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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Article
Giovanni Antonio Bazzi, Allegories of Love: Emblematic Ardor
Author(s)
Liana De Girolami Cheney
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DOI:10.17265/2328-2177/2017.05.006
Affiliation(s)
SIEALE, University of Coruna, Spain
ABSTRACT
Giovanni Antonio Bazzi (1477-1549), also known as Il Sodoma, was a Milanese painter who developed his mature style in Siena during the early Cinquecento. Between 1505 and 1510, under the tutelage of the Chigi and Petrucci families, Bazzi depicted mythological paintings focusing on the personifications of love both terrestrial and celestial. This paper looks at two such works. In one, there hangs on a sycamore tree a classical cartello with the Latin inscription Celestes, meaning celestial or heavenly, providing the title for the painting Amore Celeste (Celestial Love, Figure 3). A woman, as the personification of love, stands in front of two altars. She ignites one urn with fire and at the same time pours water over another burning fire. In the second work, a tondo with the theme of Terrestrial Love and Celestial Love, Bazzi considered the mischievousness of Venus’ children Eros and Anteros (Figure 12). These paintings are mythological and poetical delights with complex symbolism, here analyzed in terms of their iconography in relation to classical influences and Renaissance Neoplatonic love or furor divinus. The paradoxical quest of Renaissance Neoplatonic love was to fuse pagan love with Christian love. For the humanists of the time (Bembo, Colonna, Poliziano, Ficino and Pico) this moral dilemma was a philosophical puzzle, but for artists (Botticelli, Nicoletto da Modena, Pinturicchio and Bazzi) the theme was a pictorial challenge.
KEYWORDS
Allegories, love, iconography, poetry, Neoplatonism, Sienese patronage, Sodoma
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