Hostname: page-component-599cfd5f84-ncv4z Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-07T07:41:00.489Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

An Exemplary Humanist Hybrid: Vasari's “Fraude” with Reference to Bronzino's “Sphinx”

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

John F. Moffitt
John F. Moffitt*
Affiliation:
New Mexico State University
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

In an article recently published in this journal, I argued that a certain, often discussed, hybrid encountered in Bronzino's wellknown painting depicting The Exposure of Luxury (ca. 1545, National Gallery, London; also known as Venus, Cupid, Folly, and Time) was actually intended to represent a “sphinx” [fig. 1]. Whatever its proper designation, this is the bizarre figure that may be espied lurking in darkness (as much metaphorical as physical), just as she/it was placed in the middle ground of the far right side of Bronzino's carefully contrived composition [fig. 2]. This darkly crouching creature was situated by the ingenious painter behind the brightly illuminated figure of a nude and joyful putto tossing roses, so making it literally hidden (occulta).

Type
Studies
Information
Renaissance Quarterly , Volume 49 , Issue 2 , Summer 1996 , pp. 303 - 333
Copyright
Copyright © Renaissance Society of America 1996

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

Alberti, L.B. Leon Battista Alberti: On Painting. Eds. Grayson, C. and Kemp, M.. Harmondsworth, 1991.Google Scholar
Alpers, Svetlana. “Ekphrasis and Aesthetic Attitudes in Vasari's ‘Lives.’” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 23 (1960): 190–215.10.2307/750591Google Scholar
Anderson, J. “A Most Improper Picture: Transformations of Bronzino's Erotic Allegory.” Apollo 139 (1994): 19–28.Google Scholar
Ariosto, Ludovico. Orlando Furioso (The Frenzy of Orlando). Ed. Reynolds, B.. Harmondsworth, 1975.Google Scholar
Augustine, Saint. Concerning the City of God Against the Pagans. Ed. O'Meara, J.. Harmondsworth, 1984.Google Scholar
Baltrusaitis, Jurgis. Le Moyen Age Fantastique: Antiquités et exotismes dans l'art gothique. Paris, 1981.Google Scholar
Barasch, Mosche. Theories of Art From Plato to Winckelmann. New York, 1985.Google Scholar
Barocchi, Paola, ed. Scritti d'Arte del Cinquecento. Turin, 1978.Google Scholar
Barolsky, Paul. Infinite Jest: Wit and Humor in Italian Renaissance Art. Columbia, MO, 1978.Google Scholar
Barolsky, Paul and Ladis, A.. “The ‘Pleasurable Deceits’ of Bronzino's So-Called London Allegory .” Source 10 (1991): 32–36.Google Scholar
Baxandall, Michael. Giotto and the Orators: Humanist Observers of Painting in Italy and the Discovery of Pictorial Composition, 1350-1450. Oxford, 1986.Google Scholar
Blunt, Anthony. Artistic Theory in Italy, 1450-1600. Oxford, 1962.Google Scholar
Bosch, L.M.F. “Bronzino's London Allegory: Love Versus Time.” Source 9 (1990): 30–35.Google Scholar
Brieger, Peter, Meiss, M. and Singleton, C. S.. Illuminated Manuscripts of the Divine Comedy. London, 1969.Google Scholar
Bundy, M.W. The Theory of Imagination in Classical and Medieval Thought. Urbana, 1927.Google Scholar
Cartari, Vincenzo. Le Imagini Dei degli Antichi [etc.]. Venice, 1571.Google Scholar
Cast, David. “Liberty; Virtue; Glory: A Comment on the Position of the Visual Arts in the Renaissance.” Yale Italian Studies 1 (1977): 371-97.Google Scholar
Cast, David. The Calumny of Apelles: A Study in the Humanist Tradition. New Haven, 1981.Google Scholar
Cast, David. “Reading Vasari Again: History and Philosophy.” Word and Image 9 (1993): 29–38.10.1080/02666286.1993.10435856Google Scholar
Cennini, Cennino. Il Libro dell'Arte. Ed. Thompson, J.. New Haven, 1933.Google Scholar
Cheney, Iris. “Bronzino's London Allegory: Venus, Cupid, Virtue, and Time.” Source 6 (1987): 12–18.Google Scholar
Conti (Comes), Natale. Mythologiae. Venice, 1567.Google Scholar
Conway, J.F. “Syphilis and Bronzino's London Allegory .” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 49 (1986): 250-56.10.2307/751305Google Scholar
