Two Paintings by Correggio

Two Paintings by CorreggioAuthor(s): Lauren SothSource: The Art Bulletin, Vol. 46, No. 4 (Dec., 1964), pp. 539-544Published by: College Art AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3048216 .

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NOTES 539

hill behind the women. It is inscribed Gloria in ex- celsis deo, a hymn normally belonging to representations of the birth of Christ and not connected with other scenes.

Unlike the painter of the Utrecht altarpiece, Alt- dorfer integrated symbols and landscape; the untamed countryside behind the representatives of the Old Testament is opposed to the cultivated fields behind the representatives of the New Testament. Thus the whole scene becomes a symbol for the mutation of the world effected by the birth of the Lord.

BIBLIOTHECA HERTZIANA, ROME

TWO PAINTINGS BY CORREGGIO*

LAUREN SOTH

In the spring of 1794, while the Terror raged in Paris, the painter Jacques Louis David went before the National Convention of the French Republic to make an impassioned plea for the preservation of works of art in the state collections. Referring to the painting illustrated in Figure I, David cried: "Vous ne recon- naitrez plus l'Antiope. Les glacis, les demi-teintes, en un mot tout ce qui caracterise particulierement le Cor- rige et le met si fort au-dessus des plus grands peintres, tout a disparu."'

David's remarks indicate that Correggio's painting had become popularly known as a representation of Jupiter and Antiope. This identification, still in com- mon use today, can be traced back only as far as an inventory of 1709/10.2 Prior to the eighteenth century, the painting was always described in such terms as "Venere e Cupido che dorme, con un Satiro," to quote the earliest document mentioning it, a 1627 inventory of the Ducal Gallery at Mantua.'

In the picture itself, we see a female nude and a Cupid asleep in a wood. To the right of the nude lies a quiver with arrows. Between the two figures lie, par- tially covered, an inverted torch and a bow on which the nude rests her left hand. A satyr, apparently having just uncovered the nude, looks on with an expression of exquisite longing.

* To the best of my knowledge, A. E. Popham (Correg- gio's Drawings, London, 1957, p. 89) was the first to suggest a thematic connection between the two paintings discussed in this note. The suggestion was repeated by Cecil Gould in his National Gallery Catalogue: The Sixteenth Century Italian Schools (Excluding the Venetians), London, I962, p. 27. The proposal that the celestial and terrestrial Venuses might be involved was made by Professor Erwin Panofsky in a semi- nar at New York University, Fall 1962. I would like to thank Professors Panofsky and H. W. Janson for their helpful sug- gestions. I am also indebted to Dr. Norman Neuerberg for aid in obtaining illustrations and to Carleton College for funds to purchase photographs.

i. J. L. Jules David, Le peintre Louis David, Paris, 188o, pp. 171-I72.

2. Fernand Engerand (ed.), Inventaire des Tableaux du Roy redige en 70o9 et r7'i par Nicolas Bailly, Paris, 1889, p. 129.

The question is, who is this nude? Is she Venus, as the early sources attest? Or is the more recent critical tradition correct in identifying her as Antiope?

Let us examine the latter hypothesis first. In classical mythology, Antiope, the daughter of Nycteus, was se- duced by Jupiter in the form of a satyr. After her fath- er's death, she became a ward of her uncle Lycus and his wife Dirce. The twin sons she bore to Jupiter, Amphion and Zethus, were left on a mountain to die but were saved by a herdsman.

Antiope was cruelly treated by Dirce and eventually fled, with Dirce in pursuit, to the hut where her sons, now grown up, were living. The youths revenged their mother by tying Dirce by the hair to the horns of a wild bull.

In ancient art, it was the climax of this story, Dirce's punishment, which was usually depicted, as on a wall of the House of the Vettii, Pompeii, or in the Farnese Bull.

There appears to be only one instance in antiquity in which the seduction of Antiope is shown. In a Roman mosaic in Palermo (Fig. 3), two scenes are recogniz- able as Jupiter seducing Leda in the form of a swan and Danae in the form of a golden shower. In keep- ing with the theme of the loves of Jupiter, the third scene in this row must represent the seduction of An- tiope, since it was only on that occasion that the god transformed himself into a satyr to attain his ends,' although the woman here is characterized as a bac- chante.

In this representation, Antiope is definitely not sleeping, as is Correggio's nude. Nor is she described as asleep in any of the ancient literary versions of the myth.5 If Correggio's painting does portray Jupiter and Antiope, it is without precedent in either antique art or literature.

The image of a satyr uncovering a sleeping nude did exist in antiquity, however, in a different context. It was used, to quote Saxl, "to represent the discovery of Ariadne by Bacchus by showing one of the ill-man- nered members of his cortege unveiling her."'

