VISUAL CULTURE IN EARLY MODERNITY
Series Editor: Allison Levy
A forum for the critical inquiry of the visual arts in the early modern world,
Visual Culture in Early Modernity promotes new models of inquiry and new
narratives of early modern art and its history. We welcome proposals for both
monographs and essay collections which consider the cultural production
and reception of images and objects. The range of topics covered in this
series includes, but is not limited to, painting, sculpture and architecture as
well as material objects, such as domestic furnishings, religious and/or ritual
accessories, costume, scientific/medical apparata, erotica, ephemera and
printed matter. We seek innovative investigations of western and non-western
visual culture produced between 1400 and 1800.
Sex Acts in Early Modern Italy
Practice, Performance, Perversion, Punishment
Edited by Allison Levy
ASHGATE 10
Peaches and figs: bisexual eroticism in the paintings
and burlesque poetry of Bronzino
Will Fisher
The current title of Bronzino's Allegory with Venus and Cupid of 1543 (Figure
10.1) can be traced back at least as far as the National Gallery's first catalog,
which was published shortly after the museum opened in the middle of the
nineteenth century. In the catalog, the title of Bronzino's painting is listed
as 'Venus, Cupid, and Time - an Allegory.' Although this title is slightly
different from the one normally used today, it nevertheless anticipates
the current title insofar as it insists that the painting is 'an Allegory: It
is worth pointing out that the title listed in the catalog was apparently
chosen as a means of downplaying the painting's sensuality. The National
Gallery's first director, Charles Eastlake, who purchased the painting for
the mU$eum in 1860 from a coIlector in Paris, wrote a letter to one of his
colleagues in which he advises him to select a title for the painting that
emphasizes the allegorical elements of the composition. Eastlake points
out that although some people, including the former owner, claim that
the image is 'voluptuous,' he believes that the 'allegory is moral.' He also
insists that the catalog not make any reference to the 'sensual' aspect of
the painting because 'if there is any description which can be quoted and
misrepresented you will have clergymen and others interfering and making
out a bad case.' Despite Eastlake's belief in the 'morality' of the image,
he nonetheless commissioned an artist to paint over Venus's nipple and
tongue, and to paint a myrtle branch over Cupid's bottom; these additions
were not removed until the middle of the twentieth century.'
In 1939, the allegorical reading of Bronzino's painting was further fleshed
out by Erwin Panofsky in Studies in Iconology. To this day, Panofsky's
interpretation remains the starting point for most scholarly analysis.
Panofsky identifies the central couple as Venus and Cupid: Venus at the
compositional center, and Cupid kneeling on the left on a soft pink cushion
('a common symbol of idleness and lechery'), simultaneously treading
on a pair of Venus' doves (associated with lust, or ,,,It''1"..,,,,t'''''1.,
Will Fisher
153
harmony). The putto on the right is Pleasure: he throws a bouquet of pink
rosebuds and wears an anklet of bells. If these figures are all, in Panofsky's
words, 'exquisitely lascivious,' he claims that the image as a whole is
meant to be a moralistic indictment of sensual pleasure. Consequently, the
three central figures are surrounded by others who show love's 'dangers
and tortures.' The' elderly woman madly tearing her hair' on the left side
of the composition is, according to Panofsky, Jealousy or Despair, and the
woman on the right, behind the putto, is Fraud or Deceit. This figure has the
mask-like face of a young girl and wears a sumptuous green dress and pink
cloak, but these voluptuous garments cannot cover her serpent's body/ tail
and her sphinx-like claw. With one hand, she offers a honeycomb, while in
the other she conceals a scorpion's stinger behind her back. Panofsky notes,
moreover, that
the hand attached to her right arm is in reality a left hand, [and that] the hand
attached to the left arm is in reality a right one, so that the figure offers sweetness
with what seems to be her 'good' hand but is really her 'evil one, and hides poison in
what seems to be her 'evil' hand but is really her 'good' one.
