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Ministry of Cultural Heritage Special Superintendency for the Historical, Artistic

and Ethno-Anthropological Heritage and Museum System of the City of Rome

a-.-.d ]Fs^che Myth in Art from Antiquity to Canova

Edited by Maria Grazia Bernardini

with the collaboration of Marina Mattei

for the archaeological section

<<L'ERl\/IA>> di BRETSCHNEIDER

The Tale of Cupid and Psyche Myth in Art from Antiquity to Canova

Rome, Museo Nazionale di Castel Sant'Angelo l6 March -lO June 2Ol2

Exhibition promoted by

MINISTERO PER IBENIE LE ATTIVTA

CU LT U RA Li

S OP RINTE 'DIN ZA

SPECL&LEflMLI'AIRIMONIO - S TO RICO-ART 1ST ICO UT

NOANTROPOWGICO

INPOLQ MUSEALE CTTA ROMA

In collaboration with

ROMACAPITALE

EXHIBITION

Curator Maria Grazia Bernatdini

With the collaboration of Marina Mattei (for the archaeological section)

Secretarial unit Sabrina Lamarra with the assistance of Susanna Mastrofini

Installation design Cesare Man / Panstudio Architetri Associati

Graphic design Sebastiano Girardi

Lighting design Giuseppe Mesttangelo I Light Studio

Installation OTT-ART

Transport Montenovi s.t.l. Minguzzi s.r.1.

Restoration and handling of works Maria De Bellis

Insurance AXA-ART

Press office Studio Begnini

ENEA - Ente Nazionale per l'Energia Atomica 3D reconstruction of the Loggia of Psyche by Raphael Mario Ferri Dc Collibus, Luigi De Dominicis, Giorgio Fornetti, Massimo Francucci, Massimiliano Guarneri, Marcello Nuvoli

State Guarantee MINISTRY OF CULTURAL HERITAGE

General Directo rate for promotion of the cultural heritage Mario Resca Service I— Promotionof cultural heritage, planing and accounts Manuel Roberto Guido Marcello Tagliente

State Guarantee Office Antonio Piscitelli

Advanced Institute ofRestoration and Conservation Gisella Capponi

With the collaboration of Laura D'Agostino Maria Concetta Laurenti Giuseppina Fazio

Ministry of the Economy and Finance State Departement ofAccounting General Inspectorate ofAccount Office XI Rosario Stella Assistants Sebasriano Verdesca Carla Russo

Court ofAudit Office Responsible for the Ministries of Education, Cultural Heritage, Health and Labour, Maria Elena Raso, Lina Pace

SPECIAL SUPERINTENDENCY FOR THE HISTORICAL, ARTISTIC AND ETHNO-ANTHROPOLOGICAL HERITAGE AND MUSEUM SYSTEM OF THE CITY OF ROME

Superintendent Rossella Vodret

Board of Directors Rossella Vodret, chair Maria Grazia Bernardini, Claudio Cristallini, Salvatore Patamia, Vitaliano Tiberia

Office of the Superintendent Aurelio Urciuoli, (head) Rosaria Boni, Alessandra Spanedda

Administrative Director Salvatore Patamia

Office of tenders and contracts Vincenzo Angeletti Latini, Maria Raffaela Dc Luca, Cristina Lollai, Rosalba Pierini With the collaboration of Marina Annunziato, Corrado Salucci, Anna Sabatino e Jacopo Colabattisti

Legal, accounting, and planning department Daniela Abbate, Piera Giorgiantonio, Manuela Tori, Maria Luisa Lo Monte, Marco Onnis, Patrizia Panci, Lucilla Torre, Gabriella Urso

Department ofpromotion and exhibitions Giorgio Leone, director Angela Camilli, Anna Sabatino, Mauro Persichini, Anna Selvi With the collaboration of Belinda Granata, Francesca Del Vecchio, Maria Anna Marino, Francesca Pasculli, Eleonora Pezzorti

Department for hosting events and exhibitions Emanuela Settimi, director

Loans Office Aurelio Urciuoli, director Maria Cristina Pierucci With the collaboration of Luciana Ostuni

Protocol office Silvana Buonora, director Simonetta Facchini, Silvia Micarelli, Gabriella Micci With the collaboration of Stefania Panella

Press office Anna Loreta Valerio With the collaboration of Alessandro Gaetani

Photografic archives and laboratory Barbara Fabian, director Gennaro Aliperta, Valerio Anronioli, Maria Castellino, Massimo Taruffi, Mauro Trolese, Gianfranco Zecca

Iconographic unit Lia Di Giacomo

Library Teresa Gallo, director Daniele Ion, Paola Gerardi

Technical services Vincenzo Angeletti, director Mario Frasca, Roberto Guenci, Giancarlo Landi, Egisto Mencaroni, Enzo Moriniello, Luigina Spera, Daphne lacopetti

MUSEO NAZIONALE DI CASTEL SANT'ANGELO

Director Maria Grazia Bernardini

Exhibitions department Aldo Mastroianni, (head) With the collaboration of Anna Rita Conte

Registrar Stefano Brachetti

Safekeeping department Maria De Bellis

Giuseppe Casamonica, Domenico Corbo, Anna Rita Conte, Luana Cossu, Gabriella Decembrino, Chiara Di Muoio, Emiliano Donati, Daniela Figuretti, Stefano Finucci, Chiara Gironi, Rosa Lauritano, Claudia Losito, Emilia Ludovici, Clara Marcolongo, Rossana Moretti, Mario Nissolino, Cinzia Panzadura, Sabina Parricchi, Claudio Pecci, Giuseppe Perrino, Carlo Ramoni, Francesca Ritucci, Antonio Sale, Anita Santoliquido, Giuseppe Santorsola, Vincenzo Stacconi, Stefano Teobaldi, Roberto Tomarelli, Marisa Toniolo.

