Indecent Bodies in Early Modern Visual Culture 9789048551774

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Indecent Bodies in Early Modern Visual Culture

Visual and Material Culture, 1300-1700 A forum for innovative research on the role of images and objects in the late medieval and early modern periods, Visual and Material Culture, 1300-1700 publishes monographs and essay collections that combine rigorous investigation with critical inquiry to present new narratives on a wide range of topics, from traditional arts to seemingly ordinary things. Recognizing the fluidity of images, objects, and ideas, this series fosters cross-cultural as well as multi-disciplinary exploration. We consider proposals from across the spectrum of analytic approaches and methodologies. Series Editor Allison Levy is Digital Scholarship Editor at Brown University. She has authored or edited five books on early modern Italian visual and material culture.

Indecent Bodies in Early Modern Visual Culture

Edited by Fabian Jonietz Mandy Richter Alison G. Stewart

Amsterdam University Press

The publication of this book is made possible by a grant from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Hixson-Lied College of Fine and Performing Arts’ Endowment Fund.

Cover illustration: Maerten van Heemskerck, detail of Triumph of Bacchus, oil on oak wood, c. 1536/37 (?), 56 × 106.6 cm, Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum, inv. Gemäldegalerie 990, photo © Wikimedia Commons (public domain). Cover design: Coördesign, Leiden Lay-out: Crius Group, Hulshout 978 94 6372 583 5 isbn 978 90 4855 177 4 e-isbn doi 10.5117/9789463725835 nur 654 © The authors / Amsterdam University Press B.V., Amsterdam 2023 All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the written permission of both the copyright owner and the author of the book. Every effort has been made to obtain permission to use all copyrighted illustrations reproduced in this book. Nonetheless, whosoever believes to have rights to this material is advised to contact the publisher.



Table of Contents

List of Illustrations

7

Indecent Bodies in Early Modern Visual Culture: An Introduction

15

1. Taste, Lust, and the Male Body: Sexual Representationsin Early Sixteenth-Century Northern Europe

39

2. Private Viewings: The Frankfurt Context of Sebald Beham’s Die Nacht

65

3. To Show or Not to Show?Marcantonio Raimondi and the Representation of Female Pubic Hair

87

Fabian Jonietz, Mandy Richter, Alison G. Stewart

Alison G. Stewart

Miriam Hall Kirch

Mandy Richter

4. Treating Bodily Impurities: Skin, Art, and Medicine

109

5. Indecent Exposure and Honourable Uncovering in Renaissance Portraits of Women

129

6. Lust in Translation: Agency, Sexuality, and Gender Configuration i n Pauwels Franck’s Allegories of Love

155

Romana Sammern

Bette Talvacchia

Ricardo De Mambro Santos

7. ‘So This Guy Walks into a Forest…:’Obscenity, Humour, Sex, and the Equine Body in Hans Baldung’s Horses in a Forest Woodcuts (1534)

175

8. Indecent Creativity and the Tropes of Human Excreta

197

9. ‘It All Turns to Shit’ – The Land of Cockaigne in Sixteenth-Century German Woodcuts

229

10. Noëls and Bodily Fluids: The Business of Low-Country Ceremonial Fountains

257

Index

279

Pia F. Cuneo

Fabian Jonietz

Susanne Meurer

Catherine Emerson



List of Illustrations

Figure 0.1:

Figure 0.2: Figure 0.3:

Figure 0.4:

Figure 0.5:

Figure 0.6:

Figure 0.7:

Figure 1.1:

Figure 1.2: Figure 1.3:

Isaac Cruikshank, Indecency, coloured etching, 1799, Washington, D.C., Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, PC 3 – 1799 – Indecency (A size) [P&P], https:// www.loc.gov/item/2003652525/.17 Master of the Hours of Henri II, Francis I as Minerva, parchment on oak, c. 1545, 234 × 134 mm, Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Estampes, Rés. Na 255. 20 Hans Liefrinck after Leonardo da Vinci, Two Grotesque Heads, engraving, 1538, 115 × 157 mm, New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, acc. no. 2008.577.3, Gift of Leo Steinberg, 2008.24 Domenico Ghirlandaio, Old Man and his Grandson, tempera on wood, c. 1490, 62.7 × 46.3 cm, Paris, Musée du Louvre, inv. RF 266, RMN-Grand Palais (Musée du Louvre) / Franck Raux, https://collections.louvre.fr/en/ark:/53355/cl010064987. 25 German painter, The Giant Anton Frank with the Dwarf Thomele, canvas, end of sixteenth century, 266.8 × 162.5 cm, Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum, inv. Gemäldegalerie, 8299 © KHM-Museumsverband. 25 Master of the Crucifixion of Kempten, detail of Crucifixion, panel painting, c. 1460/70, Nuremberg, Germanisches Nationalmuseum, loan of the Bayerischen Staatsgemäldes28 ammlungen Munich, inv. Gm879. Albrecht Dürer, Portrait of Willibald Pirckheimer, silverpoint drawing, c. 1503, 21.1 × 15 cm, Berlin, SMB, Kupferstichkabinett, KdZ 24623, © Kupferstichkabinett. Staatliche Museen 30 zu Berlin. Sebald Beham, Joseph and Potiphar’s Wife (P. 14-I), engraving, 1526, 52 × 52 mm (sheet), Herzog Anton Ulrich-Museum Braunschweig, Kunstmuseum des Landes Niedersachsen, inv. h-s-beham-ab3-0013. 45 Sebald Beham, Joseph and Potiphar’s Wife (P. 14-state III), engraving, 1526, Ø 53 mm, © Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, inv. 423-4. 45 Monogrammist AC, Joseph and Potiphar’s Wife (P. 14b), etching, c. 1526‒1550, 88 × 84 mm (sheet), Vienna, Albertina Museum, inv. DG1937/429. 48

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Figure 1.4: Figure 1.5: Figure 1.6: Figure 1.7:

Figure 1.8:

Figure 1.9: Figure 1.10:

Figure 2.1: Figure 2.2: Figure 2.3:

Figure 2.4: Figure 2.5:

Monogrammist WI, Joseph and Potiphar’s Wife (P. 14c), engraving, Ø 58 mm (plate), Kunstsammlungen der Fürsten zu Waldburg-Wolfegg. 49 Sebald Beham (?), copy of Joseph and Potiphar’s Wife (P. 14a), engraving, 1526, Vienna, Albertina Museum, inv. DG1936/1305 (with added colour). 49 Sebald Beham, Joseph and Potiphar’s Wife (P. 15-IIII), engraving, 1544, 81 × 56 mm, © Berlin, Kupferstichkabinett, 50 Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, inv. 424-4. Sebald Beham (?), copy of Joseph and Potiphar’s Wife (P. 15b-II), engraving, 1544, 85 × 54 mm, Braunschweig, Herzog Anton Ulrich-Museum, Kunstmuseum des Landes Nieder­ sachsen, inv. h-s-beham-ab3-0015. 51 Sebald Beham, Death and the Lascivious Couple (P. 153-I), engraving, 1529, 82 × 49 mm (sheet), Braunschweig, Herzog Anton Ulrich-Museum, Kunstmuseum des Landes Nieder­ sachsen, inv. h-s-beham-ab3-0155. 56 Sebald Beham, Death and the Lascivious Couple (P. 153-II), engraving, 1529, 82 × 49 mm (plate), Vienna, Albertina 57 Museum, inv. DG1930/1175. Sebald Beham, Death and the Lascivious Couple (P. 153-II), engraving, 1529, 82 × 49 mm (plate), Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, inv. RP-P-H-1040, on loan from the Rijksakademie van 58 Beeldende Kunsten. Sebald Beham, Die Nacht, P. 154, engraving, 1548, state III, 110 × 78 mm (plate), Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, inv. RP-POB-4601.67 Sebald Beham, Nude Girl with a Dog, P. 213, engraving, n.d., Ø 53 mm (plate), Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, inv. RP-P-OB-10.925. 70 Gian Jacopo Caraglio, perhaps after Perino del Vaga, Mercury, Aglauros, and Herse, from Loves of the Gods, T. 14, engraving, n.d., state I, 211 × 134 mm (trimmed), Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, inv. RP-P-OB-35.615. 72 Cornelis Bos after Michelangelo, Leda and the Swan, engraving, n.d., 302 × 413 mm (sheet), New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, inv. 57.658.153. 73 Sebald Beham, Expulsion from Paradise, P. 8, engraving, 1543, 82 × 58 mm (plate), Williamstown, Mass., Clark Art Institute, inv. 1990.16. 74

List of Illustr ations 

Figure 2.6: Conrad Faber von Kreuznach, Portrait of Justinian von Holzhausen and Anna Fürstenberg, mixed media on linden panel, 1536, 68.6 × 98.5 cm, Frankfurt am Main, Städel Museum, inv. 1729. 77 Figure 2.7: Heinrich Aldegrever, A Couple of Lovers Seated, engraving, 1529, Ø 52 mm, Washington, D.C., National Gallery of Art, Rosenwald Collection, inv. 1943.3.284. 78 Figure 3.1: Marcantonio Raimondi, Venus Wringing her Hair, engraving, 1506, 214 × 152 mm, New York, The Metropolitan Museum of 90 Art, inv. 29.44.13, anonymous gift, 1929. Figure 3.2: Marcantonio Raimondi, Venus Wringing her Hair, engraving, 1506, 215 × 150 mm, Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, inv. RP-POB-11.950.92 Figure 3.3: Albrecht Dürer, Adam and Eve, engraving, 1504, 251 × 200 mm, New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 94 inv. 19.73.1, Fletcher Fund, 1919. Figure 3.4: Marcantonio Raimondi, Adam, pen and brown ink on light tan paper, 1505‒1509, 195 × 109 mm, Princeton University Art 98 Museum, inv. X1945-47, gift of Frank Jewett Mather Jr. Figure 3.5: Marcantonio Raimondi, Young Man Protected by Fortune, engraving, 147 × 91 mm, Yale University Art Gallery, inv. 100 1941.248, gift of the Associates of Fine Art. Figure 3.6: Marcantonio Raimondi, Young Man Protected by Fortune, engraving, 148 × 91 mm, Bologna, Pinacoteca Nazionale, inv. PN 2256 © su concessione del Ministero della Cultura – Archivio Fotografico Direzione regionale Musei dell’EmiliaRomagna.101 Figure 3.7: Marcantonio Raimondi, Mars, Venus, and Cupid, engraving, 1508, 298 × 209 mm, New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 102 inv. 17.37.302, gift of Henry Walters, 1917. Figure 3.8: Details of figs. 3.1 and 3.2 (Venus Wringing her Hair), fig. 3.5 (Young Man Protected by Fortune), and fig. 3.7 (Mars, Venus, and Cupid).104 Figure 4.1: French or Italian, Comb, ivory, paint and gilding, fifteenth or sixteenth century, 88 × 129 × 4 mm, New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, acc. no. 17.190.245. 112 Figure 4.2: French painter, detail of Venus with a Mirror, oil on wood, sixteenth century, 54 × 34 cm, Mâcon, Musée des Ursulines, inv. A.700, photo © Wikimedia Commons (public domain). 114

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Figure 4.3: Lavinia Fontana, Hieronymus Mercurialis with an edition of Vesalius’ ‘On the Fabric of the Human Body’ (1542), oil on canvas, 130.8 × 97.1 cm, Baltimore, Walters Art Museum, acc. no. 37.1106, photo © Wikimedia Commons (public domain). 115 Figure 4.4: Giambattista della Porta (John Baptista Porta), Natural Magick (London: Thomas Young and Samuel Speed, 1658), title page with author portrait, London, Wellcome Collection, photo by Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0). 120 Figure 5.1: Domenico Tintoretto, Lady Covering her Breast, oil on canvas, 1580‒1590, 65 × 51 cm, Madrid, Prado Museum, inv. 134 P000384, © Museo del Prado. Figure 5.2: Domenico Tintoretto, Lady Revealing her Breast, oil on canvas, 1580‒1590, 62 × 55.6 cm, Madrid, Prado Museum, inv. 134 P000382, © Museo del Prado. Figure 5.3: Domenico Tintoretto, Portrait of a Courtesan, oil on canvas, 136 1590s, 100 × 84 cm, Venice, Private Collection. Figure 5.4: Mores italiae, ‘Veronica Franco’, water-colour drawing on paper, 1575, 185 × 130 mm, Beinecke MS 457, fol. 6, New 138 Haven, Yale University, Beinecke Library. Figure 5.5: Giacomo Franco, ‘A Noblewoman’, from Habiti delle Donne Venetiane, engraving and woodcut, c.1591‒1610, 280 × 210 mm, New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 140 acc. no. 34.68, Harris Brisbane Dick Fund, 1934. Figure 5.6: Giacomo Franco, ‘A Famous Courtesan’, from Habiti delle Donne Venetiane, engraving and woodcut, c.1591‒1610, 280 × 210 mm, New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 140 acc. no. 34.68, Harris Brisbane Dick Fund, 1934. Figure 5.7: Mores italiae, ‘A Bride’, water-colour drawing on paper, 1575, 185 × 130 mm, Beinecke MS 457, fol. 24, New Haven, Yale 142 University, Beinecke Library. Figure 6.1: Pauwels Franck, Allegories of Love (Love), oil on canvas, c. 1585, 159 × 257.5 cm, Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum. 158 Figure 6.2: Pauwels Franck, Allegories of Love (Lust), oil on canvas, c. 162 1585, 158.7 × 257.3 cm, Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum. Figure 6.3: Pauwels Franck, Allegories of Love (Oblivion), oil on canvas, c. 1585, 169 × 260 cm, Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum. 163 Figure 6.4: Pauwels Franck, Allegories of Love (Punishment), oil on canvas, c. 1585, 160 × 260 cm, Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum.166

List of Illustr ations 

Figure 6.5: Pauwels Franck, Allegories of Love (Punishment), detail of the suicidal woman, Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum. 169 Figure 6.6: Jacopo Caraglio after Perino del Vaga, Jupiter and Antiope, engraving, 1527, 211 × 135 mm, Budapest, Szépművészeti Múzeum, inv. 6749. 169 Figure 6.7: Jean Jollat after Étienne de la Rivière, Dissection of Female Genitalia, engraving, from Charles Estienne, De dissectione partium corporis humani libri tres (Paris: Simon de Colines, 1545), New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, acc. no. 42.138.170 Figure 7.1: Hans Baldung, Horses in a Forest: Stallion Approaching a Mare, woodcut, 1534, 227 × 335 mm, New York, The Metropo179 litan Museum, acc. no. 22.67.58, Rogers Fund, 1922. Figure 7.2: Hans Baldung, Horses in a Forest: Stallion Ejaculating, woodcut, 1534, 228.6 × 333.4 mm, Los Angeles, Los Angeles 179 County Museum of Art, Los Angeles County Fund (60.4). Figure 7.3: Hans Baldung, Horses in a Forest: Horses Fighting, woodcut, 1534, 218 × 326 mm, New York, The Metropolitan Museum, 180 acc. no. 33.54.2, Harris Brisbane Dick Fund, 1933. Figure 8.1: Left: François Chauveau (attr.) after Cornelis Bos, detail of Triumph of Bacchus, engraving, mid-seventeenth century, 315 × 880 mm, Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, RP-P-OB-7421; right: Johann Theodor de Bry after Cornelis Bos, detail of Triumph of Bacchus, engraving, c. 1600, 113 × 279 mm, 201 Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, RP-P-BI-5247. Figure 8.2: Virgil Solis after Peter Flötner (?), details of the Triumph of Bacchus featured on the Holzschuher-Pokal, engravings, mid-sixteenth century, 55 × 245 mm, 58 × 245 mm, and 58 × 246 mm, Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, RP-P-OB-54.647, 54.648 and 54.649. 202 Figure 8.3: Sebastian Stoskopff, Still Life, oil on canvas, 1625/1630 (?), 52 × 73 cm, Paris, Musée du Louvre, inv. RF 1981-18. 204 Figure 8.4: Jacques Callot, Squatting Peasant, from the series Capricci di varie figure, etching, 1617, 53 × 79 mm, New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, acc. no. 40.52.52, Rogers Fund, by exchange, 1940. 205 Figure 8.5: Dirck Volkertsz. Coornhert after Adriaen de Weert, detail of Hypocrisy, engraving, c. 1572‒1576, 206 × 121 mm, Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, RP-P-BI-6577. 207

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Figure 8.6: Red und wider red Salomo[n]is un[d] marcolfÿ (Augsburg: Johann Schobser, 1490), woodcut on fol. 22 recto, Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, urn:nbn:de:bvb:12bsb00026758-9.208 Figure 8.7: Sebald Beham, The Little Buffoon, engraving (state II), 1542, 46 × 81 mm, New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, acc. no. 17.3.467, Harris Brisbane Dick Fund, 1917. 214 Figure 8.8: Maerten van Heemskerck, detail of Triumph of Bacchus, oil on oak wood, c. 1536/37 (?), 56 × 106.6 cm, Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum, inv. Gemäldegalerie 990, photo 215 © Wikimedia Commons (public domain). Figure 8.9: Johannes Sadeler the Elder after Christoph Schwartz, detail of Warning Against Venereal Disease, engraving, c. 1588/95, 216 241 × 305 mm, London, Wellcome Library, inv. 524739i. Figure 8.10: Left: Les dix premiers livres de l’Iliade d’Homère prince des poetes, transl. by Hugues Salel (Paris: Jehan, 1545), title page, woodcut, Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, urn:nbn:de:bvb:12-bsb10195380-0; right: Guillaume de La Perriere, La Morosophie (Lyon: Macé Bonhomme, 1553), p. D2 recto, emblem no. 14, woodcut, Munich, Bayerische 218 Staatsbibliothek, urn:nbn:de:bvb:12-bsb10189291-4. Figure 8.11: Taylors Physicke has purged the Divel. Or, The Divell has got a squirt… (London [?], 1641), detail of the frontispiece, woodcut and movable letter type, private collection. 219 Figure 8.12: Gregorio Leti, Critica…sopra le sorti, siano lotterie, ed. by Pierre Mortier and Jean Louis De Lorme (Paris 1697, falsely labelled ‘A Amsterdam, Chez les Amis de L’Auteur’), detail of the title engraving (Bernard Picart?), 120 × 140 mm, Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, RP-P-OB-51.145. 220 Figure 8.13: Richard Livesay (?) after William Hogarth, The complicated R___n, etching, 204 × 149 mm, 1794 (design dated c. 1734), New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, acc. no. 32.35(241), Harris Brisbane Dick Fund, 1932. 222 Figure 9.1: Pieter van der Heyden after Pieter Bruegel the Elder, The Fat Kitchen, engraving, 1563, 210 × 293 mm (sheet), New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Harris Brisbane Dick Fund, 1526. 231 Figure 9.2: Pieter Bruegel the Elder, The Land of Cockaigne, oil on panel, 1567, 52 × 78 cm, Munich, Alte Pinakothek, inv. 8940. 232