10.1
Bronzino, An Allegory with Venus and Cupid, 1543
(© The National Gallery, London)
Thus, '[w]e are presented here with the most sophisticated symbol of
p erverted duplicity ever devised by an artist.' Moreover, the entire scene
is witnessed by the two figures at the top of the composition and the two
masks in the bottom right corner. The female figure in the top left corner
looks on with an expression of horror. Panofsky labels her Night, though
others have said she represents Virtue. The old man is Time, an hourglass
on his right shoulder. Both of these figures are engaged in the ambiguous
activity of revealing/(re)veiling the scene before them. 2
These are the rudiments of the moralized allegorical reading sketched by
Panofsky in 1939. Although this interpretation is still dominant today, there
are some art historians who have argued for a different interpretation of
Bronzino's painting. They contend that the image is 'essentially erotic,' and
that Bronzino incorporates the allegorical elements in a playful or ironic
m anner. 3 Michael Levey, who served as Director of the National Gallery
from 1973 to 1986, argues that it is not an 'allegory of lechery or luxury,'
but a representation of the 'triumph of Venus' or of 'Cupid disarmed by
Venus.'4 As Sydney Freedberg puts it, the painting 'pretends to be a moral
demonstration of which its actual content is the reverse.'s Paul Barolsky
and Andrew Ladis lament the fact that scholars have lost sight of the
painting's pleasures: they decry the fact that interpretation has 'devolved
into a joyless academic parlor game, whose purpose is to crack the code
of the painter's allegorical language'; critics 'attempt to understand
Bronzino's words without hearing his voice. It is a voice whose tone is
ironic and disingenuous.'6 To be fair, Panofsky himself acknowledges
the painting's pleasures. He notes that the image presents the viewers
with a 'licentious scene,' and that it is intended to 'show the pleasures
of love.'7 Still, Panofsky focuses primarily on explaining the allegorical
154
SEX A CTS IN EA RLY M ODE RN ITALY
me anings of the fi gures, and he speaks ab ou t the p ainting's 'sensuality' in
only the vagu est terms. Oddly, many of the critics who contest Panofsky's
m oralizing interpretation follow him in this regard. They often simply call
attention to the p ainting's ' erotic theme: or a t their most explicit, they say
the image h as 'homoerotic aspects: or that it d epicts the ' incestuous love
of Venus and Cupid.'s
Instead of engaging in the on going debate abou tw h ether Bronzino'sAllegory
of Venus and Cupid is ultimately intended to be moralizing or erotic, w hat I
propose to do here is to p rovide a more detailed analysis of its eroticism. In
particular, I will argu e tha t Bron zin o's p ainting offers both Venu s and Cupid
to the view er as sexual objects, and that its ' sensu ality ' might therefore be
d escribed as 'bisexual.'9Venus' nude body is at the compositional center and
is the obvious focus of attention, but Cupid is also explicitly eroticized . In
fact, Bronzino apparently altered his initial composition in order to increase
Cupid's sensual allure . Originally, Cu p id's body w as n ot on display; it was
hidden behind Venus's body. It was as if Cupid were seated b ehind Venus,
and the part of his body that is now his buttocks w as form erly h is knees.lO
Bronzino's new arrangement markedly intensified Cupid's sexual appeal.
This is mostly a result of Cupid's provocative contra p posto pose, w hich
focuses the viewer 's attention on his protruding posterior. In addition,
Bronzino added the gilded quiver hanging off of Cupid's back: this object
simulates anal penetration in a none-too-subtle fa shion. Finally, Bronzino
added the flowery herb that grows up toward Cupid 's bottom from the
bottom left-hand corner of the composition : this plant h as b een identified as
verbena officinalis or herba Veneris (with obvious erotic connotations)Y
If Bronzino's Allegory, thus, offers both Venus and Cupid to the viewer as
sexual objects, it is w orth pointing out that Bronzino later produced another
portrait of Venus and Cupid in which this 'bisexual' eroticism was even
more explicit. Venus and Cupid and a Satyr was completed sometime around
1553-54 and is now on display in one of the galleries of the Palazzo Colonna
in Rome (Figure 10.2). In this painting, the nude bodies of Venus an d Cupid
are again portrayed as potential sources of pleasure for the viewer, but this
time there are no allegorical elements included in the composition, so the
erotic nature of the image is more evident. Moreover, Venus and Cupid
both lie in suggestive positions, and they lie parallel to one another as if to
indicate that they are two parallel roads to pleasure. 12 Crucially, this version
of the painting also includes a satyr who stands in for the voyeuristic viewer
and who gazes lustfully at the central pair. The satyr's lechery is clearly
signaled by his wagging tongue, his leering eyes, and his grasping hand, but
significantly, it is impossible to tell who the satyr is lookin b at: his gaze cuts
diagonally across both figures from Cupid's bottom to Venus' lap, and then,
appropriately enough, to the tip of the arrow that Venus holds. 13
The similarities between Bronzino's two Venus and Cupid paintings are
readily apparent. Like Venus and Cupid and a Satyr, the Allegory is organized
around a central diagonal axis. In fact, the composition features two of
Will Fisher
155
them. The first runs from Venus' foot (or perhaps from the masks next to it)
up through the apple, her lap and eventually to Cupid's buttocks. The other
runs from the bouquet of flowers that Pleasure is holding, down his arm to
Venus' left breast and again to Cupid's buttocks (another slightly different
version would run from Time's face, through the kissing faces of Venus and
Cupid, to Venus' right breast and to Cupid's buttocks). These diagonal axes
w ork, like the satyr's gaze, to signal the erotic interchangeability of the two
figures.