Cox-Rearick, Janet. “Sacred to Profane: Diplomatic Gifts of the Medici to Francis I.” Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies 24 (1994): 239-58.Google Scholar
Curtius, E.R. European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages. New York, 1963.Google Scholar
Dacos, N. La Découverte de la Domus Aurea et la formation des grottesques à la Renaissance. London, 1969.Google Scholar
Alighieri, Dante: The Inferno: A Verse Rendering for the Modern Reader. Ed. Ciardi, John. New York, 1954.Google Scholar
Davis-Weyer, Caecilia ed. Early Medieval Art, 300-1500 (Sources & Documents in the History of Art). Englewood Cliffs, 1971.Google Scholar
Downey, G. “Ekphrasis.” In Reallexikon für Antike und Christentum. 4: cols. 921-44. Stuttgart, 1954.Google Scholar
Durling, R.M. “Deceit and Digestion in the Belly of Hell.” In Greenblatt, S.J. ed., Allegory and Representation, 61–93. Baltimore, 1981.Google Scholar
Förster, Richard. “Wiederherstellung antiker Gemälde durch Künstler der Renaissance.” Jahrbuch der preussischen Kunstsammlungen 43 (1922): 126-36.Google Scholar
Frangenberg, T. “Der Kampf um den Schleier: Zur Allegorie Agnolo Bronzinos der National Gallerie.” Wallraf-Richartz Jahrbuch 46 (1985): 377-86.Google Scholar
Frey, H.W. Der literarische Nachlass Giorgio Vasaris. Munich, 1930.Google Scholar
Friedlander, P. Johannes von Gaza und Paulus Silentiarius: Kunstbeschreibungen justinianischer Zeit. Berlin-Leipzig, 1912.Google Scholar
Friedman, J.B. The Monstrous Races in Medieval Art and Thought. Harvard, 1981.Google Scholar
Gage, John. “Horatian Reminiscences in Two Twelfth-Century Art Critics.” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 36 (1973): 359-60.10.2307/751172Google Scholar
Gauricus, Pomponius. De Sculptura (1504). Ed. Chastel, A. and Klein, R.. Geneva, 1969.Google Scholar
Gombrich, E.H. Norm and Form: Studies in the Art of the Renaissance. London, 1966.Google Scholar
Gombrich, E.H. The Heritage of Apelles. London, 1976.Google Scholar
Gould, Cecil. National Gallery Catalogues: The Sixteenth-Century Italian Schools. London, 1975.Google Scholar
Graham, John. “Ut Pictura Poesis: A Bibliography.” Bulletin of Bibliography 29 (1972): 13–15, 18.Google Scholar
Grandgent, C.H. Dante Alighieri: La Divina Commedia: Inferno. Boston, 1913. Rev. C.S. Singleton. Cambridge, MA, 1972.Google Scholar
Harlan, E. “The Description of Paintings as a Literary Device and its Application in Achilles Tatius.” Ph.D. diss., Columbia University, 1965.Google Scholar
Harris, E.L. “The Mural as a Decorative Device in Medieval Literature.” Ph.D. diss., Vanderbilt University, 1935.Google Scholar
Hauser, Arnold. The Social History of Art. 4 vols. New York, 1957.Google Scholar
Hazard, Mary. “The Anatomy of ‘Liveliness’ as a Concept in the Renaissance.” Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 33 (1975): 407-18.10.2307/429653Google Scholar
Hohlweg, A. “Ekphrasis.” In Reallexikon zur Byzantinischen Kunst. 2: cols. 33–75. Stuttgart, 1971.Google Scholar
Holanda, Francisco de. Vier Gespräche über die Malerei. Ed. de Vasconcellos, J.. Vienna, 1899.Google Scholar
Holanda, Francisco de. De la pintura antigua por Francisco de Holanda (1548), version castellana de Manuel Denis (1563). Madrid, 1921.Google Scholar
Holanda, Francisco de. Four Dialogues on Painting. Ed. Bell, A.F.G.. London, 1928.Google Scholar
Holt, Elizabeth G., ed. Documentary History of Art: The Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Garden City, 1957.Google Scholar
Hope, Charles. “Bronzino's Allegory in the National Gallery.” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 45 (1982): 239-43.Google Scholar
Horace, . Classical Literary Criticism. Horace: On the Art of Poetry. Ed. Dorsch, T.S.. Harmondsworth, 1965.Google Scholar
Horace, . Satires, Epistles andArs Poetica. Ed. Fairclough, H.R.. London, 1966.Google Scholar
Hispalense, Isidore. Etimologías. Ed. Cortes, L. y Gongora, . Madrid, 1951.Google Scholar
