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Sorella sacra e sorella profana: Revisiting with Ovid the Borghese Titian

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Abstract

The elusive subject of Titian’s marriage picture “Sacred and Profane Love” has been read as either narrativepoesia or philosophical allegory (“a document of Neoplatonic humanism” —Panofsky). Leandro Ozzola explained it in 1906 as Venus persuading Helen to elope with Paris. The proof-text he missed is Ovid’sHeroides. Helen’s reply (XVII) protests Paris’s indecent advances (XVI) sanctioned by Venus, but with weakening resolve. Titian’s beautiful “bride” seated on the sarcophagus-fountain would be Ovid’s Helen, leaning pensively on her work-basket. A nude Venus with billowing red cloak (right) searches her face, a smoking lamp at the ready should she resist. The frieze below is prophetic of Paris’ inevitable disgrace and Menelaus' triumph in theIliad. Helen's two choices are represented in the landscapes: husband, offspring, and peaceful home (left), Trojan Paris as hunter and fickle wooer (right).Pictura sapienti.

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References

  1. Rome, Villa Borghese Collection, no. 33 (canvas: 1.18m×2.79m). The catalogue was edited by Maria Grazia Bernardini:Tiziano: Amor Sacro e Amor Profano, Milano, Electa, 1995 (cited hereafter as “Catalogue”); see 35–51 for a new survey of work on the painting. “L'Amor Sacro e Profano’ nella storia della critica.”The Economist (26 September 1998) reflected that when the Scipione collection was sold for a “pittance” to the Italian State a century ago, “[t]he Kaiser Friedrich Museum in Berlin would have paid more for one great work alone, Titian's wonderful early marriage painting for Niccolo Aurelio known as ‘Sacred and Profane Love.’”.

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  2. See Harold E. Wethey,The Paintings of Titian. Complete Edition. Vol. III:The Mythological and Historical Paintings, London: Phaidon, 1975, 175.

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  3. Leandro Ozzola, “Venere e Elena (Amor Sacro e Amor Profano),”L'Arte 9 (1906): 298–302. Ozzola followed a thread of exegesis picked up and then abandoned by Franz Wickhoff, “Giorgiones Bilder zu römischen Heldengedichten,”Jahrbuch der Koeniglich Preussischen Kunstsammlungen 16 (1895): 34–43.

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  11. [Francesco Colonna],Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, Ubi Humana Omnia Nonnisi Somnium Esse Docet. Atque Obiter Plurima Scitu Sane Quam Digna Commemorat, Venezia: Aldus Manutius, 1499; Walter Friedlaender, “La tintura delle rose,”The Art Bulletin 20 (1938): 320–324; Edward Fry, “In Detail: Titian's Sacred and Profane Love,”Portfolio (October/November 1979): 34–39; Augusto Gentili,Da Tiziano a Tiziano, Milano: Feltrini Editore, 1980, 57–65. The termpoesia was used ca. 1501 by Jacopo de' Barbari; see Charles Hope, “Classical Antiquity in Venetian Renaissance Subject Matter,” in: Francis Ames-Lewis, ed.,New Interpretations of Venetian Renaissance Painting, London: Birkbeck College, 1994, 52.

  12. Iliad 3.383–420 (Ozzola [note 3]: 219). But Venus speaks to Helen in her lofty tower in Troy (384). See Wickhoff (note 3); ibid. “Giorgiones Bilder zu römischen Heldengedichten,”Jahrbuch der Koeniglich Preussischen Kunstsammlungen 16 (1895): 41–43 on Venus and Medea.

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  13. I.M. Palmarini, “Amor Sacro e Amor Profano,”Rassegna d'Arte 3 (1903): 40–43.

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  14. “Il nostro quadro rappresenterebbe appunto Venere nel momento che ha finito il suo affascinante colloquio e con occhio anzioso spia quale effetto sul cuore della bella Elena” (Ozzola 300).