Saxl has further pointed out the dependence of one of the woodcuts of the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili (Fig. 5) on such a classical model.' This woodcut illustrates

3. Published by Carlo d'Arco, Delle arti e degli artefici di Mantova, Mantua, 1857, p. 153. For other references to this painting see Silvia de Vito Battaglia, Correggio Bibliografia, Rome, 1934.

4. J. Overbeck, "Das grosse Mosaik auf der Piazza della Vittoria in Palermo," Berichten der philologisch-historischen Classe der k6nigl. Sachs. Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften, 1873 (pamphlet reprint, Leipzig, 1875). The attributes given to Antiope here are not out of place for her myth "took on a Dionysiac colouring, Antiope being represented as a Maenad and Zeus as a Satyr" (A. B. Cook, Zeus, I, p. 735 with further bibliography).

5. W. H. Roscher, Ausfiihrliches Lexikon der griechischen und r6mischen Mythologie, Leipzig, 1884-1886, I, col. 380. Neither Boccaccio nor the 16th century mythographers, Giraldi, Conti, and Cartari, describe Antiope as being asleep.

6. Fritz Saxl, Lectures, London, 1957, p. 162.

7. Ibid. The illustration appears on fol. eir of the Hypner- otomachia.



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540 THE ART BULLETIN

a sculptured fountain described by the author, Fran- cesco Colonna, in his seventh chapter. It dates from 1499, the year the book was published in Venice, and therefore stands at the head of a long line of similar representations, including Correggio's.8

Like the Antiope, the nude in the woodcut has an ambiguous identification. She is referred to in the text as "una elegante Nympha iterscalpta" but an inscription under the fountain (contained in the text also) implies that the figure is Venus.9 As the author com- pares her to Praxiteles' statue of Venus, this implica- tion may have been intended. It is typical of Colonna's cultural snobbishness that, throughout his text, he rarely names mythological characters but expects his readers to know who they are.

Of the numerous sixteenth century versions of the sleeping nude and satyr image,10 only three can be identified, with varying degrees of certainty, as Jupiter and Antiope:

I. A medallion on a playing board by Hans Kels, dating from I537 and in Vienna (Fig. 7).11 The inscription around the medallion is specific: IOVIS IN FORMA SATIRI CUM ANTIOPA CONCUBI- TUS. Antiope, nude, sits on a bed under a baldacchino while Jupiter approaches from the right.

2. An etching by the monogrammist LD, from a design by Primaticcio (Fig. 4).12 From the presence of an eagle, we may infer that the satyr here is indeed Jupiter in disguise.

3. A painted scene on a Venetian chest in the Staat- liches Museum, Schwerin (Fig. 6). Cupid watches a satyr uncover a sleeping nude lying on a bed outdoors. That these figures are Jupiter and Antiope may be in- ferred from the other scene. It obviously derives from Titian's Diana and Callisto.13 In order to seduce Cal- listo, Jupiter had assumed the form of Diana herself. Here the real Diana is showing expelling the nymph from her train.

If one of the scenes on this chest can be identified as the story of a love of a transformed Jupiter, it is natural to expect its pendant to be another. (As already mentioned, it was only for his rendezvous with Antiope

that the god became a satyr.) Furthermore, according to one ancient tradition, Callisto was also a daughter of Nycteus."1 If it seems natural to match one love of Jupiter with another, it would be even more natural to match incidents involving two sisters.

If we compare these three works with Correggio's so-called Antiope, significant differences are notice- able. Where the authentic Antiopes rest in elaborate beds--even the anonymous artist of the Venetian chest has clumsily dragged one into his landscape-Correg- gio's lies on the bare ground. She is accompanied in sleep by Cupid. This figure does not appear in the Kels or the Primaticcio (unless it be claimed that the wingless putto is Cupid)15 and he plays more of a spectator's role on the chest.

On this comparative basis, there are grounds for denying to Correggio's nude the name of Antiope. Is there evidence to support the earlier identification of Venus?

To answer this question, we must take into account another of Correggio's paintings, the Education of Cupid in the National Gallery, London (Fig. 2). This painting is first mentioned in the same 1627 inventory as the so-called Antiope and presumably was done for the ruling family of Mantua, that is, for Federigo Gon- zaga II or his mother, Isabella d'Este. It is described in the inventory as "un quadro con sopra una Venere et un Mercurio che insegna a leggere a Cupido." In the painting, we have no trouble recognizing Mercury and Cupid; but why the winged nude holding a bow on the left should be identified as Venus is a puzzle that we shall have to return to later.