Directorate of museums and operative unit for archaeological museums and the Capitol - Capitoline Museums Claudio Parisi Presicce, Director

Archaeological curator of the Capitoline Museums Marina Mattei

Exhibitions office Micaela Perrone Daniela Tabb

Capitoline Museums photographic archives Angela Carbonaro

Office ofpublic relations and reception Ludovico Augello, Francesca Ritucci

Catalogue department Maria Grazia Bernardini With the collaboration of Daniela Bordoni, Chiara Gironi

Administration and personnel department Anna Maria Cervo, Roberto Provenzano, Rosa Scaglione

Technical department Maria Raffaela De Luca, Mario Frasca, Flora Tarquini

Loans office Elisaberta Casieri

IT department Alessandro Belmonte, Paolo Faccia

Delivery office Nazareno Brusca

Library and documentation service Miria Nardi, Stefano Polga With the collaboration of Sabina Parricchi

Heads of department Stefano Brachetti, Francesca Ritucci

Custodians Ludovico Augello, Daniela Bordoni, Olga Bosso, Stefano Brachetri, Marcello Bui, Vincenza Casafina,

ROMA CAPITALE

Mayor Giovanni Alemanno

Head of the Department for Cultural Policies and the Historical Centre Dino Gasperini

Office of external relations Anna Mosca

Communication office Valeria Arnaldi

Press office Claudia Lovisetto

Superintendent of Cultural Heritage Umberto Broccoli

Department of communications and external relations Renata Piccininni, Director Teresa Franco

Intersectoral operative unit for planning major events - exhibitions territorial management - Restoration Patrizia Cavalieri, Director

Department of exhibitions, events and cultural activities Federica Pirani, (head) Maria Pia Favale Mara Minasi

CATALOGUE

Edited by Maria Grazia Bernardini

With the collaboration of Marina Mattei (for the archaeological section)

Essays Maria Grazia Bernardini Marco Bussagli Sonia Cavicchioli Mario Guderzo Francesca Longo Marina Martei Miriam Mirolla Livia Monragnoli

Entries I.M. Akamaris Paolo Arata Victoria Avery Andrea Bellieni Maria Grazia Bernardini Chantal Bor Daniela Candilio Tullia Carrath P. J . Chatzidakis Diletta Clery Maria Rita Copersino Thierry Crépin-Leblond Ersilia D'Ambrosio Angela Maria D'Amelio Amelia D'Amicis Antonietta Dell'Aglio Paola Di Felice Maria Anna Di Pede Christine Duvauchelle Margrethe Floryan Cristiano Giometti Nicoletta Giordani Mario Guderzo Maria Cristina Guidorti Magdalena Häusle Daniel Hess Alessandra Imbellone Mario Tozzo Rossella Leone Maria Lilimpaki-Akamati Emilia Ludovici Milena Luppi Carla Martini Susanna Mastrofini Marina Matrei

Livia Montagnoli Fabrizio Paolucci Emiliana Ricci Umberto Spigo Laura Maria Vigna Ludmila Virassamynaiken Paolo Vitellozzi

English translation Scriptum, Rome

General bibliography Ersilia D'Ambrosio Maria Cristina Guardata

Editing Emilia Ludovici

LENDERS

Antiquarium Comunale, Roma Archaeological Museum, Kos Archaeological Museum of Thessaloniki, Salonicco Associazione Bancaria Iraliana, Roma Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology; Oxford Biblioteca Estense Universitaria, Modena Biblioteca Reale, Torino Collezione Privata, Roma Delos Archaeological Museum, Delos Fondazione Musei Civici di Venezia, Museo Correr, Venezia Galleria Borghese, Roma Galleria degli Uffizi, Firenze Galleria, Museo e Medagliere Estense, Modena Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Antica in Palazzo Corsini, Roma Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Norimberga Istituto Nazionale per la Grafica, Roma Musée des Beaux- Arts, Lione Musée du Louvre, Parigi Musée national de la Reinassance-Château d'Ecouen, Ecouen Museo Archeologico Nazionale, Firenze Museo Archeologico Regionale Eoliano "Luigi Bernabb Bred', Lipari Musei Capirolini, Roma Museo Egizio, Firenze Museo-Gipsoreca Antonio Canova, Possagno Museo degli Argenti e delle Porcellane, Firenze