While the Palazzo Colonna version of Venu s and Cupid includes a
straightforward representation of the voyeuristic spectator in the form of
the satyr, the Allegory is much more circumspect about this. The only figure
w ho looks directly at the central couple is Pleasure . There are, however, two
other figures that are positioned as voyeurs in the painting (that is, at the
end of each of the major compositional axes). First, Time occupies a place
similar to the one occupied by the Satyr in the other painting. He is even
hidden behind a curtain, which is, of course, a typical position for a voyeur.
But Time is not looking at Venus and Cupid; instead, his glance is averted,
and he looks at the figure of Night/Virtue. This might be understood as one
of the painting's moralizing gestures, though it could also be understood
to indicate that he is no longer capable of engaging in fleshly delights (his
grey beard and balding head work to further reinforce this perception). The
other voyeuristic 'spectator' in the Allegory is the male mask in the bottom
right-hand corner of the composition. While this mask seems to be looking
directly at Venus and Cupid (unlike the female mask, whose gaze is averted),
it nevertheless problematizes the act of looking since it has no eyes with
which to seeY
10.2 Bronzino,
Ven us and Cupid
and a Satyr,
1553-54 (Colonna
Gallery, Rome)
156
Will Fisher 157
SEX ACTS IN EARLY MODERN ITALY
So if the London Allegory is ultimately quite coy about the voyeuristic
pleasures that it offers, the crucial point for my purposes is that Bronzino
makes a point in both of his Venus and Cupid paintings of incorporating an
eroticized male figure and an eroticized female figure into the same frame.
Some might argue that these images are nevertheless not 'bisexual' because
each of these figures is meant to appeal to a different viewer - Venus to
heterosexual (male) viewers, and Cupid to homosexual (male) viewers,15
While the paintings do not preclude this type of viewing, I have argued that
it is more likely that Bronzino intended both eroticized figures to appeal to a
single viewer, and that the paintings, therefore, suggest an erotic continuity
between the desire for women and the desire for boys. This reading is
substantiated by the Palazzo Colonna version since it includes only one
voyeur/viewer
in it, and his gaze slides across the bodies of both
Venus and
If we want to better understand the eroticism of Bronzino's paintings, we
need to put it in its proper historical context. In this case, I believe that an
important part of that context is the debates from the period about whether
women or boys provide more sexual pleasure. This type of' debate' appears
to have been popular in early modern Italy. The genre can, however, be
traced back to classical antiquity.16 The best-known classical example is
Plutarch's Eroticus (sometimes also called the Erotikon), which takes the
form of a dialogue between two male characters: one is an advocate of the
love of women, and the other an advocate of the love of boys. A second
well-known classical example is the Erotes, which was previously attributed
to Lucian, but is now thought to have been written by an imitator sometime
in the fourth century CE. This text is actually a romance-like narrative, but
at one point in the middle of the story, two of the characters Charicles and
Callicratidas - engage in a debate where they discuss the pleasures to be had
with women and boysP
This type of debate continued to be popular throughout the Middle Ages
and into the Renaissance. 18 The most extensive early modern example is
found in Antonio Rocco's L'Alcibiade fancuillo a scola (c. 1652). Rocco was a
friar who taught philosophy at a convent in Venice, and his book is structured
as a pseudo-philosophical dialogue between Alcibiades and his teacher
Filotimo. At one point, the pupil asks his teacher, 'tell me, I pray you, whether
one receives greater pleasure with boys than with women, and if so why?'
Filotimo's response to this question runs on for several pages. He begins
out some of the reasons why 'many ... say that the greatest delights are
to be taken with women,' but Filotimo does not spend much time discussing
these delights. He spends much more time extolling the pleasures to be had
with boys. He rhapsodizes, for instance, about 'these round cushions, fresh
and velvet-smooth, which frolic against your thigh ... [and] heighten your
pleasure.' 'Isn't that alone,' he asks, 'worth all the pleasure, real as well as
imaginary, that one can taste with women?'19 Thus, Rocco's L'Alcibiade is
somewhat different from the earlier texts in this genre, in .that it is not
balanced or dialogic in its format. Nevertheless, it clearly situates itself within
this tradition, and the rhetoric and arguments that Filotimo uses are often
drawn directly from earlier texts.