  15. Louis Hourticq, “La ‘Fontaine d' amour’ de Titien,”Gazette des Beaux Arts 13 (1917): 288–98.

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  16. Wethey 178. Charles Hope (note 11) “. 52 adds: “What is new here is not the content, but the fact that someone was prepared to spend large sums of money on a beautiful painting that was clearly neither edifying nor religious. The picture reflects new attitudes to art, not to classical antiquity.” The Venus and Helen option surfaces, for instance, in Joseph Fattorusso's guidebook,Wonders of Rome. The Monuments of Antiquity, the Churches, the Palaces, the Treasures of Art, History, Biography, Religion, Literature, Folklore, The Medici Art Series, Florence: Giuseppe Fattorusso, 1957, 251.

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  17. Hope (note 11) “, 54.

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  18. Italian text: Giovanni Boccaccio,Elegia di Madonna Fiammetta, Milano: Rizzoli Editore, 1962; English translation with notes:The Elegy of Lady Fiammetta, introduced by M. Causa-Steindler, edited and translated by M. Causa-Steindler and T. Mauch, Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1990).

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  19. Elegia [It] 34–35;Elegy [E] 16–17.

  20. Text: D.B. Monro and T.W. Allen,Homeri Opera, Tomus I,Iliadis Libros I–XII Continens, ser. Oxford Classical Texts, 3rd Edition, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1920. For Italian printed editions of Homer, seeThe Short-Title Catalogue of Books Printed in Italy, Boston: G. K. Hall, 1970. Some 10 two-volume editions of Homer’s works were published in Venice and in Florence between 1504 and 1547, mostly by the Aldine Press. A translation of theIliad by G. P. Valeriano into Italian appeared in 1502/3 in Venice, and of theOdyssey, by R. Maffeus in 1510 (Rome). See now Robin Sowerby, “Early Humanist Failure with Homer,”International Journal of the Classical Tradition (2 parts) 4.1 (1997/98): 37–63; 4.2 (1997/98): 166–194. Sowerby argues that humanists' response to Homer in the Greek originals was largely negative and conditioned by Vergilian standards. (Homer had to compete as well against the vastmedieval tradition of the Troy story: for a summary see Gilbert Highet,The Classical Tradition, New York and London: Oxford University Press, 1949, 50–56.) The most important and influential late Latin texts (4th–6th centuries) were Dictys Cretensis,Ephemeridos Belli Troiani Libri Sex and Dares Phrygius,De Excidio Troiae. There is also a Greek epyllion by Colluthus of Lycopolis, {ie35-1} (Editio Princeps, Aldine Press, 1521). The main derivative texts of the middle ages were Benoît de Sainte-More,Le roman de Troie (ca. 1160); Guido delle Colonne (1272–1287—in Latin); Raoul Lefèvre,Recueil des hystoires troyennes (1464). See also Egidio Gorra, ed.,Testi inediti di storia trojana preceduti da uno studio sulla leggenda trojana in Italia, Torino: Ermanno Loescher, 1887; Edward S. King, “The Legend of Paris and Helen,”Journal of the Walters Art Gallery 2 (1939): 55–72 (for versions and editions of these romances see King 68, n. 29); Margaret R. Scherer,The Legends of Troy in Art and Literature, London: Phaidon, 1963; Hugo Buchthal,Historia Troiana. Studies in the History of Mediaeval Secular Illustration, London: The Warburg Institute, 1971; Jean-Louis Backès,Le mythe d’Hélène, Paris: Adosa, 1984; Anthony Colantuono,Guido Reni's Abduction of Helen [1627–29, Paris, Louvre]:The Politics and Rhetoric of Painting in 17th-Century Europe, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997, 56–82. For the specific ancient traditions in literature and art, see Lilly Ghali-Kahil,Les enlèvements et le retour d’Hélène dans les textes et les documents figurés, Paris: E. de Boccard, 1955, 2 vols.: I,Texte; II,Planches.

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  21. This is sophistic rhetoric. Helen is now Menelaus' captive, and Hecuba the crown attorney. Helen’s speech has the intended effect, and Menelaus falls once more under her spell. There was a 1503 Aldine edition of 17 tragedies of Euripides, followed in 1534 by the scholia (Venice: Junta). Italian translations ofHecuba andIphigeneia appeared in 1518 (Short-Title Catalogue [note 20]Catalogue of Books Printed in Italy, Boston: G. K. Hall, 1970. 570).

  22. TheShort-Title Catalogue entries for Italian editions of Ovid suggest an overwhelming popularity of theHeroides (493–502). For the authorship of the double-letters of Ovid'sHeroides, see E. J. Kenney, ed.,Ovid’s Heroides XVI–XXI, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996, 20–25.

