`What Venus Did with Mars`: Battista Fiera and Mantegna`s

'What Venus Did with Mars': Battista Fiera and Mantegna's 'Parnassus'
Author(s): Roger Jones
Source: Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, Vol. 44 (1981), pp. 193-198
Published by: Warburg Institute
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/751066
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BATTISTA FIERA AND MANTEGNA
193
show of how a contemporary might rank the
painters of his day, but rather in the indications
that it goes on to give of how the pictures they
produced might be classified. The indications
are rudimentary, but for a period which saw a
FTERMantegna's death, his friend the Manrapid enlargement in the range of types of painttuan physician and humanist Battista
ing a patron might require - a development
which is far from perfectly understood - even
FieraI addressed a poem to their patron Francesco Gonzaga, which attempted to console him meagre evidence is welcome. In this case a
for the loss of an artist who had combined the simple distinction is established between what
virtues of the ancient painters Aristides and might be called soft-core all'antica erotica
('molles fucos et blandimenta. .. delicias VenApelles.2 The consoling thought was that a new
Parrhasius and a new Zeuxis (in the persons of eris') and more uplifting, serious and penetratLorenzo Costa and Francesco Bonsignori) had ing subjects ('seria . . . et subnascentia Rerum
taken his place. It is hard to say whether there semina').
The poem implies that Mantegna himself
was much point in Fiera's choice of names,
since comparisons of modern painters with produced both types of work, which is itself of
their ancient counterparts had become a com- interest as there is only one surviving painting
monplace.3 The value of the poem for art his- of his that could conceivably be put in the first
torians lies not in what these antique parallels
category, the 'Parnassus'. However, Fiera's
categories are not mutually exclusive and it
would appear that they were not refined enough
I thank Caroline Elam and Charles Hope for their help in
to enable him to understand Mantegna's work
the preparation of this note.
Even educated poets might have difficorrectly.
1 On Fiera (c. 1465-1538), seeJ. Wardrop's edition of his
De iusticiapingenda,London I957; C. Dionisotti, 'Battista culty in interpreting paintings commissioned
by Isabella d'Este, as he found out to his embarFiera', Italia Medioevalee Umanistica,i, 1958, pp. 401-18;
E. Faccioli (ed.), Mantova: Le Lettere,I and nii, Mantua
rassment. Another poem of his, addressed to
1959-62; J. B. Trapp, ThePoet and the Monumental
Impulse, her, gives us an instructive account of how
The Society for Renaissance Studies Occasional Papers No.
things could go wrong.
6, London 1980, p. 7.
'WHAT
DID WITH
VENUS
MARS':
BATTISTA
FIERA AND
MANTEGNA'S
'PARNASSUS'
2
AD ELISABELLAMMARCH
AD DIVUM FR. CONZAGAM
Mantynia vivente tuo, tua Dona fuere
Quicquid Aristidis, quicquid Apellis erat.
Ille obit, ut nulla est aeterna humana voluptas,
Utque nihil Fati conditione Vacat.
Ut tamen et Natura tibi et blanditur Olympus
Consulit inque tuum lupiter obsequium,
Alter Parrhasius succedunt Zeuxis et alter
Prorogat atque Artis se tibi blandus honor.
Si molles fucos et blandimenta requiras:
Et tibi quaeratur Deliciosa Venus,
En Costam tibi molliculum, charitesque ministras,
En Venerem, en Comites, delicias Veneris.
Seria si mavis, et subnascentia Rerum
Semina, Resque suam quae referantAnimam,
'Non pingit - dices - quae Bossignorius audet,
Ille polit - dices - mollius, iste creat.'
The poem was first published in the 1515 (Mantua) edition
of Fiera's HymniDivini; Sylvae;Melanysius;Coena,fol. V3"',
and was reprinted by Dionisotti, op. cit. n. I above, p. 418.
The 1515 volume contains other references to Mantegna,
quoted in part by Wardrop, op. cit. n. I above; Dionisotti,
op. cit.; and E. Battisti, '11 Mantegna e la letteratura
classica', Atti del VI Congressodi Studi sul Rinascimento,
Florence 1965, pp. 23-56. Its date of composition is discussed in the Appendix below.