The source of the Education of Cupid is again to be found in the Hypnerotomachia, not in the illustrations but in a description, in the fifth chapter, of the sculp- tural decoration of a monumental portal. (The portal is illustrated but the spaces for the decoration are blank.) As there will be occasion to refer to parts of this description again, the entire passage is quoted here with the details corresponding to Correggio's painting in italics.16

8. For a list, see A. Pigler, Barockthemen, Budapest, 1956, pp. I33-i34 ("Jupiter als Satyr bei der schlafenden Antiope") and pp. 238-239 ("Venus und Satyr").

9. Fol. d8r. This interpretation is pointed out but rejected by Giovanni Pozzi in M. T. Casella and G. Pozzi, Francesco Colonna: Biografia e opere, Padua, 1959, II, p. 69. I am indebted to Madlyn Kahr for giving me the reference to this book.

io. See note 8. The popularity of this image, originating in and propagated by the Hypnerotomachia, was so great that it was utilized in several different contexts: Jupiter and Antiope, Venus and Satyr, Nymph and Satyr, even for the story of Amymone. As Apollodorus told it (Library 2. i, 4) it was the satyr who was asleep, not Amymone, but in an engraving by Girolamo Mocetto their roles have been reversed in accordance with the Hypnerotomachia woodcut. See Arthur M. Hind, Early Italian Engraving, London, 1948, v, p. 166, vii, pl. 728.

Of all these representations, the most famous is Titian's painting in the Louvre. It offers a parallel to Correggio's picture: the early sources refer to the sleeping nude as Venus; later critics, as Antiope. See Paul Hofer, "Die Pardo-Venus

Tizians," Festschrift Hans R. Hahnloser, Basel, 1961, pp. 34iff.

11. Albert Ilg, "Das Spielbrett von Hans Kels," Jahrbuch der kunsthistorischen sammlungen des Allerhb-chsten Kaiser- hauses, III, 1885, p. 53.

12. J. D. Passavant, Le Peintre-Graveur, Leipzig, x864, vx, p. 19o, No. 71.

13. It must date therefore after 1559 and not ca. 154o as given by Paul Schubring, Cassoni, Leipzig, 1915, p. 418. Schubring already identified the other scene as Jupiter and Antiope but gave no reasons for doing so.

14. Apollodorus (citing Asius) Library 3. 8, 2. 15. Nor are there bow, quiver and arrows, nor torch in

the Antiope scenes on Kels' playing board and the Venetian chest. In the Primaticcio, however, a small bow and a baton- like object (quiver?) lie near the putto. This would seem to indicate that he is Cupid after all, although the absence of wings is difficult to explain. There are also flames near by, but their source is not visible.

16. Fol. c4rff. The same passage in the Elizabethan trans- lation reads:

"First vpon my right hande belowe, I beheld a stilypode



NOTES 541

"Alla dextera primo se repraesenta uno stilypodio, ouero columnipedio sotto le base dille columne . . . summa cu diligentia era inscalpto uno homo di aetate appresso la uirilitate excedente, di rusticitate rubesto, Cum la barba folta di pilatura da durecia irriciati al- mento, per lo excito suo malamente dalla dura pelle.

"Sedeua sopra uno saxo fincto, cum una pelle hir- cina. Laquale cum le posteriore parte excoriata inno- dulo la hauea dantorno sopra gli sui fianchi cincta. Et la parte dil collo cum la pilatura uerso ad se, tra le sua uaricose tibie pendeua. Dinanti allui in medio le tumide Sure era uno Acmone, ouero incude, in uno tovoso frusto di arbore truncato infixo. Sopra dil quale egli intento fabricaua uno paro di candente alette, il malleo leuato tenendo il suo artificio percotendo. Et quiui anan ti allui se staua una nobilissima Matrona, che alle sue delicate spalle erano inserte due ale di plumatile penne. Laquale teniua uno infante suo figliuolo nudo, Sedente sopra cum le clunule la polposa coxa genitricia alquanto la Dea Matre lauata tenentila, Cum il pedi nudato sopra posito ad uno saxo, ritenuto inseme cum ii fedile dil malleante fabro, simulato in lapideo monti- culo. Cum una fornacula in una cauernicula in cui ardeua il carbunculato foco. Et la Matrona hauea le sue trece compositamente riportate sopra dilla sua dila- tata fronte, circuornando la copiosa testa, tanto expressa delicatamente, Che io non so per quale ragione quelle astante statue in lei non sufferon incitate, lequale pari-

mente saritrouauano allopera fabrile. Ancora poscia iui era uno armigero di sembiante fremebondo induto di antiquaria torace aegide, cu il spaue toso capo di Medusa nel pecto, & cu altri nobili exquisiti toracali. Cum il baltheo trasuersale per lamplo pecto, & teniua cu il musculoso brachio una hasta alquanto levato. Et cum Apice cristata galea munito il capo, laltro brachio non apparendo, dalle anteriore figure impedito. Apparea etiam uno giovene & uedeuasi dal pecto insuso, uestito di tenue panno, oltra lo inclinato capo dil dicto fabro.