Museo di Roma, Roma Museo Nazionale Archeologico La Civitella, Chieti Museo Nazionale di Capodimonre, Napoli Museo Nazionale del Palazzo di Venezia, Roma Palais des Beaux Arts, Lille Paulos and Alexandra Kanellopoulos Museum, Atene Pella New Archaeological Museum, Pella Pinacoteca Civica, Teramo Palazzo del Quirinale, Roma Soprintendenza Speciale per i Beni Archeologici dell'Umbria- Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Perugia Soprintendenza Speciale per i Beni Archeologici di Napoli e Pompei Soprintendenza Speciale per i Beni Archeologici per la Puglia- Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Taranto The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge Thorvaldsens Museum, Copenhagen Vorarlberg Landesmuseum, Bregenz

We are most grateful to all the direc-tors and officials of museums and cul-tural institutions inside and outside Italy that have made this exhibitions possible by kindly loaning works from their collections

Particular thanks to the following: Ministero per i Beni e le Attività Culturali Direzione Generale per la Valorizzazione del Patrimonio Culturale Direzione Generale per le Biblioreche, gli Istituti Culturali ed il Diritto d'Autore Direzione Generale per il Paesaggio, le Belle Arti, l'Architettura e l'Arte Contemporanee Direzione Regionale per i Beni Culturali e Paesaggistici del Lazio

Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology, Oxford Diparrimento dei Beni Culturali e dell'Identitâ Siciliana, Assessorato dei Beni Culturali e dell'Identità Siciliana, Regione Siciliana

Associazione Bancaria Italiana Direzione Regionale per i Beni Culturali e Paesaggistici del Piemonte Fondazione Canova Onlus Fondazione Musei Civici Venezia Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Stiftung des öffentlichen Rechts Hellenistic Republic, Ministry of Culture, Atene

Musée des Beaux- Arts de Lyon, Lione

Musée du Louvre, Parigi Musée national de la Reinassance-Château d'Ecouen, Ecouen Palais des Beaux Arts de Lille, Lille Segretariato Generale della Presidenza della Repubblica

Servizio parco Archeologico delle Isole Eolie, Milazzo, Patti e comuni limitrofi

Soprintendenza Speciale per il Patrimonio Storico Arristico ed Etnoantropologico e per il Polo Museale della città di Roma Soprintendenza per i Beni Archeologi dell'Abruzzo Soprintendenza per i Beni Archeologici dell'Umbria Soprintendenza per i Beni Archeologici della Puglia Soprintendenza per i Beni Archeologici della Toscana Soprintendenza per i Beni Storici Artistici ed Etnoantropologici di Modena e Reggio Emilia Soprintendenza Speciale per i Beni Archeologici di Napoli e Pompei Soprintendenza Speciale per i Beni Archeologici di Roma Soprintendenza Speciale per il Parrimonio Srorico Artisrico ed Ernoanrropologico e per ii Polo Museale della cirrà di Firenze Soprintendenza Speciale per il Patrimonio Storico Artistico ed Etnoantropologico e per il Polo Museale della città di Napoli Sovraintendenza ai Beni Culturali di Roma Capitale

The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge Thorvaldsens Museum, Copenhagen Vorarlberg Museum, Bregenz

Thanks to

Cristina Acidini Polyxeni Adam- Veleni Alexandra Alevizou Victoria Avery Mariarosaria Barbera Luciano Bartolini Annalisa Battini Gabriella Belli Luca Bellingeri Fiora Bellini Michele Benfari Umberto Bile Orsola Bonifati Chantal Bor Nathalie Brac de La Perrière Umberto Broccoli Christopher Brown Aisha Burtenshaw Marco Bussagli Lucia Calzona Stefano Casciu Paolo Castracane Tiziana Ceccarini Emanuela Ceccaroni P. J . Chatzidakis Christina Chilcott Massimiliano Ciaffi Giuseppina Carlotta Cianferoni Teresa Elena Cinquantaquatrro Anna Coliva Thierry Crépin-Leblond Luciana Del Bono Antonio De Siena Anronietta Dell'Aglio Paola Di Felice Alessandra Di Matteo Andreina Draghi Natalie Eliwanger Gian Pietro Favaro Daniela Ferriani Claudio Finarelli Margrethe Floryan Giorgio Fornetti Rosaria Frigeri

Maria Antonella Fusco Renata Giordanella Nicoletta Giordani Louis Godart G. Ulrich Grollmann François Gualtier Mario Guderzo Maria Cristina Guidotti Walter Hartsarich Cordélia Hattori Magdalena Häusle Kristina Herrmann Fiore Mario lozzo Giorgio Leone Anja Löchner Cristina Lollai Henri Loyrette Franco e Carla Luccichenti Renato Manera Maria Anna Marino Maria Clara Martinelli Jean-Luc Martinez Pier Luigi Mattera Lanfranco Mazzotti Luigia Melillo Marica Mercalli Umberto Minichiello Anna Maria Moretti Antonio Natali Angela Negro Luciana Osruni Mario Pagano Emiliano Paglia Fabrizio Paolucci Rita Paris Antonio Perozziello Andrea Pessina Claudio Parisi Presicce Anna Maria Piccinini Antonio Piscitelli Patrizia Piscitello Eliana A. Pollone M. Porriello Timothy Potts Sylvie Ramond Roberto Ricci Anna Maria Romano Oliva Rucellai Andreas Rudigier Valeria Sampaolo Fr. Dr. Schreck