3 After all, Apelles and Aristides, and Zeuxis and Parrhasius, are coupled in the standard source book of the day,
Pliny's NaturalHistory(hereafterNH). But Fiera links Mantegna with Apelles and Aristides in another poem from the
1515 volume (partly reprinted by Battisti, op. cit. n. 2
above, p. 27), in which Aristides is characterized as 'animi
formator anheli', possibly a reference to Pliny's statement
Journal of the Warburgand Courtauld Institutes, Volume 44, 198
Formosam Venerem noster tibi pinxit Apelles,
Et tantum Formam pinxit Elisa tuam.
Pinxerat et dulci posito modulamine Musas
Te gratum iunctis undique adire Choris,
Hinc Venerem lepido fassus te carmine Vates
Mavortis proprios dixit habere Toros.
Coetera subticuit Tabulae Veneratus honorem,
Iamque loquuturum Forte putabat opus?
Sed tamen incautus Fabri non viderat Iras
In Martem Ultrices solicitare manus.
Aestuat ad Flammas Steropes,BrontemEtna remugit,
Vincula Versabat Dextra Pyracmonia.
Sic perridiculae consurgunt Iurgia Litis,
Nec quicquam in tota blandius Urbe sonat.
Ille dolet dictam Venerem te candida Elisa,
Sed fuerat Vati lusus, Imago tua.
Num Venus es, casto Marti si iuncta Cubili es?
Num Venus es, de te si facit hic Venerem?4
that Aristides 'omnium primus animum pinxit et sensus
hominis expressit' (NH. xxxv, 98). Further it is possible
that Fiera had in mind Parrhasius's reputation as a painter
of erotic subjects. Pliny says he 'pinxit et minoribus tabellis
libidines, eo genere petulantis ioci se reficiens' (NH. xxxv,
72).
4 First published in 1515 (ed. cit. n. 2 above, fol. N2r). For
the date of composition, see the Appendix. Battisti, op. cit.
n. 2 above, pp. 42-43, gives a slightly different text, without
I
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194
NOTES AND DOCUMENTS
dolet dictam Venerem te . . . '), and giving as
his explanation his continued belief that Venus
looked like her ('Sed fuerat Vati lusus, Imago
tua.').
Much may be learned from Fiera's mistake.
It shows, generally, that the fashion among
patrons of the day for having themselves identified in one way or another with pagan deities,
and in particular with Mars and Venus,6 was
sufficiently widespread for such an interpretation to seem a natural one. It also raises, and
sheds light on, the question of decorum in such
matters. Readers of Homer and Ovid may wonder how respectable persons could have had
themselves connected with such a notorious
adultery as that of Mars and Venus. Two
answers have been given. One is that the
Renaissance was a more bawdy age than our
own, and that such questions were of small
moment.7 But Fiera'sfaux pas shows that at the
Gonzaga court, even if the Marchesa might be
amused by licentious plays 'piene di parole
indicating his source. The differences (viz line 13 'perridicu- vane et de
qualche erubescentia',8 there were
line
and
line
line
16
'lusu',
losae',
17 'Martis')
14 'quid',
involve metrical 'error' and dubious Latinity, and are limits tofacetiae. The other answer has been that
perhaps due to faulty transcription.The sense of the poem is the union of Mars and Venus was not necessnot materially affected. As with Fiera's other work, the
to be regarded as adulterous or immoral,
sense of the poem is not entirely clear, and a translation arily
since
other ancient authors had written of it as if
which
to
as
as
to
the
close
follows,
attempts stay
possible
Latin rather than to produce good English. I am very it were a first marriage, or at any rate a union
with generally positive results.9 This would
grateful toJohn Sparrow for assistance with it.
TO THE MARCHIONESS
ISABELLA
explain why there seem to be no examples of
Our Apelles painted for you a Venus of beautiful form,
patrons being identified with Mars and Venus
And (to do it) he painted nothing more than your form, in works which also include the cuckold VulIsabella.
can.10 It was precisely because he ostensibly
He had also painted the Muses, sweet euphony having been
Fiera's poems were frequently addressed to
specific persons, and were sometimes attached
as postscripts to letters which provide a helpful
context for their interpretation.s Unfortunately, in this case the accompanying letter, if
there was one, does not survive. The Latin is
obscure at some points, but the principal circumstances are clear enough. The poem tells us
that Fiera had seen a picture in which he
thought the figure of Venus was a representation of Isabella herself, and addressed a poem to
her in which he alluded to her marital union
with Mars. He did not go into details which
would have offended the honor of the picture,
though he seems to have thought the picture
eloquent enough in this respect. But he had
apparently failed to notice in the painting an
angry figure of Vulcan. This caused trouble. He
then wrote the present poem, apologizing for
having identified Isabella with Venus ('Ille
created,
Approaching you from all sides in united dances, a
pleasing thing.