Rocco's L'Alcibiade also includes several odes in an appendix to the text
that again compare women and boys. One of them, for instance, begins with
the question:
dir se
sia
Fratter sotto vestura 0 ne calzoni?
poets, tell us true; Which is the finer thing to do; Under a frock to take your chance. Or in some pretty schoolboy's pants?J2° Later, the speaker insists that although some of the 'cheating poets' will
undoubtedly say that they prefer women, they are lying and he himself does
not hesitate to admit that he prefers boys:
Ben io 10 so, ch'alcun de'miei coglioni
Di potta rna; provaron Ii suoi
Ma sol del elliism
as for me, I am not able
a lie, nor tell a fable.
No cunt my balls will ever see;
alovelv bum
the speaker's attitude toward the' debate' is ultimately quite similar
to that of Filotimo. He poses a question about whether the poets get more
pleasure 'under a frock' or in a 'schoolboy's pants,' and, therefore, it appears
as if there are two possible routes to pleasure and two possible answers to this
question, but by the end of the poem, it becomes evident that there is really
only one 'honest' answer.
If Rocco's L'Alcibiade is, therefore, less dialogic than the earlier texts in
this genre, there are other sources from the Renaissance that are more in
line with the classical tradition.
as an example, the dueling poems
by Francesco Berni and Francesco Molza of Modena that were included
in sixteenth-century collections of Italian burlesque verse. These poems
ostensibly compare the pleasures to be gotten from eating different
of fruit, but they are in fact thinly veiled comparisons of different
erotic pleasure. First, in 1522, Berni wrote a 'Capitola delle pesche' (Encomium
to peaches) in which he celebrates peaches, which were associated with
boys' bottoms. Then, in response, Molza wrote his own' Capitolo de fichi'
(Encomium to figs) in praise of the vagina, which I will discuss below. Still
later, Annibale Caro produced an elaborate mock-commentary on Molza's
poem.
158
SEX ACTS IN EARLY MODERN ITALY
Berni's 'Capitola delle Pesche' begins with an acknowledgement that there
are many different types of fruits and that they are all pleasing:
Tutte Ie frutte, in tutte Ie stagioni,
come dire mete ...
pere, 5usine, ci[l]iegie e poporri,
son /Jone, a chi Ie piacen, secche
rna, sTavessi ad esser giudice io,
Ie non '/anno da Jar[e] nulla con la pesche.
the fruits, in all the seasons,
such as apples ...
pears, plums, cherries and melons,
Are good for those that like them, dried and fresh;
but if I were to be a judge,
fall short of peaches.]"
The fruits that Berni mentions here were all associated with eroticized
body parts: apples with buttocks, pears with penises, plums with vaginas,
cherries with the anus and melons with the bottom. Moreover, the line
explaining that these fruits could be enjoyed either 'dry or fresh' was
meant to be a playful allusion to different types of intercourse: anal
(dry) and vaginal (fresh/wet).23 But if Berni's poem, thus, begins with an
acknowledgement of the variety of erotic 'tastes' that people had during
this period, the speaker eventually announces his own decided preference
for peaches. He contends, moreover, that other people are coming to
appreciate this fruit more and more. As he puts it,
Le pesche eran giii ci/Jo da prelali,
rna, percile ad ognun piace i /Juon /Jocconi,
voglion oggi Ie pesche insin
che Janno l'astinenzie e l'orazioni.
were for a long time food for prelates,
but since everyone likes a good meal,
even friars, who fast and pray,
crave for peaches today.]
Berni's 'Capitola delle Pesche' might be compared to Rocco's L'Alcibiade since
the speaker really only focuses on his 'taste' for peaches, but in this case,
his poem's singular vision was eventually balanced by another burlesque
poem - Francesco Molza's 'Capitola de fichi,' which argues that figs are
'preferable to peaches and apples [the other fruit that was compared
with boys buttocks],' and that' men ... cannot live without the precious
fig.'24
If these poems indicate that debating the relative merits of sex with
women and boys was still a popular pastime in early modern Italy, the
crucial thing to note for my purposes is that Bronzino was almost certainly
familiar with these mock-debates. His own ooems aooeared alongside
Will fisher 159
Molza's 'Capitola de fichi' in Jl secondo libra dell'opere burlesche, a collection of
burlesque poetry published in Florence in 1555; this volume was reprinted
again in 1724 in London and then again in 1771 in Rome.2S And while
Bronzino's verses do not seem to engage directly in these debates (like
Berni's and Molza's do), they are, nevertheless, written in the same playful
erotic style, and they certainly demonstrate a familiarity with these debates.