"La praedicta historia lartifice sopra uno piano di coralicea petra di colore, hauea diligentemente riportata, & introducta nel termine undulato dilla Ara. Ilquale coloramento per la translucida petra ridundaua, sola- mente supposita la colorata ad gli nudi corpi & membri, & nel interuacuo conterminato ambiente alle figure. Quale rosa incarnate appariano. Omni liniamento di questo subcolumnio aequalmente se uedeua nell altro, solo di historia disconueniente.

"Ancora similmente, Nel sinistro subcolumnio. Uno homo nudo di aetate uirile era inscalpto, Nello aspecto benignio, Nelquale esso indicaua summa uelocitate. Se- deua & esso sopra duna quadrata sede, ornata di ueterrima caelatura. Di coturni calciato, dal perna enuerso le sure disuti. Dindi prosiliuano dui petasi singuolo per pede. Oue & quella medesima Matrona cu divo effi- giato nuda. Nel pecto augusto dilla quale dice mamillule

pululauano, immote dilla sua duritudine & dilla sua ro-

or square stone, like an aulter vnder the bases of the columnes

... wherevpon with a woonderfull curiousnes was ingrauen a man neere his myddle-age, of a churlish and swarffie countenance, with an vnshaply beard, thick, and turning into h*s

chyn, by the towghnesse of the hard skinne, and vneasie grow- ing out of the hayre.

"He sat vpon a stone with an aprone of a Goates skinne, the hinder parts compassing his waste, and tyed behynde with a knotte, and the neck part, with the hayrie side next him, hung downe betwixt his legges. Before him in the interstice of these grose and tumorus calfes, there was an anuill fastned vpon a knottie peece of a tree, wherevpon he was fashoning of a

bryganine or habergion of burning metall, houlding vp his Hammer, and as it were striking vpon his worke.

"And there before him was a most noble woman, hauing two fethered wings set vpon hir delicate and tender shoulders, houlding hir sonne an infante naked, which sate with his little hyppes vpon the large and goodly proportioned thighes of the faire goddesse his mother, and playing with hir, as she held him vp, and putting his feete vpon a stone, as it had beene a little hill, with a fornace in a hollow hole, wherin was an extreame whote burning fire.

"This Ladye had hir fayre tresses curiouslie dressed vpon hyr broad and highe forhead, and in like sorte compassing about with abundance, hir head in so rare and delicate a sort, that I marueyled why the Black smithes that were there busie at theyr worke, left not all to looke still vpon so beautifull an object.

"There was also fast by, of like excellent woorkemanship, a knight of fierce countenance, hauing vpon hym an armour of brasse, with the head of Medusa vpon the curate or brest plate, and all the rest exquisitely wrought and beautified, with a bandilier ouerthwart his broad and strong brest, houlding with hys brawny arme a halfe Pike, and raysing vp the poynte thereof, and bearing vpon his head a high crested helmet, the other arme shadowed and not seene by reason of the former figure: There was also a young man in silke clothing, behynde the Smith, whome I could not perceiue but from the brest

vpwarde, ouer the declyning head of the forenamed Smith. Thys rehearsed hystorie, for the better and sweeter pleasing to the eye, the workeman had graced in this sort. The playne grounde that was hollowe and smoothe in euery cutting out of a limme or body, vpon the table of the stylipode, was like vnto red coroll and shyning, which made such a reflection vpon the naked bodyes, and theyr members betwixt them, and compassing them about, that they seemed lyke a Carnation Rose couler.

"Vpon the left side of the doore in the like aulter or stylipode vpon the table thereof, there was ingrauen a yoong man of seemly countenance, wherein appeared great celerity: he sate vpon a square seate adorned with an ancient manner of caruing, hauing vpon his legge a paire of half buskens, open from the calfe of the legge to the ancle, from whence grew out on either ancle a wing, and to whome the aforesaide god- des with a heauenlye shape, her brests touching together and growne out round and firme without shaking, with her large flankes conformable to the rest of hir proportion before mentioned with a sweet countenance offered [her] yoong and tender sonne ready to be taught: the yong man bowing himselfe curteously downe to the childe, who stood before him vppon his pretty little feete, receiuing from his tutor three arrowes, which in such sort were deliuered as one might easelye con- iecture and gather after what manner they were to be vsed: the goddesse his mother holding the empty quiuer and bowe vnbent, and at the feete of this instructor lay his vypered caduce.

