contemporary reproductions that strip art from the hallowed environments and creatively foretell the shadowless, critical on-line glare of the twenty-first century.<br />
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John Berger, </div>
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<i>Ways of Seeing.</i></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: x-large;"> ~</span></b></div>
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<em style="text-align: justify;">Next blog: The correct identities of the women at the sarcophagus/fountain.</em><br />
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<em style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-style: normal; text-align: center;">Redirect here to discover the true meaning of </span><a href="http://pauldoughton.blogspot.com.au/2017/03/the-true-meaning-of-botticellis-birth.html" style="font-style: normal; text-align: center;"><span style="color: #990000;">Botticelli's Birth of Venus</span></a></em></div>
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<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-YMHks675ryU/WOQ6VvrGxVI/AAAAAAAAEDI/0Y8L4KUH78kSaBy9oXB-xcjrzarh-ZhZACLcB/s1600/Botticelli_Venus%2B-%2BCopy%2B%25284%2529%2B-%2BCopy%2B-%2BCopy.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="250" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-YMHks675ryU/WOQ6VvrGxVI/AAAAAAAAEDI/0Y8L4KUH78kSaBy9oXB-xcjrzarh-ZhZACLcB/s400/Botticelli_Venus%2B-%2BCopy%2B%25284%2529%2B-%2BCopy%2B-%2BCopy.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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Need a break? - check out my stressless unrelated time-waster on tumblr - </div>
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<a href="http://lemprieres-lovechild.tumblr.com/"><span style="color: #444444; font-size: x-large;">POURQUOI</span></a></div>
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<em>Cheese, <span style="font-size: large;">pAuL</span></em> </div>
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Paul Doughtonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12560227637710387418noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7323403459729776769.post-33365699089584192222011-02-21T04:48:00.001-08:002022-08-04T18:19:51.917-07:00The Sacred and the Profane: Finding the way in: Poetic Imagery of Donne and Giorgione.<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; text-align: left;"><em><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span class="ldquo"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "arial";"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">"The aim of art is to embody the secret essence of things, </span></span></span></span></em></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; text-align: left;"><em><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span class="ldquo"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "arial";"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">not to copy their appearance."</span> </span></span></span></span></em></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; text-align: justify;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; text-align: justify;"> Aristotle</span><br />
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<i><span style="font-size: x-large;">A</span>s an undergraduate of fine art, the image of the Sacred and Profane Love was presented to me as a masterpiece of the art world, and yet the 'meaning' of this work had eluded any convincing interpretation for almost five hundred years. The painting then presents something of a problem in this post-modern and perhaps more pertinently, post-conceptual environment of contemporary art practice. On exactly what basis should a Renaissance <span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">painting be considered a work of art? Does the term art as a descriptive refer to a virtuosic masterpiece; an antique painting; or is it actually 'art' in </span>contemporary terms of conceptual intent? Social inscription is applied to the piece through the process of discussing its history by an institutionalised historiocracy, but it still may not be art, but rather it is simply </i><i>assumed and </i><i>agreed to be art. If the work is art it must be, as Oscar said, both "surface and symbol" and that social agreement cannot solely rely on the considerations of age or historical context or those things beyond the intent articulated within and contained by the limits of the picture plane. That craftsmanship or virtuosity must be self evident and readily apparent is clear, but a work must also project its own intentional, </i><i>deliberate </i><i>argument contained by the complexities of visual language. </i><i>A quick glance at the various interpretations of the Sacred and Profane Love yields little of any significant value, so perhaps it is time to depart from the futile practice of interpreting the interpreters. The language of art is the work itself and when </i><i>resolved</i><i> remains a work of the executive ego. This intent cannot be inscribed upon or added to by another beyond the final presentation. An exception to this is that </i><i>it is sometimes discovered that the artist has employed complex geometric origins as the foundation of the image and so </i><i>the work may contain a </i><i>hidden </i><i>substructure used to decide a departure point (in much the same sense as the skeleton of a creature must describe an approximation of form). When </i><i>geometric symbolism is utilised a</i><i>s a type of foundation, the geometric & symbolic language forms a structural departure point which may be used to argue the cohesion of an even grander concept. The Sacred and Profane Love incorporates </i><i>symbolic geometry as a structural foundation </i><i>in its design, and the inclusion of any such arrangement must be considered an intentional contribution </i><i>to the whole. Indeed it may be that the geometric scaffold describes the conceptual intention more than the glamour and theatre of the selected figurative imagery. </i><i>The Sacred and Profane Love employs a self-referencing labyrinthine </i><i>geometry</i><i> to </i><i>elucidate the whole</i><i> </i><i>and</i><i> expose a deeper meaning.</i><i> An isolated example would be that through sequential geometric affirmations</i><i> the location of the heptagram (as a thaumaturgic blessing) can be located. I</i><i>t should also come as no surprise to find that a geometric proposition which the painting might dignify should be no less elegant than the painted image that must ultimately articulate that design. </i><i>This introduction will declare the Sacred and Profane Love a collaboration between a humanist and perhaps as many as three visual artists synthesising and reinterpreting peculiar ontological touchstones of religious and cultural heritage. The painting is designed around a geometric and symbolic programme (invenzione) that had most likely been developed by a humanist, and while the demands of the humanist might institute certain boundaries, the artists capacity to posit seemingly disparate ideas and resolve them as non-textual conceptual schema is in evidence. But to discuss all of this coherently, emotionally charged layers of metaphor and </i><i>meaning</i><i> must be carefully analysed to indicate the diaphanous archetype of the feminine in abstraction (and to seek as to why such a complex structure might have been chosen to give form to the archetypal feminine). </i><i>By </i><i>clashing</i><i> Giorgione & Donne (</i><i>who both through </i><i>sensory elevation endeavour</i><i> </i><i>in </i><i>the</i><i> pursuit of the beautiful)</i><i> i</i><i>s it possible to test a </i><i>relationship </i><i>between painting & poetry, and by doing so reveal</i><i> attitudes </i><i>of maturity </i><i>while both strive to give form </i><i>and </i><i>character </i><i>to the idealised </i><i>feminine</i><i>? </i></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">T</span>o navigate through the polarities of notions both sacred and profane this essay will select excerpts from the erotic poetry of a married Renaissance Priest (John Donne) and contrast those insights with Giorgione's <i>Sleeping Venus</i> and the Giorgionesque collaboration now known as the <i>Sacred and Profane Love</i>.</div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"> Fig 2. John Donne (1572 -1631) </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Funeral effigy: St Paul's Cathedral, London.</span></div>
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<em>"Wherever I go I find that a poet has been there before me"</em> </div>
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Sigmund Freud<br />
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<span style="color: #990000; font-size: x-large;">J</span>ohn Donne (1572-1631), author of <a href="http://www.luminarium.org/sevenlit/donne/elegy20.htm">Elegy XX: TO HIS MISTRESS GOING TO BED</a> describes the allure of the feminine through an idealised type of nature; a pastoral bounty often associated with the personifications of Venus.<br />
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Donne never impolitely reveals his wife's person or personal form beyond the fashion of metaphor so that '...the eyes of busy fools may be stopp'd there' - and only then through the immersion of the personal into a conceptual eroticism:</div>
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<em> Off with that girdle, like heaven's zone glittering,</em><br />
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<em> But a far fairer world encompassing.</em><br />
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<em> Unpin that spangled breast-plate, which you wear,</em><br />
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<em> That the eyes of busy fools may be stopp'd there.</em><br />
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The girdle of Venus - named <em>cestus</em> or <em>zone</em> - bestowed upon the wearer an irresistibility over men (note the belt worn by the clothed female of the <em>Sacred and Profane Love</em>)<em>. </em>Donne's spangled breast-plate refers to the starry sky in its physical, jewelled glory and Venus, the jewel wandering among the stars, is seen as a beautiful remote object long before the influence is understood:<br />
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<em> Gems which you women use</em></div>
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<em> Are like Atlanta's ball cast in men's views ;</em><br />
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<em> That, when a fool's eye lighteth on a gem,</em><br />