David Scrase Maria Sframeli Thyrza Smith Umberto Spigo Alain Tapiè Simonetra Tozzi Hans Tsougaris Lucrezia Ungaro Clara Vitulo Fabrizio Vona Susan Walker Liz Woods

PHOTOGRAPHIC CREDITS

© Araldo De Luca, www.araldodeluca.com , Roma

Archaeological Museum of Eretria, Eretria

Archaeological Museum of Kos, Kos

Archaeological Museum of Veroia, Veroia

Archaeological Museum of Thessaloniki, Salonicco

Archivi Alinari, Firenze

Archivio Enrico Colle, Firenze

Archivio Lardera

Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology; University of Oxford

Associazione Bancaria Italiana, Roma

Biblioteca Estense Universitaria, Modena

Biblioreca Reale, Torino

British Library, Londra

British Museum, Londra

© 2012 Dc Agosrini Picture Library! Scala, Firenze

Delos Archaeological Museum, Delos

Fondazione Musei Civici di Venezia, Museo Cotter, Venezia

© Foto Giuseppe Schiavinorto

Franco Cosimo Panini Editore © su licenza Fratelli Alinari

Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Norimberga

Kanellopoulos Museum, Arene

Musée Condé, Chantilly

Musée du Louvre, Parigi

Musée National de la Renaissance - Château d'Ecouen, Ecouen

Musei Capitolini, Roma

Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Locri Epizefiri, Locri

Museo Archeologico Regionale Eoliano "Luigi Bernabè Brea", Lipari

Museo Civico di Palazzo Te, Mantova

Museo di Roma, Palazzo Braschi, Roma

Museo e Gipsoteca Antonio Canova, Possagno

Pella New Archaeological Museum, Pella

© Photo RMN, Parigi, RMN (Domaine de Chantilly)! Frank Raux! René-Gabriel Ojéda! distr. Alinari; (Domaine de Chantilly)! René-Gabriel Ojéda! distr. Alinari

© Photo RMN, Parigi, Palais des Beaux Arts de Lille, Lille

Piero Francesco Pozxi, Monza

Pinacoteca Civica, Teramo

Segretariato generale della Presidenza della Repubblica, Palazzo del Quirinale, Archivio fotografico

Segrerariato generale della Presidenza della Repubblica, Fondo Editoriale Lavoro - foto C. Schiavinotto, Roma

Soprintendenza Speciale per i Beni Archeologici di Napoli e Pompei - foto: Luigi Spina

Soprintendenza Speciale per i Beni Archeologici di Roma

Soprintendenza Speciale per il Patrimonio Storico Artistico ed Ernoantropologico e per il Polo Museale della città di Firenze

The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge

Thorvaldsens Museum, Copenhagen

Vorarlberg Museum, Bregenx

Photographic material from the fol-lowing sources reproduced by kind permission of the Minisrero per i Beni e le Attività Culturali sono riprodotri i materiali forografici forniti da:

Archivio forografico della SBSAE di Modena e Reggio Emilia - foto P. Terzi

Fototeca della Soprintendenza per il Patrimonio Storico Artistico ed Etnoantropologico e per il Polo Museale della città di Napoli

Fototeca della Soprintendenza per 11 Parrimonio Storico Artistico ed Etnoantropologico e per il Polo Museale della città di Roma

Istituto Nazionale per la Grafica, Roma

Museo Archeologico Nazionale, Firenze

Museo Egizio, Firenze

Museo Nazionale Archeologico La Civirella, Chieti

Soprinrendenza Speciale per i Beni Archeologici per la Puglia - Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Taranto - photograph: Paolo Buscicchio Resrauri Soprintendenxa per i Beni Archeologici della Puglia: Domenico Arco, Francesco Spina

By kind permission of:

Isrituti di Santa Maria in Aquiro, Istituzione pubblica di Assistenza e Beneficenza, Roma, Museo Biblioteca Archivio di Bassano del Grappa

<<L'ERMA>> di BRETSCHNEIDER

Director ofpublication Roberto Marcucci

Data processing, page layout and cover Maurizio Pinto

Editorial staff Alessia Francescangeli Daniele Maras Elena Montani Dario Scianetti

Thecnical direction Massimo Banelli

External relations Michele Kostov Erik Pender

Printing Tipografia Monti

Head of sale Valentina Barroccu

Administration Francesco Cagliuso Rita Censi

Storage and shipping Roberto Pizzonia

© Copyright 2012 <<L'ERMA>> di BRETSCHNEIDER Via Cassiodoro, 19 00193 Rome (Italy) www.Ierma.it e-mail: lerma@letma.it

All rights reserved No texts or illustrations may be reproduced without written permission from the publisher.

ISBN 978-88-8265-722-2

he tale of Cupid and Psyche is told in the nine panels of the frieze below the ceiling in a room of the I Farnese apartment in Castel Sant'Angelo beside the sumptuous Pauline Room. Depicted a few years earlier

in the splendid loggia of the Villa Farnesina by Raphael and his assistants and in Giulio Romano's exuberant frescoes for the Palazzo Te in Mantua, this apparently secular subject celebrating the triumph of love may seem a somewhat inappropriate choice for a pope. It must be understood, however, that the tale was interpreted as symbolizing the journey of the soul by the all-pervading Neoplatonic philosophy of the Renaissance culture and had thus taken on deep moral and Christian significance.