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  23. Niccolò Aurelio served as Secretary of the Venetian Council of Ten. For the education of Venetian chancellors and the intellectual world of Venice in the Cinquecento, see Piero de Minerbi,“La Tempesta” di Giorgione e “L'Amore Sacro e L’Amore Profano” di Tiziano nello spirito umanista di Venezia, Roma: Bretschneider, 1917, 165–189; and Felix Gilbert, “The last will of a Venetian Grand Chancellor,” in: E.P. Mahoney, ed.,Philosophy and Humanism. Renaissance Essays in Honor of Paul Oskar Kristeller, New York: Columbia University Press, 1976, 502–517 (esp. 507–511). Titian’s own competence in Latin and his debt to Ovid for the subjects of hispoesie have been studied by Carlo Ginsburg in “Tiziano, Ovidio e i codici della figurazione erotica nel ’55,” in:Tiziano e Venezia (note 7)Convegno Internazionale di Studi, Venezia: Ed. N. Pozzi, 1976, 125–135. Ginsburg concurs with that debt, but believes that Titian read Ovid in Italian translations: ”…un pittore strettamente legato alla cultura contemporanea in lingua vulgare: quella di poligrafi” (129; cf. 131); Hope (note 11) 55. For further discussion of Ovid, see Augusto Gentili, “Amore e amorose persone: tra miti ovidiani, allegorie musicali, celebrazioni matrimoniali,”Catalogue (note 1) 82–91. E. Panofsky inProblems in Titian (note 8) view is still pertinent (Problems in Titian, Mostly Iconographic, New York: New York University Press, 1969, 125–126) 139–141 relates Titian's “Nymph and Shepherd” (Vienna) to Ovid's poetic epistles (Heroides 5), but not “Amor Sacro” (139–171). For Ovid's reception by artists and writers of the Renaissance see also Leonard Barkan,The Gods Made Flesh: Metamorphoses and the Pursuit of Paganism, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986; Charles Martindale,Ovid Renewed: Ovidian Influences on Literature and Art from the Middle Ages to the Twentieth Century, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988 (for Titian, 4–5, 159, 161, 163); P. Barolsky, “As in Ovid, so in Renaissance Art,”Renaissance Quarterly 51 (1998): 451–474.

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  24. I am grateful to the Houghton Library at Harvard University for the reproduction of this wood-cut, and for their permission to reproduce it here.

  25. Text: E. J. Kenney (note 22). For a thorough analysis ofHeroides XVI–XVII see now Hans-Joachim Glücklich, “Ovids Briefwechsel zwischen Paris und Helena (Heroides 16und 17),” in: Werner Schubert, ed.,Ovid. Werk und Wirkung. Festschrift für Michael von Albrecht zum 65. Geburtstag, Vol. 2, Studien zur klassischen Philologie 100, 2, Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 1999: 169–194.

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  26. Hermione is depicted grieving at her mother’s departure in Guido Reni's “Abduction of Helen” (Colantuono [note 20] 72, Fig. 29, Plate VII).

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  27. Goffen (1993) 123, (1997) 38, sees in the woman’s costume the traditional dress of a Venetian bride. See also Daretta Davanzo Poli, “L'Abbigliamento femminile veneto nel primo cinquecento,”Catalogue 154–160. Some Renaissance book illustrations show Helen losing her slippers as Paris carries her off, a sign of reluctance, perhaps; see Max Ditmar Henkel,Die Houtsneden van Mansion’s Ovide Moralisé [Colard Mansion. Bruges, 1484], Amsterdam: van Kampen & Zoon, 1922, Part 1, XIV; cf. Part 2, 31 (no. 11). Ancient vase-representations highlight Helen'swalking shoes; e.g. Ghali-Kahil (note 20)Les enlèvements et le retour d'Hélène dans les textes et les documents figurés, Paris: E. de Boccard, 1955, 2 vols.: I,Texte; II,Planches. pl. XI (hydria, New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 19.192.86)—Eros is tying them on for her; and Ghali-Kahil pl. XII (2–3) (lecythus, Berlin 4906; also Ingrid KrauskopfLexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae [LIMC], Vol. 4.2, Zürich and München, 1988, 307, no. 88)—Eros is pointing to his own foot, apparently a sign for Helen to prepare to go.