James, L. and Webb, R.. “‘To Understand Ultimate Things and Enter Secret Places’: Ekphrasis and Art in Byzantium.” Art History 14 (1991): 1–17.10.1111/j.1467-8365.1991.tb00420.xGoogle Scholar
Juynboll, W.R. Het komische genre in de italiaansche Schilderkunst. Leiden, 1934.Google Scholar
Kantorowicz, E.H. “The Sovereignty of the Artist: A Note on Legal Maxims and Renaissance Theories of Art.” In De Artibus Opuscula XL: Essays in Honor of Erwin Panofsky, Meiss, M., ed., 267-79. New York, 1961.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): 327-31.10.2307/750879Google Scholar
Klaiber, H. “Leonardo da Vinci's Stellung in der Geschichte der Physiognomik und Mimik.” Repertorium für Kunstwissenschaft 28 (1905): 321-39.Google Scholar
Kleinhenz, C. “Deceivers Deceived: Devilish Doubletalk in Inferno 21-23.” Quaderni d'Italianistica 10 (1989): 133-56.Google Scholar
Konecny, Lubomír. “Tiziano, Lodovico Dolce e i topoi dell'immaginazione erotica.” Umení 20 (1992): 1–5.Google Scholar
Kurman, G. “Ecphrasis in Epic Poetry.” Comparative Literature 26 (1974): 1–13.10.2307/1769671Google Scholar
Land, N.E. “Ekphrasis and Imagination: Some Observations on Pietro Aretino's Art Criticism.” Art Bulletin 68 (1986) 207-17.10.1080/00043079.1986.10788333Google Scholar
Land, N.E. “Titian's Martyrdom of St. Peter and the ‘Limitations’ of Ekphrastic Art Criticism.” Art History 13 (1990): 293–317.Google Scholar
Levey, Michael. “Sacred and Profane Significance in Two Paintings by Bronzino.” In Studies in Renaissance and Baroque Painting Presented to Anthony Blunt, 30–33. London, 1967.Google Scholar
Levey, Michael. Painting at Court. New York, 1971.Google Scholar
Lee, R.W. Ut Pictura Poèsis: The Humanistic Theory of Painting. New York, 1967.Google Scholar
Lossow, H. “Das Londoner Venus-und-Cupido Bild des Agnolo Bronzino.” In Das Werk des Künstlers, 162-68. Berlin, 1939.Google Scholar
McCorquodale, C.P. Bronzino. London, 1981.Google Scholar
Maguire, H. “Truth and Convention in Byzantine Descriptions of Works of Art.” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 28 (1974): 113-40.Google Scholar
Maguire, H. “Classical Tradition in the Byzantine Ekphrasis.” In Byzantium and the Classical Tradition, ed. Mullet, M. and Scott, R., 94–102. Birmingham, 1981.Google Scholar
Mango, Cyril. “Antique Statuary and the Byzantine Beholder.” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 17 (1963): 53–77.Google Scholar
Marek, M.J. Ekphrasis und Herrscherallegorie: Antike Bildbeschreibungen bei Tizian und Leonardo. Worms, 1985.Google Scholar
Massing, J.M. Du texte à l'image: La Calomnie d'Apelle et sa iconographie. Strasbourg, 1990.Google Scholar
Mendelsohn, Leatrice. “L'Allegoria di Londra del Bronzino e la retorica di carnevale.” In Kunst des Cinquecento in der Toskana, ed. Cämmerer, M., 154-66. Munich, 1992.Google Scholar
Moffitt, John F. “The ‘Evidentia’ of Curling Waters and Whirling Winds: Leonardo's ‘Ekphraseis’ of the Latin Weathermen.” Achademia Leonardi Vinci 4 (1991): 11–33.Google Scholar
Moffitt, John F. “A Hidden Sphinx by Agnolo Bronzino, ‘ex tabula Cebetis Thebani.’” Renaissance Quarterly 46 (1993): 277–307.Google Scholar
Moffitt, John F. “Puer et Senex in Didactic Contrapositum: Two Rhetorical Contexts for Leonardo's ‘Grotesque Heads.’” Achademia Leonardi Vinci 7 (1994): 124-28.Google Scholar
Nahm, M.C. “The Theological Background of the Theory of the Artist as Creator.” Journal of the History of Ideas 7 (1947): 363-72.10.2307/2707147Google Scholar
Nelson, J. “Dante Portraits in Sixteenth-Century Florence.” Gazette des Beaux-Arts 120 (Spring 1992): 59–77.Google Scholar
Ossola, Carlo. Autumno del Rinascimento. Florence, 1971.Google Scholar
Panofsky, Erwin. Studies in Iconology: Humanistic Themes in the Art of the Renaissance. New York, 1962.Google Scholar
Panofsky, Erwin. “Artist, Scientist, Genius: Notes on the ‘Renaissance-Dammerung.’” In The Renaissance: Six Essays, 121-82. New York, 1962.Google Scholar
Panofsky, Erwin. Idea: A Concept in Art Theory. Columbia, SC, 1968.Google Scholar