His' Capitola primo in lode della galea/ for instance, describes life in the
galley of a ship, where men were often condemned to row as punishment
for committing a crime. In the poem, Bronzino portrays the galley as a
'carefree' and intensely homoerotic place, as Deborah Parker points out
in her study of Bronzino's poetry.26 Indeed, Bronzino himself describes
how 'there is little space between one person and another, and everyone
is shaven and tanned, so that they look like mirrors.'27 Interestingly, the
shaving abolishes the traditional distinctions between bearded men and
beardless boys, making all of the men smooth like boys. Bronzino playfully
adds that in this environment, 'boiled and roasted meats are hardly ever
mixed: This joke is based on a similar alimentary double entendre to the
one about' dried and fresh' fruit in Berni's poem: vaginal sex was likened
to boiled meat (since it was wet) and anal sex to roasted meat (since it
was dry). In this instance, Bronzino does not compare the two types of
meat; instead, he wittily insists that the two types of meat are not mixed
in this particular environment. This is not surprising given that there
were no women on board the ship. Bronzino's quip
of course, plays
with the fact that the 'galley' was the name for the kitchen space on a
ship.
If Bronzino's poetry suggests that he was familiar with the debates
comparing women and boys as vehicles of sexual pleasure, I believe that
his Venus and Cupid paintings might ultimately be seen as visual analogs for
these debates. With Venus and Cupid and a Satyr, for instance, the question
the painting playfully poses is if the Satyr - and by extension the viewer
- finds Venus or Cupid more attractive. The Satyr raises his right hand as
if he were going to grab one of these figures, but which one is it? Cupid's
plump buttocks and Venus's spherical breast both beckon: they lie along
another diagonal axis that connects them with the Satyr's hand and
runs more or less parallel to the line of the Satyr's gaze.
Bronzino's Venus and Cupid paintings were not the only early modem
representations that incorporated this type of 'bisexual' imagery. The
engraving that accompanied Aretino's 'Sonnet 14' from the [ modi (Figure
presents viewers with a similar scenario - an eroticized male figure
side by side with an eroticized female figure. 28 Cupid's buttocks and those
of the female figure lie adjacent to one another, and although the text of
the sonnet does not explicitly eroticize Cupid or his posterior, it does
include a more general encomium to the ass as a source of pleasure that
may help to explain the prominence of this particular corporeal feature in
the engraving:
160
0, cui di latte, e d'ostro
Se non ch'io son per mirarti di vena,
Non mi starebbe il cazzo dritto a pena
[Oh ass of milk-white and royal purple,
if I weren't looking at you with such pleasure,
my cock wouldn't hold up worth a measure.]
In the end, it is not completely clear which ass is
being venerated here. Interestingly, despite the
speaker's ardent praise of the ass in the sonnet,
he nevertheless stipulates his preferences, to
enter by way of the pussy and not the rear:
'Ch'io va fatter in potta, e non in culo / Costei,
che mi to'l cazzo, e me ne rido: 29 If the speaker
insists that he prefers vaginal penetration in
flltlUtlodi C.pI4o
this particular instance, his formulation clearly
L4 cmtol4,jirrrWibif- 0
acknowledges the possibility of a choice of
C""'io fI6 fotttr in pott4,t lion in ,",0
orifices. It is worth saying that there are many
Coftti,cbt mi to'l c4t~oJe mc "erMo;
other poems in the I modi that also playfully
Entklw,,,u,tMlcg""'H iii
compare anal and vaginal intercourse. In fact,
E./UJfttmcio!lo. t 11011 f'd4UtO,
'Sonnet 7' thematizes this type of comparison.
Cbtcillfomb6t1jUrc"Ul*hor41m."'~
It begins with the female figure asking her
E pm, tlUlfO CG'/tIIl rrlfio t gridu;
male partner, "'0 'I metterete voi? ... Dietro, a
E {uolBc.tricepmt.
dinanzi?/II (Where will you put it ... behind or
PtrdoMr "" dollctt.ptrcb"io w.o/Iro
de {ottmJo. dlSfoggio JIidilpcdo.
in front?), and as the poem continues, the man
E fo_cb'io ..