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Figure 9.3: Anonymous, The Promised Land of Cockaigne, woodcut printed from eight blocks, 1560‒1580, 63.4 × 101 cm, New York, New York Public Library, The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Print Collection, inv. 94885. 234 Figure 9.3a: Detail of fig. 9.3 with cross cheese and male and female fruit growing on trees. 236 Figure 9.3b: Detail of fig. 9.3 with the revellers’ table. 239 Figure 9.3c: Detail of fig. 9.3 with the queen of Cockaigne and recent arrivals.242 Figure 9.3d: Detail of fig. 9.3 with craftsmen, peasants, burghers and 245 beggars approaching the buckwheat mountain. Figure 9.4: Anonymous, Hans Little Pretty, hand-coloured woodcut, 1520s, 390 × 276 mm, Gotha, Stiftung Friedrichstein, inv. 40,19, © Stiftung Schloss Friedenstein Gotha ‒ aus den Sammlungen der Herzog von Sachsen Coburg und Gotha’schen 241 Stiftung für Kunst und Wissenschaft. Figure 9.5: Peter Flötner, Escutcheon of Cockaigne, hand-coloured woodcut, 1536, 285 × 395 mm, Gotha, Stiftung Friedrichstein, inv. 39,69, © Stiftung Schloss Friedenstein Gotha ‒ aus den Sammlungen der Herzog von Sachsen Coburg und Gotha’248 schen Stiftung für Kunst und Wissenschaft. Figure 9.6: Peter Flötner, Fool carrying Excrement, woodcut, c. 1536‒1540, 233 × 305 mm, London, British Museum, inv. E,8.160, © British Museum, London. 250 Figure 9.7: Peter Flötner, The Swines’ Supper, hand-coloured woodcut, 1536‒1540, 264 × 380 mm, Gotha, Stiftung Friedrichstein, inv. 40,58, © Stiftung Schloss Friedenstein Gotha ‒ aus den Sammlungen der Herzog von Sachsen Coburg und Gotha’schen Stiftung für Kunst und Wissenschaft. 251 Figure 9.8: Virgil Solis, Procession of Putti with Sausages and a Pig, engraving and etching, 1550s, 38 × 202 mm, Dresden, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, Kupferstich-Kabinett, inv. A 3855, photo by Andreas Diesend. 252 Figure 10.1: Replica after Jérome Duquesnoy the Elder, Manneken Pis, bronze, 1965 (original completed in 1619), 61 cm, Brussels, photo by Catherine Emerson (2006). 258 Figure 10.2: Anonymous, Manneken Pis, engraving, c. 1720, illustration from Petrus de Cafmeyer, Histoire du Tres-Saint Sacrement

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de Miracle, transl. by George de Backer (Brussels: George de Backer, 1720). 260 Figure 10.3: Manneken Pis dressed, decorated and serving beer at a public ceremony, photo by Catherine Emerson (2010). 263 Figure 10.4: Thomas and Alexandre Francine, Fontaine de Diane, 1603, bronze, Palace of Fontainebleau, photo © Wikimedia Commons (public domain). 268 Figure 10.5: Heinrich-Clemens Dick after Hugo Lederer, Aachener Fischpüddelchen, bronze, 1954 (1911 original destroyed in World War II), Aachen, Fischmarkt, photo © Wikimedia 270 Commons (public domain). Figure 10.6: Anonymous, The Wolf and the Porcupine [Le Loup et le Porc Epic], plate 30 from Labyrinte de Versailles (Paris: Imprimerie Royale, 1679), Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, département Arsenal, EST-541, photo by https://gallica.bnf. fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k1518714k.274



Indecent Bodies in Early Modern Visual Culture: An Introduction Fabian Jonietz, Mandy Richter, Alison G. Stewart

Indecency ‒ the polar opposite of propriety, appropriateness, respectability, decorum ‒ has played a central role in our understanding of Early Modern cultural norms since the beginning of art history as an academic field in the nineteenth century. Accordingly, the concept of indecency was fundamental to historical and contemporary discourses that attempted to balance social limits on indecorous behaviour and images. At the same time, the appeal of such visual imagery, the attraction of graphic depictions of bodies and their actions, resulted in conflicting responses on the part of viewers. Historically, decency and indecency played defining roles in both the idea of the ‘Renaissance’ and its characteristics. The nineteenth-century view of this period ‒ notably shaped by Jacob Burckhardt and his Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy (1860) ‒ not surprisingly saw the Renaissance as the birthplace of modern individualism, and with it ideas of the idealised, the classical, ‘clean’ beauty, and striving for grace.1 Since the 1950s, the idea of the European Renaissance north and south of the Alps has expanded to include the struggle between decorous and indecorous elements, a fact acknowledged within art history, cultural studies, and philology following Eugenio Battisti’s L’Antirinascimento (‘The Anti-Renaissance’, 1964), the ground-breaking work of Mikhail Bakhtin’s Rabelais and His World (1965, English translation 1984), and the general reassessment of sixteenth-century Mannerism.2 The alleged individualism of Renaissance men and women led Stephen Greenblatt (Renaissance Self-Fashioning, 1980) and the large field of studies addressing selffashioning to acknowledge that being socially improper or indecent had become, in fact, equally important to individualism for Early Modern society and courts. 1 Cf. recently Biow, Cleanliness. 2 Bakhtin, Rabelais and His World; Battisti, L’Antirinascimento; Friedlaender, Mannerism and AntiMannerism; Smyth, Mannerism and Maniera; Hauser, Mannerism; Shearman, Mannerism; Hofmann, Zauber der Medusa.

Jonietz, F., M. Richter, A.G. Stewart (eds.), Indecent Bodies in Early Modern Visual Culture. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2023 doi 10.5117/9789463725835_intro

16 Fabian Jonie tz, Mandy Richter, Alison G. Stewart

One example is Benvenuto Cellini as someone continuously opposing the model of the courtier propagated by Baldassare Castiglione (The Book of the Courtier, 1528) or Giovanni della Casa (Galateo: The Rules of Polite Behavior, 1558), the ideal neither to offend nor to stand out.3 Yet, it is worth remembering that well before what might be called the rediscovery of the ‘Indecent Renaissance’ and well before Burkhardt, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe centred his sixteenth-century play Torquato Tasso, written in the 1780s, around the clash of these two concepts: Is everything allowed that pleases (erlaubt ist was gefällt), as he lets the Italian poet Tasso argue impetuously in a nostalgic vision of the Golden Age? Or, as the Princess Leonora d’Este replies with reference to contemporary moral values, only what is decent (erlaubt ist was sich ziemt)?

Indecent Viewings Goethe’s renowned debate between Tasso and Leonora touches on a simple truth that some scholarly discussions omit. That what social norms might label unziemlich or ‘indecent’ is, in many cases, the visibility of an initially innocent action or desire, or of a natural bodily function or appearance. The latter issue contrasts with offenses and felonies forbidden by law and religion, thus indecency can be defined by its public nature. In addition, the viewer’s curiosity and arousal is often what turns such natural acts into something indecent, as Isaac Cruikshank’s print Indecency (1799) seems to address, in which a displeased prostitute complains about the viewer gazing at her while she takes a leak: ‘B[an]t you / what are you staring at?’ (f ig. 0.1). This example demonstrates that oftentimes such images and texts explicitly request an audience and therefore function much like a performance. 4 Not only did the audience enjoy staring at or reading such indecencies, there is also evidence that artists enjoyed themselves in producing them, as is shown by the example of François Rabelais. In chapter VII of Pantagruel, the reader is presented with a list of satirical books in the imaginary humanist library of Saint Victor. This list had been expanded by the author from the first edition in c. 1532, which mentions 42 titles in the library, to the final edition in 1542 with a list of 139 books.5 The titles, which often mix French, Latin, or even Greek, include much scatological and erotic vocabulary and underline the authors’ skills of intellectual 3 Greenblatt, Renaissance Self-Fashioning; Biow, In Your Face. 4 Butterworth, ‘Introduction’, p. 27. 5 Cf. Bowen, ‘The Library of Saint-Victor’. For the first English translation see Ferguson, ‘Sir Thomas Urquhart’s Translation’.

Indecent Bodies in Early Modern Visual Culture: An Introduc tion 

Figure 0.1: Isaac Cruikshank, Indecency, coloured etching, 1799, Washington, D.C., Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, PC 3 – 1799 – Indecency (A size) [P&P], https://www.loc.gov/item/2003652525/.

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verbal play and invention with the intention to amuse, among them Tartaretus, De modo cacandi, Le culpelé des vefves [The Bald Arse or Peel’d Breech of the Widows], or Les cymbals des dames [The Cymbals of Ladies]. Even if it may seem so at first, this and many examples discussed in this volume offer evidence that the point of departure for debates dealing with indecency is not primarily antiquity, or at least not alone. As recent scholarship has demonstrated, the ‘reception of antiquity’ fails to fully grasp the widespread use of such imagery in the Early Modern period, which in many cases revolves rather around contemporary concerns and demands.6 Therefore, the present volume aims for a change in perspective. Instead of investigating such issues from the normative point of departure of decorum (‘decency’) and aptum (‘appropriateness’) ‒ rhetorical and stylistic norms introduced into artistic theory since antiquity ‒ the ten essays collected in this book look at various case studies from a different point of view.7 The contributions take into account the relation of represented bodies to socio-moral norms by considering why and how indecency was related to, and defined by, visibility and a premodern concept of privacy.8 When considering the addressed public, the issue of gender, as well as a broader variety of spectators, needs to be considered because the reception of works may differ widely depending on the audience. The effects of indecent words and actions on a (female) audience, and therefore indecencies as cognitive problem, for example, Erasmus of Rotterdam explicitly broached in Institutio christiani matrimonii (The Institution of Christian Matrimony, 1526) when he underlined that such indecencies spoken or performed in front of a girl ‘…remain in her mind like a corrupt seed that will one day grow into a poisonous plant’.9 In similar manner, Nuremberg’s patrician authorities attempted to control participants of popular carnival celebrations to ensure that they did not make use of ‘bawdy words and 6 The link to antiquity has in particular been discussed in connection to sexual imagery, amongst others, see Talvacchia, Taking Positions; Lindquist, The Meanings of Nudity; Turner, Eros Visible; Kren, The Renaissance Nude; Burke, The Italian Renaissance Nude; Hegener, Nackte Gestalten. 7 See above all ‒ with further bibliographical references ‒ Grassi and Pepe, Dizionario della critica d’arte, I, pp. 144‒145; Mildner-Flesch, Decorum; Haussherr, Convenevolezza; Ames-Lewis and Bednarek, Decorum; Asmuth, ‘Angemessenheit’; Rutherford and Mildner-Flesch, ‘Decorum’ (for painting and sculpture, see esp. cols. 434‒452); Müller, Decorum; Thimann, ‘Decorum’; Gaston, ‘Vasari’; Kanz, ‘Decorum’; a recent discussion of the concept of decorum in Williams, Raphael. See also below, n. 24. 8 Cf. Elias, The Civilizing Process. Recent scholarship has demonstrated how the concepts of the public and the private, as indicated by Elias and further developed by Jürgen Habermas in Strukturwandel der Öffentlichkeit (1962, English translation 1989), prove to be unsatisfactory and insufficient for analysing Early Modern history. For this change of perspective in scholarship see e.g. Melville and Moos, Das Öffentliche und Private as well as Green, Nørgaard, and Bruun, Early Modern Privacy. 9 Erasmus, Institutio christiani matrimonii, p. 424, see also Roberts, ‘Erasmus’, p. 102.

Indecent Bodies in Early Modern Visual Culture: An Introduc tion 

indecent gestures’ (unczymliche wort, unordeliche geperde), especially in front of maidens and ladies of high rank.10 How contemporary viewers would have reacted to images and objects has, in fact, been the focus of many studies close to reception theory and the aesthetics of reception. Apart from the seminal works by Hans Robert Jauss, Wolfgang Iser and Umberto Eco, art historical studies have mostly profited from Michael Baxandall’s renowned concept of the period eye and Wolfgang Kemp’s discussions of reception theory (Rezeptionsästhetik).11 Especially in one specialised field of art history within the anglophone scholarly community it has become popular to paraphrase Baxandall’s methodological groundwork to engage with such issues as gendered spectatorship or the physical handling of artistic and crafted everyday objects by females. Such ambitious approaches proclaiming ‘period bodies’, ‘period hands’, ‘period hearts’, ‘situational eye’, or ‘gendered period eye’, however, have been confronted with criticism, as they seem to have rather weakened Baxandall’s heuristic approach instead of helping to expand it.12 After all, the methodological success of the period eye was owed, for the most part, to Baxandall’s attentive reconstruction of the language of a past beholder, and to his philological analysis of historical terminologies and their foundation in the diverse traditions of spectators’ rhetoric, faith, economy, and social classes. Starting with the proper way of looking (and therefore perceiving), there may be no better example to illustrate how a ‘wrong’ way of seeing was defined as unseemly than Leon Battista Alberti’s use in the 1430s of the adjective indecenter to comment on the inappropriate squinting of an ancient statue of a cross-eyed Venus sculpted by Praxiteles. Apparently, the statue’s gaze lacked decorum in the eyes of the beholder because it did not correspond to an ideal of beauty and because it suggested that the goddess’s vision lacked clear direction and focus: She was ‘looking wrong’ in a double sense.13 A second use of the term indecenter, also by Alberti, describes the indecency of painters showing male gods like Jupiter and Mars in women’s clothes.14 This example emphasises again that the concept of indecency is much broader 10 Simon, ‘Carnival Obscenities’, pp. 199‒200, 211. Cuneo and Meurer in this volume discuss the carnival items of phalluses and excrement. 11 Jauss, Aesthetic Experience and Literary Hermeneutics; Jauss, Toward an Aesthetic of Reception; Iser, The Act of Reading; Eco, Lector in fabula; Baxandall, Painting and Experience; Baxandall, Limewood Sculptors, ch. VI; Kemp, Der Betrachter ist im Bild; Kemp, ‘The Work of Art and its Beholder’. 12 See, e.g., Berdini, ‘Women under the Gaze’; L’Estrange, Holy Motherhood, esp. pp. 25‒43; Randolph, Touching Objects; Pearson, Gardens of Love, esp. pp. 12‒13. 13 ‘Praxiteles quom a Veneris statua, quae indecenter intuebatur, iterum atque iterum suasionibus, cohortationibus, precibus atque denique conviciis et comminationibus frustra petisset ut oculorum vitium emendaret, ferro tandem id ipsum tollendum censuit.’ Alberti, Apologhi, p. 94 (LXVIII). 14 ‘Iovem aut Martem veste muliebri indecenter vestires.’ Alberti, Opere volgari, III, p. 67 (De pictura II.38).

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20 Fabian Jonietz, Mandy Richter, Alison G. Stewart

Figure 0.2: Master of the Hours of Henri II, Francis I as Minerva, parchment on oak, c. 1545, 234 × 134 mm, Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Estampes, Rés. Na 255.

Indecent Bodies in Early Modern Visual Culture: An Introduc tion 

than the mere question of lasciviousness in connection with sexual images ‒ an important aspect, discussed below, yet only one of many described by the much broader concept of indecency. In this instance, Alberti addresses cross-dressing as a breach of decorum, a case which somehow resembles the image of Francis I of France appearing with various attributes of male and female gods (fig. 0.2). Apparently, this panegyrical glorification of the ruler seems to have been more troubling for twentieth-century art historians (who shared Alberti’s concerns) than for the King’s sixteenth-century contemporaries.

Terms of Indecency In the context of the royal court across Europe, both north and south, this iconographical vocabulary would have appeared as respectable or as dignified (decenter) as other visualisations of political power.15 Decenter is a Latin term that is used, among many other examples from courtly contexts, in the inscription of the famous diptych painted by Piero della Francesca to describe the festive appropriateness of the triumphal celebration of Federico da Montefeltro. In contrast to rhetorical texts, where fifteenth-century theoreticians such as Lorenzo Valla defined the category dedecus (‘disgrace’) as the opposite of decus / decor, texts commenting on the visual arts seem to have established a more sophisticated and versatile vocabulary to address indecency. Only in the post-tridentine climate did indecente become a key term used by authors such as Gabriele Paleotti and the eccentric Giovanni Paolo Lomazzo.16 Throughout Pietro da Cortona’s and Giovanni Domenico Ottonelli’s treatise, a late reaction to this conservative trend ‒ published only in 1652 ‒ indecente had in fact become an adjective used most frequently to condemn iconographical, ornamental or stylistic violations of religious and moral ideas.17 In contrast, most vernacular languages had developed their own, very different jargon in the fifteenth and early sixteenth century, especially in Northern Europe. In German, such images were often described as ‘not prudish’ (unschamhaftig) and ‘unseemly’ (unschicklich, unzi[e]mlich), or that they evoke lewdness (reytzent zu der geylheit) and must be considered ‘inappropriately lewd ornament’ (unmässig geile Schmuck).18 One booklet, with images that provoked the Nuremberg authorities to remove it from circulation, described it as ‘shameful’ (schenndtlich) and ‘sinful’ 15 Cf. Pfisterer, ‘Die Erotik der Macht’. 16 See e.g. Paleotti, Discorso, p. 184 recto; Lomazzo, Trattato, p. 530. 17 Cortona and Ottonelli, Trattato, esp. pp. 33, 67, 181, 206, 210, 322, 330. 18 For these examples and the specif ic language used in the German speaking countries regarding indecent imagery, see ‒ apart from the important hints in Asmuth, Angemessenheit, cols. 581‒582 ‒ the enormously helpful anthology of sources Von Strittigkeit der Bilder.