It is for this very reason that the Heritage Superintendency and the Museum's management decided to or-ganize an exhibition that takes the Farnese frieze as its starting point to present the various interpretations given to the myth of Psyche over the centuries, retracing its history all the way from antiquity to the Neoclassical period, as exemplified by the sublime works of Antonio Canova.

Characterized by a complex plot with a wealth of dramatic episodes, misfortunes and twists of fate, the story included by Apuleius in The Golden Ass and regarded by Voltaire as the finest handed down to us from ancient times can in fact be read at various levels and has offered endless inspiration for masterpieces by a whole range of artists such as Raphael, Giulio Romano, Rubens, van Dyck, Canova, Jacques-Louis David and Edward Burne-Jones.

Thanks to the invaluable cooperation of Rome's museums, which have handled the archaeological section, the exhibition will feature a wealth of very important works, including the sculptures of Cupid and Psyche and Winged Psyche, works from Greece, and a splendid cameo with Eros Tormenting Psyche from the Museo Archeo-logico Nazionale in Florence. I am indebted to the Istituto Nazionale della Grafica for the loan of the 32 prints of episodes from the tale by the Master of the Die, to the Palazzo del Quirinale for a wonderful tapestry, and to the Gipsoteca in Possagno for the plaster cast of Canovds standing group Cupid and Psyche. I am very grateful to all the colleagues and friends whose helpfulness and cooperation made it possible to hold an event of great scholarly value that also has the merit of showing the general public the breadth and intensity of a myth already known but never in its true depth.

Warmest thanks to all those who have worked with commitment and professionalism, to Maria Grazia Ber-nardini, director of the Museum of Castel Sant'Angelo, to Marina Mattei of the Capitoline Museums, and to all the museum personnel who have helped in different ways with the show.

Rossella Vodret Superi ntendent for the Artistic, Historical

and Ethno-Anthropological Heritage and the Museum System of the City of Rome

he transposition of love for woman into idea. The ascent of the human soul to the divine dimension. The 1. conquest of spirituality. Or perhaps the striving for immortality. The tale of Cupid and Psyche recounted

by Apuleius in The Golden Ass in the 2nd century AD lends itself to countless different readings, so many as to explain and perhaps justify the spell it has cast over artists and patrons through the centuries from antiquity to the present.

On the wings of feeling, a particularly apt image in this case, the exhibition offers a journey within the tale and the codes and languages that have accompanied its dissemination. The starting point is the soul as under-stood in the religious sense, the heart of the vision conjured up by Penn del Vaga in the frieze he painted for Pope Paul III in Castel Sant'Angelo.

This is not, or at least not only, a question of history but of a moment. The restoration of the frieze is in fact an opportunity to wonder about the modern character of those ancient enchantments and investigate their many stories and perspectives as well as their roots. Apuleius told the tale but the archetype was both more an-cient and - as is often the case with myths, fables and legends - common to a variety of cultures ranging from Mesopotamia and Egypt to Phoenicia and Greece.

Here we have not only the archaeological iconography of the myth but also and above all the triumph of the Renaissance and Neoclassicism. We have paintings, drawings, sculptures, gems, engravings, tapestries and works in terracotta. We have the various moments of the tale or metaphor, from loss of the self to the discovery of mystery, from the search for a new dimension to its conquest. We have the names of the great figures in the history of art who have addressed this theme, or rather who have been bewitched by this tale of love.

A journey through feeling and its many faces and manifestations - through mystery and construction or, more simply, light and shadow - all the way to art.

Dino Gasperini Head of the Rome Department for Cultural Policies and the Historical Centre

This is the most unfading myth of all. Eros, the god of love and desire, unites with Psyche, the soul, to grant her immortality. There is no myth without initiation and suffering, however, and she will have to perform

four of the hardest tasks, one of which entails descending to the Underworld to purify herself. In the same way, there is no synthesis without contrast. Instinct and rationality have always been on the

opposite sides of the tug-of-war in which human beings are caught, pulled simultaneously towards the inebria-tion of immediate, unreflecting, impassioned action and the safety of carefully considered, scientific, strategic conduct.

It is a fight to the last between forces that face one another in mankind with alternating fortunes. Think of how we strive to be rational, to avoid being tricked by the senses and the emotions, of how much we must struggle so as not to give way to sentiment.

Fear is to blame. Lying in ambush behind the joy of action in response to feeling are error and suffering. Better therefore to rely on reason, on the pure thought that puts us on our guard against blunders and shows us the snares, better to avoid pain through calculation.

Despite everything, however, the Dionysian sometimes overcomes the Apollonian. As Pascal says, the heart has reasons that reason does not know. It draws upon the unconscious, espouses our deepest needs, and cannot be deflected from its course.