Irtlcllhwllro
goes on to explicitly discuss the pleasures of
StWo fOfptfO ,,,l'uno C*nfdltro &r«M
the 'potta' and the' cu/: 30
14M lIOII jilin66t II fMtollO/lro,
If the eroticism of Bronzina's Venus and
o,fldiU14ttt.c~oJro
Cupid paintings resonates powerfully with
It
".,mirUli di '"""
the engraving from Aretina's I modi and with
~OII.~ Ilf~=tocfri#o'tm4J
the other early modern sources where the
relative merits of women and boys as objects of pleasure were debated,
10.3 Illustration
I want to conclude by pointing out that the eroticism of these sources
for Aretino's
'Sonnet 14'
does not fit easily within modern sexual taxonomies. The examples from
from I modi
Aretino's I modi illustrate this point quite welL Although the engraving for
'Sonnet 14' seems to resonate with the debates about women and boys as
objects of pleasure, in the poems, this debate is transformed into a debate
about which female orifice provides more pleasure: that is to say, the
joys of the 'potta' as opposed to the joys of the 'cui: While this debate is
clearly related to the debate about women and boys as objects of pleasure,
our modern taxonomies of sexual orientation would encourage us to
distinguish sharply between them, given that one is 'heterosexual' and the
other 'bisexual.'
In closing, I want to further emphasize the way in which the eroticism of
Bronzino's Venus and Cupid paintings troubles our modem sexual categories.
011 iirtir
"
N
Ji4o,
l"dO
fpecdco
fl
_""io 'OIl
Will Fisher 161
SEX ACTS IN EARLY MODERN ITALY
While I have described this eroticism as 'bisexual' throughout this essay,
it is worth noting that there are at least two important reasons why this
designation is not appropriate. First, the male figures in both of Bronzino's
paintings are extremely young and, like the figures in the debates, would
undoubtedly be described as 'boys.' Thus, the homoeroticism offered in
these images appears to be structured around an age/power hierarchy,
and it, therefore, differs quite radically from the egalitarian form of
homosexuality that is currently idealized in Western culture. Second, when
we use the term 'bisexual' today, we use it to refer equally to both men and
women. It is not clear, however, that this is true of the desire evoked by
Bronzino's paintings. In fact, it would at first glance appear as if Bronzino
imagines the voyeuristic viewer of his paintings to be a man, at least insofar
as the satyr in Venus and Cupid and a Satyr is clearly coded as masculine. The
question, then, is if this is just random or if it is more significant? Would
Bronzino (or for that matter other people from the period) have imagined
that a woman could have occupied the position of the 'bisexual' voyeur
even though he does not include that possibility in the painting itself? It
is worth saying that there are two female voyeur figures in the London
Allegory. First, there is Night/Virtue, who looks at the central couple with
an expression of surprise or horror. And second, there is the female mask
at the bottom right-hand corner of the image who may at first seem to be
looking at Venus and Cupid, but upon closer inspection, it turns out that
her' gaze' is averted from the scene. Thus, neither of these female figures
actually seems to get pleasure from what she is viewing. So the question
remains: were 'bisexual' pleasures thought to appeal to women as well
as men? And if so, did women take the same pleasure in these images as
men did? For now, these questions must remain unanswered, but I hope
that asking them will highlight the difficulties that arise when we try and
understand the eroticism of Bronzino's paintings, and how it relates to our
own desires.
Notes
1 Both Eastlake's comments and the 'restorations' are analyzed in a fascinating article by Jaynie Anderson, 'A "Most Improper Picture:" Transformations of Bronzino's Erotic Allegory,' Apollo 139 (1994): 19-28. 2 Erwin Panofsky, Studies in lconology: Humanistic Themes in the Art of the Renaissance (New York: Harper & Row, 1972), pp. vii and 87-90. 3 Janet Cox-Rearick points out that the moralizing interpretation is still dominant:
as she puts it, '[aJlI interpretations of the painting, regardless of differences in
the identification of the figures, [tend toJ emphasize ... its "series of moralizing
messages.''' See The Collections ofFranr,:ois I: Royal Treasures (New York: Harry N.
Abrams, 1996), p. 231. On the other hand, Sydney J. Freedberg maintains that
the painting has an 'essentially erotic content.' See Painting in Italy, 1500-1600
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993), 1). 436.
162
Will Fisher 163
SEX ACTS IN EARLY MODERN ITALY
4
Michael Levey, 'Sacred and Profane Significance in Two Paintings by Bronzino:
in Studies in Renaissance and Baroque Art Presented to Anthony Blunt on His 60th
(New York: Phaidon, 1967), pp. 3().-3, esp. pp. 32 and 33.
