GANYMEDE IN RENAISSANCE ART: FIVE STUDIES IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF A HOMOEROTIC ICONOLOGY (HOMOSEXUALITY, ITALY, ICONOGRAPHY)

Some two hundred Western European paintings, sculptures, prints, drawings, and decorative artworks from the mid-fifteenth to mid-seventeenth centuries illustrate the myth of Ganymede, the Trojan shepherd, most beautiful of mortal youths, whom Jupiter carried off to serve him as cupbearer and, in many versions, lover. Beginning with Ganymede's artistic resurgence in the late Quattrocento amidst the revival of antique art and ideals, the study focusses principally on five Italian artists in whose oeuvres this myth is particularly prominent: Michelangelo, Correggio, Parmigianino, Giulio Romano, and Cellini. The study than traces the myth's gradual artistic decline and metamorphosis after the mid-sixteenth century, including its diffusion to northern Europe.;The iconography and form of these illustrations are related to contemporaneous social attitudes and behavior regarding sexuality, gender, and marriage, primarily in Italy. The myth is set within several broad cultural contexts, including classical literature, Renaissance social and legal history, and philosophy and literature. For two artists whose homosexual orientation is known--Michelangelo and Cellini--Ganymede is further placed in the context of individual psychological associations and motives.;The social and intellectual changes exemplified by the Counter-Reformation are correlated with the myth's subsequent decline in art. Although distinctive later treatments occurred in Italy and in northern Europe--among them works by Rubens and Rembrandt--the cultural climate was no longer so favorable to classical mythology in general or to artistic expression of the emotional and social themes Ganymede had earlier symbolized.;Three episodes of the myth were most popular with artists. Ganymede's dramatic abduction symbolized both sacred and profane love: in Christian and Neoplatonic thought it represented the soul's ascent toward divine love, in more secular contexts the delights and disapproval associated with homosexual love. Second, as cupbearer and companion Ganymede embodied a range of relationships between a younger and an older man. Third, in his ultimate apotheosis as the constellation Aquarius, Ganymede figured in the symbolism and art of astrology and alchemy.