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(lesterlich), with ‘indecorous’ (unzüchtig) pictures showing ‘unchaste’ (unordentlicher) love in an official document; not one copy of the booklet is known today. Words within German anecdotes and popular plays, among others, indicated similar meanings, in the vernacular language used every day.19 Dutch art treatises similarly called these images ‘improper’ (niet behoorlijk).20 As will be abundantly clear in the Introduction that follows, the Italian use of the Latin rhetorical tradition, with its emphasis on theory and terminology relating to ‘indecency’, is distinct from the less prevalent use of terminology in the north where much documentation, including names, has not come down to us ‒ even more so than in the south – due to iconoclasm, changing religious affiliation and war, and different social practices.21 There, humanist terminology is also accompanied by vernacular terms, often drawn from contemporary carnival plays, jokes, and sermons that were recorded by poet-shoemaker Hans Sachs, among others. Yet, also in general the Italian sources ‒ especially in earlier writings ‒ address the matter of decency under such heterogeneous rubrics such as ‘honourable’ (onorevole), ‘honest’ (onesto), ‘discrete’ (discreto), ‘adequate’ (adeguato), ‘reasonable’ (ragionevole), or ‘convenient’ (convenevole); by defining indecency through the negation (e.g. poco onorevole, sconvenevole, senza decoro, disonesto); or through specific terms such as ‘lascivious’ (lascivo) or ‘obscene’ (osceno) ‒ the latter word, again, in the Early Modern period was not restricted to questions of a sexual nature. The ancient rhetorical category most commonly utilised in art historical scholarship to deal with such questions, decorum, functions in most cases for the European Early Modern period as a mere synonym.22 This interchangabilityle of ‘decency’ and ‘decorum’ is demonstrated by the relevant chapter in the treatise on ancient painting, Da pintura antiga (1548), entitled Do decoro ou decência (‘On Decorum or Decency’), by the sixteenth-century Portuguese painter Francisco de Holanda.23 19 Cuneo addresses the use of the word ‘obscene’ in her essay below; Stewart, also below, for the vernacular German for a ‘shameful and sinful booklet.’ 20 Van Hoogstraten, Inleyding, p. 95. 21 On the ‘Northern Renaissance’, see Porras, Art of the Northern Renaissance, ‘What is a Renaissance’, pp. 14‒15; Nash, Northern Renaissance Art, pp. 2‒7, especially p. 4; Smith, The Northern Renaissance, p. 12 who states there was a ‘distinctly northern European Renaissance, but one in which curiosity about the individual and the natural world was valued more than a renewed dialogue with antiquity. The latter occurred in the sixteenth century but never to the same degree as in Italy.’ On destruction in the north, see Nash, Northern Renaissance Art, ch. 2, ‘Dispersal and Destruction.’ 22 The terms used to circumscribe the semantic field of decency and indecency are, however, vast; cf. e.g. David Summer’s reasoning on ‘discretion’ (discretione / descrição) and familiar concepts: Summers, The Language of Art, pp. 332‒346; for sources mentioning sconvenienza / sconvenevolezza see Grassi and Pepe, Dizionario della critica d’arte, II, p. 514. For the use of the French term obscène in the Renaissance and its roots in Latin, see Butterworth, ‘Defining Obscenity’; cf. more generally Obscenity, ed. by Ziolkowski. 23 De Holanda, Da pintura antiga, pp. 73‒75; for an English translation see De Holanda, On Antique Painting, pp. 128‒130. For literature on decorum and further synonyms, see above, n. 7. The Vitruvian use

Indecent Bodies in Early Modern Visual Culture: An Introduc tion 

The concept of decorum, applied in art historical studies today, is primarily the one used by Alberti in the Quattrocento. His definition of the term denoted the rhetorical theory for the decency of style and the adequacy of the elements within a painterly narrative (istoria).24 In antiquity, the issue of literary inappropriateness (ἀπρεπές [aprepés]) was already touched upon by Homer and Aristotle.25 Even if the best-known passage from antiquity complaining about indecency in the arts ‒ the mocking of the citizens of the town Tralles (vitium indecentiae), reported by Vitruvius ‒ is related to the misplacing of statues (Ita indecens…adiecit), indecency is not a subject limited to bodies and painted or sculpted istorie.26 All discussion of ornament (decor / ornatus) since antiquity centred around its appropriate use. In the Early Modern period, witnesses discussed the unsuitability of placing a meridian line in the floor of a Roman church (poco convenevole) and many other issues regarding architecture, urbanism, or non-figurative depictions.27 Sixteenth-century theoreticians and theologians including Paolo Cortesi, Bernardino Cirillo, Giovanni Paolo Lomazzo or Giovan Battista Armenini argued whether or not landscape paintings, grotteschi, and mythological subjects were, according to the concept of decorum, suitable for specific rooms of a palace or villa.28 The grotesque exaggeration of the caricature ‒ a related new feature of the Renaissance ‒ responded to the secret desire to ridicule authoritative figures and norms, and thus soon found its place in the market of prints (fig. 3).

Body Troubles Another general idea of the present volume is to connect various fields of scholarship that have received new attention, especially over the last few decades. Apart from studies addressing gender and queerness since the 1980s, recent scholarship for the Early Modern period has increasingly added new material and insights to the concept of age and to unusual physiognomies and physical disabilities, sometimes visually strengthened through juxtapositions of vastly differing ages and size (fig. 0.4, 0.5).29 These issues are directly related to the artistic theory of decorum in regard of the term το πρέπον (to prepón ‒ ‘appropriate’ or ‘fitting’) does not seem to have had a literary impact in the artistic literature prior to the eighteenth century. 24 In this volume, decorum is discussed by Richter for Marcantonio Raimondi’s use of pubic hair. 25 Asmuth, Angemessenheit, col. 580. 26 Vitruvius, On Architecture, VII, 5. 27 Valesio, Diario di Roma, I, p. 515. 28 For a summary, see Jonietz, Buch zum Bild, pp. 163‒166. 29 Among the numerous recent contributions, see e.g. Nolte, Homo debilis; Bolze et al., Prozesse des Alterns; Ghadessi, Human Monsters; Love, Early Modern Theatre; Bearden, Monstrous Kinds; O’Bryan,

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Figure 0.3: Hans Liefrinck after Leonardo da Vinci, Two Grotesque Heads, engraving, 1538, 115 × 157 mm, New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, acc. no. 2008.577.3, Gift of Leo Steinberg, 2008.

to proportions and harmony. The fact that Federico da Montefeltro, mentioned above, had a deformed right side of his face due to terrible scars, and was for this reason portrayed by Piero della Francesca showing only his unharmed side, is well known and mentioned in every discussion of his diptych. Yet, art history has generally overlooked the fact that such issues remained a permanent and crucial problem for artists. In 1673, a painter was even imprisoned for depicting the natural appearance of a one-eyed cardinal instead of painting him in a more advantageous position that would hide his defective side.30 To see this matter of indecency in relation to the question of the human appearance, as discussed in Romana Sammern’s and Mandy Richter’s contributions, helps us to better understand how a concept of bodily (in-)decency was constructed ‘Grotesque Bodies, Princely, Delight’; Representing Infirmity, ed. by Henderson et al.; Körper-Bilder in der Frühen Neuzeit, ed. by Stolberg. The difficulty of interdisciplinary research on this topic, however, is demonstrated by the problematic interpretations of Early Modern artworks written by medically trained authors included in the collected volume edited by Canalis and Ciavolella, Disease and Disability. 30 ‘Si sente qualche bisbiglio trà pittori vedendosi carcerato un compagno per haver dipinto al naturale il Cardinal Gastaldi (privo d’un occhio), che vuol esser ritratto in sbiescio per paliar il mancamento della natura.’ Rossi, ‘Roma ignorata’, p. 317.

Indecent Bodies in Early Modern Visual Culture: An Introduc tion 

Figure 0.4: Domenico Ghirlandaio, Old Man and his Grandson, tempera on wood, c. 1490, 62.7 × 46.3 cm, Paris, Musée du Louvre, inv. RF 266, RMN-Grand Palais (Musée du Louvre) / Franck Raux, https://collections. louvre.fr/en/ark:/53355/cl010064987.

Figure 0.5: German painter, The Giant Anton Frank with the Dwarf Thomele, canvas, end of sixteenth century, 266.8 × 162.5 cm, Vienna, Kunsthisto­ risches Museum, inv. Gemäldegalerie, 8299 © KHM-Museumsverband.

and pursued in the Renaissance and beyond. Addressing human appearance reveals how it found creative and provocative responses to the idealised norms. Sammern demonstrates this aspect in her discussion of the Early Modern discourse, which included medical writings, on the colour of skin and its impurities, in particular stains, odours, and bodily fluids. Indecencies of skin extended to unwanted body hair. In similar manner, Richter relates the perception of body hair to the representation of pubic hair in sixteenth-century prints, in the depictions of female nudes by Marcantonio Raimondi. There fine hairs made visible that which is normally invisible. For Venus in Marcantonio’s prints, the inclusion of pubic hair is seen to indicate fertility and therefore not indecorous or indecent. The oscillating relationship between such ideals of beauty and the desire for sexually explicit imagery has recently re-entered the focus of several ambitious books and exhibitions.31 Alison G. Stewart and Lisa Kirch demonstrate in their essays the widespread taste for and interest in explicit images prevalent in the 31 See above, note 6.

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German print market during the first half of the sixteenth century and responses via censorship, including the colouring and cutting of prints by their owners. Kirch discusses the meaning of Sebald Beham’s highly erotic Night in the social context of Frankfurt am Main. There the engraving, which offers a nude woman displaying her genitals to the viewer, is understood not as indecent, but as market oriented and as having a broad audience including humanistically educated city officials. Stewart analyses the responses to two other prints by Beham, Joseph and Potiphar’s Wife and Death and the Lascivious Couple that show an aroused male, both the living Joseph and the figure of death. She argues that the prints confirm a Renaissance interest in sexual imagery. Pia F. Cuneo’s essay on Hans Baldung Grien’s Horses, instead, demonstrates that beastly bodies ‒ apart from the mythological creatures in the grotesques mentioned above ‒ also constituted part of these discussions and sometimes wittily served as examples of human behaviour. She explores both the contemporary writings of the humanist Erasmus of Rotterdam and vernacular sources in German, from carnival plays to sermons and concludes that what she calls ‘seeing sex’ ‒ showing body parts and processes usually concealed ‒ constituted what was deemed indecent. The increased demand for sexual imagery was not exclusively restricted to the print market, but applies to almost all artistic categories and genres in the sixteenth century:32 this amongst others was told by the occurrence of sexually allusive attributes, gestures, and acts in many artworks connected to private commissions, sometimes even with an allegedly instructive purpose. In the contribution of Bette Talvacchia, the partial nudity in Venetian painted portraits is discussed with regard to the art historical tradition of interpreting these female sitters as courtesans. In the portraits, a bare breast revealed to the viewer has been interpreted as indecent. Rather, Talvacchia discusses the portraits within the context of betrothal and marriage customs and describes them as ‘chaste nudity’. Renaissance Venice is also the historical background for Ricardo De Mambro Santos’s analysis of the concept of ‘honest lust’, as depicted by Pauwels Franck (Paolo Fiammingo) in four allegories. He calls the paintings on canvas, each displaying a nude woman in a ‘kaleidoscope of sexual positions’ before a landscape, as sensually provocative, but never gratuitously indecent. Such indecent symbolism or acts, which may include those not within the heteronormative framework, should be seen in most cases outside of general socio-moral norms because they are connected to one specific context. As mentioned above, erotic imagery has for a long time been reviewed by art historians exclusively in relation to ancient models. Yet, as the huge number of publications on the topic attests, the many still-preserved artworks created in the Early Modern period 32 See e.g. Nova, ‘Erotismo e spritualità’.

Indecent Bodies in Early Modern Visual Culture: An Introduc tion 

depicting such issues reveal manifold motivations and offer a much broader scope of images and texts. Institutions like the Rugamt (the office of trade control) in Nuremberg, and its proceedings, and the patent and privilege system in Venice, as well the famous case of the Modi, assist in explaining censorship or legal punishment when it comes to the creation of such indecencies and their divulgation, namely their increased visibility and accessibility.

Limits and Liminalities Later censure and the oftentimes problematic reception tell another story, one of different definitions of decorum in different times as well as changed social limits and visibility. Some aspects of the human body, however, have been considered indecent at all times by some individuals, even if the treatment and cleaning of specific areas differed due to religious or cultural beliefs and traditions. Liminal areas such as the genitalia and certain body functions and natural needs have at various times contested such socio-cultural norms. Nobert Elias has drawn attention to Erasmus’s arguing against the recommended suppressing of passing gas in order to avoid indecent noises, or the equally unhealthy holding back of urine.33 Such an open-minded understanding of natural needs remains problematic when it comes to their visibility. Therefore, the representation of urination and other bodily excretions in the visual arts is of particular interest for this volume. Catherine Emerson focusses on the small bronze statue of a naked boy urinating, known as the Mannekin Pis, and the omnipresent fountains with urinating statues in the Low Countries and France. These fountains span from the middle of the fifteenth to the eighteenth century and underscore the visibility and acceptance of bodily emissions in the public realm. Fabian Jonietz discusses the metaphorical and practical relation of bodily excretion ‒ defecating, urinating, vomiting, or farting ‒ to artistic and poetic creation, how the artist’s stomach and anus were considered in this discourse, and how human waste products served as symbolic and actual artistic materials. Both Emerson and Jonietz demonstrate that the natural, yet socially improper notion of human excretions served as the reason artists used them to express provocative or subversive ideas through the representation of bodily excretions. The physical pain and agony accompanying human bodily functions, which Erasmus addresses, is linked to the fact that explicit depictions of pain and violence, which have increasingly gained the attention of scholars, constitute another subject area within the larger field of indecency. In related manner, for imagery of Christian salvation, the viewer contemplating such works is asked to engage imaginatively and 33 Erasmus, De Civilitate; Elias, The Civilizing Process, pp. 110‒111, 500.

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Figure 0.6: Master of the Crucifixion of Kempten, detail of Crucifixion, panel painting, c. 1460/70, Nuremberg, Germanisches Nationalmuseum, loan of the Bayerischen Staatsgemäldesammlungen Munich, inv. Gm879.

emphatically with the scenes represented. Sometimes the most atrocious depictions of pain and violence are employed to call for an answer from the viewer.34 As with most depicted indecencies, it is exactly this push-and-pull effect which makes these images effective.35 In some cases, the broken body and pain form a sort of spectacle. It is used by the artist as a possible means for showing artistic invention, as seen for example in depictions of the two thieves in images of the Crucifixion (fig. 0.6).36 34 Decker, ‘Spectacular Unmaking’, p. 5; Graham and Kilroy-Ewbank, ‘Introduction’. 35 Baert, ‘Cutting the Throat’, p. 138. 36 See, e.g., Merback, The Thief, the Cross and the Wheel.

Indecent Bodies in Early Modern Visual Culture: An Introduc tion 

In an irritating way, the caricatures mentioned above resemble sometimes such deformations of the body, provoking however a very different reaction. Ludicrous representations constitute, as studies on the topic have strengthened, a visual manifestation of a general ‘culture of laughter’ in the Early Modern period, a social trend to address a very broad audience and to make use of a similarly wide range of content ‒ from subtle allusions to offensive and very indecent statements.37 There are preserved examples specific to one individual that appear quite nebulous without a clear context, as has been argued for Willibald Pirckheimer’s scribbled Greek words (‘with the erect penis in the anus of the man’) next to a silverpoint portrait of the humanist made by Albrecht Dürer (fig. 0.7).38 The relation between laughter and indecent imagery is without a doubt extremely complex,39 and it underlines the potential for artistic indecencies to transform into something publicly acceptable through the element of laughter. Its appearance as a rebellion against the body’s rational faculties has been placed parallel to some indecent images with regard to their subversive claims toward existing structures. 40 The comical deformations of caricatures or even subversive comments in different media, with bodies and acts to be considered outside of established socio-moral norms, form only one part of such fields of witty experimentation and invention. Like the isolated spaces of garden rooms and loggias, social spaces allowed one to address vices in a blunt way for a specif ic period of time. The northern tradition of carnival festivities, when the world turned upside-down, comprised one of these periods in which graphic motifs such as gluttony were thematised in such a prominent and provocative way that it is difficult to decide whether the vices were caricatured, or whether the norms punishing the latter were ridiculed. Susanne Meurer’s essay is a case in point and addresses an unusual late sixteenth-century woodcut depicting the Land of Cockaigne, where both laughter and disgust meet in a very large woodcut print showing the imaginary land where ‘gluttonous layabouts’ eat, drink, fart, and defecate around tables near a river of pies or excrement. The range of topics directly connected to such figures’ indecency makes clear that this incongruity is not a characteristic limited to genre painting and the depiction of everyday life, as some recent scholars have suggested. 41 Such examples also indicate that artworks should not be seen 37 Bakhtin, Rabelais and His World; Ménager, La Renaissance et le rire; Alberti and Bodart, Rire en images à la Renaissance; Bowen, Humour and Humanism in the Renaissance. 38 Schleif, ‘Frey and Pirckheimer’, p. 203. 39 Harris, ‘Obscene Laughter’. Even Castiglione dedicates a whole chapter on the connection between incongruity or deformity and the laughable (The Book of the Courtier, II, ch. 46). 40 Harris, ‘Introduction’, p. 209. 41 For a summary of recent scholarship, see Peiraikos’ Erben, ed. by Münch and Müller; Alltag als Exemplum, ed. by Müller and Braune.