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<em> His earthly soul might court that, not them.</em><br />
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These themes of Donne's are relevant to the <em>Sacred and Profane Love</em> as in either case it is the idea of an exalted eroticism that becomes the vehicle of transformation. Painting and poem share alchemical parallels in that each employs the 'dross of sex' and then turns it into the 'gold' of the philosophical alchemist; the <i>Profane </i>becomes the <i>Sacred</i>, ie; <i>sanctified</i>.<br />
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Armed with the knowledge of the <i>Athanor</i> - the 'Bath of Mary' (<em>Bain Marie</em>) and<em> 'yoni'</em><em>, </em>the psycho-physical transformation occurs within the wedding chamber. Donne alludes to this wedding chamber as the<i> 'hallow'd temple</i>' the site of the 'mystic wedding' - the <i>hieros gamos</i>:<br />
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<em> Off with your hose and shoes ; then softly tread,</em></div>
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<em> In this love's hallow'd temple, this soft bed.</em></div>
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A critical oversight in past interpretations of the <em>Sacred and Profane Love</em> has been the failure to interpret the sarcophagus/fountain as <i>Athanor</i> - the <i>matrix</i> of the philosophical Alchemist.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-8Kvb56svM5c/UznK0CD_gmI/AAAAAAAAClo/-Qa71vYHWfA/s1600/img042.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-8Kvb56svM5c/UznK0CD_gmI/AAAAAAAAClo/-Qa71vYHWfA/s400/img042.jpg" width="355" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Fig 3. Knole House, the Venetian Ambassador's Room,<br />
18th century bedroom in Kent, England</td></tr>
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According to the writings of the occultist Eliphas Levi the proportions of the <i>Athanor</i> can be described by the pentagram. Some four hundred years after the <em>Sacred and Profane Love</em> was executed, Levi would write:</div>
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<em> " By the pentagram also is measured the exact </em><br />
<em> proportions </em><em>of the great and unique Athanor </em></div>
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<em> necessary </em><em>to the confection </em><em>of the Philosophical </em><br />
<em> Stone and the accomplishment of the Great Work."<br />
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One of the major keys to unlocking the mystery of the <em>Sacred and Profane Love</em> is the <i>Athanor </i>which is none other than the sarcophagus/fountain whose proportions are measured by the upright pentacle (blue) and the inverted <span style="color: #444444;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentagram">pentagram</a> (orange)</span>.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-zQK9Fcg7QLU/U1M32j1bLVI/AAAAAAAAC2o/1xtIjc4_v40/s1600/Titian+Sacred+Profane+-+Copy+(94a).jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="380" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-zQK9Fcg7QLU/U1M32j1bLVI/AAAAAAAAC2o/1xtIjc4_v40/s400/Titian+Sacred+Profane+-+Copy+(94a).jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Fig 4. The pentagram is the <span style="font-size: 12.8px;"><i>symbolic geometric</i> form which</span><span style="font-size: 12.8px;"> underlies the </span><i style="font-size: medium;">Sacred and Profane Love</i><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"> (annotation by the author).</span></span></td></tr>
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<span style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">In the image above a circle has</span></span><span style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> been declared which contains a </span></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; text-align: center;">pentagram which thereby forms a pentacle </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; text-align: center;">(a pentacle being a five pointed star bound by a circle). At the centre</span><span style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> of the pentacles interior an inverted </span></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; text-align: center;">pentagram can</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; text-align: center;"> be formed</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; text-align: center;">. </span><span style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Critically, t</span></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; text-align: center;">he only <i>two horizontal lines</i> found in the upright pentacle and the inverted pentagram </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; text-align: center;">prescribe the upper and lower boundaries of the sarcophagus/fountain. It must be noted that the inverted pentagram invites the 'downward' action and declares the fountain (the fountain Cyane) to be the entrance to the </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; text-align: center;">underworld </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; text-align: center;">realm of Pluto (actually this earthly realm) and so describes the 'fall'. This descent into matter is mistakenly </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; text-align: center;">sexual </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; text-align: center;">and is implied and perpetuated (though never truly explained) by the ambiguous metaphors that relate the story of the <i>expulsion</i> from Eden. </span><br />