  28. On Renaissance damascene work from 16th-century Venice and Florence (including gold-on-silver, and silver-on-gold) see M. Jules Labarte,Histoire des arts industriels au moyen âge et à l'époque de la renaissance (2me éd.), tome I, Paris: V.A. Morel & Cie, 1872, 223–224 = Id.,Handbook of the arts of the Middle Ages and Renaissance as applied to the decoration of furniture, arms, jewels, &c., trans. F. Palliser, London: John Murray, 1855, 189–193.

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  29. Text: T.W. Allen, ed.,Homeri Opera, Tomus III,Odysseae Libros I–XII Continens, 2nd Ed., ser. Oxford Classical Texts, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1917.

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  30. See Minerbi note 23) 225–29 for a discussion of thecofanetto. Krauskopf,LIMC (note 27), Vol. 4.2, Zürich and München, 1988, 307, no. 88 Vol. 4.2, 1988, 302–315, gives many examples of Helen’scofanetto from ancient vases and paintings; e.g., 303–314, nos. 71, 86, 96, 127; also 4.1, 526–27, nos. 140, 145, 149, 151; and the “Helen”-cassone (Fig. 8, below, p. 47). The “pyxis” or “jewel box” carried by Clymene in Reni's “Abduction of Helen” is likely intended to represent this same cofanetto (Colantuono [note 20] 69, 149; Fig. 29, Plate VII). Antique vases (both pottery and carved stone) were prized by Renaissance collectors. See Oliver Logan,Culture and Society in Venice 1470–1790, London: Batsford, 1972, 30: he records that Giacomo f. Pietro Giacomo of San Samuele (1536–95) “possessed an important collection of paintings, antique marbles and vases.” For mentions of Etruscan, Greek and Arretine vases in Italian collections: Roberto Weiss,The Renaissance Discovery of Classical Antiquity, Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1969, 185 (Bembo's collection in Padua, 201); Michael Greenhalgh,Donatello and His Sources, New York: Holmes and Meier, 1982, 17–19 (“All these factors surely suggest that ancient Greek vases could take their place alongside such merchandise as worthy of curiosity and, perhaps, imitation,” 19); Patricia Fortini Brown,Venice and Antiquity: The Venetian Sense of the Past, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996, 60. Lucia Lamberti, “Epilogo. Dioniso alla corte di Alfonso D'Este: Un' analisi delle tele di Tiziano per il ‘Camerino d'Alabastro’,” in: Giovanni Casadio,Il vino dell’ anima. Storia del culto di Dioniso a Corinto, Sicione, Trezene, Biblioteca di storia delle religioni 1, Roma: Editrice “il Calamo,” 1999, 181–196. Of special interest for this question of Renaissance familiarity with painted Greek pottery is Carpaccio's painting “The Vision of St. Augustine” (oil on canvas; 144×208 cm; Venice, Scuola di San Giorgio degli Schiavoni, Cat. No. 14; see Jan Lauts,Carpaccio. Paintings and Drawings, London: Phaidon, 1962, pls. 102–105; Greenhalgh, 17–18).

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  31. For a comprehensive study of thepersuasion and abduction of Helen in ancient art and literature, see Ghali-Kahil (note 20).

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  32. Recall Boccaccio’s description of Fiammetta’s Venus. Venus is present in the majority of the examples Krauskopf (note 27)Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae [LIMC] and Ghali-Kahil (note 20)Les enlèvements et le retour d’Hélène dans les textes et les documents figurés, Paris: E. de Boccard, 1955, 2 vols.: I,Texte; II,Planches give for the persuasion of Helen.