5
is 'so knowing as to be
Freedberg also claims that the painting's
perverse, and so refined as to be at once explicit and oblique' See Freedberg,
Painting in Italy, p. 435.
6
Paul Barolsky and Andrew Ladis, 'The "Pleasurable Deceits" of Bronzino's
So-Called London Allel.'on/: Source 10/3 (1991): 33-6, esp. 33.
7
Panofskv. Studies in [conolol.'l/, pp. vii, 87.
8 Iris Cheney, '8ronzino's London
Source 6/2 (1987): 12-18, esp. 17.
"Allegory": New Evidence for the Artist's Revisions: The
141/1151 (February 1999): 89-99, esp. 98: While scholars regularly comment on
the homoeroticism of Bronzino's paintings, they tend to tie this to the 'tastes
of his principle patron, Cosimo I, who almost certainly commissioned the
Allegory: This is useful, but it does tend to limit the discussion of the painting's
homoeroticism by insisting on a
rather than a public interpretation.
Indeed, it could be argued that 'outing' an artist (or, in this case, his
works to contain the more radical
of the homoeroticism in the
artworks
localizing it in a specific individual as opposed to Ilnclpr!';t<'lndi
it as a
phenomenon
.
provoking discussion of the homoeroticism of the image that resists this
tendency, see Robert W. Gaston, 'Love's Sweet Poison: A New
of
8ronzino's London Allegory: 1 Tatti Review 4 (1991): 249-88, esp. 287.
13 See William Keach's illuminating discussion of the possible significance of the arrow in the painting in 'Cupid Disarmed, or Venus Wounded? An Ovidian Source for Michelangelo and 8ronzino: Journal of the Warburg and COl/rtauld Institutes 41 (1978): 327-31, esp. 329. Janet Cox-Rearick maintains that the satyr the observers own directs 'his gaze toward the young Cupid, thus
vis-a.-vis the nude Venus: Sec her discussion of 'Venus,
Cupid, and a Satyr' in Venus and Love: Michelangelo and the New ideal
edited by Franca Falletti and Jonathan Katz Nelson (Florence: Giunti, 2002):
pp. 209-10, esp. p. 210.
14 Much more could be said about the painting's evocation and denial of
voyeuristic pleasure. The other obvious voyeuristic viewer of the amorous scene
is Night/Virtue in the upper left-hand corner of the composition. Her evident
distress about the scene she is witnessing might be take to suggest that this is
the 'proper' response for the (female?) viewer, but it is also possible that viewers
were supposed to dis-identify with her indignation, or even to take Dleasure in
her shock.
15 This assumes a male audience. While this is to some extent justified by the
fact that all of the voyeur figures in Bronzino's paintings are male satyr, the
mask, Time, even Pleasure - it is, nevertheless, important to resist assuming
that women and boys were only thought to be appealing to men. I return to this
in my conclusion.
16
9 This chapter is not intended to be an exhaustive analysis of the painting's
eroticism. There are a number of fascinating elements of its sensuality that I
do not discuss at all here, such as the incest theme, and the dynamics of erotic
and passivity. For a brief discussion of the 'incestuous overtones' of
see Richard McCabe's Incest, Drama alld Nature's Law 1550-1700
Press, 1993) and
Loving: Swine, Pets, and Flowers in Venus
Adonis:
Modern Culture: An Electronic Semillar 3 (2003): paragraphs 27-8.
10 The original composition was revealed using x-radiographic techniques. See
Plazzotta and Keith, 'Bronzino's "Allegory,'" p. 94.
Plazzotta and Keith, 'Bronzino's "Allegory,'" p. 96, credit Jennifer Preston with
identified the plant for them. The pink jewel that is located in the middle
back is also suggestive of the pleasures that lie below. Indeed, its
'osebuds that Pleasure holds in his hands,
12 This is not to imply that women and boys were not distinguished from
one another as sexual objects, or that there was no culturally recognized
distinction between heteroeroticism and homoeroticism. In my opinion,
scholars have sometimes been too quick to assume that the gender of the
partners was completely insignificant, as Lisa Jardine does when she argues
that in early modern English culture eroticism 'is not gender-specific .. .
but ... lin
in the sex of the possibly "submissive"
of that very submissiveness: See Lisa
'Twins and
and Sexual
I focus here from ancient Greece,
.
continued to be of interest to Roman
readers into the second century CE at least: See Roman Homosexuality: ItiI'oll.IQ-l/?S
ofMaf.Clllinity ill Classical Antiquity (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999),
p.26.