The human being is both one and many, a combination of different and conflicting elements. Never seek to decipher mankind in terms of a Manichean dichotomy of good and evil, heart and head, passion and reason. Contradictory feelings and drives are synonymous with complexity. Eros is thus juxtaposed with Thanatos, the destructive instinct. Life seeks to prevail over death. Creativity scorns inertia. And love is opposed to hate. There is never one without the other and neither ever prevails. They quite simply and incredibly coexist through the ages. As Catullus wrote:

Odi etamo I hate and love

Quare idfaciam, fortasse requiris How can this be, you may ask.

Nescio sedfieri sentio I do not know, but,

Et excrucior I feel it happen and suffer

Not fission but fusion, a melding that makes humans the complex and never banal beings they are.

Umberto Broccoli Superintendent of Cultural Heritage for Rome

CONTENTS

The Roots of the Myth. The Personification of Eros and Psyche Marina Mattei

The Physical and Psychic Components of the Human Being in the Cultural Tradition of Ancient Egypt 1 3 Francesca Longo

The Sufferings of the Soul, the Divine Couple, the Embrace and the Kiss. The Iconography of Cupid and Psyche 21 Marina Mattei

Literary and Figurative Themes. Cupid and Psyche in Apuleius' fabula, crucible of all the fairy-tales in the world 33 Marina Mattei

Anatomy of the Soul 47 Marco Bussagli

The Tale of Cupid and Psyche 57 Maria Grazia Bernardini

The Master of the Die Series: Thirty-two Prints Illustrating the Tale of Cupid and Psyche 73 Livia Montagnoli

The Frieze by Penn del Vaga in Castel Sanr'Angelo and the Tale of Psyche in the Art of the Renaissance 83 Maria Grazia Bernardini

Romantic Mythical Revival in the Neoclassical Age 97 Sonia Cavicchioli

"An artistic enjoyment of great beauty." Cupid and Psyche by Antonio Canova 107 Mario Guderzo

The Map of Cupid and Psyche in Rome. Instructions for Use 115 Miriam Mirolla

Catalogue 127

Section 1 - The Roots of the Myth, the Personification of Cupid and Psyche, the Sufferings of the Soul, 127 the Divine Couple and Apuleius' Fabuta.

Section 2 - The Tale of Eros and Psyche in the Art of the Renaissance 189

Section 3 - The Scene of the Lamp: the Irresistible Fascination of Mysterious Love 249

Section 4 - The Romantic Mythical Revival in the Neoclassical Age 259

Bibliography 301

The Roots of the Myth. The Personification of Eros and Psyche Marina Mattei

While myths are born and developed more in the world of images, emo-tions and symbols than in the world of conceptual and critical rationality; they are the expression of an arduous investigation of the secret of the origin and the ordering of the universe, of things and mankind. They are fantastic creations that respond to humanity's questions about its origin, about death, violence, differences in gender, absence, the loss of loved ones, and the transcendental realm. Julian Jaynes suggests that the voices of the gods inhabited the right hemisphere of the brain and that a radical change in mental form took place towards the end of the 2nd millennium BC due to the waning of auditory hallucinations as a result of the advent of writing and the acquisition of the epic poems. This period would co-incide with the birth of consciousness.' The intellectual form of the myth needs words, dissemination through primarily oral channels rather than writing, and is born as a probably figurative story. The "personifications" of Eros and Psyche are "a story within a story", the epitome of myth (my-thos means word in Greek), a tale of a very different nature from the epic.

In order to explain the genesis of the gods or the creation and birth of the humanity, the future of this world and the hereafter, and the causes and origin of facts and reality, tales were created that survive through the symbols and images known as archetypes. Myths are therefore a surviving fragment of the mental life of the "infancy" of some human groups, just as dreams are the myths of individuals, fragments of his infancy.

A full understanding of the tale and the myth of Cupid and Psyche will entail a longitudinal analysis capable of providing a summary and compendium of the various meanings of the two symbolic figures.

It is not clear whether the relationship between Eros and Psyche was part of the cultural baggage of the first human groups capable of codifying written and literary images. While Eros and Psyche have their own sepa-rate lives and histories, their fortunes are interwoven from the very outset. The earliest, orally transmitted precedents tended to seek out sacred tradi-tions and retrace a prior world relived through memory in an indefinite time not opposed to historical time, a remote past differing qualitatively from the present. The ceremonies and rites of the early populations made immutable the figures paramount in the collective imagination. In this sense, what we are talking about was prior to the spread of writing and must have had precise points of reference in the acts of the priests (who were also the leaders of the people and the cultured section of many com- 'Jaynes, 1976.

Marina Mattei

2 Flaminia Cruciani's lecture on the the pre-classical myth of Eros and Psyche at the Capitoline Museum (2004) is a source of stimuli and sugestions for this essay.

Pettinato, 1992. Piccaluga, 1974.

munities) in contexts where the human and the divine could meet. And it is precisely these figures that appear to display the capacity for a meet-ing, brief though it may be, between the divine and the human because, despite being historicized and acting within the framework of a plot, they are guided by the mechanism of love, which has the power of connect-ing the bodily and the spiritual parts and ensuring contact with eternity One of the theories that regards the tale of the 2nd century AD as the starting point of narrative fails to take into account the interdependence of writing and artistic representation, and above all the many and multi-form versions of the same story in different geographical areas. Apuleius definitively confirms the unity of the two personifications that have had alternate fortunes through involvement in events and situations with their own independent narrative qualities and profiles. We arrive at a complete and definitive formulation, a composition that takes into account themes that develop and take shape but were already known and addressed in very different places, especially Egypt, the East and the Near East.

