Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-ws8qp Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-28T14:12:53.065Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

A Hidden Sphinx by Agnolo Bronzino, “ex tabula Cebetis Thebani”

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

John F. Moffitt*
Affiliation:
New Mexico State University, Las Cruces

Extract

In 1568 Giorgio Vasari Described (from already dim memories) a now-famous allegorical painting that had been painted by Bronzino (Agnolo Allori) for Cosimo I de’ Medici. Now usually known as The Exposure of Luxury, the picture in the National Gallery in London seems by general acknowledgement to have been done around 1545 (Fig. I). According to Vasari's recollection Bronzino had “made a picture of singular beauty” that was sent to the king of France, François I. As best as Vasari could recall, the particulars of its complicated iconographic program were all devoted to variations on an erotic theme inasmuch as the picture included figures of “a nude Venus with [her son] Cupid, who was [shown] kissing her, and alongside [them] there were [other representations of] ‘Pleasure - il Piacere’ and ‘Idle Sport - il Giuoco’ accompanied by other ‘Loves-Amori.’

Type
Studies
Copyright
Copyright © Renaissance Society of America 1993

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Alciati, Andrea. Embtemata… Per Claudium Minoem Divisonsem. Leyden, 1583.Google Scholar
Alciati, Andrea. Emblemata cum Commentariis Claudii Minois I. C. Francisci Sanctii Brocensis, & Notis … Opera et vigiliis loannis Thuilii. Padua, 1621.Google Scholar
Alciati, Andrea. Alciato: Emblemas. Ed. Santiago Sebastián López. Madrid, 19851.Google Scholar
Alciati, Andrea. Andreas Alciatus: 1. The Latin Emblems: Indexes and Lists; 2. Emblems in Translation. Ed. Peter M. Daly. Toronto and Buffalo, 1985 2.Google Scholar
Betussi, Giovanni. Ragionamento sopra il Cathaio. Florence, 1573.Google Scholar
Bosch, L. M. F.Bronzino's London Allegory : Love Versus Time.” Source 9 (1990): 3035.Google Scholar
Bronzino, Agnolo. Sonetti di Angiolo Allori detto il Bronzino. Ed. D. Moreni. Florence, 1823.Google Scholar
Cartari, Vicenzo. Le Imagini de I Dei de gli Antichi. Venice, 1571.Google Scholar
Cebes’ Tablet: Facsimiles of the Greek Text, and of Selected Latin, French, English, Spanish, Italian, German, Dutch, and Polish Translations. Ed. Sandra Sider. New York: Renaissance Society of America, 1979.Google Scholar
Cebete Thebano, che in una Tavola dipinta philosophicamente mostra le quatità de la vita humana. Ed. F. A. Coccio. Venice, 1538.Google Scholar
Chastel, André. “Note sur le Sphinx à la Renaissance.Archivio di Filosofia 5 (1958): 179-83.Google Scholar
Cheney, Iris. “Bronzino's London Allegory: Venus, Cupid, Virtue, and Time.” Source 6(1987): 1218.Google Scholar
Clements, Robert J. Picta Poësis: Literary and Humanistic Theory in Renaissance Emblem Books. Rome, 1960.Google Scholar
Conti, Natale. Natalis Comitis Mythologiae, sive explicatotionum fabularum. Venice, 1567.Google Scholar
Conway, J. F.Syphilis and Bronzino's London Allegory .” Journal of the Warburg and Courtatild Institutes 49 (1986): 250-56.Google Scholar
Demisch, Hans. Die Sphinx: Geschichte ihrer Darstellungen von der Anfángen bis zur Gegenwart. Stuttgart, 1977.Google Scholar
Freedberg, Sidney J. Painting in Italy, 1500-1600. Harmondsworth, 1975.Google Scholar
Gould, Cecil. National Gallery Catalogues: The Sixteenth-Century Italian Schools. London, 1975.Google Scholar
Homer, . The Odyssey. Ed. W. H. D. Rouse. New York, 1949.Google Scholar
Hope, Charles. “Bronzino's Allegory in the National Gallery.Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 45 (1982): 239-43.Google Scholar
Keach, Walter. “Cupid Disarmed, or Venus Wounded? An Ovidian Source for Michelangelo and Bronzino.Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 41 (1978): 327-3.Google Scholar
Levey, Michael. “Sacred and Profane Significance in Two Paintings by Bronzino.” In Studies in Renaissance and Baroque Art Presented to Anthony Blunt. London, 1967.Google Scholar
López, Diego. Declaración magistral sobre los emblemas de Andrés Alciato. Valencia, 1655.Google Scholar
Lossow, H. “Das Londoner Venus-und-Cupido Bild des Agnolo Bronzino.” In Das Werk des Kunstlers. Berlin, 1939.Google Scholar
McCorquodale, C. P. Bronzino. London, 1981.Google Scholar
Moffitt, John F.Paul Klee's Twittering Machine and the Emblematic ‘Birds-in-Bondage-Vile’ Theme.Studies in Iconography 9 (1983): 135-74.Google Scholar
Moffitt, John F.. “Who is the Old Man in a Golden Helmet? Art Bulletin 66 (1984): 417-27.Google Scholar
Moffitt, John F.. “The Veiled Metaphor in Hugo van der Goes’ Berlin Nativity: Isaiah and Jeremiah, or Mark and Paul?Oud Holland 100 (1986): 157-64.Google Scholar
Moffitt, John F.. “Rembrandt, Revelation, and Calvin's Curtains.Gazette des Beaux- Arts 113 (1989): 175-86.Google Scholar
Moffitt, John F.. “L'amour et les oiseaux: Emblématique aviaire chez Paul Klee.Mélusine 10 (1989): 97-108.Google Scholar
Panofsky, Erwin. Studies in Iconology: Humanistic Themes in the Art of the Renaissance. New York, 1962.Google Scholar
Paton, W. R., ed. Greek Anthology. Cambridge, MA, and London, 1961.Google Scholar
Pedraza, Pilar. La Bella, enigma y pesadilla (Esfinge, Medusa, Pantera …). Valencia, 1983.Google Scholar
Pedraza, Pilar. “‘La Tabla de Cebes’: un juguete filosófico.Boletín del Museo e Instituto Camon Aznar 14 (1983): 93-113.Google Scholar
Picinello, Filippo. Mundus Symbolicus, in emblematum universitate formatus. Cologne, 1694.Google Scholar
Procter, R. The Printing of Greek in the 15th Century. Hildesheim, 1966.Google Scholar
Robbins, C. S. A Guide to Field Identification: Birds. New York, 1983.Google Scholar
Ripa, Cesare. Iconologia, overo Descrittione d'bnagine. Padua, 1611.Google Scholar
Seznec, Jean. The Survival of the Pagan Gods: The Mythological Tradition and Its Place in Renaissance Humanism and Art. New York, 1961.Google Scholar
Shearman, John. Mannerism: Style and Civilisation. Harmondsworth, 1967.Google Scholar
Smith, Graham. “Jealousy, Pain, and Pleasure in Agnolo Bronzino's Allegory of Venus and Cupid .” Pantheon 39 (1981): 250-58.Google Scholar
Tervarent, Guy de. Attrihuts et symboles dans 1'art profane, 1450-1600. Geneva, 1958.Google Scholar
Vasari, Giorgio. Le Vite de’ più eccelenti pittori, scrittori ed architettori. Florence, 1878-81.Google Scholar