  33. Giovanni Boccaccio,Il Filocolo [1340], ed. S. Battaglia Bari: G. Laterza, 1938, 60; cited by Wilfried Stroh,Ovid im Urteil der Nachwelt. Eine Testimoniensammlung, Darmstadt: Wiessenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1969, 30. Cf. the smoking torches of Allecto (fumantes taedae) with which she inflames Turnus' quiescent warriror-rage. Titian’s “Worship of Venus” is based on Philostratus’Imagines 1.6; Philostratus calls the picturekalon ainigma (1.6.302K): “a beautiful riddle”. Titian’s Venus appears to hold a lamp or cup (not in Philostratus) in her right hand. See Goffen (1997) 111–117 for a discussion of this painting.A Latin Dictionary (Lewis and Short, Oxford University Press) lists the uses oflampades andfaces nuptiales for weddings. The torch (fax) is an attribute of Cupid (Cic.Verr. 22.47.115, Tib. 2.1.82, Prop. 3.16.16, Ov.Met. 1.461, 10.312, Apul.Met. 5.23) In the ironic context of “Amor Sacro e Amor Profano” (the frieze in particular) Titian may be thinking also of the dual significance of thefax/taeda at weddings and funerals (e.g., Prop. 4.11.46): Venus will bring about countless deaths in and before Troy. Goffen (1997) 38 sees the lamp as having a classical design.

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  34. AtIliad 3.396 Helen recognizes Venus’ throat, breast and eyes. See Goffen (1993) 127; WetheyThe Paintings of Titian. Complete Edition. Vol.III.:The Mythological and Historical Paintings, London: Phaidon, 1975 179; Panofsky (note 8) view is still pertinent (Problems in Titian, Mostly Iconographic, New York: New York University Press, 1969, 152; Hope (note 7) “Problems of interpretation in Titian’s erotic painting”, in:Tiziano e Venezia: Convegno Internazionale di Studi, Venezia: Ed. N. Pozzi, 1976, 116.

  35. Ozzola Leandro Ozzola, “Venere e Elena (Amor Sacro e Amor Profano),”L'Arte 9 (1906): 300 Eugene B. Cantalupe, “Titian’s Sacred and Profane Love”,Art Bulletin 46 (1964): 218–227, compares the biblical story of the angel who troubles the pool at Bethesda.

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  36. Such a Greekphiale, an acorn-type of probable Sicilian origin, in 22-karat gold, is now in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. The story of a recent attempt to smuggle another out of Italy (24-karat, 9-inch diameter, 115 gold staters, now in the hands of the United States Customs Service in New York) is told by Andrew L. Slayman: “Case of the Golden Phiale”,Archaeology 51. 3 (1998): 36–41.

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  37. Ozzola Leandro Ozzola, “Venere e Elena (Amor Sacro e Amor Profano),”L'Arte 9 (1906): 301 was not able to establish a meaning for Titian’s cup, which has left his own interpretation in limbo: “[R]imane sempre da vedere che cosa rappresenti quel vaso che giace sull' orlo della vasca, proprio sull' asse della bocca di emissione, ossia nel mezzo fra le due donne…” See Krauskopf,LIMC 4.1, s.v. “Helene”, pp. 303–314, nos. 70, 73, 95, 117, 122. A metalcista (British Museum [Walters 640], Ghali-Kahil XCV) shows a Victory and a Helen each holding aphiale (the boss is clearly represented).A composite of those ancient representations of the greeting of Paris would include Helen (seated, elegant, garlanded with her basket), servants, cup, Venus, Cupid, towel and basin, Paris with two hunting spears, Phrygian cap, dog, companion (Aeneas). See also Ghali-Kahil for example. A sculpture of a seated Helen was seen in the studio of Federigo Contarini, Procurator of San Marco, a great collector of ancient art: Fabio Mutinelli,Annali Urbani di Venezia dall' Anno 810 al 12 Maggio 1797, Vol. 2, Venezia: G. B. Merlo, 1841, 436. Logan (note 30),Culture and Society in Venice 1470–1790, London: Batsford, 1972; 30: he 222 states: “What [painters] evidently did see in antique art were lessons in bodily posture, in elegant controposto poses and in the human body in movement.” See also Phyllis Pray Bober and Ruth Rubinstein,Renaissance Artists and Antique Sculpture, London and Oxford: Harvey Miller and Oxford, University Press, 1986 (citing Pliny’s reference to a nude portrait of Helen by Zeuxis [N.H.35.64, 66]). Cf. a red-figure Apulian pelike from the Vatican Museum (inv. 18129)=exhibition catalogue,The Invisible Made Visible: Angels from the Vatican, eds. Allen Dustin, O.P. and Arnold Nesselrath, Alexandria, VA: Art Services International, 1998, no. 13. Eros is represented floating above Helen and Paris, Helen holding her chest, bridal wreath, and phiale.