Hence the poet in a witty poem, having declared you to be
Venus,
Said you had Mars's marriage bed as your own.
The rest he left unsaid, out of respect for the honour of the
picture;
- Was he even
perhaps thinking the work would speak
for itself?
But, however, carelessly he had not seen the angry smith
Moving vengeful hands against Mars.
Steropes sweats at the flames; Etna re-echoes Brontes;
And the right hand of Piracmon was making (or brandishing) fetters.
As a result (of the poet's negligence) the quarrelsof a highly
ridiculous dispute arise (between you and the poet),
Nor does anything in the whole city (of Mantua) sound
more entertaining (when told as an anecdote).
Fair Isabella, he is sorry to have called you Venus,
But (it was) an image of you (that) had been the source of
the poet's fancy.
You are not really Venus, are you, (even) if(in real life) you
are united in a chaste bed with a 'Mars' (i.e. Francesco
Gonzaga)?
You are not really Venus, are you, (even) if Apelles
makes a Venus out of you?
s Reference to specific examples is made in the Appendix.
6 On this see E.
Panofsky, Studies in Iconology, New York
pp. 162 ff.
1962,
7This is implicit in the comments on Mantegna's 'Par-
nassus' by P. Barolsky, Infinite Jest: Wit and Humor in Italian
RenaissanceArt, London 1978, pp. 36-37; and V. Tatrai,
'Osservazioni circa due allegorie del Mantegna', ActaHistoriaeArtium, xvII, 1972, pp. 233-50.
8
The quotation is from a letter of Isabella d'Este of
3 February 1501I, published by A.d'Ancona,
italiano, nii, Turin 189g1,p. 379.
Origini del teatro
9 On this see
Panofsky, op. cit. n. 6 above, p. 163. See also
E. Wind, 'Mantegna's "Parnassus".A reply to some recent
reflections', Art Bulletin, xxxI, 1949, pp. 228 f., and, for an
allegorical moralizing interpretation of the Homeric story
by 'Heraclides Ponticus', E. H. Gombrich, 'An Interpretation of Mantegna's
"Parnassus"', this Journal, xxvi,
1963,
pp 196-98.
1 The exception cited by E. Tietze-Conrat, 'Mantegna's
"Parnassus".A discussion of a recent interpretation', Art
Bulletin, xxxI, 1949, p. 130, is more apparent than real, as
was observed by E. Wind, loc. cit. n. 9 above. Depictions of
the story of Mars, Venus and Vulcan on marriage cassoni
(for which see P. Schubring, Cassoni,Leipzig 1915,Cat. nos.
and id., 'Aphrodite und Ares' Liebe. Ein Sieneser
707-7Io,
Cassone Bild aus dem 14. Jahrhundert', Pantheon, x, 1932,
pp. 298-300) were, one presumes, intended, like some other
cassonesubjects, as cautionary tales rather than models of
virtue.
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BATTISTA FIERA AND MANTEGNA
failed to notice Vulcan in Isabella's painting
that Fiera misunderstood it. It was evidently
not one in which the union of Mars and Venus
was to be compared with that of Isabella and
her husband, but some other type of picture.
The anomalies of Mars's marital reputation
meant that the context in which he appeared or
was invoked was all-important. The resulting
possiblities for paradox, confusion or inconsistency are neatly illustrated by Fiera's poem,
which, it seems, successively presents three
ways of envisaging the god.
i. As the legitimate husband of Venus, in a
union comparable to the marriage of
Isabella (lines i-8).
2. As the adulterous seducer of Vulcan's wife.
It is realized that this is the version given in
the picture and that a comparison with
Isabella's marriage is ruled out (lines
9-16).
3. As the virtuous god of war, comparable with
the soldier Francesco Gonzaga (line 17).
It may be hard to believe that our poet could
have indulged in, or expected people to understand, such relativism. Fortunately Fiera
revised the poem for republication in 1537 and
the changes he made go some way towards
clarifying these three stages in his allusions to
the god.