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But the matrix of all philosophical alchemy is the <i>Athanor</i>; it is the <i>sanctum sanctorum</i> of the <i>Great Work</i><i> </i>which at once is also<i> </i>the <i>yoni </i>and which<i> </i>are truly <i>profane</i> and yet also <i>sacred</i>.<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; text-align: center;"> </span><span style="text-align: center;">The gift to Adam from the</span><em style="text-align: center;"> 'tree of the knowledge of good and evil'</em><span style="text-align: center;"> is the sign of the pentagram or better, the esoteric and geometric <i>mysteries</i> of the pentagram. R</span>eturn to Eden and slice Eve's stolen apple through the equator or 'girdle' and note the fruits geometric form at the core - the <i>pentagram - </i>symbol of Venus. It is the vegetative life of the earth which describe that garden which is no less than the entire planet.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Ht9suJWSjwM/UznNpds6zLI/AAAAAAAACl0/Pj6EatwFiBQ/s1600/PENTACLE+APPLE.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Ht9suJWSjwM/UznNpds6zLI/AAAAAAAACl0/Pj6EatwFiBQ/s1600/PENTACLE+APPLE.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Fig 5. Apple sliced across the girdle revealing the five point seed pattern.</td></tr>
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<span style="text-align: center;">The</span> pentagram is sacred to <i>Venus</i> on this basis; at the conclusion of every eight years the planet Venus when aligned with the earth, describes a pentagram in the heavens. N<span style="text-align: center;">o other planet achieves anything remotely similar in riposte to this beautiful accident. She represents <i>water</i> and the <i>vegetative </i></span><i style="text-align: center;">fertility; </i><i style="text-align: center;">abundance, </i><i style="text-align: center;">pleasure, </i><i style="text-align: center;">love, </i><span style="text-align: center;">etc,.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">A</span>n earthly personification of the 'terrestrial Venus' is equitable to the physical, and therefore legitimately sexual in nature, fertile and regenerative - something <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleeping_Venus_(Giorgione)">Giorgione's Sleeping Venus</a> c.1508, achieved around ninety years before Donne's poem had been penned, and for which Giorgione's Venus is arguably most famous. Under Giorgione's hand the boudoir is natures garden and the hallow'd<i> temple </i>is found under natures canopy of clouds.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-owdS-2qS2Xc/UznO3KwzDGI/AAAAAAAACmA/Q0JShtmGoB4/s1600/Venus_dormida.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="452" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-owdS-2qS2Xc/UznO3KwzDGI/AAAAAAAACmA/Q0JShtmGoB4/s1600/Venus_dormida.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small; text-align: justify;">Fig 6. Giorgione. Sleeping Venus. c.1508</span></td></tr>
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<em> Your gown going off such beauteous state reveals,</em></div>
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<i> as when from flowery meads th' hill's shadow steals.</i><br />
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Donne and Giorgione - one textually the other pictorially - sensuously compare the feminine <i>(flowery meads</i>) and <i>Her</i> form to the gentle undulations of the landscape.</div>
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In Giorgione's painting a naked sleeping <i>Venus</i> is supported on plush red cushions and reclined upon an generous silvery white fabric in a landscape setting. Donne:</div>
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<em> ...cast all, yea, this white linen hence ;</em><br />
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<em><em> There is no penance due to innocence:</em></em></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; text-align: justify;">And rightly so.</span><span style="font-size: x-small;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>~</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">B</span>ecause the two women at the fountain of the <em>Sacred and Profane Love</em> correspond to dual feminine archetypes the identity of the two women are interchangeable with other dual feminine mythologies. For example; <i>Eve</i> and <i>Mary</i> are equitable to the '<i>terrestrial Venus</i>' and the '<i>celestial Venus'</i> respectively and/or the <i>profane</i> and the <i>sacred</i> - one the '<i>fallen</i>' woman, the other the<i> celestial</i> virgin. Growing up in a Roman Catholic household Donne must have been aware of the religious and exclusively Italian lineage of the Great Mother cults of Rome - of <i>Venus</i> as well as <i>Mary</i>. As a former Catholic and later Dean of St. Paul's in London, Donne's early erotic work may have pushed the boundaries of Christian propriety but there is always a sense of the humanist (in a contemporary sense) about Donne - as is also found in the observations of Giorgione.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Fig 7. Woodcut of Satyr & Venus from the <i style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Hypnerotomachia Poliphili.</span></i></td></tr>