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Figure 0.7: Albrecht Dürer, Portrait of Willibald Pirckheimer, silverpoint drawing, c. 1503, 21.1 × 15 cm, Berlin, SMB, Kupferstichkabinett, KdZ 24623, © Kupferstichkabinett. Staatliche Museen zu Berlin.

in a binary manner, of either one idea or another, with only one interpretation or understanding. 42 A last aspect linking the essays of the present volume is their effort to not reduce visual indecency to a matter of iconography or specific art forms and media. Rather, the essays consider the agency of such artworks along with the relation between the subjects and the beholder’s knowledge of bodily norms, or the beholder’s body itself. Artworks did not exclusively transport and transmit such graphic imagery, and they developed a specific iconography over time. Rather, the artefacts and their producers actively transformed and shaped the discourse on the indecency of 42 On viewer interpretations and how they can vary, what Pearson calls the ‘subjectivity of visual experience’, see Pearson, Gardens of Love, pp. 228‒229, including the section ‘Ambiguities’, and the Introduction.

Indecent Bodies in Early Modern Visual Culture: An Introduc tion 

bodies and provoked reactions, a process not only illustrated by, but documented in the subject of art historical studies itself. *** In sum, the ten essays that follow explore the concept of indecency across media in prints, paintings, and sculptures made throughout Europe in England, France, Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands. Four contributions explore indecency through images centred on women and their bodies: Kirch and Richter on female genitalia and pubic hair, Talvacchia on the exposed breast, and De Mambro Santos on women shown completely nude. Three essays explore males and the male member: Stewart on impassioned biblical men, Cuneo on the aroused horse, and Emerson on the small urinating boy fountain. Finally, bodily emissions are featured in the essays on scatology by Meurer and Jonietz and on skin by Sammern. Not surprisingly, these essays suggest that attitudes about the body, its activities and excretions in Early Modern Europe differ greatly from those today and what was deemed ‘indecent.’ Hailing from a variety of times and places, the viewers and patrons of such artworks understood ‘indecent’ as having not just one, fixed meaning. Yet once we consider, for example, today’s provocative use of advertising and the arts, censorship in social media, shaming and hiding of bodily ‘defects’ and excretions, and the almost unrestricted access to pornography, this comparison appears in a different light. The great range of meanings and responses to Early Modern ‘indecent’ images (not to mention both their acceptance and censorship) appears to stand closer to the paradox of ‘indecent’ human bodies in our postmodern time than one might suspect at first glance. *** The idea for this volume originated in a double session at the 63th Annual Meeting of the Renaissance Society of America at Chicago in 2017, entitled The Human Stain: Indecency and De-Idealization of the Body. Two of the co-organisers, Fabian Jonietz and Mandy Richter, were joined by presenter Alison G. Stewart to edit Indecent Bodies in Early Modern Visual Culture. This book includes selected papers presented in Chicago and a number of additional authors who cover topics that we consider crucial to the debate. Our sincere gratitude goes to all the contributors for their book chapters and for their patience during the process of writing and editing, which unfortunately coincided with the worst phase of the 2019/22 pandemic. This project was made possible, in part, with generous support from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Hixson-Lied College of Fine and Performing Arts’ Endowment Fund and the School of Art, Art History & Design. The willingness of the college’s

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staff to work with a short timeline after the grant was awarded (March 2020 with the onset of COVID-19 and Alison Stewart’s retirement two months later in May) went beyond the call of duty, and is all the more appreciated. We are very grateful to Erika Gaffney, Allison Levy, and the staff of Amsterdam University Press for their unstinting support of this publication. In addition, we are very grateful to the anonymous peer-reviewer for helpful comments. A warm thanks goes to Alessandro Nova and the friends and colleagues of the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz – Max-Planck-Institut, who have been extremely supportive and helpful in every possible way since the beginning of this project.

Works Cited Alberti, Francesca, and Diane Bodart (eds.), Rire en images à la Renaissance (Turnhout: Brepols, 2018). Alberti, Leon Battista, Apologhi, ed. by Marcello Ciccuto (Milan: Rizzoli, 1989). Alberti, Leon Battista, Opere volgari, ed. by Cecil Grayson, 3 vols. (Bari: Laterza, 1960‒1973). Alltag als Exemplum. Relgiöse und profane Deutungsmuster der frühen Genrekunst, ed. by Jürgen Müller and Sandra Braune (Berlin, Munich: Deutscher Kunstverlag, 2020). Ames-Lewis, Francis, and Anka Bednarek (eds.), Decorum in Renaissance Narrative Art (London: Birkbeck College, 1992). Asmuth, Bernhard, ‘Angemessenheit’, in Historisches Wörterbuch der Rhetorik, I, cols. 579‒604. Baert, Barbara, ‘Cutting the Throat: Obscenity and the Case of the Johannesschüssel’, in Scenes of the Obscene: The Non-representable in Art and Visual Culture, Middle Ages to Today, ed. by Kassandra Nakas and Jessica Ulrich (Weimar: VDG, 2014), pp. 127‒146. Bakhtin, Mikhail, Rabelais and His World, transl. by Hélène Iswolsky (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1984). Battisti, Eugenio, L’Antirinascimento. Con una appendice di manoscritti inediti (Milan: Feltrinelli, 1962). Baxandall, Michael, Painting and Experience in Fifteenth Century Italy: A Primer in the Social History of Pictorial Style (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972). Baxandall, Michael, The Limewood Sculptors of Renaissance Germany (New Haven, London: Yale University Press, 1980). Bearden, Elizabeth B., Monstrous Kinds: Body, Space, and Narrative in Renaissance Representations of Disability (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2019). Berdini, Paolo, ‘Women under the Gaze: A Renaissance Genealogy’, Art History, 21:4 (1998), pp. 565‒590. Biow, Douglas, In Your Face: Professional Improprieties and the Art of Being Conspicuous in Sixteenth-Century Italy (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2010).

Indecent Bodies in Early Modern Visual Culture: An Introduc tion 

Biow, Douglas, The Culture of Cleanliness in Renaissance Italy (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2006). Bolze, Max, et al. (eds.), Prozesse des Alterns. Konzepte ‒ Narrative ‒ Praktiken (Bielefeld: transcript, 2015). Bowen, Barbara Cherry, Humour and Humanism in the Renaissance (Aldershot et al.: Ashgate, 2004). Bowen, Barbara Cherry, ‘Rabelais and the Library of Saint-Victor’, in Bowen, Barbara Cherry, Humour and Humanism in the Renaissance, pp. 159‒170. Burke, Jill, The Italian Renaissance Nude (New Haven, London: Yale University Press, 2018). Butterworth, Emily, ‘Defining Obscenity’, in Obscénités renaissantes, pp. 31‒37. Butterworth, Emily, ‘Introduction to “Le mot et la chose”’, in Obscénités renaissantes, pp. 27‒29. Canalis, Rinaldo F., and Massimo Ciavolella, (eds.), Disease and Disability in Medieval and Early Modern Art and Literature (Turnhout: Brepols, 2021). Cortona, Pietro da (Pietro Berrettini), and Giovanni Domenico Ottonelli, Trattato della pittura, e scultura, uso, et abuso loro (Florence: Giovanni Antonio Bonardi, 1652). De Holanda, Francisco, Da pintura antiga, ed. by José Da Felicidade Alves (Lisbon: Livros Horizonte, 1984). De Holanda, Francisco, On Antique Painting, transl. by Alice Sedgwick Wohl (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2013). Decker, John R., ‘Introduction: Spectacular Unmaking: Creative Destruction, Destructive Creativity’, in Death, Torture, and the Broken Body in European Art, 1300‒1650, ed. by John R. Decker and Mitzi Kirkland-Ives (Farnham, Surrey, Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2015), pp. 1‒16. Eco, Umberto, Lector in fabula. La cooperazione interpretativa nei testi narrativi (Milan: Bompiani, 1979). Elias, Nobert, The Civilizing Process: Sociogenetic and Psychogenetic Investigations, transl. by Edmund Jephcott (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, revised edition 2000). Erasmus, Desiderius, De civilitate morum puerilium, in Collected Works of Erasmus, vol. 25, ed. by J. Kelley Sowards (Toronto et al.: University of Toronto Press, 1985), pp. 269‒289. Erasmus, Desiderius, Institutio christiani matrimonii, in Collected Works of Erasmus, vol. 69, ed. by Louis A. Perraud and John W. O’Malley (Toronto et al.: University of Toronto Press, 1999), pp. 203‒438. Ferguson, Ronnie, ‘Sir Thomas Urquhart’s Translation (1653) of Rabelais’ Imaginary Library of St. Victor (1542)’, in Early Modern Catalogues of Imaginary Books: A Scholarly Anthology, ed. by Anne-Pascale Pouey-Mounou and Paul J. Smith (Leiden et al.: Brill, 2020), pp. 27‒29. Friedlaender, Walter, Mannerism and Anti-Mannerism in Italian Painting (New York: Columbia University Press, 1957).

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Gaston, Robert W., ‘Vasari and the Rhetoric of Decorum’, in The Ashgate Research Companion to Giorgio Vasari, ed. by David J. Cast (Farnham, Surrey, Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2014), pp. 245‒260. Ghadessi, Touba, Portraits of Human Monsters in the Renaissance: Dwarves, Hirsutes, and Castrati as Idealized Anatomical Anomalies (Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications, 2018). Graham, Heather, and Lauren G. Kilroy-Ewbank, ‘Introduction: Visualizing Sensuous Suffering and Affective Pain in Early Modern Europe and the Spanish Americas’, in Visualizing Sensuous Suffering and Affective Pain in Early Modern Europe and the Spanish Americas, ed. by Heather Graham and Lauren G. Kilroy-Ewbank (Leiden et al.: Brill, 2018), pp. 1‒32. Grassi, Luigi, and Mario Pepe, Dizionario della critica d’arte, 2 vols. (Turin: UTET, 1978). Green, Michaël, Lars Cyril Nørgaard, and Mette Birkedal Bruun (eds.), Early Modern Privacy: Sources and Approaches (Leiden et al.: Brill, 2022). Greenblatt, Stephen, Renaissance Self-Fashioning: From More to Shakespeare (Chicago, London: The University of Chicago Press, 1980). Harris, Joseph, ‘Introduction to “L’obscène comique”’, in Obscénités renaissantes, pp. 209‒213. Harris, Joseph, ‘Obscene Laughter and the Renaissance Comedy’, in Obscénités renaissantes, pp. 237‒246. Hauser, Arnold, Mannerism: The Crisis of the Renaissance and the Origin of Modern Art (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1965). Haussherr, Reiner, Convenevolezza. Historische Angemessenheit in der Darstellung von Kostüm und Schauplatz seit der Spätantike bis ins 16. Jahrhundert (Mainz: Franz Steiner, 1984). Hegener, Nicole, Nackte Gestalten. Die Wiederkehr des antiken Akts in der Renaissanceplastik (Petersberg: Michael Imhof Verlag, 2021). Historisches Wörterbuch der Rhetorik, ed. by Gert Ueding, 10 vols. (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1992‒2012). Iser, Wolfgang, The Act of Reading: A Theory of Aesthetic Response (Baltimore, London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1978). Hofmann, Werner, Zauber der Medusa. Europäische Manierismen, exh. cat., Vienna (Vienna: F. Seitenberg, 1987). Jauss, Hans Robert, Aesthetic Experience and Literary Hermeneutics, transl. by Michael Shaw (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1982). Jauss, Hans Robert, Toward an Aesthetic of Reception, transl. by Timothy Bahti (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1982). Jonietz, Fabian, Das Buch zum Bild. Die ‘Stanze nuove’ im Palazzo Vecchio, Giorgio Vasaris ‘Ragionamenti’ und die Lesbarkeit der Kunst im Cinquecento (Berlin, Munich: Deutscher Kunstverlag, 2017). Kanz, Roland, ‘Decorum’, in Enzyklopädie der Neuzeit, ed. by Friedrich Jaeger, 16 vols. (Stuttgart, Weimar: J.B. Metzler, 2005‒2012), II, cols. 873‒875.

Indecent Bodies in Early Modern Visual Culture: An Introduc tion 

Kemp, Wolfgang (ed.), Der Betrachter ist im Bild. Kunstwissenschaft und Rezeptionsästhetik (Cologne: Dumont, 1985). Kemp, Wolfgang, ‘The Work of Art and its Beholder: The Methodology of the Aesthetics of Reception’, in The Subjects of Art History: Historical Subjects in Contemporary Perspective, ed. by Mark A. Cheethan, Michael Ann Holly, and Keith Moxey (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), pp. 180‒196. Körper-Bilder in der Frühen Neuzeit. Kunst-, medizin- und mediengeschichtliche Perspektiven, ed. by Michael Stolberg (Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter, 2021). Kren, Thomas, Jill Burke, and Stephen J. Campbell, The Renaissance Nude, exh. cat., Los Angeles and London (Los Angeles: The J. Paul Getty Museum, 2018). L’Estrange, Elizabeth, Holy Motherhood: Gender, Dynasty and Visual Culture in the Later Middle Ages (Manchester, New York: Manchester University Press, 2008). Lindquist, Sherry C.M. (ed.), The Meanings of Nudity in Medieval Art (Farnham, Surrey, Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2012) Lomazzo, Giovanni Paolo, Trattato dell’arte de la pittura (Milan: Paolo Gottardo Pontio, 1584). Love, Genevieve, Early Modern Theatre and the Figure of Disability (London et al.: The Arden Shakespeare, 2019). Melville, Gert, and Peter von Moos (eds.), Das Öffentliche und Private in der Vormoderne (Cologne, Weimar, Vienna: Böhlau, 1998). Ménager, Daniel, La Renaissance et le rire (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1995). Merback, Mitchell B., The Thief, the Cross and the Wheel: Pain and Spectacle of Punishment in Medieval and Renaissance Europe (London: Reaktion Books, 1999). Mildner-Flesch, Ursula, Decorum. Herkunft, Wesen und Wirkung des Sujetstils am Beispiel Nicolas Poussins (Sankt Augustin: Verlag Hans Richartz, 1983). Müller, Jan-Dirk, Decorum. Konzepte von Angemessenheit in der Theorie der Rhetorik von den Sophisten bis zur Renaissance (Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter, 2011). Nash, Susie, Northern Renaissance Art (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008). Nolte, Cordula (ed.), Homo debilis. Behinderte ‒ Kranke ‒ Versehrte in der Gesellschaft des Mittelalters (Korb: Didymos-Verlag, 2009). Nova, Alessandro, ‘Erotismo e spiritualità nella pittura romana del Cinquecento’, in Francesco Salviati et la Bella Maniera, conference proceedings (1998), ed. by Catherine Monbeig Goguel, Philippe Costamagna, and Michel Hochmann (Rome: École Française de Rome, 2001), pp. 149‒169. O’Bryan, Robin, ‘Grotesque Bodies, Princely Delight: Dwarfs in Italian Renaissance Court Imagery’, Preternature: Critical and Historical Studies on the Preternatural, 1:2 (2012), pp. 252‒288. Obscénités renaissantes, ed. by Hugh Roberts, Guillaume Peureux, and Lise Wajeman (Geneva: Librairie Droz, 2011).

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Obscenity: Social Control and Artistic Creation in the European Middle Ages, ed. by Jan M. Ziolkowski (Leiden et al.: Brill, 1998). Paleotti, Gabriele, Discorso intorno alle imagini sacre et profane (Bologna: Alessandro Benacci, 1582). Pearson, Andrea, Gardens of Love and the Limits of Morality in Early Netherlandish Art (Boston, Leiden: Brill, 2019). Peiraikos’ Erben. Die Genese der Genremalerei bis 1550, ed. by Birgit Ulrike Münch and Jürgen Müller (Wiesbaden: Reichert Verlag, 2015). Pfisterer, Ulrich, ‘Die Erotik der Macht. Visualisierte Herrscher-Potenz in der Renaissance’, in Menschennatur und politische Ordnung, ed. by Andreas Höfele and Beate Kellner (Munich: Wilhelm Fink, 2016) pp. 177‒201. Randolph, Adrian William Bourke, Touching Objects: Intimate Experiences of Italian Fifteenthcentury Art (New Haven, London: Yale University Press, 2014). Porras, Stephanie, Art of the Northern Renaissance: Courts, Commerce and Devotion (London: Laurence King Publishing, 2018). Representing Infirmity: Diseased Bodies in Renaissance Italy, ed. by John Henderson, Fredrika Jacobs, and Jonathan K. Nelson (London, New York: Routledge, 2021). Roberts, Hugh, ‘Erasmus’, in Obscénités renaissantes, ed. by Roberts, Peureux, and Wajeman, pp. 100‒105. Rossi, Ermete, ‘Roma ignorata’, Roma. Rivista di studi e di vita romana, 18:9 (1940), p. 317. Rutherford, Ian, and Ursula Mildner-Flesch, ‘Decorum’, in Historisches Wörterbuch der Rhetorik, II, cols. 423‒452. Schäfer, Bernd, Ulrike Eydinger, and Matthias Rekow, Fliegende Blätter. Die Sammlung der Einblattholzschnitte des 15. und 16. Jahrhunderts der Stiftung Schloss Friedenstein Gotha, exh. cat., Stiftung Schloss Friedenstein Gotha, 2 vols. (Stuttgart: Arnoldsche Art Publishers, 2016). Schleif, Corine, ‘Albrecht Dürer between Agnes Frey and Willibald Pirckheimer’, in The Essential Dürer, ed. by Larry Silver and Jeffrey Chipps Smith (Philadelphia: University of Philadelphia Press, 2010), pp. 185‒205. Shearman, John, Mannerism (London: Penguin Books, 1967). Simon, Eckehard, ‘Carnival Obscenities in German Towns’, in Obscenity, ed. by Ziolkowski, pp. 193‒213. Smith, Jeffrey Chipps, The Northern Renaissance (New York, London: Phaidon, 2006). Smyth, Craig Hugh, Mannerism and Maniera (Locust Valley, NY: Augustin, 1962). Summers, David, Michelangelo and the Language of Art (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1981). Talvacchia, Bette, Taking Positions: On the Erotic in Renaissance Culture (Princeton, NJ et al.: Princeton University Press, 1999). Thimann, Michael, ‘Decorum’, in Metzler Lexikon Kunstwissenschaft, ed. by Ulrich Pfisterer, 2nd ed. (Stuttgart, Weimar: J.B. Metzler, 2011), pp. 84‒88.