I. He emphasized the idea of legitimacy by
substituting 'legitimos' for 'proprios' in
line 6.
2. He put 'moechum' for'Martem' in line Io, to
emphasize the point of the adultery.
3. He made sure that we identify Mars with
Francesco in line 17 by inserting 'nostri',
even at the risk of introducing a new
ambiguity by dropping 'casto'.
The revised version reads as follows:
AD ELISAM
Formosam pinxit venerem tibi noster Apelles:
Et formam tantum pinxit elisa tuam.
Pinxerat et dulci posito modulamine Musas,
Te gratum iunctis undique adire choris.
Hinc lepido fassus venerem te carmine vates,
Martis legitimos dixit habere toros.
Coetera subticuit, tabulae veneratus honores,
Iamque locuturum forte putabat opus,
Sed tamen incautus, Fabri non viderat iras
In moechum ultrices solicitare manus.
Aestuat ad flammas steropes:Brontemaetna remugit
Vincula versabat dextra pyracmonia.
Sic perridiculae consurgunt iurgia litis
Nec quicquam in tota blandius urbe sonat.
Ille dolet dictam venerem te candida elisa:
Sed fuerat vati lusus imago tua.
195
Num venus es, Martis nostri si iuncta cubili es?
Num venus es, de te si facit hic venerem?11
These considerations are obviously of prime
relevance for our understanding of one of
Isabella's paintings that Fiera would have
known, Mantegna's 'Parnassus' (Pl. 26c), since
modern debate has centred onjust this question
- is it mock heroic ribaldry or an allegory of the
Gonzaga court?x2 Indeed it has been universally assumed that Fiera is writing about this
very work.13 This is not absolutely certain. But
if, as is suggested below, the poem was written
in late 1498 or early 1499,14 the phrase 'noster
. . Apelles' could hardly refer to anyone other
than Mantegna, and features of the poet's
painting (Venus, the Muses, Mars and a vengeful Vulcan) tally well with the 'Parnassus'. The
only difficulty is the reference to Vulcan's assistants, Steropes, Brontes and Piracmon, who do
not appear in Mantegna's painting. We may,
however, assume that their names are here used
allusively to amplify the idea of Vulcan angrily
at work in his smithy. This would be a device
typical of the kind of classical poetry Fiera
imitated,'s and one may speculate that he was
keen to redeem, by a display of erudition, his
purported failure to notice Vulcan in the first
place.
By a strange perversity, however, all commentators on the poem'6 have repeated, rather
than understood, Fiera's mistake and it has
libriquatuor,
11 This is the text given in Fiera's De deohomine
hymnidivini,dictatumde Virginematreimmaculate
concepta,coena
et libellusde pestilentia,silvae, elegiaeet epigrammata,
Venice
1537. It was made available to me through the courtesy of
Rodolfo Signorini. The most significant revisions require
the following alterations to the translation given above in
n. 4:
Line 6: Substitute 'Said (you) shared a legitimate marriage bed with Mars'.
Line io: Substitute 'the adulterer' for 'Mars'.
Line 17: Substitute 'You are not really Venus, are you,
(even) if (in real life) you share a bed with our 'Mars' (i.e.
Francesco Gonzaga)?'
12 A convenient point of entry to the
bibliography is
provided by S. Beguin et al., Le Studiolod'Isabelled'Este,Les
dossiers du d6partement des peintures, x, Paris 1975, Cat.
no. 96. More recently, see E. Schr6ter, Die Ikonographie
des
Thema Parnass vor Raffael, Hildesheim 1977, pp. 280-300.
13 Battisti's assumption (op. cit. n. 2 above,
p. 42) has been
followed by all later writers.
14 For the date, see the Appendix.
is Cf. Virgil, Aeneid, vmIII,424 ff., and Ovid, Fasti,
IV,
285
if.
16 That is Battisti, op. cit. n. 2 above, pp. 42-43; Tatrai,
op. cit. n. 7 above, pp. 233 ff.; E. Marani, 'Una monografia
sullo "studiolo" di Isabella d'Este', Attie memorie
dell'Accade-
mia Virgiliana di Mantova, N.S. XL, 1972, p. 127; P. Lehmann,
Samothracian Reflections, Princeton 1973, p. I166, n. 228; B&-
guin et al., op. cit. n. 12 above, p. 32; Schr6ter, op. cit. n. 12
above, pp. 283 and 295.
