Transformation of personality and emergence of self in Titian's 'Presentation of the Virgin to the Temple'

Underlying the overt Christian iconography of Titian's painting is a more hidden level of symbolism. The Presentation of the Virgin to the Temple encodes transformation of personality and emergence of a higher self through initiation. This process of self-evolution by death and rebirth, is examined through Renaissance humanism and through the analytical psychology of C. G. Jung. Humanist disciplines discussed are Neoplatonism, Graeco-Roman paganism, the Jewish Kaballah, the Chaldaean Oracles, and the ancient mystery religions of Isis and Osiris, of Eleusis, of Dionysus, and of Mithra. Evidence is presented for extensive Egyptian symbolism, for the Triple Goddess, for astronomical observations, and for a symbolic geometry in the structure of the composition.