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  38. Her. XVI 75–80. See also Laurianne Fally-d’Este, “L'Amour Sacre et L'Amour Profane”, in:Tiziano e Venezia: Convegno Internazionale di Studi, Venezia: Ed. N. Pozzi, 1976, 498: “un plat ciselé, vide encore, répond au sarcophage. Il est vacant, mais riche de promesses”.

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  39. Cf. Ozzola Leandro Ozzola, “Venere e Elena (Amor Sacro e Amor Profano),”L'Arte 9 (1906): 301. Goffen (1997) 44 finds no clear solution to the meaning of the relief, but only a “pastiche of ancient motifs … and the bellicose themes of cassone painting and epithalamia”.

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  40. Cf. Ozzola Leandro Ozzola, “Venere e Elena (Amor Sacro e Amor Profano),”L'Arte 9 (1906): 300. (he cites Leone Vichi).

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  41. Ozzola Leandro Ozzola, “Venere e Elena (Amor Sacro e Amor Profano),”L'Arte 9 (1906): 300.

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  42. Menelaus would here be the central component of this landscape of decision for Helen, as her lawful husband: or we might take it that he is now off on his dutiful trip to Crete. Fallay-d'Este (note 38) “, 490, reads the time as sunset: “la tour crénelée à sa massivité ‘héroique’, historique, à sa montée verticale, virile vers le ciel…. l'heure était crépusculaire.” In theIstorietta trojana (Gorra [note 20] 385–386) Menelaus is given a noble castle.

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  43. Goffen (1993, note 7), “: 127. See Philostratus,Imagines 1.6.303K for the iconography of the hare. In the painting he describes, cupids are hunting a hare, which Titian seems to omit (unless the putto with the bow is aiming at an unseen animal).

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  44. A harbour or rocky shore would be a detail to be expected for a representation of the abduction of Helen. See James Hall,Dictionary of Subjects and Symbols in Art, rev. ed., New York: Harper & Row, 1979, 146.

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  45. In Aeschylus'Agamemnon (104–121) two eagles (i.e., Agamemnon and Menelaus) pursue and kill a pregnant hare (Troy). (The first AldineAeschylus did not appear till 1518.)

  46. Paris is frequently, represented with twin spears and a dog:LIMC 4.1, 303–307, nos. 72, 73, 75, 81, 83, 84, 94, 95, 142 etc. Sometimes Aeneas, accompanies him to Sparta.

  47. Cf. Oenone's own words (Ov.Her. 5. 13–20) that Paris had been her lover in the fields and her companion in the hunt.

  48. E.g., Krauskopf, s.v. “Helene,”LIMC 4.1, 525–27, nos. 144, 145, 149, 151; 4.2, 304–317, nos. 76, 81, 85, 96, 132, 135, 140: Ghali-Kahil (passim).

  49. Goffen (1997 [note 7]), “: 42 sees, this protruding drain as phalic.

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  50. The lostPalinode of Stesichorus, Euripides,Helen 31–48,Electra 1280–83. Pausanias, 1.11.1–2 gives the account of Helen and, Achilles together in Elysium. Lucian,Vera Historia 2.8 imagines her dwelling on the Isle of the Blest.

  51. Rona Goffen, “Titian's Sacred and Profane Love: Individuality and Sexuality in a Renaissance marriage picture,”Studies in the History of Art 45 (1993): 130 (and [1997] 36) and Hope (note 11) 117. n. 14 both support “Laura Bagarotto at the Fountain of Venus” as the theme of the painting.

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  52. Humphrey (note 4): 479.