Pedretti, Carlo. Studi vinciani. Documenti, analisi e inediti leonardeschi. Geneva, 1957.Google Scholar
Pedretti, Carlo. “A New Grotesque After Leonardo.” Raccolta Vinciana 19 (1962): 283-86.Google Scholar
Pernice, E. “Beschreibung von Kunstwerken in der Literatur: Rhetorische Ekphraseis.” Handbuch der Altertumswisssenschaft 6 (1939): 271-84.Google Scholar
Pilliod, E. “Bronzino's Household.” Burlington Magazine 134 (1992): 92–100.Google Scholar
Plato, . Phaedrus and Letters VII and VIII. Ed. Hamilton, W.. Harmondsworth, 1973.Google Scholar
Poesch, Jessie. “Revelations 11:7 and Revelations 13:1-10: Interrelated Antichrist Imagery in Some English Apocalypse Manuscripts.” In Art the Ape of Nature: Studies in Honor of H.W. Janson, ed., Sandler, L.F., 15–33. New York, 1981.Google Scholar
Pope-Hennessy, John. The Portrait in the Renaissance. Princeton, 1979.Google Scholar
Praz, Mario. Mnemosyne: The Parallel Between Literature and the Visual Arts. Princeton, 1970.Google Scholar
Ripa, Cesare. Iconologia, overo Descrittione d'Imagine [etc.]. Padua, 1611.Google Scholar
Robinson, F.W. and Nichols, S.G., eds. The Meaning of Mannerism. Hanover, NH, 1972.Google Scholar
Rosand, David. “Ekphrasis and the Renaissance of Painting: Observations on Alberti's Third Book.” In Florilegium Columbianum: Essays in Honor of Paul Oskar Kristeller, ed, Selig, K.-L. and Somerville, R., 147-63. New York, 1987.10.2307/j.ctt1t88vpp.14Google Scholar
Roskill, Mark, ed. Dolce's “Aretino”and Venetian Art Theory of the Cinquecento. New York, 1968.Google Scholar
Rubin, Patricia L. Giorgio Vasari: Art and History. New Haven, 1994.Google Scholar
Sandler, Lucy F. “Reflections on the Construction of Hybrids in English Gothic Marginal Illustration.” In Art the Ape of Nature: Studies in Honor of H.W.Janson, ed., Sandler, L.F., 51–65. New York, 1981.Google Scholar
Scott, John A. “Treachery in Dante.” In Studies in the Italian Renaissance: Essays in Memory of Amolfo B. Perruolo, ed. Bias, G.P. in, Mancini, A.N., and Perella, N.J., 27–42. Naples, 1985.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 Civilization. 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
Smyth, Craig H. Mannerism and Maniera. Locust Valley, NY, 1962. New ed., intro. by Cropper, Elizabeth. Vienna, 1992.Google Scholar
Spenser, Edmund. The Faerie Queene. Ed. Roche, T.P.. Harmondsworth, 1987.Google Scholar
Summers, David. “Contrapposto: Style and Meaning in Renaissance Art.” Art Bulletin 59 (1977): 336–6.Google Scholar
Summers, David. Michelangelo and the Language of Art. Princeton, 1981.Google Scholar
Themistius, . Commentaire sur le Traité de l'âme d'Aristote. Ed. Verbeke, G.. Paris, 1957.Google Scholar
Vasari, Giorgio. Le Vite de’ più eccelenti pittori, sculptori ed architettori. Ed. Milanesi, G.. Florence, 1906.Google Scholar
Vasari, Giorgio. The Lives of the Painters, Sculptors and Architects. Ed. Gaunt, W.. London, 1963.Google Scholar
Venturi, Lionello. “La critica d'arte e Francesco Petrarca.” L'Arte 25 (1922): 238-44.Google Scholar
Vitruvius: The Ten Books on Architecture. Ed. Morgan, H.. Cambridge, MA, 1914.Google Scholar
Volkmann, Ludwig. Iconografia Dantesca: The Pictorial Representation of Dante's Divine Comedy. London, 1899. v.Google Scholar
Weise, Georg. “Il motivo stilistico dell'antitesi nell'arte e nella letteratura del Manierismo e del Barocco.” Atti e Memorie dell'Accademia Toscana 25 (1974): 71–86.Google Scholar
White, T.H., ed. The Bestiary: A Book of Beasts Being a Translation from a Latin Bestiary of the Twelfth Century. New York, 1960.Google Scholar
Wind, Edgar. Pagan Mysteries in the Renaissance. New York, 1968.Google Scholar
Wittkower, Rudolf. The Artist and the Liberal Arts. London, 1952.Google Scholar
Zilsel, Edgar. Die Geniereligion: Ein kritischer Versuch über das moderne Personlichkeitsideal. Vienna and Leipzig, 1918.Google Scholar
Zilsel, Edgar. Die Entstehung des Geniebegriffes: Ein Beitrag zur Ideengeschichte der Antike und des Frühkapitalismus. Tübingen, 1926.Google Scholar