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196
NOTES AND DOCUMENTS
consequently been taken as evidence to support
the courtly allegory interpretation.17
It is as if
only Fiera's very first (and lost) poem, in which
he did call Isabella Venus, had survived.
Fiera does not tell us how the picture is in fact
to be understood, and no full explanation can be
offered here of the undoubtedly learned and
probably 'bello significato' which puts Apollo
and the Muses (or is it Orpheus and nymphs?)
with Mercury and Pegasus18 in the company of
Mars and Venus, who'stannoin piacere'.19 It is
certainly not simply an illustration of the Homeric story and seems, rather, to be what might
be called a profana conversazione,possibly illustrating the idea that the arts flourish as a result
of 1he union of Mars and Venus.20 The prominent figures in the foreground, and the setting, do have to be accounted for and it may
have been Fiera's conclusions about them that
partly determined his original idea that it
would be appropriate to address Isabella as
Venus. Isabella's interest in the arts had
already been linked rhetorically with the
Muses, Parnassus and the fountain of Pegasus.
The analogy is found in a letter of 1490, which
17 Students have presumably been more impressed by
Fiera's repeated claim that Venus looked like Isabella than
by his regret at having made the connexion. The claim was
probably rhetorical in the first place (tojudge from the only
possibly reliable likeness of her, the medal of Gian Cristoforo Romano, illustrated in Beguin et al., op. cit. n. 12
above, p. 5) and his repetition of it in the surviving poem is
doubtless due to his need to provide an excuse.
The possibility of another portrait in the picture
(Isabella's husband as Vulcan!) is suggested by
P. Hirschfeld, Mazene: Die Rolle des Auftraggebersin der Kunst,
1968, p. II18, on the basis of the donor portrait in the
Madonnadella Vittoria.By current standards, the suggestion
is, visually, not unpersuasive, but it must surely be ruled
out.
is As an incidental point, the question may be raised here
of possible antique sources for the group of Mercury and
Pegasus. Lehmann, op. cit. n. 16 above, pp. 1I15ff., reviews
earlier suggestions, and suggests, interalia, comparatively
large-scale sculptural sources then to be seen in Rome. But,
as so often, Mantegna may rather have been thinking of
small portable antiquities, and there are very close formal
analogies (as Mary Crettier has pointed out to me) in an
antique lamp showing Serapis and the Dioscuri published
in P. S. Bartoli and G. P. Bellori, Le Antiche lucernesepolcrali
figurate, Rome 169I, 11, pl. 8 (PI. 26a). This particular lamp
may or may not have been known to Mantegna, but its
figural composition is not unique, and probably depends
from a more monumental prototype which was reproduced
in other media. A very similar version (less close, however,
to Mantegna's group) was used on a gem (illustrated in W.
Hornbostel, Sarapis,Leiden 1973, Abb. 8).
19For the quoted phrases, see Gombrich, loc. cit. n. 9
above, nn. I and 8.
20 For the latter idea see the material discussed
by Lehmann, op. cit. n. 16 above, and Gombrich, op. cit. n. 9
above.
in all probability Fiera did not know.21 He was,
however, familiar with the topos, and used it
himself in his praise of Francesco Gonzaga's
patronage.22 And if he really did believe the
figure of Venus to be a likeness of Isabella, one
might suppose that he had himself originally
formulated a flattering 'courtly' reading not
unlike that put forward by modern scholars.
But his poem shows that such a specific link
between painting and patron was not intended,
and that a more generalized allegorical interpretation, along the lines suggested by Gombrich, is to be preferred.23
Even if Fiera's picture is not in fact the
'Parnassus',his experience should make us think
twice about seeing allusions to Isabella in Mantegna's painting - all the more so, as unnoticed
elements in the work itself may underline the
fact that, whatever allegorical meaning may be
constructed for it, the story of Mars, Venus and
Vulcan here remains, at a real level, one about
sexual relationships. Mantegna's deliberate
and refined art is not straightforwardly accessible and has permitted a very wide range of
opinion, expressed for the most part in the
decent obscurity of learned journals, about the
exact ton he was seeking to achieve in presenting
these divinities. Two narrative incidents, in
particular, have provoked contrasting exegeses.