"There also I saw a squier or armour-bearer and a woman with a helmet vpon her head carying a trophae or signe of victorie vpon a speare after this manner. An ancient coate- armor hung vp, and vpon the top thereof or creast, a spheare vpon two wings, and betwixt both wings this note or saying, Nihil firmum, Nothing permanent: she was apparelled in a thin garment carried abroad with the wind, and her breasts bare." Hypnerotomachia: The Strife of Loue in a Dreame, London, 15925 facsimile edition by Andrew Lang, London, 189o, pp. 44ff.




tundatio ne. Cum ample fianchi, tanto cum laltra con-

forme expressa, che sigillate mentiuano in medesima

forma, Quella proprio figliolo puello ad questo homo

disciplinabondo offeriua. Ilquale al puerulo gia allato, sopra gli sui petioli ananti allui stante inclinatose. Tre

sagitte accortamente gli monstraua. Per tale acto, che

facilmente si coniecturaua amaestrarlo per quale arte lui le dovesse usando adoperare. Et la diua matre la

pharetra teniua inane & cusi larco disteto. Ad gli pedi di questo maestro, giacea uno uiperato caduceo. Quiui similmente ritrouauase larmigero & una femina galea- ta, laquale sopra di una hasta gestaua uno Trophaeo duna ueterrima toraca appensa, & nella cima una sphae- ra, cum due ale, & tra una & laltra dille ale, inscripto cusi staua, NIHIL FIRMUM, uestita di uolante subu-

la, cum ostensione dal suo pecto sopra.""1 The italicized passages above correspond so closely

to Correggio's painting that there can hardly be any doubt of the relationship between them. The only significant difference is that in the Hypnerotomachia Cupid receives three arrows from his tutor (unnamed but

obviously Mercury) instead of a reading lesson. The unusual subject of Cupid's education seems to

have been popular at the court of Mantua, for a 1542 inventory of Isabella d'Este's collection lists a bronze of Mercury teaching Cupid to read. Hermann has

suggested that a statuette by Antico in Vienna is the one referred to (Fig. Io), although there is no Cupid present today."8 However, Mercury's off-center position and two holes in the portion of the base opposite him indicate that there once was another figure, and the god's pedagogic pose bears out Hermann's conten-

tion.19 What is the significance of the unique role Mercury

plays as teacher and educator in these works? To answer this question, we must take into consideration the mediaeval astrological tradition which still remained viable in the Renaissance and which lies behind numerous visual monuments as late as the Cinquecento, e.g., the ceiling of the Sala della Galatea in the Villa Far-

nesina, Rome.20 The belief that men and their faculties were under

the influence of the planets was adhered to even by the great Neoplatonic philosopher, Marsilio Ficino.

In a letter he declares that "in us, the Moon signifies the continuous movement of mind and body; Mars, speed; Saturn, slowness; Mercury, reason; and Venus, humanity."21

In the Trecento, these beliefs had led in the visual arts to series of representations in which the planetary deities were anthropomorphically presented as manifes- tations of the faculties over which they held sway. Thus we find Mercury, the planet having dominance over

man's rational powers, in the guise of scholar and teacher on the campanile of Florence (Fig. 9), a capi- tal of the Doge's Palace in Venice (Fig. 8), and in Guariento's frescoes in the Eremitani, Padua (Fig. I i), just as we find him in Correggio's picture.

It is known that the Hypnerotomachia relies on mediaeval astrology,22 but the assertion that the same tradition lies behind Correggio's naturalistic painting must seem surprising indeed. Yet in addition to ac-

counting for Mercury's role as teacher it also provides the most plausible explanation for the odd feature of the winged nude traditionally identified as Venus in

Correggio's picture and described as a goddess in the

Hypnerotomachia. A similar winged nude appears in a fifteenth century

drawing of the school of Padua (Fig. I3). The various attributes shown here-Cupid, torch, doves, bull-

definitely identify the figure as Venus. The goddess balances on a globe, and behind her is a large star, like a Christmas tree ornament.

This same star figuration appears behind Venus

(Fig. I2) and other figures in Guariento's planet cycle and obviously serves to identify them as the planetary gods and goddesses. Its function must be the same in the Paduan drawing: the Venus portrayed therein is the planetary Venus and the bull represents her ac-

companying sign of the zodiac, Taurus. At some time in northern Italy, between the Guari-

ento frescoes and the Paduan drawing, wings were added as an attribute of the planetary Venus. This attribute was retained by Correggio in his own representation of the figure.28

To sum up, the Mercury and Venus of Correg- gio's painting, while depicted in the most stunning

x7. Pozzi (op.cit., II, p. 74) has pointed out that Carpaccio used the description of the right-hand scene for an architectural relief in the background of his Return of the Ambassadors to the King of England in the Academy, Venice. See Jan Lauts, Carpaccio, London, 1962, pls. 36, 39. Lauts (op.cit., p. 230) and before him Wilhelm Bode (Florentine Sculptors of the

Renaissance, London, 1908, p. x82 n. x) believed a bronze relief by Bertoldo to be Carpaccio's source.