Indecent Bodies in Early Modern Visual Culture: An Introduc tion 

Turner, James Grantham, Eros Visible: Art, Sexuality, and Antiquity in Renaissance Italy (New Haven, London: Yale University Press, 2017). Valesio, Francesco, Diario di Roma, ed. by Gaetana Scano, 6 vols. (Milan: Longanesi & C., 1977‒1979). Van Hoogstraten, Samuel, Inleyding tot de Hooge Schoole der Schilderkonst: Anders de Zichtbaere Werelt (Rotterdam: François van Hoogstraten, 1678). Von Strittigkeit der Bilder. Texte des deutschen Bilderstreits im 16. Jahrhundert, ed. by Jörg Jochen Berns, 2 vols. (Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter, 2014). Williams, Robert, Raphael and the Redefinition of Art in Renaissance Italy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017).

About the Authors Fabian Jonietz is a scholar at the Zentralinstitut für Kunstgeschichte in Munich, where he leads a research project on the pre-modern commemoration of animals. After receiving his Ph.D. in Art History (LMU Munich, 2012), he has been awarded various fellowships and held research and teaching positions in Germany, Italy, Switzerland, and the United States. Mandy Richter works at the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz – Max-PlanckInstitut. In 2014, she received her Ph.D. in Art History and is the author of the monograph Die Renaissance der Kauernden Venus. Ihr Nachleben zwischen Aktualisierung und Neumodellierung von 1500 bis 1570 (Petersberg: Harrasowitz, 2016). The research of Alison G. Stewart (Ph.D., Columbia University; Professor of Art History Emerita, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, since September 2020) has centred on sixteenth-century secular imagery. Her books include Before Bruegel and Crossroads. Her most recent work addresses Sebald Beham’s move away from Dürer’s Nuremberg to Frankfurt am Main.

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1.

Taste, Lust, and the Male Body: Sexual Representationsin Early SixteenthCentury Northern Europe Alison G. Stewart

Abstract During the second quarter of the sixteenth century, Sebald Beham (1500‒1550) engraved a number of small prints with biblically related titles, Joseph and ­Potiphar’s Wife and Death and the Lascivious Couple. These prints, tiny enough to be held in the palm of one’s hand, show the male sexually aroused. First printed in Nuremberg and later in his new home of Frankfurt am Main, these sexual or erotic prints were popular enough to be copied by contemporaries and by Beham himself. This essay argues that Beham’s prints and their copies are part of a broader interest and taste for erotic imagery that was more widespread than previously studied, beyond Italy, and that included and emphasised male erections. Keywords: biblical subjects; erections; male arousal; printed states; Sebald Beham; sexual imagery

‘A most shameful and sinful little book, containing many indecorous pictures of unchaste love’ (ain gannz schenndtlich und lesterlich püechlein, darynnen vyl unzüchtiger gmeel von unordentlicher lieb). Letter to Augsburg’s town council dated 18 June 1535 requesting the return of the booklet from the Nuremberg council 1

1 This essay could not have been written during the coronavirus pandemic without the email assistance of many print curators who generously responded to my email queries. I am grateful to them and thank them in the notes below. I am also grateful to Susanne Meurer for helpful suggestions on print states and collectors, to Miriam Kirch for on-going discussions about Beham, and to my co-editors for their wise observations and helpful references.

Jonietz, F., M. Richter, A.G. Stewart (eds.), Indecent Bodies in Early Modern Visual Culture. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2023 doi 10.5117/9789463725835_ch01

40 Alison G. Stewart

When Marcantonio Raimondi’s I Modi hit the streets of Rome in 1524, sexually explicit imagery, like that mentioned in the unnamed booklet above, had – without a doubt – arrived in Renaissance Europe. Called The Positions in English, this series of sixteen engravings after drawings by Giulio Romano depicted couples involved in the sex act in various positions. The prints’ distribution to a wider audience appears to be why Marcantonio is said to have been jailed and the individual prints taken.2 Despite this confiscation, the series survived long enough for engraved copies to be made by Agostino Veneziano, a pupil of Marcantonio, and as anonymous woodcuts with text printed at Venice. The Veneziano copies, which survive today as mutilated fragments in the British Museum, bear witness to the toll restrictions and changing taste paid on this infamous Renaissance print series.3 The I Modi or copies of it may have inspired the illustrations for the shameful German booklet at the opening of this essay, yet no trace of it exists today. Its title remains unknown and only a bit more is known about the individuals involved with its publication. The Nuremberg council’s concern, which clearly rested in the well-being of its young men because ‘lustful images alone can…incite the young to sinful vices’, undoubtedly resulted in the booklet’s disappearance. 4 In this essay, two engravings made in Germany will serve as markers of the taste for sexually explicit prints, the groundwork for which was laid by both earlier prints from Italy and Northern Europe and objects from the latter, including badges featuring sexual body parts.5 The prints are small engravings made by Sebald Beham (1500‒1550) and show the male in a state of sexual arousal. They do not employ the traditional Italian veneer of the gods, nor do they feature ordinary men and women

The translation here, which is mine, differs slightly from that in Landau and Parshall, Renaissance Print, p. 225, p. 397 n. 156. See also Hampe, ‘Der Augsburger Formschneider Schwarzenberg’, pp. 59‒60, 84‒85. Unordentlicher lieb can be translated as unnatural, unusual, or unchaste love; Grimm, Deutsches Wörterbuch, XXIV, col. 1218, def. I. 2 Talvacchia, Positions, pp. 4, 6. 3 On the I Modi, copies, and nine fragments, see the British Museum’s website under Agostino Veneziano (Museum number Ii,16.6.1‒9). Other copies include the Toscanini volume, c. 1550, woodcuts with text by Aretino, and the nineteenth-century drawn copies by Jean Frédérick Maximilien de Waldeck (?), c. 1850. Wouk and Morris, Marcantonio, pp. 222‒223, cat. 85, nicely summarise the versions. See Turner’s many publications in the works cited at the end of this essay, including his ‘Woodcut Copies’, ‘Marcantonio’s Lost Modi’, and in Bayer, Art and Love, cat. 99, pp. 200‒202. Lawner, I Modi, pp. 2‒3, outlines the copies and dates, including the woodcuts with text as Venetian, 1527. Illustrations in Talvacchia, Positions, ch. 2. 4 Landau and Parshall, Renaissance Print, p. 225. 5 Simons, Sex of Men, f igs. 7, 10‒12; Stewart, ‘Arousal’. For Italian prints in the North by 1506, Pellé, ‘Receiving Mantegna’s engravings’, p. 1; Turner, Eros Visible. On Beham’s prints, Müller and Küster, ‘Der Prediger als Pornograf?’; Mentzel, ‘Zwischen Obszönität’.

Taste, Lust, and the Male Body: Sexual Representations 

as in the I Modi.6 Rather, Beham has chosen figures from, or related to the Hebrew Bible as the protagonists of these small engravings. Two of the prints explored here appeared immediately after I Modi and before Nuremberg’s shameful booklet. The prints were issued at Nuremberg soon after 1525 and versions continued at Frankfurt am Main decades later.7 These prints and their copies, by contemporaries beyond Germany and probably Beham himself, served as important transmitters of sexual imagery and underscore that the market for sexual prints was well established in Germany and Northern Europe before 1530. These printed images constituted part of a new and broader picture of sexual works, much of which appears not to have survived today. Because these images may seem indecent today – and perhaps shameful, sinful, and indecorous, as the booklet at the beginning of this essay was viewed – they will be shown to have been enjoyed and touched in their time and later. This essay argues, first, the importance of prints for distributing sexual images across Northern Europe. Although Beham made his prints in Nuremberg and Frankfurt am Main, Germany today, they circulated well beyond those locations through Frankfurt’s biannual fairs into Northern Europe and possibly beyond.8 Second, a review of impressions, states, and copies of the prints reveals that the European interest in such imagery was much greater and more widespread than earlier believed. Finally, copies and the practice of copying, including of sexual prints, were so widespread in early sixteenth-century Germany and Northern Europe that they must be included in serious discussion of the period.9

The Taste for Sexual Imagery The early sixteenth-century taste for sexual imagery stood behind Italian and Northern images, much of the latter lost through wars and looting, iconoclasm, and changing taste and religions. 10 The turn to sexual representations in the North was spurred by several contemporary directions: the rise of small prints, the widespread practice of copying and making copies, the infusion of new images from Venice and the Italian Renaissance, and the growing importance

6 Turner, Eros Visible, p. 143; Turner, ‘Mars and Venus’, for a scene in I Modi with Mars and Venus, indicating the series could have related to the gods. 7 Stewart, ‘Frankfurt’; Stewart, ‘Sebald Beham’; Stewart, Before Bruegel. 8 For the importance of Frankfurt, see Crossroads and Stewart, ‘Importance’. 9 See, for example, Making Copies in European Art, ed. by Bellavitis; Fälschung ‒ Plagiat ‒ Kopie, ed. by Münch; Porras, ‘Dürer’s Copies’; Griffiths, Print before Photography, pp. 114‒131. 10 Nash, Northern Renaissance, ch. 2: ‘Dispersal and Destruction’.

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of humanist collectors. 11 Prints were relatively lightweight and portable and offered an important means by which Renaissance prints and their copies travelled across both sides of the Alps to inspire Northern and Italian artists, including images of the nude human form before female models were readily available. The early sixteenth-century taste for sexual representations, to use Bette Talvacchia’s neutral and period-appropriate term, has been amply explored recently in numerous publications for art south of the Alps. Although such images often appeared as prints, versions on majolica and frescoes also constituted the visual art that more modern times has called ‘pornographic’, a term that conjures up illicit sex, but existed neither in German nor English during the sixteenth century.12 Nor in recent times has the definition of ‘pornography’ been agreed upon.13 Instead, I prefer more neutral terms such as ‘erotic imagery’ and ‘sensual subject matter’, which Sara Matthews-Grieco used in her exploration of a broader, earlier context that she described as having ‘both created and catered to a market for sexually allusive pictures, aimed at a variety of viewing publics’. Her argument, which overlaps with Talvacchia’s, is also made here for Northern Europe, that a middle-level print market for explicitly erotic pictures flourished throughout Europe including through copies and books with texts like Aretino’s, ‘books that challenged established powers or ideas and could be savored in privacy’, as the Nuremberg booklet, at the beginning of this essay, undoubtedly did.14 James Grantham Turner continued the idea of a broader chronological context for sexual imagery that he called an ‘erotic-aesthetic revolution’ for Italy, specifically for the period from 1500 to the Council of Trent.15 His thesis – that eroticism and the sexual imagination were not the exception, side show, or comic relief at the time of I Modi – bolsters Allison Levy’s discussion of ‘sex acts’, a broader term that indicated for early modern Italy her opening up the discourse to sexual approaches 11 Goddard, World in Miniature, pp. 13‒29. Wouk and Morris, Marcantonio, p. 10, state that ‘engravings in particular, claimed a privileged status in libraries and the co-called cabinets of wonder that are often cited as forerunners of the modern museum’. 12 ‘Pornography’ is used by Müller and Küster, ‘Der Prediger als Pornograf’. The word entered the English language in 1842, according to the Oxford English Dictionary. In German, ‘Pornographie’ may have entered even later; it is not included in Grimm, Deutsches Wörterbuch, 1899, and Götze, Frühneuhochdeutsches Glossar, but ‘pornographisch’ is recorded in 1776; Litteratur des katholischen Deutschlands, p. 49. For both languages, see Kendrick, The Secret Museum, ch. 1. 13 See Talvacchia, ‘Pornography’. 14 Talvacchia, Positions, p. ix; Matthews-Grieco, ‘Satyrs and Sausages’, p. 19; Levy, ‘Erotic Engravings’, p. 40. The twenty-f irst-century sex specialist Ruth Westheimer rejects the negative connotations of ‘pornography’ and uses instead ‘sexually explicit materials’; interview on WNYC radio, 11 November 2019. 15 Turner, Eros Visible.

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of all kinds and to visual imagery in various forms from prints, paintings, and drawings, to sculpture and ceramic drug jars.16 Patricia Simons concentrated on Italy in her Sex of Men in Premodern Europe and expanded her discussion of sexual imagery to include examples from Germany, France, the Netherlands, and England. She included both the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries and elite Latinate and vernacular forms of written and visual culture.17 This broad-based approach continued and expanded upon Matthews-Grieco’s work and will be built on here to include engravings and copies at varying levels of quality. Most surviving early sixteenth-century Northern sexually oriented or erotic imagery seems tame by comparison with I Modi and other Italian examples. Draped nudity typifies Lucas Cranach’s large-scale Venus paintings. Hans Baldung’s witches self-consciously parade their nude bodies flying on goats or standing alongside Death, and while his Adam and Eve sometimes cover themselves with fig leaves or offer knowing glances and erotically charged gestures, they do not engage in sexual intercourse.18 None of the sexual images I have been able to find depict that act, even if the document for the Nuremberg booklet suggested it might have. Rather, the images discussed here refer to the sex act by showing the aroused male. The artists involved with these prints, Marcantonio and his Venetian followers and Beham, are featured players in this new scenario, both for the imagery they produced and for their influences in both directions across the Alps. The small number of existing sexual prints from Germany represents part of a lost, larger group of works, which were copied, altered, and censored over time. Rather than examples of outrageous, outsider art for their time, Beham’s sexual imagery appears to have been more mainstream than has been acknowledged to date. Laurinda Dixon argued for Hieronymus Bosch that twentieth-century attitudes toward ‘nudity and sexuality’ account for art history’s ‘expung[ing]…allusions to sex and the appearance of genitalia…’, thereby altering the historical record of the sixteenth century. Jonathan Weinberg traced this prudish thread back to the beginning of art history and Johann Joachim Winckelmann (1717‒1768) stating that ‘art history has been a closeted profession in which the erotic is hidden or displaced… [and] Michel Foucault began his History of Sexuality [c. 1978] with an attack on academics who think that raising the issue of sex is necessarily transgressive’.19 With such attitudes, it is not surprising that Beham’s erotic prints and their copies appear to have been censured or destroyed by contemporaries and in later times. 16 Turner, ‘Invention…Before the Modi’, p. 73; Turner, Eros Visible; Levy, ‘Strange Bedfellows’, p. 5. 17 Simons, Sex of Men, p. 2. 18 On Baldung’s images, Brinckmann, Hexenlust, pp. 36‒37; Koerner, Self-Portraiture, esp. p. 300. See also Koch, Zeichnungen Baldungs, figs. A26, A27. 19 Weinberg, ‘Queer’, p. 13, cites Foucault, Sexuality, I, pp. 6‒7.

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During the 1520s, when Beham began making prints that emphasised the male in a state of sexual arousal, this sexualised approach to the male body was new in the North even though nudity alone was a fairly recent introduction. In Italy, a visual vocabulary centred in antiquity and the gods justified nudity. When Marcantonio’s I Modi removed the cover of antiquity and turned the gods into human beings, according to most accounts,20 figures athletically engaged in sexual intercourse, the response appears to have been strong, both from the Pope and from subsequent prints that turned such sexually engaged participants into gods. Thus, around 1525 sexualised imagery increased, notably through the I Modi engravings of Marcantonio and his circle. Such works include Woman with a Dildo, before c. 1525, Gian Giacomo Caraglio’s Jupiter and Antiope, from his Loves of the Gods series, 1527, and Giulio Romano’s Jupiter Seducing Olympias, fresco, c. 1526‒1528, from the Palazzo del Te, Mantua.21 It was in the midst of this upsurge that Beham’s first sexual print appeared.

Sebald Beham’s Prints Beham’s engravings with sensual or erotic imagery date over the course of his lifetime from 1526 through the 1540s, first in his hometown of Nuremberg and later in his new home, Frankfurt am Main, where he spent nearly the last 20 years of his life. Beham took advantage of the contemporary interest in sexual imagery by taking it in a new direction, toward biblical subjects centred in the Old Testament.22 Three engravings form the focus of discussion: Joseph and Potiphar’s Wife, signed and dated 1526 with a later version of the subject from 1544, and Death and the Lascivious Couple, signed and dated 1529. The latter print expanded representations of Adam and Eve, which is the reason for its inclusion here. These engravings draw on the Renaissance love of the nude male and female bodies, and go beyond to include erect male genitalia. These prints, small enough to hold in the hand, offer good examples of why Beham was nicknamed a ‘Little Master’ as early as the following century.23 Beham’s prints representing Joseph and Potiphar’s Wife depart from numerous contemporary representations of the subject. Beham shows Joseph nude, an anomaly among contemporary Northern prints where the figures are shown clothed,24 20 On the I Modi series showing the gods, see n. 3, above. 21 For illustrations, see Stewart, ‘Arousal’. 22 See Stewart, ‘Arousal’, for additional discussion of the prints addressed here, the Feast of Herod woodcut, and Amnon and Tamar. 23 Goddard, ‘Origin’, p. 13. 24 The individuals are clothed in prints dating 1512‒1546 by Lucas van Leyden, Marcantonio, Heinrich Aldegrever, and Georg Pencz; only the latter print shows her partially undressed, bodice unlaced. See Stewart, ‘Arousal’.