17 The Erotes is analyzed in some length by David Halperin in How to Do the
History of Homosexuality (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002),
pp.89-103.
18
Social Tolerallce, and
Press, 1980), pp. 255~67.
19 Antonio Rocco, Aldbiades the Schoolboy, trans. J.e. Rawnsley (Amsterdam:
Entimos Press, 2000), pp. 61 and 63-4. It is worth saying that the descriptions
in Rocco's text about the pleasures of sex with boys resonate powerfully with
Bronzino's paintings, most notably Filotimo's celebration of the boys' 'velvet­
smooth cushions' and his emphasis, on p. 63, on the 'pretty little ... channel that
conducts you to the flowery garden of hovhoocl
20 This is a relatively 'free' translation. See Antonio Rocco,
scuola, ed. Laura Coci (Rome: Salerno, 1988), p. 90.
21 a
Rocco, L'Alciabide, Coci edn, p. 89.
22 My thanks to Laura Giannetti Ruggiero for generously translating this
passage for me. See her essay, 'The Forbidden Fruit or the Taste for Sodomy in
H.enaissance Italy: Quaderrzi D'Italianistica 27/1 (2006): 31-52, esp. 44. I have also
consulted Danilo Romei's edition, Berni's Rime (Milan: MUfsia, 1985), pp. 49-51,
and Antonio Marzo's version of the text in Note sul/a poesia erotica del Cinauecento
Adriatica Editrice Salentina, 1999), pp. 4&-51.
23 Marzo, Note, p. 48.
164
SEX ACTS IN EARLY MODERN ITALY
11
24 For this idea and for a discussion of Cara's mock commentary on Molza's poem,
see David O. Frantz, Festum Voluptatis: A Study of Renaissance Erotica
Ohio State University Press, 1989), pp. 33 ff.
'Divenni madre e figlia di mio padre': queer lactations in
Renaissance and Baroque art
25 For information about the major collections of burlesque poetry, see Marzo, Note,
pp.7-12.
lutta Sperling
26 Deborah Parker, BronzirlO: Renaissance Painter as Poet (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2000), p. 28.
27 Parker, Bronzino, p. 28.
28 The extant engravings for Aretino's I modi date from the eighteenth century, and
we cannot be sure that the engravings for the earlier editions were the same. For
an excellent discussion of Aretina's I modi, see Bette Talvacchia's Taking Positions:
Princeton University Press, 1999).
On the Erotic in Renaissance Culture
I have used her translations of Aretina.
29
Tal vacchia,
Positions, p. 221.
30
Talvacchia,
Positions, p. 207.
In his altarpiece The Seven Acts of Mercy of 1606 (Figure 11.1), commissioned
from the confraternity of Pio Monte della Misericordia in Naples, Caravaggio
rendered three of the seven charitable acts by reference to an anecdote in
Valerius Maximus' collection of Memorable Doings and Sayings (c. 32 CE).
Giving drink to the thirsty, feeding the hungry and assisting prisoners are
in his painting embodied by Pero, ancient example of filial piety, who saved
her father from starvation by putting him 'like a baby ... to her breast.tJ Myko
(later mostly called Cimone), her father, was a Greek citizen condemned to
death for a capital crime. The story is told as an ekphrasis, emphasizing how
the commemoration and re-presentation of Pero's milk-offer to her father
evad.es words:
Men's eyes are riveted in amazement when they see the painting of this act
nd renew the features of the long bygone incident in astonishment at the spectacle
now before them, believing that in those silent outlines of limbs they see living
and breathing bodies. This must needs happen to the mind also, admonished
to remember things long past although they were recent by painting, which is
considerably more effective than literarv memorials. 2
Caravaggio's eye-catching rendering of an anxious woman offering her
breast to an emaciated prisoner certainly qualifies as such a 'riveting'
representation, giving rise to a veritable explosion of Pero-and-Cimone
imagery in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.3 Bartolomeo Manfredi's
painting of what became known as the 'Roman Charity' was among the first
images to be inspired by Caravaggio's altarpiece,4 even though his, as well
as all subsequent renderings, show the event as a genre scene devoid of any
religious connotation, and place the lactation scene in the intimate, womb-like
space of the dungeon itself (Figure 11.2).
In his chapter devoted to examples of 'filial piety,' located at the very center
of his collection, Maximus narrated another story of how a daughter saved