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The woodcut above, taken from the Renaissance novel the <i>Hypnerotomachia Poliphili (c.1499), </i>might arguably be the inspiration behind Giorgione's <i>Sleeping Venus</i>. Although Giorgione's <i>Sleeping Venus</i> is well advanced from the rustic vulgarity of the <i>Hypnerotomachia </i>woodcut, in reality Giorgione's Sleeping Venus has not in any way raised Giorgione beyond the level of the satyr (portrayed <i>in erecto facino</i>) and Giorgione projects through the persona of the satyr to vicariously absolve the personal guilt of the male gaze<i>.</i><br />
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The equally invisible patron/viewer (most likely male) will empathise <i>with</i> and <i>as</i> this invisible masculine God. This is what Giorgione (the young man) achieves in the <i>Sleeping Venus</i>; the artist - the initial perpetrator of the gaze is hidden - veiled behind his vision and virtuosity. He has removed the objectified ego (the satyr of the <i>Hypnerotomachia</i> woodcut) and must commit to the gaze in the first person to describe the subtle mask (the satyr) and thereafter this direct experience is passed vicariously to the viewer to indulge his lasciviousness 'scot- free' as it were. In a sense this could be interpreted as a psychological version of <a href="http://www.csun.edu/~hfart010/pdf/art_and_mass_media/Media03-Renaissance.pdf">Filippo Brunelleschi's (1377-1446)</a> <i>1425</i> experiment in geometric perspective. Through th use of the satyr Giorgione has located a 'hole in the Baptistery door' and is inviting the viewer to anonymously participate in this subtle act of voyeurism.<br />
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In the <em>Sleeping Venus</em> Giorgione's maturity has not yet arrived and he is paying a libidinous <i>homage</i> with youths eye for the voluptuous and the sensual and the polite - he is the voyeur - and as such suggests an immature solitary stage of psychosexual development. Donne, the refined married man clearly has the advantage, and his phyically intimate experience speaks of the consensual and elevated delights of conjugal bliss. The progression and ultimate fulfilment which Giorgione <i>will</i> later attain is made clear through the conceptual sophistication found in the <em>Sacred and Profane Love. </em><br />
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[In light of the <i>Sacred and Profane Love's</i> cosmological programme and the central
importance of the inverted pentacle, one would be inclined to stress that the <i>Sacred and Profane Love</i> is in fact equally dedicated to Pluto as the <i>Deus
absconditas</i> (the hidden God) as much as it is obviously dedicated to the feminine. The
name <i>Aidoneos</i> or <i>Aides </i>relates to this God as ‘the invisible’. (<i>Aidoneos = </i><i>Aides </i>from where the name <i>Haides</i> = <i>Hades</i> originates.) The pervasive invisibility of Pluto is articulated by the <i>hidden</i>
geometric presence of the inverted pentagram and here Giorgione is repeats the formula of vicariousness... the viewer of the <i>Sacred and Profane Love</i> actually assumes the guise of Pluto as the <i>Deus absconditas</i> (the hidden God). This also develops the masculine balance between two the women of the
<i>Sacred and Profane Love </i>who also in a sense<i> </i>represent<i> </i>the polarities of the feminine.]<i> </i><br />
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<br /><br /><span style="font-size: x-large;">A</span>gain, Donne's sensitive erotica does not exploit the person of the wife, as the feminine in his sensual context refers primarily to the Goddess. Similarly, the <em>Sacred and Profane Love</em> invites a critical reading of the apparent luxury of indulgence where the opulent dress of the 'terrestial Venus' is contrasted by the simplicity of the pure and bare. All works participate in the dichotomy of balance and of challenging the sexual motive as a creative path toward elevation, contemplation, and the development of conceptual mind. </span>The feminine effusion - as developed in Donne's poem (Elegy XX) and the <em>Sacred and Profane Love</em> - is portrayed as a fugitive force with dual aspects coursing between the physical and spiritual; from the soberingly erotic to the conceptual dissolution of self and selves; the duality of the <i>profane</i> and the <i>sacred</i>.</div>
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<em style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><br /></em><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">When considering Giorgione's painting and Donne's poetry</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">perhaps the concept and term nearest to </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">that abstract feminine as sensual force</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> personified as the Goddess is </span><em style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">Shekhinah</em><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">,</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> which has been described as '...a revelation of the holy in the midst of the profane...'.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: #f3f2f9; text-align: start;">How am I blest in thus discovering thee ! </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #f3f2f9; text-align: start;"></span><span style="background-color: #f3f2f9; text-align: start;">To enter in these bonds, is to be free</span></div>