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Figure 1.1: Sebald Beham, Joseph and Potiphar’s Wife (P. 14-I), engraving, 1526, 52 × 52 mm (sheet), Herzog Anton Ulrich-Museum Braunschweig, Kunstmuseum des Landes Niedersachsen, inv. h-s-beham-ab3-0013.

Figure 1.2: Sebald Beham, Joseph and Potiphar’s Wife (P. 14-state III), engraving, 1526, Ø 53 mm, © Kupferstich­ kabinett, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, inv. 423-4.

and points to an Italian-inspired approach and audience. Beham’s prints showing aroused biblical men began with his Joseph and Potiphar’s Wife dated 1526 (fig. 1.1; P.14-state I). Signed with Beham’s Nuremberg monogram at lower right, HsP, and dated directly above, the print measures 52 mm/2 inches in diameter. The sexually aggressive woman here is known customarily in western literature as Potiphar’s wife, Zuleika in the Islamic tradition, and Saphira in medieval Europe. The biblical source, Genesis 39:7‒20, tells the story of Potiphar, the captain of the pharaoh’s guard, who bought Joseph and made him steward of his household. When Saphira insisted that Joseph lie with her (‘Lie with me’, she said), he fled, leaving his cloak behind in her hands.25 She told Potiphar that Joseph tried to rape her, presenting his cloak as evidence. Joseph was then imprisoned. In Beham’s print, Saphira is shown partially dressed. With curtain and pillow as background, she propels herself over the bed. At top the inscription, ‘Ioseph’, identifies him. The emphasis on her body – her naked breasts, erect nipples, and 25 Genesis 39:7, Revised Standard Version.

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exposed pudendum – underscores her desire for him and explains why Joseph looks back at her as he leaves in haste. Joseph’s arousal, which indicates his human response despite his desire to flee, constitutes a detail important enough that a pale pink wash highlights it in an impression at Vienna (P.14-II). This tiny engraving is known today in three states and three copies in reverse. In his comprehensive catalogue of Beham’s prints, Gustav Pauli recorded the second state as including a fourth diagonal line in the cross hatching, and the third, last state offering a very different look (fig. 1.2; P. 14-III). In the unique impression of state III in Berlin, the surface of the paper, which is laid down, has been severely roughened and the engraved lines heavily retouched in several areas with pen and black ink (faces, cloak, hatching and outline of her legs, crosshatching between figures and below the bed). The changes also include an attempt to eradicate Joseph’s genitals. The previously prominent angle of his phallus has been replaced by an area rubbed into a blur, with brown additions, perhaps in pen, that appear to replace his testicles.26 These alterations, most visible in detail under great magnification on a computer monitor, are still noticeable when viewed at the print’s small size. Pauli mentioned the retouching in the hatching and bed, but not the changes made to Joseph. Such alterations appear to have been intentional as acts of censorship and were not unusual for the time. They included the elimination of Apollo’s genitalia in a print by the Master of the Die.27 Pauli listed three copies in reverse of Beham’s Joseph print of 1526. He attributed one to Monogrammist AC (fig. 1.3; P. 14b), formerly identified with Allaert Claesz. (active 1520‒1555, possibly in Utrecht), and another to Monogrammist WI. The former print, a small lozenge-shaped etching measuring around three inches on each side (88 × 69 mm sheet), added a vegetal border and banderole to fill the composition’s sides and top. In this reverse copy, both figures are now left-handed. Joseph strides to the right as he turns and looks back at Saphira, his gaze meeting hers as she jumps over the bed to reach him. His physical response is subdued, although hers remains visible in her breasts. Clothing covers her private area, but not his, and Joseph walks slowly away, no longer aroused. Known in only a few impressions, this print appears to be an early copy of Beham’s composition made in the Netherlands a few years after the original.28 Its trapezoidal shape suggests it may have been made as a model for a dagger or sheath decoration.29 This copy 26 Information gratefully received from Georg Dietz, chief conservator, and Michael Roth, senior curator of German art, both Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin. 27 Schmidt, Altered and Adorned, pp. 13‒14; on intentional alterations, see Stewart, ‘Arousal’. 28 Hollstein, Dutch and Flemish, IV, p. 106, no. 19 (not illustrated), and British Museum’s database under Allaert Claesz, with bibliography. 29 Rich, ‘Monogrammist AC’, p. 352. Rich has been working on Monogrammist AC previously identified with Claesz. This print could have also served as a decoration for a rifle; Tavares, ‘Hunting Erotica’.

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suggests wide distribution of Beham’s small print beyond German-speaking areas to the Netherlands and to an audience attuned to more modest taste. The copy by Monogrammist WI, an unknown engraver working in the style of Beham (fig. 1.4; P. 14c), was also altered strongly in the genital areas either through rubbing or censure, thereby removing the paper. This print, which can accurately be described as mediocre, is known today in a unique impression in the Wolfegg collection where a brown wash was added on the drape between her legs. Digital enlargement allows clear viewing of the rubbed or scraped areas that are obvious even when viewed at the original size. Her vulva have been eliminated as have his genitals, the latter change resulting in a large hole in the paper.30 The brown wash may have been added in an attempt to distract from her altered pubic area, which now appears white. Whether such damage to this and other prints constituted an intentional form of private censorship, or the result of tactile engagement with the print, thus from wear and tear, cannot easily be established. The third copy in reverse (fig. 1.5, P. 14a), which Pauli with his expert eye described as ‘excellent’ (vortrefflich), bears Beham’s monogram and the same dimensions as his original print, but it lacks the date and inscription. Once again, Joseph looks down at her revealed genitals as he flees in a state of arousal. Pauli appears to have based his description of the copy’s high quality on the impression in Bremen, where he led the Kunsthalle (1899‒1914). Another impression at the Ashmolean Museum appears similarly high in quality.31 The Albertina’s two impressions vary in their inking, one dark, the other lighter. Red colour was added to Joseph’s genitals (both his penis and scrotum), an addition added frequently in the erotic images discussed here to draw attention to that area. Compared to the engraving of 1526, this copy is similar enough to have been made by Beham himself, perhaps at a later date, after the plate had worn thin in state III. Nearly 20 years later, Beham returned to the subject of Joseph and Potiphar’s wife in a signed and dated engraving of 1544, with inscribed tablet below, that includes his Frankfurt monogram, HsB (fig. 1.6; P. 15-III). The print employs a tall, rectangular format and is somewhat larger (81 × 55 mm / c. 3 × 2 inch) than the earlier engraving. Both individuals are shown nude except for the cape Joseph holds to his chest, a detail seen earlier and mentioned in the biblical passage. Saphira no longer wears a drape around her hips, as she did in the earlier engraving, and once again grasps Joseph’s cloak near his knee. Her other hand is not visible. She continues to show her sexual interest in Joseph through details seen earlier – nipples, parted legs, 30 Bernd Mayer, Kunstsammlungen der Fürsten zu Waldburg-Wolfegg, kindly provided this information. Nagler, Die Monogrammisten, V, 350, no. 1736, for twenty-one prints by Monogrammist WI. 31 For an image of acceptable quality, see: https://collections.ashmolean.org/object/726661 (accessed 24 March 2021). A higher quality image is required for close scrutiny.

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Figure 1.3: Monogrammist AC, Joseph and Potiphar’s Wife (P. 14b), etching, c.­1526 – 1550, 88 × 84 mm (sheet), Vienna, Albertina Museum, inv. DG1937/429.

revealed vulva – and through the look on her face, which indicates lust. Aretino compared the expression of a copulating man with that of the ancient sculpture, Laocöon, who struggled with sea serpents and threw his head back in anguish, similar to that of this sexually aroused woman.32 Joseph flees quickly, the emphasis on his athletic body is chaste. ‘Joseph, the faithful servant and subduer of lust’ (IOSEPH FIDELIS SERVVS./ ET DOMITOR. LIBIDINIS), the Latin inscription below, underscores his intention to leave. The cloak once again plays an important role, as in contemporary versions of this subject. Here his cloak is bunched behind Joseph where it is still visible, but not accentuated, while allowing for the display of Joseph’s muscular body, naked and striding in profile, possibly modeled after an engraving by Agostino Veneziano.33 But whose hand holds Joseph’s cloak in front of his chest – his, hers, or both? This ambiguity, clearly intentional, offers playful attention for the viewer to cloak and hands.

32 Kirch, Looking into ‘Night’, p. 54. 33 See Gottlosen Maler, ed. by Müller and Schauerte, fig. 2.2, for Veneziano’s Hexenzug, 1515‒1525.

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Figure 1.4: Monogrammist WI, Joseph and Potiphar’s Wife (P. 14c), engraving, Ø 58 mm (plate), Kunstsammlungen der Fürsten zu Waldburg-Wolfegg.

Figure 1.5: Sebald Beham (?), copy of Joseph and Potiphar’s Wife (P. 14a), engraving, 1526, Vienna, Albertina Museum, inv. DG1936/1305 (with added colour).

Pauli listed three copies of Beham’s composition of 1544, two in reverse. They range in quality from mediocre (P. 15c) to excellent (vortrefflich) (fig. 1.7, P. 15b-II). The copy of the 1544 print, proposed here as by Beham, reversed the composition, removed the placard’s frame, and retained the text. Bremen’s fine uncoloured impression probably served as Pauli’s point of departure for his print catalogue’s entry. In Braunschweig’s impression, shown here, Joseph’s erect phallus is tinted gray apparently to differentiate it from the adjacent light skin of both of his thighs. In another impression at Vienna, the colour pink subtly highlights the tip of Joseph’s penis. Instead of accentuating Joseph’s arousal, the Bibliothèque Nationale’s impression accomplishes the opposite and emphasises Joseph’s chaste departure by de-emphasising his genitals, along with a few other changes to the print. The bottom of the print was shortened, the placard removed, and the surface of the paper retouched to eradicate Joseph’s member, which takes on a faint, ghost-like appearance. This erasure appears to have been accomplished by applying black ink to Joseph’s phallus, thereby melding it with his dark cloak, and by scratching out the white lines in his leg.34 This impression was purchased in 1669 by Pierre Mariette 34 Information and images generously provided through email discussions with Christine Demele, Bremen Kunsthalle; Andreas Uhr, Herzog Anton Ulrich-Museum, Braunschweig; Christof Metzger,

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Figure 1.6: Sebald Beham, Joseph and Potiphar’s Wife (P. 15-IIII), engraving, 1544, 81 × 56 mm, © Berlin, Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, inv. 424-4.

(1634‒1716), the prominent Parisian print seller and collector, and expands Beham’s audience outside Germany to include non-German collectors with discerning taste in later centuries.35 Concerning this excellent copy, although Pauli cited several scholars – Bartsch, Rosenberg, and Aumüller – who considered the copy to be a repetition of Beham’s original print (Originalwiederholung), he believed the print was a copy of Beham’s earlier engraving by another engraver, as did von Seidlitz, based on the copy’s dry, cold qualities. To place this evaluation into perspective, Pauli did not include copying, retouching, and repetition to be characteristics of originality and a true artist. In the introduction to his monumental and still essential catalogue of Beham’s prints, Pauli contrasted artistic and business concerns, stating that the latter accounted for Beham’s many compositions and print states that brought boredom, not enjoyment, to connoisseurs and collectors. ‘Worse than copying the compositions of others was the repetition of one’s own early designs’, he wrote, continuing that many of Beham’s reworked engravings lost their original appearances and looked blurry and sooty (ein russiges und verschwommenes Aussehen).36 Pauli was a strong supporter of contemporary modern art, including French and German Impressionist painting. His ideas on Beham’s artistic practice align more with Albertina, Vienna; and Caroline Vrand, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris. 35 The BN print’s matte is labelled ‘Mariette 1669’. 36 P., pp. 15‒16.

Taste, Lust, and the Male Body: Sexual Representations 

Figure 1.7: Sebald Beham (?), copy of Joseph and Potiphar’s Wife (P. 15b-II), engraving, 1544, 85 × 54 mm, Braunschweig, Herzog Anton UlrichMuseum, Kunstmuseum des Landes Niedersachsen, inv. h-s-beham-ab3-0015.

early twentieth-century notions of originality than with those of the Renaissance when copying constituted an essential tool for learning and for working methods in workshop practice and training. Despite Pauli’s reservations, serious consideration should be given to the possibility that Beham himself made the excellent copy in reverse of Joseph and Potiphar’s Wife dated 1544 (fig. 1.7) – as may also have been the case for the copy of Beham’s engraving of 1526 (fig. 1.5) – to take advantage of the market for sexual imagery that favored seeing Joseph aroused. Printmaking in the sixteenth century was a business, and success depended on considering buyers’ varied tastes. Stijnman indicates that copies could be made in various ways at this time: the lines of engraving plates could be re-engraved to extend their lives, entire compositions could be copied, and ‘[A] third solution was to engrave more plates after the same design, either immediately after each other based on the same drawn design, or later, but still in the same studio’. In addition, he wrote, copies were made using the ‘same design twice or more on one plate’, although this may be a later practice.37 Copying a print, Griffiths notes, is much cheaper and faster than having the artist make a new design on the plate.38 37 Stijnman, Engraving, pp. 43, 337; the latter cites Cruz de Carlos, ‘Prints of the Brotherhood’, p. 348, where the same composition, is repeated four times on one copper plate (fig. 152) and dates to the mideighteenth century. 38 Griffiths, Print Before Photography, p. 115.

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A few of these possibilities for Beham and copying are worth considering here. Beham could have made the copy of his later Joseph composition (fig. 1.7) after finding that taste demanded a more sexually oriented version than his chaste one (fig. 1.6), perhaps after his plate of 1526 (fig. 1.1) became depleted and after it had become clear that a similar audience could be tapped. It is also possible from the beginning that Beham made copies of these prints, with either duplicate or altered compositions, to accommodate demand. These prints, especially the copy of Beham’s engraving of 1526 (fig. 1.5), can be called replicas because they bear characteristics including careful production after the original plate was depleted and worn thin.39 Beham engraved his composition of 1544 both with a chaste Joseph, signed and dated, and as a copy in reverse, undated but signed, with Joseph’s aroused side presented. These two approaches indicate that Beham designed both engravings in response to market demand and to varied taste, one sexual and one modest. Market demand also accounted for the copy in reverse of Beham’s composition of 1526, signed but undated as is the copy of 1544, underscoring that interest in the print was great enough to require additional impressions. The high quality of these prints, both Beham’s engraving of 1544 and the copy, point to an audience and collectors with a taste for fine prints. The miniature size of Beham’s engravings also links them closely with collecting from several points of interest for they combine what Griffiths has called, for Beham’s engravings in general, ‘miniature perfection and beautiful craftsmanship with exotic subject matter allied with a strong spice of the erotic’. Collectors, including humanist collectors, would have sought fine impressions of both Joseph and Potiphar prints. Such prints became more meaningful when placed next to other prints, including weaker impressions, in the process of forming a collection. 40 Beham’s name may have also played a role in these collecting practices. By the end of the century Johann Theodor de Bry copied Beham’s prints, indicating through inscriptions that Beham was ‘a famous precursor’ and part of the Dürerzeit revival. 41 Beham’s prints discussed here were purchased both by individuals who valued fine impressions and by others whose interest rested more with the subject, as the lower quality of some impressions indicates. The varied quality points to audiences at the upper end and also at what has been called the middling level of the print market. 42 The mediocre copy of Beham’s early Joseph and Potiphar’s Wife at Wolfegg (fig. 1.4) belonged either to a collector seeking an impression for 39 Griffiths, Print before Photography, p. 119. 40 Griffiths, Print before Photography, pp. 427‒428. 41 Meurer, ‘Tracing an Old Master’, p. 128. 42 Matthews-Grieco, ‘Satyrs and Sausages’, p. 19.

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comparison or to the second audience, to individuals with less refined taste, ones with perhaps more modest means.43 One such individual was the patrician Heinrich Kellner (1536‒1589) in Frankfurt am Main, who was lawyer, scholar, author, and art collector. His Art Book (Kunstbuch) of 1588 included sixteen works on paper of varying quality, some from Beham’s time, glued onto paper that form an album. Described as one of the few preserved examples showing the collecting interests of the middle class (bürgerliches Sammelinteresse), the Kunstbuch includes originals in drawing, engraving, and woodcut, as well as copies, with subjects ranging from coats of arms (Hans Brosamer, 1534), to Monk and Nun Lying Together (copy after an engraving by Heinrich Aldegrever, 1530), and a Hebrew figure (from Beham’s Old and New Testament book, 1534). 44 The most interesting and most disturbing print in this group of Old Testamentrelated sexual prints by Beham shows an amorous couple accompanied by an aroused figure of Death. Death and the Lascivious Couple (fig. 1.8; P. 153-I; 81 × 56 mm) is signed with Beham’s Nuremberg monogram and dated 1529 at upper left. The engraving expands earlier representations of Death and the Maiden and Adam and Eve.45 A young woman with long flowing hair, blowing to the side, looks intently into the eyes of her young male companion. She places one hand around his member and the other on his head or shoulder. The man fondles her genitals and places his other hand on the head of a boy, at right, who touches a sack of coins marked with a cross. Behind the boy, a partially skinned figure of Death nudges the couple together. He pushes the young man’s hip toward her as he places his other hand on the young man’s shoulder or head. Although the couple seems oblivious to Death’s presence, his reaction to the couple and their touching is clear and quite shocking. Death’s erection may not be immediately noticed directly above the child’s head and the man’s hand, but once pointed out it cannot be overlooked. 46 Beham emphasised the sexual body parts by aligning them horizontally, just as he placed their three shoulders on another horizontal line, and the three heads on yet another. Arms cross to form an X at left and right, drawing the viewer’s eye down to hands and genitals. Beham plays here with the ambiguous location of the hands of Death and the woman, a compositional device he used later in his Joseph and Potiphar’s Wife engraving of 1544. In both engravings, she wears the same expression indicating lust. Death embodied lust, one of the seven deadly sins, and his arousal here may point to knowledge at the time Beham made his print that syphilis was sexually 43 The collection of the princes of Waldburg-Wolfegg was substantial and significant. In 1654 it included some 157,000 prints. Griffiths, Print before Photography, p. 439. 44 Sander and Schedl, ‘Der Frankfurter Patrizier’, pp. 51‒54, and catalogue, no. 14, pp. 140‒143. 45 Kirch, Looking into ‘Night’, p. 50. 46 Kirch, Looking into ‘Night’, p. 84.