There are a number of reliefs from the circle of Bertoldo which are unmistakenly related to the Hypnerotomachia in some way (Wilhelm Bode, Bertoldo und Lorenzo dei Medici, Freiburg-im-Breisgau, 1925, illustrations on pp. 42, 44, 46, 47, 79, 8S). I hope to explore this problem in the future.

S8. Hermann Julius Hermann, "Pier Jacopo Alari-Bona- colsi Genannt Antico," Jahrbuch der kunsthistorischen samnm- lungen des Allerh6chsten Kaiserhauses, xxvIII, 19go, pp. 215- 216, 256.

19. The only other contemporary representation of this subject known to me is a painting recently given to the El

Paso, Texas, Museum by the Kress Collection, sometimes attributed to Titian. Illustrated in Francesco Valcanover, Tutta la pittura di Tiziano, Milan, i960, II, pl. 151.

2o. Fritz Saxl, La fede astrologica di Agostino Chigi, Rome, 1934. See also Jean Seznec, The Survival of the Pagan Gods, New York, 1953, ch. II, for further examples and

bibliography. 21. M. Ficino, Opera omnia 1, p. 8o5. Quoted in trans-

lation in Erwin Panofsky, Renaissance and Renascences in Western Art, Copenhagen, 1960, p. i86.

22. Claudius Popelin, Le Songe de Poliphile ou Hypneroto- machie de Frere Francesco Colonna, Paris, 1883, pp. ciii ff.

23. In a partial copy ("probably painted in the school of Carracci") in Dulwich of Correggio's picture, the copyist has added two doves at the feet of Venus to make her identity clearer. Sir Edward Cook, Catalogue of the Pictures of Alleyn's College of God's Gift at Dulwich, London, 1914, p. 26o, No. 468.



3. Roman mosaic, detail, Loves of Jupiter. Palermo, Museo Nazionale (after Overbeck)

4. Monogrammist LD, Etching after Primaticcio, Jupiter and Antiope

6. Venetian chest, Diana and Callisto and Jupiter and Antiope 0AN N r K

--Schwerin, Staatliches Museum

5. Woodcut from the Hypneroto- machia Poliphili. Venice, 1499

;1

7. Hans Kels, Jupiter and Antiope

Detail of playing board. Vienna, Kunst- historisches Museum

A9. Mercury, Campanile of Florence cathedral (photo: Alinari)

Io. Antico, Mercury. Vienna, Kunst- historisches Museum

8. Mercury, Doge's Palace, Venice (photo: Alinari)



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NOTES 543

Cinquecento style, are in reality anthropomorphic symbols of the celestial spheres which bear their names.

With this in mind, let us turn back to the so-called Antiope (Fig. I). When it is viewed together with the Education of Cupid (Fig. 2), a stylistic and thematic relationship becomes apparent. In both pictures, three figures are placed in a densely foliaged wood which serves as a dark backdrop for their glistening bodies. In the London painting, the planetary Venus is seen engaged in an act of noble uplift, providing for the education of her son.

In the Paris picture, a female nude, identified as Venus by the earliest sources and also accompanied by Cupid, is shown in a rather more earthy and sug- gestive situation.

I think we can now recognize these two figures. They are none other than the celestial Venus and the terrestrial or natural Venus, those Neoplatonic symbols of the two kinds of beauty which, in turn, inspire two kinds of love: the one celestial, metaphysical, and rational, that is, comprehended by the mind; the other, earthly and sensual.

Seldom have the twin Venuses been represented as graphically as they have been by Correggio. His celestial Venus, associated with the realm of the mind, is portrayed as helping Cupid to cultivate his own intellect. She calls the viewer's attention to this with her arrest- ing stare and the gesture of her right arm, in a pose derived from Leonardo's Leda.

Her counterpart is stretched out upon the earth with which she is associated. Gazing upon her seductive form is a satyr, a figure consistently used in the Renais- sance to represent irrational lasciviousness. There can be no doubt that the emotion celebrated in this picture is of a decidedly sensual nature, in contrast to the more sublime form of love exemplified in the Educa- tion of Cupid.24

Support for this hypothesis may be adduced from the long description of the portal sculpture in the Hypnero- tomachia, quoted above. The Venus, Mercury, and Cupid in the left-hand relief correspond almost exactly to Correggio's figures in the Education of Cupid, as already mentioned. Venus and Cupid appear also in the

right-hand relief accompanied by Vulcan ("uno homo di aetate appresso la uirilitate excedente," etc., described as working at an anvil) and Mars ("uno armi-

gero di sembiante fremebondo"). With the aid of the genealogy drawn up by Cicero,25

we can determine the relationships of the figures in these two scenes. Cicero's second Venus (in his list of four) is the celestial Venus who was born of the sea. She and Mercury are the parents of the second Cupid.