The theme of the hatred felt by the goddess Venus for her rival Psyche, guilty of possessing divine beauty, already existed in many texts and was cherished above all in the world of the Near East.' Both the celebrated Curse of Akkacl and the Ugaritic epic of Danel and Aqhat, discovered in the archives of Ugarit and dating from the 13th century BC, tell of a monarch denied the gift of descendants. The hero Aqhat refuses to give a bow to the goddess Anat in exchange of immortality: man belongs to an inferior category and cannot compete with a divinity or aspire to rise above his condition. Psyche also has a male counterpart in the Saga of Gilgamesh, the most renowned and complex narrative of Mesopotamia, probably composed towards the end of the 2nd millennium BC. Tablet 6 in the Sumerian texts tells how the hero rejects the temptations of a goddess.' The theme of the impossibility of a relationship or contact be-tween human and superhuman beings is always present and indicates the absurdity of any attempt to join the two spheres. Human beings are born, grow, fall ill, and die, being subject to a condition of change. All those who love immortals are obliged to forfeit their human condition. They die both actually and symbolically and are born again in altered form. Not even a hero or a monarch is allowed to cross this mysterious bound-ary. 4 These poetic texts of aetiological type served to explain the annual cycle of plant life vegetable. It is by breaking the wing of the bird Allallu that Ishtar causes its song of lamentation, and all of the other mortals loved by the goddess are ultimately turned into animals. The search for an explanation of the cyclical nature of nature prompts the invocation of a superior being - of anthropomorphic type in the earliest civilizations - capable of restoring life after death and making it possible to return from beyond the grave. We thus have a continuous resurfacing of the concealed part, which flies far away and initially coincided with the dark world of the spirits, the underworld, the hereafter. Wrongly regarded by many critics as deriving from the descent of Odysseus into Hades, the

The Roots of the Myth. The Personification ofEros and Psyche

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1. Apulian red-figure lekytos, Taran- to, Museo Archeologico.

journey into the underworld is in fact a recurrent theme of every epic. In the most ancient texts, and especially the Ugaritic, it appears as a search for the lost husband continued all the way to the subterranean kingdom, with the resulting drought, sterility and cold as nature goes into mourn-ing. Archaeological studies have revealed precise contacts between Greece and Near East as early as the period 1450-1200 BC leading to the spread of models throughout the area of the Western Mediterranean traversed by the seafaring peoples along the Levantine coasts from Tyre to Ugarit, reaching Syria, Palestine and Egypt through Cyprus. The tablets of Ugarit attest to trade with Crete and the island's close contacts with Egypt and the Cyclades. The Saga of Gilgamesh could easily have circulated through these writings together with art works due to the movements of Greek mercenaries in the area. Each of these cultures has a founding divinity that manifests itself as creator of the cosmos and preserver of the species and its evolution. Usually this is an ambivalent female figure capable both of inflicting torments on mankind and of bestowing gifts and pleasure.

The figure of Eros takes shape through the long process of abstraction

Marina Mattei

2. Marble group, Eretria, Archaeo- logical Museum.

Blanc, Gury, 1986, pp. 952-1049; Collignon, 1887, pp. 1595-1611; Her-mary, Cassimatis, Vollkommer, pp. 850-942; Waser, 1907, cc. 531V42.

involved in the forging of a myth. Like those mentioned above, this is an ambivalent, primitive, male power but with a female component mani-fested figuratively in the close relationship with the mother Aphrodite. Eros is not one of the gods at first but appears to constitute a link between the terrestrial and celestial worlds. 5 His essence is in fact both male and female, and he participates in the fundamental cycle of maternity and procreation as the being that ensures the unity of the cosmic elements with the innermost elements of mortals. Eros is linked with his mother Aphrodite as from the 7th century BC. As Plato wrote in the Symposium (180d), "There is no Aphrodite without Eros." (Fig. 1) In the later Orphic cosmogonies, the melting pot of spiritual ideas and mysteries deriving

The Roots of the Myth. The Personification ofEros and Psyche

from the superstitions (in the original sense of the term as the ability to place oneself above) of some eastern civilizations, Eros is associated with Phanes or Protogonos, the generating principle of every reality drawn out of Chaos and made to appear. Phanes, "he who appears and causes to ap-pear", has an primarily erotic character by virtue of his ability to generate and to repair separations, reconnecting earth and the heavens and in-stilling the desire that makes union and pleasure possible. Gaea stretches towards Uranus, the heavens. Aphrodite is desire and it can be stated that the characteristics of the mother and the son are absolutely identical at the primordial beginning.'

In the representation of this already highly evolved realm of the im-agination, Eros is the part that comes out of Aphrodite, that performs actions and assists in the attainment of the object desired. The earliest philosophical and literary formulations taken up in the arts already show the "little one" with golden wings.