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transmitted and fatal. 47 Beham updated traditional sin iconography with the fairly new idea of contagion, thereby making both the male and female body the site of lust and disease. Beham furthered the erotic tension of the scene by making touch ambiguous, who touches the man – she or Death – and where exactly, on the shoulder or head? The male body is touched at top and bottom, intimately yet ambiguously by Death and the beautiful young woman, as if Beham wished to expand on Hans Baldung’s earlier painted representations of Death and the Maiden and Adam and Eve. In Baldung’s painting at Madrid from c. 1531, Adam touches Eve’s hip in a manner recalling Death’s gesture nudging Adam’s hip in Beham’s engraving of 1529, pointing to a possible dialogue between Beham and Baldung. The latter’s composition of an erotically engaged Adam and Eve, known through a contour copy in Coburg dating after 1530, suggests the possible influence of Beham’s engraving on Baldung for Adam directly touching Eve, as she slyly looks out at the viewer. 48 The copy bears the initials ‘HBG’ of Sebald Büheler (1529‒1595), Strasbourg merchant, collector, and chronicler, who at mid-century inherited works from Baldung’s estate. 49 This association of Baldung with a collector, chronicler, and merchant expands the possible audience of Beham’s prints to one including educated merchants and collectors such as Mariette and Kellner, mentioned above. Death and the Lascivious Couple includes an inscription on a placard placed on its side that reads: ‘HO [Horace]: MORS VLTIMA LINEA RERVM’, or ‘Death is the line that marks the end of all’. This passage forms a well-known ending to an epistle by the ancient Roman satirist, Horace (Book 1, Epistle 16, Line 7). The text underscores both the humanist and the memento mori associations of the print, the transitory nature of time, that death comes to us all. The inscription also offers a moralising gloss warning against the deadly and sinful nature of lust at a time when syphilis had ravaged Europe. The cross on the coins appears to underscore the Christian associations and moralising message of the print. Beham reinforced the ancient reference through the man’s classicising straight facial profile, athletic body, and contrapposto stance taken from an engraving by Marcantonio of a triumphal procession.50 Beham added the humanist inscription to make his Death and the Lascivious Couple more socially acceptable and to broaden its appeal and audience. Similar inscriptions were added to prints in the years after Marcantonio’s imprisonment of 1524 for engraving his sixteen I Modi prints.51 With the papal response in mind, 47 Münch, ‘Das Männerbad’, esp. p. 35; Stein, French Pox. See Fabian Jonietz’s essay in this volume. 48 Brinkmann, Hexenlust, sections vii and x; Koerner, Self Portraiture, p. 300. 49 https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/term/BIOG18004 (accessed 8 September 2020). 50 Gottlosen Maler, ed. by Müller and Schauerte, cat. 3. 51 Wolk-Simon, ‘Rapture’, p. 54.

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Beham’s inscription holds greater significance. Death and the Lascivious Couple would have been attractive to some viewers based on its sexual content – two youthful bodies engaged in erotic foreplay, the figure of an aroused Death caressing the male. With Death’s erection underscoring the dangerous nature of lust to both male and female viewers, the inscription brought additional levels of meaning – humanism and death – to the sexual imagery of Beham’s print. Beham may have turned to such erotic representations in print form between 1525 and 1530 because of his life circumstances. As Miriam Kirch discusses for Beham’s later engraving of Night in this volume, Beham’s Joseph and Potiphar’s Wife of 1526 could have been a response to contemporary events.52 I Modi and its Italian backlash, combined with Beham’s expulsion from Nuremberg, which ended in fall 1525, may have offered the idea of new imagery for a humanist audience as an avenue for revenue. A few years later, a similar linkage between Beham’s imagery and his life events can be made for his Death and the Lascivious Couple engraving. The print appeared after he fled Nuremberg a few months earlier, his exile lasting between September 1528 and February 1529. The issue here was stopping Beham’s booklet, Treatise on the Proportions of the Horse, from publication before Dürer’s book, the Four Books on Human Proportion. Dürer died a few months earlier, in April 1528, and his widow, Agnes Frey, made certain that his book would be published soon, before rival publications. The Nuremberg town council assured enforcement of an imperial privilege preventing the copying of her husband’s work. The result: the council called Beham in for questioning, but he refused to appear, leaving town instead. In each of these cases resulting in expulsion and exile in 1525 and 1528, Beham made a sexual print after a few months, to produce income and possibly to thumb his nose at the Nuremberg authorities.53 In 1901 Pauli listed at least a dozen impressions of Death and the Lascivious Couple in two states ranging in quality from early, fine impressions in state I (Berlin, Bremen, Braunschweig, Vienna) to late, increasingly weak ones in state II from a visibly worn plate (Dresden, Paris, BN and Rothschild, and Vienna).54 The number of surviving impressions is high for early sixteenth-century engravings and points to a good-sized audience in Beham’s time. The plate’s wear in state II (fig. 1.9) can especially be seen in the loss of modelling lines in the bodies resulting in decreased corporeality; reengraved, darker outlines are also present. The various existing impressions suggest that the plate had reached the end of its lifetime; estimates 52 See Kirch’s essay ‘Private Viewings: The Frankfurt Context of Sebald Beham’s Die Nacht’ in this book. 53 Hampe, Nürnberger Ratsverlässe, I, RV 1632, 1667; Stewart, ‘Artist’s Lament’, pp. 71, 75. 54 The dozen or so impressions listed by Pauli include those in collections no longer in existence, such as the von Lanna Collection, Prague; see Singer, Sammlung Lanna Prag, I, p. 128, no. 1161, where an undescribed state is included.

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Figure 1.8: Sebald Beham, Death and the Lascivious Couple (P. 153-I), engraving, 1529, 82 × 49 mm (sheet), Braunschweig, Herzog Anton Ulrich-Museum, Kunstmuseum des Landes Niedersachsen, inv. h-s-beham-ab3-0155.

for the time indicating some 2000 to 3000 impressions.55 These impressions of varying quality underscore how taste varied in Beham’s time and later. Within a century, Paul Behaim of Nuremberg (1592‒1637), toll and weigh master, patrician, and print collector, stated that Beham’s Death print was the reason for Beham’s expulsion from Nuremberg. Four years had passed between Beham’s expulsion and the appearance of the print, and a century had elapsed between Beham’s life and the writing of Behaim.56 It is clear that Beham’s godless reputation, not facts, stood behind Behaim’s statement that had stuck to Beham, like flypaper, well into the next century. The impression in Amsterdam, pulled from the very worn plate, underscores the sensuous and tactile quality of the image (fig. 1.10; P. 153-II). Now backed onto rather thick paper, the print was folded at some time in half across the middle through the genital areas of the man, woman, and Death. As a result of that fold, the paper directly below has become rubbed and cracked. Death’s genitals and her hand touching them are nearly eradicated. The print was probably folded before it came into the collection of the Amsterdam collector Michiel Hinloopen (1619‒1708) who was trained in the law and bequeathed his extensive print

55 Griffiths, Print before Photography, p. 50; Stijnman, Engraving, p. 333, table 6. 56 Goddard, World in Miniature, pp. 16, 21; Griffiths, Print before Photography, p. 439, more on p. 143.

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Figure 1.9: Sebald Beham, Death and the Lascivious Couple (P. 153-II), engraving, 1529, 82 × 49 mm (plate), Vienna, Albertina Museum, inv. DG1930/1175.

collection of 7,000 prints and drawings in 52 albums to the city of Amsterdam in 1708.57 Why fold such a very small print, roughly c. 3.25 × 2 inch, in this manner? Several possibilities come to mind: to hide most of the sexually suggestive area below the fold and to allow the owner, without being seen, to intentionally touch that area as well as Death’s arousal above the fold. The folded print was small enough to tuck into small spots, including purse or codpiece, as contemporary Rabelais indicated for other objects.58 The question of touch looms large for this print. Could it have served as a kind of apotropaic talisman to ensure sexual arousal? Addressing Jan Gossaert’s Madonna lactans paintings with large sexual breasts from the 1520s, Jutta Sperling asked what such images were intended to do or be, following W.J.T. Mitchell’s What Do Pictures Want? In particular, her idea of ‘images as living species’ that are ‘animated’ raises interesting questions for Beham’s print, but are beyond the scope of this study.59 Yet the emphasis on genitals removed through censorship or more likely touch here forms a clear leitmotif through Beham’s imagery and suggests the tactile attraction of prints such as this small one. Beham’s print would not be unique in this manner. Prints of the time were touched in a variety 57 Huigen Leeflang, Printroom, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, kindly provided this information. Riggs, ‘Hinloopen’s Collection’, p. 446; Griffiths, Print before Photography, p. 439. 58 Rabelais mentioned storing an orange in a codpiece and tying a pretty tuft of red silk to a codpiece; Stewart, ‘Arousal’. 59 Sperling, ‘Images’, p. 51.

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Figure 1.10: Sebald Beham, Death and the Lascivious Couple (P. 153-II), engraving, 1529, 82 × 49 mm (plate), Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, inv. RP-P-H-1040, on loan from the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten.

of manners via their flaps and dials, including skirts, and they were also rubbed in the genital areas.60 Beham made Death and the Lascivious Couple acceptable through the humanist quotation and through its reference to biblical representations of Adam and Eve. Beham expanded and eroticised compositions of the first couple, in particular Baldung’s paintings and an engraving by his brother Barthel from 1525‒1527 (P. 1), a copper plate Sebald inherited and copied after Barthel died in 1540. Sebald’s engraving (P. 7) makes use of Barthel’s print in full and employs a life-size skeleton firmly planted at the centre between the two figures like a tree, specifically the tree of knowledge. A snake runs through the skeleton’s body, beginning at its groin, and bites the apple both figures hold. As in Sebald’s Death and the Lascivious Couple, both man and woman are culpable with the life-size figure of Death present and egging them on. Sebald’s Eve covers herself with one hand, while the ordinary man in the Lascivious Couple does that for her through touch. Eve’s somewhat pained facial expression indicating lust repeats here with less intensity that of her female counterpart in the engravings of 1529 and 1544. In both Adam and Eve prints, the consequences of the Fall and sex unfold in Christian terms: original sin and death, with the biblically based snake and apple replaced in the Lascivious Couple by an eroticised skeleton and bag of coins. The 60 Schmidt, Altered; Schmidt, Interactive.

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latter print secularises and modernises Adam and Eve and emphasises Death as a living, human, male presence, with skin and genitals. The coins in the sack at lower right may point to the idea that capital and sex are equally corrupting and form a deadly combination, while offering a pun on Adam’s Sack (‘sack’), German for scrotum.61 Italian engravings with mythological subjects also set the scene and could have inspired Beham for the erect member of Joseph (1526) and death (1529). These Italian prints were available well before 1520 in the North. Such prints include Marco Dente’s Nymph and Satyr after a design by Raphael dating c. 1516, and by copies of it in Northern Europe, such as an engraving by the Master of the Snail from c. 1520‒1525.62 These models offered humans with animal features who secretly observe a bathing or sleeping woman. Giovanni Battista Palumba, active 1500‒1520 in north Italy, called Master IB with the Bird, showed Priapus with pointed ears and a prominent erect member extending out below his draped clothing as he peered under a cloth drape placed over Lotis’s lap.63 These engravings and others included a human male member, thus without the hair covering a satyr’s genitals, as seen in German and Italian prints dating soon after 1500 by Dürer and Marcantonio. Such prints catered to both the fashion for Italian art and to what Mathews-Grieco called the ‘niche market for explicitly erotic pictures that flourished throughout Europe’.64 That market may have first appeared in Italy, but it soon continued in German art. By the time Beham made his small erotic engravings, Giulio Romano included a fully erect Jupiter seducing Olympia in a fresco c. 1527 decorating Federico Gonzaga’s summer palace in Mantua.65 The audience of Beham’s small prints in general has been understood to have been broad, across various sectors of sixteenth-century society from the makers and appreciators of prints to craftsmen and goldsmiths, merchants and humanists, and members of the nobility, clergy, and urban patriciate.66 Beham’s sexual engravings discussed here, both the highly refined, detailed and simpler engravings, indicate that his audience included members of that broad audience with collectors and buyers of varying taste. Beham’s prints and the copies discussed here have been viewed within the larger taste for sexual imagery, both in Italy and the North and in his own time and in the following centuries when his prints were collected. 61 Kratz, Wortschatz der Erotik, p. 93. 62 For these prints, see Matthews-Grieco, ‘Satyrs and Sausages’, p. 30, figs. 1.2a, 1.2c. She identifies the Master of the Snail as ‘Northern?’ and states that little is known about him. 63 Impressions in the British Museum and the Louvre; Turner, Eros Visible, p. 83. 64 Matthews-Grieco, ‘Satyrs and Sausages’, p. 29. 65 Turner, Eros Visible, p. 132. Phalluses alone were included in the fresco decoration of the Villa Chigi, Rome, c. 1519; Turner, Eros Visible, p. 37. 66 Goddard, ‘Origin’, pp. 13, 17; Levy, ‘Erotic Engravings’, p. 40.

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De Bry’s copies of Beham’s prints at the end of the sixteenth century underscore the latter’s reputation for producing fine prints that were sought after in the half century after his death. Given these aspects of Beham’s prints, both their high quality and their later appeal, it is tempting to take Beham at face value when he called himself at the time he made his early sexual prints ‘the very famous Sebald Beham of Nuremberg’.67 The images discussed here underscore that Beham had a keen sense of his audience and the market. He knew that sexual imagery appealed broadly and that it sold well.

Abbreviations P.: Pauli, Gustav, Hans Sebald Beham. Ein kritisches Verzeichnis seiner Kupferstiche, Radier­ ungen und Holzschnitte (Baden-Baden: Koerner, 1901, 1911, 1927; repr.1974). VD 16: Verzeichnis der im deutschen Sprachbereich erschienenen Drucke des 16. Jahrhunderts, https://www.bsb-muenchen.de/kompetenzzentren-und-landesweite-dienste/kompetenzzentren/vd-16/ (28 February 2022).

Works Cited Bayer, Andrea (ed.), Art and Love in Renaissance Italy, exh. cat., New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009). Brinkmann, Bodo, Hexenlust und Sündenfall. Die seltsamen Phantasien des Hans Baldung Grien ‒ Witches’ Lust and the Fall of Man. The Strange Fantasies of Hans Baldung Grien, exh. cat., Frankfurt am Main, Städel Museum (Petersberg: Michael Imhof, 2007). Crossroads. Frankfurt am Main as Market for Northern Art 1500‒1800, ed. by Miriam Hall Kirch, Birgit Ulrike Münch and Alison G. Stewart (Petersberg: Michael Imhof, 2019). Cruz de Carlos, María, ‘The Prints of the Brotherhood of Ave María’, Print Quarterly, 20 (2003), pp. 335‒348. Fälschung – Plagiat – Kopie. Künstlerische Praktiken in der Vormoderne, ed. by Birgit Ulrike Münch et al. (Petersberg: Michael Imhof, 2014). Foucault, Michel, The History of Sexuality (New York: Vintage, 1978). Freedberg, David, The Power of Images: Studies in the History and Theory of Response (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989). Griffiths, Antony, The Print before Photography: An Introduction to European Printmaking 1550‒1820 (London: British Museum, 2016).

67 Title page, Beham’s Biblische Historien booklet, first printed 1533 (Frankfurt: Christian Egenolff).

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Goddard, Stephen H. (ed.), The World in Miniature: Engravings by the German Little Masters 1500‒1550, exh. cat., Spencer Museum of Art, The University of Kansas (Lawrence, Kansas: Spencer Museum of Art, 1988). Goddard, Stephen H., ‘The Origin, Use, and Heritage of the Small Engraving in Northern Europe,’ in Goddard, World in Miniature, pp. 13‒29. Die Gottlosen Maler von Nürnberg. Konvention und Subversion in der Druckgraphik der Beham-Brüder, ed. by Jürgen Müller and Thomas Schauerte, exh. cat., Albrecht-DürerHaus Nürnberg (Emsdetten: Edition Imorde, 2011). Götze, Alfred, Frühneuhochdeutsches Glossar, 7th ed. (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1967). Grimm, Jacob and Wilhelm, Deutsches Wörterbuch, 32 vols., https://woerterbuchnetz. de/?sigle=DWB#0 (acccessed 28 February 2022). Hampe, Theodor, ‘Der Augsburger Formschneider Hans Schwarzenberger und seine Modelbücher aus den Jahren 1534 und 1535’, Mitteilungen aus dem Germanischen Nationalmuseum (1909), pp. 59‒86. Hampe, Theodor, Nürnberger Ratsverlässe über Kunst und Künstler im Zeitalter der Spätgotik und Renaissance, 3 vols. (Vienna: Gräser & Kie, 1904). Hollstein, Friedrich Wilhelm, Dutch and Flemish Etchings, Engravings, and Woodcuts ca. 1450‒1700, 71 vols. (Amsterdam: Hertzberger, 1948‒2007). Kendrick, Walter, The Secret Museum: Pornography in Modern Culture (New York: Viking, 1987). Kirch, Miriam Hall, ‘Looking into Night: An Erotic Engraving by Sebald Beham in Context’ (M.A. thesis, University of Texas at Austin, 1998). Koch, Carl, Die Zeichnungen Hans Baldung Griens (Berlin: Deutscher Verein für Kunstwissenschaft, 1941). Koerner, Joseph, The Moment of Self-Portraiture in German Renaissance Art (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993). Kratz, Heinrich, Über den Wortschatz der Erotik im Spätmittelhochdeutschen und Frühneuhochdeutschen (Ph.D. thesis, Ohio State University, 1949). Landau, David, and Parshall, Peter, The Renaissance Print (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994). Lawner, Lynne (ed.), I Modi: The Sixteen Pleasures: An Erotic Album of the Italian Renaissance (Evanston, ILL: Northwestern University Press, 1988). Levy, Allison, ‘Introduction: Strange Bedfellows’, in Sex Acts in Early Modern Italy: Practice, Performance, Perversion, Punishment, ed. by Allison Levy (Farnham, Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2010), pp. 1‒9. Levy, Janey L., ‘The Erotic Engravings of Sebald and Barthel Beham: A German Interpretation of a Renaissance Subject’, in Goddard, World in Miniature, pp. 40‒53. Litteratur des katholischen Deutschlands, zu dessen Ehre und Nutzen, ed. by Katholische Patrioten (Coburg: Rudolph August Wilhelm Ahl, 1776).