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Conceptualising the works of both artists in an imaginary, contemporaneous present Donne is the wordsmith in step with the sensuality of the Giorgione painting, and it is perhaps Donne who scribes the more mature visual poetry of the <em>Sacred and </em><em>Profane Love. </em>It can be concluded that the <em>Sacred and Profane Love</em> - considered as an extension and progression in the oeuvre of Giorgione - is also dedicated to <i>Venus</i> (or <i>Venuses</i>) in all the forms and computations that could be ascribed to her given the boundaries of context within the intended allegorical narratives of Donne's poetry and Giorgione's paintings.<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">I</span>n art, images of the feminine are so often the attempt to capture an ideal of type most appropriate to describe the voltage of a fugitive force which is ultimately veiled by an equally fleeting glamour. Here, those words attributed to Horace** (65-27 BCE) are most fitting:<br />
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<em>'Pulchritudo est aliquid incorporeum...'**</em></div>
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<span face=""helvetica neue" , "helveticaneue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #444444; line-height: 21px; text-align: left;"><span face=""roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif" style="color: black;">500 Years of Female Portraits in Western Art</span></span><br />
<span face=""helvetica neue" , "helveticaneue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: left;">(video by Philip Scott Johnson)</span></div>
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It is perhaps trivial that the exterior form alone of the <i>Sacred and Profane Love</i> has preserved it through the ages rather than its complexity in totality. Yet to deny apprehension and intuition when facing the unknown would be to deny art - and only art - the lightening flashes of an encompassing comprehension; an experience which belongs to the human condition, and therefore defines and contributes to deeper notions of what it is to be one of us.<br />
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* The <span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil</i> portrayed allegorically in the Bible (</span><span style="background-color: white; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Genesis 2: 16-17) relates to the eating of animal life. 'Evil is knowing better but willingly doing worse..' states the psychologist Dr Phillip Zimbardo.</span></span><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> The psycho-physical expulsion from </span></span><span style="text-align: justify;">the Biblical </span><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">paradise warns of a form of dissonance on a global scale in regards to human relationships because of the abuse of the other sentient species with whom we share the planet. </span></span><span style="text-align: justify;">Eden was n</span><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">ever a location on earth but </span></span><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">rather, </span></span><i><span style="text-align: justify;">Eden </span><span style="text-align: justify;">was</span><span style="text-align: justify;"> the Earth</span></i><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> prior to the planetary descent </span></span><span style="text-align: justify;">into the Kali Yuga</span><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">. </span></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">The </span><i style="background-color: white; font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;">Tree of Life</i><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> refers to human life.</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">So Eden refers to the loss of the vegetative </span></span><span style="text-align: justify;">paradise.</span><span style="text-align: justify;"> '</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #1a1a1b;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">The only paradise is paradise lost' - Marcel Proust</span></span></div>
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**This sentence caught my attention over twenty years ago, I believe the attribution to Horace is correct, but the source is lost.<br />
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All themes, writings, and opinions are copyright Paul Doughton 1997-2020 and may not be used in any form without written permission of the author.<br />
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<em><span style="font-size: x-large;">pAuL</span><span style="font-size: large;">.</span></em><br />
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