According to some scholars, the cult in Boeotia was prior to the Aeo-lian migrations and introduced by the Thracian inhabitants of Mount Helicon and the Kithairon range. From forms related to the god, like perceptual fragments of aspects of infancy and creation, an intellectual concept is developed that follows the stories of the major figures in the Greek culture. Hesiod describes Eros in the Theogony (116, 120-2) as a cosmogonic personification (Urgott), the mysterious force that coor-dinates the elements of the world and ensures the perpetuation of life in nature, and praises his grace and beauty. In the same way, he is described in the Orphic cosmogonies as a primordial god and identified with the primal principle born to animate the natural world out of the cosmic egg produced by the union of Night and the Wind (Orph., Frag. 60-101). Antagoras of Rhodes states that he is son of the Winds. The influence of Hesiod and the Orphic cult and the conception of the god as "ruler of the world" is also found in ancient philosophy. Parmenides regards Eros as the first of all the gods and Empedocles as the creator of the entire universe. This brings us to Plato, who offers one of the most brilliant and "incisive" definitions in the Symposium, where Socrates, who claims to have learned the myth from Diotima of Mantinea, says that he is the son Poros, wealth or resources, and Penia, poverty or need (Symp. 202e, 203b). He is the generation of the eternal in beauty because: "Beauty is the horizon from which what is always identical to itself, the One, is generated and drawn out of the very heart of the Many." Plato sees Eros as suffering from a wound the never heals. He is yearning power but does not possess what he desires and longs for it endlessly. He is therefore a being that overcomes the division, the loss of the unity mankind once enjoyed. This idea of the birth of pleasure coinciding with the loss of the golden age and the acquisition of sensuality and corporality is a leitmotif of all the earliest writings and probably the source of the figurative schema of the daimon associated with the figure of Eros, subsequently an essentially malignant demon or a devil that was initially a benevolent celestial entity (an angel,

3. Terracotta group, Veroia, Archaeo-logical Museum.

6 Givone, 2003, pp. 23-46.

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Marina Martei

the bearer of glad tidings, from the Greek verb meaning to announce). The ancient theogonies and philosophical speculations also influenced poetry. Theognis of Megara describes Eros as exercising power over the nature and endowing the soil with fertility (Eleg. B, 1231), and Sophocles as the invincible god whose power extends over all living beings (Antig. 781 fI). The aspect of the divinity of the passions that cause turmoil in the human heart predominates in the works of the lyric poets of the 6th and 5th century BC. The first poetic description of Eros - as a winged figure flying over flowers - is by Alcman. Sappho's god, who descends from the heavens in a purple chiamys or cloak, has wings of gold and the strength to withstand the winds. Again endowed with golden wings, Anacreon's Eros is a cruel and fascinating being who mocks human madness and grief. Euripides describes him as the god of passionate love, against whom it is impossible to fight (Med. 530-1). The same tragic poet is responsible for the "invention" of the bow and arrows that were to become the god's typical attributes in art and literature. He shoots arrows into his victims that make them fall in love, and is thus represented as a chubby infant who probably never leaves his mother's side. Phidias is supposed to be the author of the first work portraying him as a winged child perched on the shoulder of an enthroned Aphrodite. This archetype is the fountainhead of a whole series of representations, echoes of which can be found in ter-racotta and ceramic works with scenes of the goddess in maternal poses feeding and hugging the winged child or proudly displaying him on her shoulder (figs. 2 and 3). He is also portrayed in Hellenistic pottery as a baby. The variety of his characteristics and his status as a personification rather than a divinity lead to a split in his qualities and his actions also in the figurative arts, which present a series of versions of Eros in countless reliefs of a religious but also political and funerary character. The best-known image is the Eros Stringing his Bow attributed to Lysippos and carved for the Sanctuary of Thespies. The faithful copy of this in gleaming marble now in the Capitoline Museum (fig. 4) displays the artist's unique ability to portray the figure in motion and imprints the image of an ana-tomically perfect adolescent god with his hair in ringlets on the viewer's mind. The large wings, probably modelled on those of a bird of prey, suggest the god's ability to "swoop down" from above and establish the original iconography of the child who was to become Psyche's husband.

There is no independently conceived Rome divinity of love. The coun-terpart of the Greek Eros - desire, longing - is Cupido (desire), a feminine word in Latin. It is not clear whether such a radical change in gender stems exclusively from the need for adaptation to designate a foreign di-vinity newly introduced into the pantheon. The noun amor (love) would also appear to have been adapted to this end and, like the verb amare (to love), was never been reserved exclusively for the amorous passion. The first references to the divinity in the Roman interpretation appear in the forms of Cupico on a Faliscan stamnos of the 4th century BC and Cudido on a Praenestine mirror from the first half of the 3"' century BC. It is there-

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The Roots of the Myth. The Personification of Eros and Psyche

4. Cupid Stringing his Bow, Rome, Musei Capitolini, Palazzo Nuovo, Galleria.

fore evident that the form Cupido was prior to Amor, as attested also by the literary sources. Cupid is the son of Venus and as such the brother of Aeneas. As with the Greek god, there are no more than sporadic traces of the name of the father, identified as Mars by Statius, Mercury by Cicero, and Jupiter by Apuleius. His power is frequently emphasized in literary works. Virgil wrote that love conquers all - "Omnia vincitAmor" - and

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