One centres on Vulcan, or rather on the little
Cupid who aims a blow precisely, in a direct
line, at the god's genitals. Do we see here Eros
transmitting 'his animating breath to the divine
craftsman', stirring him 'to turn from the production of metal vessels to the creation of a steel
stringed (musical) instrument'?24 Or is the ges21 The letter was written by Francesco Roello da Rimini to
Isabella. Extracts to the effect that she was 'tucta dedita a le
muse' and 'doctissima, che e stata al monte de Parnaso et a
la fonte pegasea' are given in A. Luzio and R. Renier, La
Colturae le relazioniletteraried'Isabellad'EsteGonzaga,Turin
1903, p. 382.
22 See the manuscript Andinahe dedicated to Francesco
Gonzaga, Rome, Biblioteca Nazionale, Fondo Vittorio
Emmanuele no. 1076, fols 3r ff., a work mentioned by
Dionisotti, op. cit. n. I above, p. 41o. For other I5th-century
examples of the topos,see Schr6ter, op. cit. n. 12 above,
pp. iii and 295.
SHeraldic, astrological and horticultural evidence has
also been adduced (by Lehmann and Schr6ter) to support
the identification of Mars and Venus with Isabella and her
husband, but it is far from conclusive. Lehmann, op. cit.
n. 16 above, pp. 164-66, does not explain why Mantegna
used only a selectionofGonzaga/Este colours. The astrological configurations noted by Lehmann (op. cit., pp. 174-75)
are also only selectively explanatory, and are anyway, as
Schr6ter (op. cit. n. 12 above, p. 283) observed, based on the
date.
wrong
24 Thus Lehmann, op. cit. n. 16 above, pp. 155 and i61.
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BATTISTA FIERA AND MANTEGNA
I97
joke. More to the point for the character of our
'line of force' is the gesture made by the two
Muses at the extreme right. Wind, who first
drew attention to it, declared it an 'obvious
of 'frivolous damsels whose
pantomime'
concern with love is unmistakably expressed',29
but his view has not been universally shared.
Perhaps the question may be settled by again
taking our rulers to the picture. It will be found
that the encircled thumb generates another
line, this time directed to the (admittedly covered) genital area of Mars. The thumb itself is of
course too short to produce a very precise line,
but a co-ordinate is provided by the pointing
left index finger of the Muse whose right hand
encircles it.
These lines may simply lie in the eye of the
salacious beholder, but if they were in fact set
up by Mantegna, they need not be thought out
of character. As a younger man he had been a
brilliant visual wit, as the once startling illusionistic tricks of the Ovetari chapel and the
Cameradegli Sposi show. This peripheral playfulness (that we find also in the work of his great
mentor, Donatello) magically, or curiously,
coexisted with a profound seriousness of
approach to the subjects he portrayed. Thus, in
the Ovetari Martyrdom of St Christopher, the
intentionally humorous contrast of the gigantic
figure of the saint on one side with the tiny child
on the other does not nullify the dramatic
pretensions of the picture as a whole.30 Similarly, to detect unobtrusive erotic wit in the
'Parnassus' is not to suggest that its main theme
is a frivolous one.
Finally, one may wonder whether these
humorous touches were introduced by the artist
as subtle and surreptitious sabotage of an elevated programme suggested by a young patron
with whom his relations cannot always have
been the most cordial. More likely, they would
particularly have appealed to a lady whose taste
for the saucy has already been noted, but who
25 The characterization is that of Gombrich, op. cit. n. 9 nevertheless did have an exact sense of decorum
above, p. 197, who first drew attention to the line. It has not - forbidding, on occasion, her ladies to attend
been established whether the traces of a line actually visible
notably gross entertainments.31 In such a conbetween Vulcan and Cupid are in fact Mantegna's work.
text, Fiera's mistake is readily intelligible as
26 The most recent discussion is that of P. Watson, The
Gardenof Lovein TuscanArt of theEarlyRenaissance,
London that of a fool rushing in where more circumspect
courtiers might have feared to tread. If an
1979, pp. 8o ff.
27
ture a 'distinctly naughty' one,25 indicating the
particular character of Vulcan's discomfiture,
which spurs him to grasp the metal wires he will
use to make the snare for Mars and Venus?