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  53. Creighton E. Gilbert,Carravagio and the Two Cardinals, University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1995, 64, 275; E. Callmann,Apollonio di Giovanni, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1974, 28. For the standard study of cassone-art see Paul Schubring,Cassoni. Truhen und Truhenbilder der italienischen Frührenaissance. ein Beitrag zur Profanmalerei im Quattrocento, 2 vols., Leipzig: Verlag von Karl W. Hiersemann, 1923. See also Ernst Gombrich,Norm and Form. Studies in the Art of the Renaissance, 2nd ed., London and New York: Phaidon, 1971, 11–28. Cristelle L. Baskins,Cassone-Painting, Humanism, and Gender in Early Modern Italy, Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998, touches on theParis and Helen motif only to take issue with Gombrich's stress on the humanist and vernacular sources of cassone-art: “Paris and Helen appear on the lids of painted wedding furniture not in relation to ancient history or literature, but rather to inspire the conception of children… As in Schubring's readings of similar narrative subjects, Gombrich downplays the inauspicious and disruptive circumstances of the couplings of Paris and Helen, rape and adultery, in order to concentrate on the idealized themes of exemplary beauty and fair offspring” (17).

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  54. Gilbert Gilbert Highet,The Classical Tradition, New York and London: Oxford University Press, 1949, 65

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  55. Gilbert Gilbert Highet,The Classical Tradition, New York and London: Oxford University Press, 1949, 65 Schubring Fig. 184 (Uffizi). Schubring supplies a matching bride's picture of a drowsing nude woman by the same artist (“der Paris-Meister”: Victoria and Albert Museum) as his Fig. 185. In Fig. 506 (Frankfurt, Städelsches Museum, Kupferstichkabinett. Ramboux-Mappe VII, Nr. 1205–1210 [after a cassone in the Casa Corbiniani in Gubbio]) a nude Venus, and a nude and garlanded Helen flank an armed Paris.

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  56. Gilbert Gilbert Highet,The Classical Tradition, New York and London: Oxford University Press, 1949, 65

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  57. See Henkel (note 27) “ Part 1, Plate XIV: “De schaking van Helena”; and Zanobi Strozzi’s similar “birthplate” (London, National Gallery no. 591), “The Abduction of Helen by Paris.”

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  58. E.S. King (note 20) “. 57 describes three suchspalliera panels in the Walters Art Gallery in Baltimore, of which the second (in narrative sequence) represents “The Abduction of Helen.”

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  59. Trans. S.P. Bovie,The Satires and Epistles of Horace, (Chicago and London, University of Chicago Press, 1959) 285.

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  60. For the practice ofstraniamento in non-religious Renaissance art (the removing of canonical icons from a picture to create a deliberate riddle) see S. Settis, “Giorgione e i sui committenti,” in: R. Palucchini, ed.,Giorgione e l’umanesimo veneziano, Vol. I, Firenze: Leo S. Olschki, 1981, 390–396.

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  61. Philostratus,Imagines 1.6.302K.

  62. Perhaps the nude figure revealed by x-ray underneath the Cupid (Catalogue 355; Humphrey [note 4]: 279) was originally intended to be Venus, just where one would expect her, between Helen and Paris. Titian’s final design has increased both the force and the ambiguity of the picture.

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  63. Paris had mentioned using his goblet to shield his eyes from the sight of Helen kissing Menelaus (Ov.Her. 225–26), as well as letting it fall from his hands at a glimpse of her bare breasts (249–54). In Boccaccio’sFilocolo (Battaglia [note 33] Bari: G. Laterza, 1938, 333) the queen recounts that Helen had written “io t’amo” to Paris in spilled wine. The loving-cup is an essential erotic image in both Ovid and Titian.

  64. See Goffen’s analysis (1997) 39 of this bride’s glance: “If a wound is inflicted, it is that of reciprocal love.”

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  1. Department of Classics, Queen’s University, K7L 3N6, Kingston, Ontario, Canada

    Ross S. Kilpatrick

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Earlier versions of this paper were read in 1998 to the Classical Association of the Middle West and South, the Classical Association of Canada and the Vergilian Society of America (at Cuma, Italy); and to the Department of Art, Queen’s University (1999). The writer is much indebted for advice and encouragement to colleagues at Queen's University and elsewhere: A. Baudou, G. Casadio, J. Cunnally, P. du Prey, S. Gillett, D.K. Hagel, C. Hoeniger, P. Johnston, V. Manuth, N.K. MacLennan, A.G. McKay, D. McTavish, A.W. Riley and J.D. Stewart, and to the Editor of this journal, Dr. W. Haase.

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Kilpatrick, R.S. Sorella sacra e sorella profana: Revisiting with Ovid the Borghese Titian. Int class trad 6, 30–50 (1999). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02689209

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