His third Venus is the terrestrial Venus, the daughter of Jupiter and Dione. Although married to Vulcan, she was the mother by Mars of another Cupid (the third and last in Cicero's list). The Hypnerotomachia portal reliefs depict the stories of the twin Venuses and their

respective families.26 Let us review the connections between the Hypnero-

tomachia and Correggio's two paintings. The artist has taken his celestial Venus and her family straight out of the text. His only change has been to show Mercury giving his son not arrows but a reading lesson, thereby enhancing the intellectual nature of the group.

For his terrestrial Venus, Correggio ignored the text

description of the corresponding portal relief and chose instead an illustration from another chapter of the book

(Fig. 5). He may well have understood the ambiguous sleeping nude to be a Venus, as another artist, Giorgi- one, had done earlier. The latter's Sleeping Venus in Dresden derives directly from this woodcut.27

In summary, there is in support of a Neoplatonic interpretation of Correggio's paintings the external evidence of the early sources, the internal evidence of the paintings themselves, and the analogous evidence of the Hypnerotomachia. There is also the fact that both pictures are first mentioned in 1627 in the same

collection, that of the Gonzagas. It is certainly conceiv- able that they entered this collection as pendants a cen-

tury earlier. One apparent objection to this interpretation is the

fact that the paintings are not the same size, the Edu- cation of Cupid being both shorter and narrower.28 However, old copies show that this picture has been cut down, seemingly on all four sides.29 An engraving made in 1815 of a copy then in the Massias collection, Paris (Fig. I4), gives some idea of the original di- mensions of Correggio's work.

The Venus in the copy has a quiver with arrows behind her feet to go along with the bow she holds. This does not appear in the original, although the goddess is described as holding an empty quiver and bow in the Hypnerotomachia.

According to the National Gallery catalogue, the

corresponding area in the Correggio has definitely been

overpainted.30 It seems likely that Correggio's celestial Venus once had quiver and arrows to go along with her still-visible bow. This establishes another link with her supposed pendant where these items are prominent

Even the torch between the terrestrial Venus and

Cupid fits into this interpretation. In the Middle Ages, the image of Cupid asleep on his torch had been used to symbolize amor carnalis.31 Correggio incorporated

24. For another north Italian allegory of love in which a winged planetary Venus figures prominently, see Eugene B. Cantalupe, "The Anonymous Triumph of Venus in the Louvre: An Early Renaissance Example of Mythological Disguise," ART BULLETIN, XLIV, 1962, pp. 238-242.

25. De natura deorum 3. 59-60. See also Erwin Panof- sky, Studies in Iconology, New York, 1939, pp. I42ff.

26. In a subsequent passage (folio c6v) we learn that an inscription on the portal dedicates it to Venus and Cupid.

27. Fritz Saxl, Lectures, London, 1957, P. 162.

28. The measurements are: Antiope, 1.24 x i.9om; Edu- cation of Cupid, 0.92 x x.55m.

29. Gould, op.cit. 3o. Ibid. "X-ray photographs give no indication of such

features (quiver and arrows) in no. io but equally they fail to furnish conclusive evidence that they never existed."

31. Erwin Panofsky, Renaissance and Renascences in West- ern Art, Copenhagen, 1960, p. 94. Perhaps this is the ex-




this bit of mediaeval imagery into his illustration of a similar Neoplatonic concept.

Like their primary source, the Hypnerotomachia, Correggio's two paintings represent a fusion of a mediaeval astrological tradition with Renaissance Neo- platonism. Because of this abstruse combination, it is hardly surprising that in the course of time the true identity of the twin Venuses should have vanished along with "les glacis et les demi-teintes" mourned by David.

CARLETON COLLEGE

planation of a mysterious relief in the Louvre entitled Le reveil des nymphes and attributed to Pierre Bontemps. The

foreground of this relief is dominated by a sleeping semi- nude nymph; behind her are other nymphs, satyrs, and putti, and beside her is a sleeping putto holding an inverted torch. Paul S. Wingert, "An 'Acole de Jean Goujon' Relief in the Louvre," ART BULLETIN, XIX, 1937, pp. II8ff., fig. I on p. 120. For another interpretation, see Guy de Tervarent, At- tributs et symboles dans l'art profane 1450-1600, Geneva, 1958, cols. 182-183 ("Flambeau Retourne").