What has not so far been observed in this
discussion is that the straight line linking Vulcan and Cupid is not necessarily limited to these
two figures, but, if notionally extended to the
right, arrives unerringly at the eponymous mons
Veneris.This might be thought coincidental. But
it would at any rate not be without analogy in
the conventions of fifteenth-century art. An
anonymous painting in the Louvre (Pl. 27a) is
clearly relevant, if itself in need of elucidation.26
In this work the 'lines of force' are explicitly
drawn, while Mantegna's geometry is less fully
expressed. A closer parallel is provided by
Uccello's St George and the Dragon (Pl. 26b),
where the shaft of St George's lance visually
lines up with the unusual meteorological configuration in the sky behind him, doubtless indicating the divine power that gives force to the
blow.27 These comparisons admittedly do not
help us to be sure about the character of Mantegna's line, and doubtless an argument could
be developed to give it an appearance of rectitude.
Whether we are to see the line as a serious
and discreetly frank part of the iconographical
mechanics of the allegory or as a ribald and
cunningly rude joke on its periphery is a question that could be answered by considering
whether there are other comparably humorous
elements in the picture, to which the answer
must surely be yes. The rock formation above
Vulcan's cave, although not unusual in Mantegna's work, may here be a witty expression of
the god's rage. The grapes to the left of him have
been seen as a mocking visual pun28 and the
water splashing between his feet, ostensibly
part of a waterfall starting much higher up, may
also have been intended as a humiliating visual
Cf. also Domenico Veneziano's Martyrdomof St Lucy,
Berlin. It would be out of place here to expatiate on the
coincidentally (and doubtless unconsciously, but nevertheless significantly) penile character of Uccello's dragon.
28 By Tietze-Conrat,
op. cit. n. Io above, p. 127. If her
suggestion about a play on the double meaning of the word
grappolois correct, one may furtherwonder if the brooms in
the left foregroundof the picture make a similar play on the
meanings of scopare.
29
See E. Wind, Bellini's 'Feastof the Gods',Cambridge,
Mass., 1948, pp. 10ioft.
30
See the copy of this work illustrated in A. Martindale
and N. Garavaglia, The CompletePaintings of Mantegna,
London 1971, p. 91.
31 SeeJ. Cartwright, Isabella d'Este, i, London 1903, p. 212.
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NOTES AND DOCUMENTS
198
educated contemporary
like Fiera could make
such a mistake, it is also not surprising that the
strange precious fruit that is the 'Parnassus'
should have provoked such diversity of modern
opinion.
ROGERJONES
UNIVERSITY
OF MANCHESTER
APPENDIX
CHRONOLOGY
OF THE 'PARNASSUS'
AND FIERA'S MELANYS'IUS
The two paintings Mantegna completed for Isabella
d'Este's studiolo, the 'Parnassus'and the Minerva expelling the Vicesfrom the Gardenof Virtue,were started after
4 March 1492, when Mantegna is reported to have
offered to contribute to the project.32 One of them
had been varnished and installed by July I497.33 Of
the other there is no word (apart from possible
negative indications in April 150034 and May
150 13s) until 13July 1502, when it seems varnish was
ordered for it, presumably because it was nearly
complete.36 It may have been installed soon after.37
It is nowhere stated which of the two paintings was
the earlier,38 though it is generally presumed to have
been the 'Parnassus'.
In these circumstances it would clearly be valuable if a date could be established for Fiera's poem
about the picture. It is printed in a collection entitled
Melanysius, published for the first time, with other
material, in Mantua in 1515 (see n. 2 above). The
Melanysius contains some I 20, mostly rather short,
THE
32 Letter of this date quoted in G.
Gerola, 'Trasmigrazioni
e vicende dei camerini di Isabella d'Este', Atti e Memorie
dell'Accademia Virgiliana di Mantova, xxx, 1929/30, p. 256.
3
E. Verheyen, ThePaintingsin theStudioloof Isabellad'Este
at Mantua, New York 1971, p. 13, n. 27; and P. Kristeller,
Andrea Mantegna, Berlin 1902, Dok. 146.
34
Ibid., Dok. 155.
as Ibid., Dok. 157. I follow the interpretation of Marani,
op. cit. n. 16 above, p. 121.
36 C. Brown, 'The grotta of Isabella
d'Este', Gazette des
Beaux-Arts, VP per., LXXXIX,1977, p. 171. For Mantegna's
use at this time of varnish as afinal treatment, see A. Luzio,
'Isabella d'Este e Giulio II', Rivista d'Italia, December 1909,
p 864-65.
"SBut this question is complicated. References from
November 1502 onwards to 'li quadri del Mantegna' (Kristeller, op. cit. n. 33 above, Dokk. 16o, 161, 162, 171 and 172)
do not conclusively demonstrate when the second painting
was installed. If it is assumed that both paintings were in
the studiolo from November 1502 on, one wonders why in
January 1504 Isabella had to refer to Mantegna for
measurements of figures in the pictures (Dok. 162), and
why Antonio Bentivoglio referred in December 1504 to 'lo
di Messer Andrea' (Dok. 167).
quadro
38
Though see Brown, op. cit. n. 36 above, p. 171.-
occasional poems, at least one of which had been
written by November 1498, while another must have
been written no earlier than August 1511. The poems
do not appear to have been arranged in any particular thematic grouping, and the hypothesis is here
suggested that they run in chronological order of
composition, possibly the result of Fiera's having
given the printer his 'fair-copy'book. Terminal dates
may be established for eight of the poems, and these
are all printed in the order one would then expect.
For three of them a terminusantequemis provided by
their inclusion in dated letters of Fiera, while for the
other five a terminus
post quemis provided by the date
of the death of the person (or pet animal) whose
death they commemorate or follow.
I. Fol. NI": poem addressed to Francesco Gonzaga,
included in the letter of 14 November I498.39
2. Fol. P4V: poem on the death of the buffoon Mattello, included in the letter of 27 May 1499.40
3. Fol. V2r: poem on the death of the poet Marullus,
t 14 April 1500.
4. Fol. V3": poem written after the death of Mantegna, t 13 September 1506.
5. Fol. X3r: poem addressed to Louis XII, included
in the letter of 7 May 1507.41
6. Fol. X3": poem on the death of Guidobaldo da
Montefeltro, t ii April 1508.
7. Fol. ZIv: poem on the death of the Cardinal
d'Amboise, t 25 May 1510.
8. Fol. Z2r: poem on the death of Isabella d'Este's
dog Aura, t August 151I.42
The poem about the 'Parnassus'is printed immediately after no. I, which had been written by
November 1498. Twenty-three poems intervene
before no. 2, which had been written by May 1499.
(Among these, incidentally, is the poem 'De Virgilio
per Statuam restituo' (fol. P2'), which may be connected with Isabella's project for a monument to
Virgil and is printed where we would chronologically
expect it, since surviving correspondence on this
project is dated March-May 149943). From our
hypothesis, it would follow that the poem about the
'Parnassus'waswritten by late 1498 or early 1499.
In the context of the other documentation on the
studiolopaintings, the clear implication is that the
'Parnassus'is indeed the picture which had been
installed byJuly 1497.
a Archivio di Stato, Mantova, Archivio Gonzaga,
Rubrica F.II.8, 'Mantova e Paesi', busta 2451 (kindly
to my attention by Dr David Chambers).
brought
40
Ibid., busta 2453.
41 Ibid., busta
2470.
42 Luzio and Renier, op. cit. n. 21 above, pp.
44-46.
43 Faccioli (ed.), op. cit. n. I above,
1,pp. 59-61.
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26
BATTISTA FIERA AND MANTEGNA
a-Serapis and theDioscuri,from P. S.
Bartoli and G. P. Bellori, Le Antiche
lucernesepolcralifigurate,
169I, (p. 196,
n. I8)
b-Uccello,
(P. 197)
c-Mantegna,
St Georgeand the Dragon. London, National Gallery
'Parnassus'.Paris, Louvre (p. 195)
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FIERA AND MANTEGNA/HENRY VIII/MARCANTONIO
MICHIEL
27
a-Triumph
(p. 197)
a
Photo Giraudon
of Venus. Paris, Louvre
c-Antonio Minelli, Mercury.Detail of
plaque (p. 207)
b-Royal Tudor arms, illumination, bound into Erasmus, Institutio PrincipisChristiani,Basle 1516,
Charlecote Park copy, Warwickshire (pp. 199-200)
cI
Courtesy Victoriaand Albert Museum
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