MICHELANGELO'S MOSES, DAL DI SOTTO IN S(J*

EARL E. ROSENTHAL

Michelangelo's Moses was universally praised as the crowning achievement of modern sculpture until French critics toward the end of the seventeenth century began to point out serious faults and violations of the rules of art.' They objected to the monstrous shape of the body, the disproportionate limbs, the strained and ambiguous state of the figure, the illogical heaping of drapery over the right knee and the ignoble face- more appropriate for a satyr than a prophet, they said. This description was in great part accepted by later

critics who explained the "faults," first as traits associated with the category of the sublime2 and then with the highly individual manner of a genius and more recently with the style called Mannerism. The only serious challenge to this description was Anton Springer's claim in 1878 that all these faults would disappear if the statue were placed on high and seen from below as Michelangelo originally intended." To illustrate his claim, he published an engraving of the statue as it would appear from below (Fig. I), but he failed to make his point because the spectator's eye level should have been much lower, not on the level of the base but about 9 feet (more than the height of the statue) below its base. A few contemporary scholars repeated his observation,' but most continued to describe the statue as they saw it at floor level in San Pietro in Vin- coli (Fig. 2). This is surprising in view of the discovery a few years later of a drawing that provided new visual evidence of the high place for which the statue was designed. The Berlin drawing (and a better preserved sixteenth century copy, Fig. 3) was im- mediately associated with the contract for the second version of the tomb of Julius II5-the version for which most scholars believe the Moses was carved between 1513 and 151 6.8 On the basis of this drawing, in which the figure of Moses (in a very different attitude) is seen on the right corner of the platform (Fig. 15), the statue was confidently given that place in Burger's,

* This paper was first delivered at the Midway Studios of the University of Chicago in August 1962 and then at the national meeting of the College Art Association in Baltimore in January I963. References indicated only by the author and year are fully listed in the Steinmann-Panofsky Michelangelo Bibliographie, Leipzig, 1927 and Steinmann's supplement Michelangelo im Spiegel seiner Zeit, Leipzig, 1930.

i. A. E. Brinckmann (Michelangelo, von Ruhme seines Genius in ffinf Jahrhunderten, Hamburg, I944, pp. 22-32) discusses the influence of the French classical point of view from Roland Freart de Chambray in I662 to the middle of the 19th century. * 2. Ibid., pp. 38-49. While Brinckmann attributes this change to German critics, notably Wilhelm Tischbein and Goethe in the 1780's, it should be recalled that the development of the idea of the sublime among English critics such as Edmund Burke prepared for the Romantic reevaluation of Michelangelo's art. In fact, as early as 1728, Jonathan Richardson described the artist's work in terms later identified with the sublime.

3. Anton Springer, Raffael und Michelangelo, Leipzig, 1878, p. 241. He depended, of course, on Vasari's and Con- divi's descriptions of the tomb of Julius II. Apparently Springer was not aware of Giovanni Battista Niccolini's challenge to the classicists delivered fifty years earlier in the Florentine Academy. See G. B. Niccolini, Del Sublime e di Michelangelo, Florence, 1825, pp. 23-26. In 1876 Charles Heath Wilson (p. 452) had noted that the statue was intended for a very

different position, but this observation did not prevent him from condemning the proportions.

4. Notably, Dohme (1878), Perkins (1883), Schmarsow (1884), Thiele (1898), and Sortais (1907). Thode (1907) recorded Springer's claim but apparently did not agree with it.

5. Schmarsow (1884, p. 63). Brinckmann (i919, pp. 22- 32) noted differences between the drawing and the two con- tracts of 1513 and, for this reason, he dated it a few years later; but the balance of evidence favors the assumption that the Berlin drawing represents an early stage of the design for the 1513 version of the tomb.

6. Among the dissenters: Thode (io908) and Brinckmann

(I917), who thought that the statue was begun in 1506 and

completed later; K. A. Laux (Michelangelos Juliusmonument, ein Beitrag zur Phiinomenologie des Genies, Berlin, 1943, pp. I49-I52) suggests I519-1525 and Wilhelm Messerer ("Zur Datierung von Michelangelos Moses," Kunstkronik, xv [Oct., 1962], p. 284) argues for a post-1516 date, primarily on stylistic grounds. Perhaps the best evidence is found in Michel- angelo's statement in a letter written in October i542; he re- lates that after the death of Julius II (February 21, I513), he brought all the marble blocks for the tomb to his work- shop at Macello de' Corvi in Rome and that all the figures were carved there. See Milanesi (i875, p. 491). In view of the delay in the arrival of the first marble blocks until Janu- ary 31, I5o6, his preoccupation with arrangements to bring garzoni from Florence and then his abrupt departure from Rome on April 17, i5o6, there was little chance to undertake a major work like the Moses. The years from 1513 to i CI6, on the other hand, are documented as a period of intense and sustained work on the sculpture for the tomb. See J. Pope- Hennessy, Italian High Renaissance and Baroque Sculpture (Introduction to Italian Renaissance Sculpture, pt. III), Green- wich, Conn., 1963, catalogue, p. 23. (I shall refer to this work for most documents because it includes pertinent passages together with English translations.)



Documents

Two Paintings by Correggio