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Making Copies in European Art: Shifting Tastes, Modes of Transmission, and Changing Contexts, ed. by Maddalena Bellavitis (Leiden: Brill, 2018). Matthews-Grieco, Sara, ‘Satyrs and Sausages: Erotic Strategies and the Print Market in Cinquecento Italy’, in Erotic Cultures of Renaissance Italy, ed. by Sara F. Matthews-Grieco (Farnham, UK, and Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2010), pp. 19‒60. Mentzel, Jan-David, ‘Zwischen Obszönität und Ideal. Überlegungen zu zw Badedarstellungen der Beham-Brüder’, in Peiraikos’ Erben. Die Genese der Genremalerei bis 1550, ed. by Jürgen Müller and Birgit Ulrike Münch (Wiesbaden: Reichert, 2015), pp. 391‒414. Meurer, Susanne, ‘Tracing an Old Master in Frankfurt am Main: De Bry Copies Beham’, in Crossroads, ed. by Kirch, Münch and Stewart, pp. 128‒143. Müller, Jürgen, and Kerstin Küster, ‘Der Prediger als Pornograf? Konvention und Subversion in der Bildpoetik Sebald und Barthel Behams’, in Die Gottlosen Maler von Nürnberg, pp. 20‒32. Münch, Birgit Ulrike, ‘Das Männerbad, der Jabacher Altar und die große Angst vor den frantzosen. Albrecht Dürers vielschichtige Klagen über die Syphilis’, in Die Klage des Künstlers, ed. by Birgit Ulrike Münch et al. (Petersberg: Michael Imhof, 2015), pp. 24‒44. Nagler, Georg Kaspar, Die Monogrammisten, 5 vols. (Munich: Georg Franz, 1858‒1879). Nash, Susie, Northern Renaissance Art (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008). Pellé, Anne-Sophie, ‘Receiving Mantegna’s Engravings in the North: Artistic Translation as an Expression of German Identity, 1490‒1530’, in Artistic Translations between the 14th and 16th Centuries (presentation, Warsaw, 18 April 2013). Porras, Stephanie, ‘Dürer’s Copies’, in The Young Dürer: Drawing the Figure, ed. by Stephanie Buck and Stephanie Porras (London: Courtauld Institute, Paul Holberton, 2013), pp. 57‒71. Rich, Brooks, ‘The Burin, the Blade, and the Paper’s Edge: Early Sixteenth-Century Engraved Scabbard Designs by Monogrammist AC’, in The Primacy of the Image in Northern European Art, 1400‒1700: Essays in Honor of Larry Silver, ed. by Debra Cashion, Henry Luttikhuizen and Ashley West (Boston, Leiden: Brill, 2017), pp. 347‒361. Riggs, Timothy, ‘Michiel Hinloopen’s Collection,’ Print Quarterly, 6 (1989), pp. 445‒447. Sander, Jochen, and Schedl, Michaela, ‘Der Frankfurter Patrizier und Jurist Heinrich Kellner: Gelehrter, Autor und Kunstsammler’, in Die Welt im Bildnis. Porträts, Sammler und Sammlungen in Frankfurt von der Renaissance bis zur Aufklärung, ed. by Jochen Sander (Petersberg: Michael Imhof, 2020), pp. 47‒55. Schmidt, Suzanne Karr, Altered and Adorned: Using Renaissance Prints in Daily Life, exh. cat., Chicago, Art Institute of Chicago (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2011). Schmidt, Suzanne Karr, Interactive and Sculptural Printmaking in the Renaissance (Boston: Brill, 2018). Simons, Patricia, The Sex of Men in Premodern Europe: A Cultural History (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011). Singer, Hans Wolfgang, Sammlung Lanna Prag. Das Kupferstickabinett wissenschaftliches Verzeichnis von Dr. Hans Wolfgang Singer, 2 vols. (Prague: Hans Wolfgang Singer, 1895).

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Sperling, Jutta Gisela, ‘On a Few Gender-Bending Images of the Virgin and Child by Jan Gossaert’, Wallraf-Richartz-Jahrbuch, 76 (2015), pp. 49‒77. Stein, Claudia, Negotiating the French Pox in Early Modern Germany (Farnham, UK, and Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2009). Stewart, Alison G., ‘Arousal, the Bible, and Bruegel’s Codpieces: The Male Body in Early Modern Visual Culture’, in The Body, ed. by Thomas O. Haakenson and Jennifer Creech (London, New York: Bloomsbury, 2022). Stewart, Alison G., Before Bruegel: Sebald Beham and the Origins of Peasant Festival Imagery (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2008). Stewart, Alison G., ‘Sebald Beham. Entrepreneur, Printmaker, Painter,’ Journal of the Historians of Netherlandish Art, 4:2 (2012), pp. 1‒12, doi:10.5092/jhna.2012.4.2.3. Stewart, Alison G., ‘The Artist’s Lament in 1528. Exile, Printing and the Reformation’, in Die Klage des Künstlers. Krise und Umbruch von der Reformation bis um 1800, ed. by Birgit Ulrike Münch et al. (Petersberg: Michael Imhof, 2015), pp. 70‒81. Stewart, Alison G., ‘The Importance of Frankfurt Printing before 1550: Sebald Beham Moves from Nuremberg to Frankfurt’, in Crossroads, ed. by Kirch, Münch and Stewart, pp. 18‒40. Stijnman, Ad, Engraving and Etching 1400‒2000 (London: Archetype, 2012). Talvacchia, Bette, ‘Pornography’, in The Classical Tradition, ed. by Anthony Grafton, Glenn W. Most and Salvatore Settis (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press, 2010), pp. 767‒771. Talvacchia, Bette, Taking Positions: On the Erotic in Renaissance Culture (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999). Tavares, Jonathan, ‘Hunting Erotica. Print Culture and a Seventeenth-Century Rifle in the Collection of the Hessisches Landesmuseum’, in Prints in Translation, 1450‒1750: Image, Materiality, Space, ed. by Suzanne Karr Schmidt and Edward H. Wouk (New York: Routledge, 2017), pp. 74‒88. Turner, James Grantham, Eros Visible: Art, Sexuality and Antiquity in Renaissance Italy (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2017). Turner, James Grantham, ‘Invention and Sexuality in the Raphael Workshop: Before the Modi’, Art History, 36 (2013), pp. 72‒99. Turner, James Grantham, ‘Marcantonio’s Lost Modi and their Copies’, Print Quarterly, 21 (2004), pp. 363‒384. Turner, James Grantham, ‘Mars and Venus in the Modi?’, Print Quarterly, 25 (2008), pp. 288‒292. Turner, James Grantham, ‘Woodcut Copies of the Modi’, Print Quarterly, 26 (2009), pp. 115‒123. Weinberg, Jonathan, ‘Things are Queer’, Art Journal, 55:4 (Winter 1966), pp. 11‒14. Wolk-Simon, Linda, ‘“Rapture to the Greedy Eyes”: Profane Love in the Renaissance’, in Bayer (ed.), Art and Love, pp. 43‒58. Wouk, Edward H., and Morris, David (eds.), Marcantonio Raimondi. Raphael and the Image Multiplied, exh. cat., The Whitworth, University of Manchester (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2016).

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About the Author The research of Alison G. Stewart (Ph.D., Columbia University; Professor of Art History Emerita, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, since September 2020) has centred on sixteenth-century secular imagery. Her books include Before Bruegel and Crossroads. Her most recent work addresses Sebald Beham’s move away from Dürer’s Nuremberg to Frankfurt am Main.

2.

Private Viewings: The Frankfurt Context of Sebald Beham’s Die Nacht Miriam Hall Kirch

Abstract Combined with the shocking documentation of his life in Nuremberg in the 1520s, erotic prints such as Die Nacht have long served to support the scholarly presentation of Sebald Beham as a nonconformist. The problem with such interpretations is that Die Nacht is dated 1548, nearly two decades after Beham had moved to Frankfurt am Main. This chapter therefore places the print in the Frankfurt context. Setting Die Nacht and Beham’s late life against the catastrophe of the Schmalkaldic War, the chapter fills in its sketch with details of the twice-yearly Frankfurt fair and humanists in city government. The evidence suggests that far from being a permanent outsider, in Frankfurt Beham transformed into a true insider – and an intelligent businessman. Keywords: Die Nacht; Frankfurt am Main; Frankfurt fair; humanism; Sebald Beham; Schmalkaldic War

A wasteland of tree stumps ringed Frankfurt am Main in 1548, two years after citizens had cleared land outside their walls while preparing defences during the Schmalkaldic War. Now that the war was over, Frankfurt and its residents struggled with crippling debt. The city had borrowed and spent enormous sums and had lost income from its fair, among Europe’s foremost trade events, which had seen weak participation in 1546, as war moved from rumour to reality.1 The fair did not take place at all in 1547. Rather than offering room and board to thousands of paying, international guests, Frankfurt’s citizens endured over nine months, * This chapter owes much to the volume’s co-editors and Dr. Susanne Meurer and Dr. Michaela Schedl. It is based on research funded by the University of North Alabama and the Renaissance Society of America. Except where otherwise noted, all translations are by the author. 1 Collischonn, Frankfurt, p. 65; Urban, ‘Chronik’, and Medenbach, ‘Chronik’, pp. 302‒303 and 319, resp.

Jonietz, F., M. Richter, A.G. Stewart (eds.), Indecent Bodies in Early Modern Visual Culture. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2023 doi 10.5117/9789463725835_ch02

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from late December 1546 to early October 1547, when they were forced to quarter imperial soldiers, who spread dysentery and diphtheria to their unwilling hosts. By January 1547, rising food prices provoked the bitter, ‘[N]othing was cheaper than sick people and lice’.2 So fierce was the cold that some soldiers became ‘Egyptian locusts’, helping themselves to firewood and breaking up panelling and furniture to burn.3 They stank up the town with excrement, urine, and vomit; they drank, cursed, gambled, fought, beat civilians, whored. Frankfurt was notorious for prostitution, but now multiple women were punished for fornication or adultery with the soldiers; a Lutheran preacher described with approval one woman’s flogging.4 Where in a normal year visitors from all over Europe milled about market stands, on the Römerberg, a military executioner lopped off heads, sometimes leaving the malefactor’s corpse lying as a warning until burial at sundown.5 By the time the occupation ended, Frankfurt had seen over 2600 deaths, 22 to 26% of the city’s pre-war population.6 When the fair resumed in 1548 Sebald Beham was ready with a bold print, Die Nacht (1548, P. 154, fig. 2.1), a small, classicising engraving of a nude woman on a bed.7 Indoors, the starry sky visible through a window, Night sleeps. Her name in German and a Latin line from Horace, ‘Night and love and wine urge nothing in moderation’ (Nox et amor, vinumque, nihil moderabile suadent), push the viewer toward moralising abstraction. Such manipulation may be necessary. Bending both legs at the knee, slinging the left over the right, Night displays her vulva. Before Die Nacht Beham had never left his viewer alone in a room, looking between a woman’s legs. The print was daring, and censored copies demonstrate that Beham showed more than his German contemporaries. For centuries scholars have tied that choice to his biography, once pressing this and other ‘obscene’ prints into service as proof that Beham lived a loose life and more recently arguing that in Die Nacht the artist revived the youthful defiance of authority he had shown in his hometown.8 Yet interpreters of the print should look not to Nuremberg, but to Frankfurt, his adoptive home. Evidence presented in this chapter shows that elites here welcomed sexual imagery, provided that it reached a limited audience. Erotica fitting that criterion was marketable, a paramount consideration for Beham after the war and its consequent catastrophic loss of income, when he imbued Die Nacht with 2 ‘[N]ichts wohlfeiler als kranke leut und läus’, Collischonn, Frankfurt, p. 91, citing Degenhard, ‘Chronik’, in Jung (ed.), Chroniken, p. 345. 3 ‘[E]gyptischen heuschrecken’, Medenbach, ‘Chronik’, p. 322. 4 Ambach, ‘Chronik’, pp. 340‒341. 5 Collischonn, Frankfurt, p. 91. 6 Collischonn, Frankfurt, pp. 90‒91; Medenbach, ‘Chronik’, pp. 312‒313, 315; Degenhart, ‘Chronik’, pp. 345, 350; Ambach, ‘Chronik’, pp. 333, 336. 7 P. catalogue numbers from Pauli, Hans Sebald Beham. 8 Overview in Seibt, Hans, pp. 1‒2, 17, 26‒28; Müller and Küster, ‘Prediger’, pp. 25‒28.

Private Viewings: The Fr ankfurt Contex t of Sebald Beham’s Die Nacht 

Figure 2.1: Sebald Beham, Die Nacht, P. 154, engraving, 1548, state III, 110 × 78 mm (plate), Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, inv. RP-P-OB-4601.

the novelty that printmakers and sellers knew buyers wanted.9 Other Frankfurt evidence underpins the claim, although archival losses mean that print ownership in the city remains indistinct until late in the sixteenth century. Yet the humanists whom scholars see as print collectors take on clear outlines in Frankfurt even without good documentation of their print holdings: they were educated men in city government. They also represent only the upper end of Beham’s market. A broader audience came within his reach at the fair and is implicit in Die Nacht’s bilingual inscriptions, unusual in Beham’s oeuvre, and in the extreme wear to the plate. Embedding Beham in these contexts – the war that engulfed Frankfurt, the city’s patrician culture, and its fair – allows us to understand Die Nacht as market-oriented, perhaps shocking, but not subversive. When Beham engraved the print, the suffering in Frankfurt left traces beyond the chroniclers’ records. It is visible in Christian Egenolff’s printing record, which in his entire career included a single year, 1547, with fewer than ten books. 1547 saw seven books issue from Egenolff’s press, compared to sixteen in 1546 and eighteen in 1548.10 In 1547 four books were new editions of works he had previously printed.11 9 Meurer, ‘Lautensack’, p. 129. 10 Numbers from VD16; USTC lists 22 (1546) and 20 (1548). 11 VD16 S 2199, Tabulae Petri Mosellani (VD16 S 2192; ZV 30808, 1540); VD16 E 2230, Erasmus, De civilitate morum (VD16 E 2212; VD16 V 1937, 1537; VD16 ZV 5302, 1540); VD16 R 2868, Eucharius Rösslin, Kalender (VD16 R 2867, 1533; VD16 ZV 13331, 1534); VD16 ZV 14585, Johann Spangenberg, Postilla Evangelica (VD16 S 7996, 1544; VD16 S 7997, VD16 S 7998, VD16 S 7999, 1545).

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Two new titles were by authors he had printed before.12 One, a political broadside, he likely printed for Reinhard of Solms, the imperial field marshal in command of Frankfurt.13 Not until 1550 did Egenolff’s edition numbers climb closer to where they had been a decade earlier. The numbers of Beham’s dated intaglios suggest that he experienced similar wartime trouble. Between 1539 and 1545, a year with ten engravings, his dated intaglios saw rising numbers.14 He dated eight engravings in 1546, when the war began, but only four in 1547, when the city was occupied, six in 1548, and three in 1549. Die Nacht and other post-war prints reveal Beham’s marketing strategies, particularly his reliance on erotica. Some prints resonated against the background of the war.15 Others revived popular subjects or series.16 Beham also refined a strategy he had learned in response to earlier career-damaging events, when he depicted sexual arousal with an openness unprecedented in German printmaking.17 He engraved Joseph and Potiphar’s Wife (1526, P. 14) a year after he had been labelled ‘godless’ and exiled from Nuremberg. Death and the Lascivious Couple (1529, P. 153) followed the charge of copying a book by Dürer in 1528. The earlier prints seem to have imparted a twofold lesson. Customers desired explicit images, and advantages outweighed risks in furnishing such images with his monogram. Beham recalled the lesson in 1548, the year the fair returned and the only year in which he dated four erotic engravings. These range from homegrown genre scenes to imported classicising subjects, including Die Nacht. The homegrown images are two reverse copies after his brother, Barthel Beham, Death and the Sleeping Woman (1548, P. 147) and Three Women in the Bath House (1548, P. 211). Both depict forbidden activities. Death and the Sleeping Woman is a memento mori with the sexual overtones common in German erotica. Brandishing an hourglass, Death climbs on a day bed, a proverbial location for illicit sex, where a sleeping woman splays her legs on a rumpled sheet, her vulva at the centre of the composition.18 ‘Oh, the hour is up!’ (O die Stund ist aus) reads a text at the lower right. As Janey Levy points out, the print Germanises a popular Italian subject, the satyr 12 VD16 E 661, Johann Dryander, Aetzenlich [sic] Spiegel, with Egenolff from 1535; VD16 ZV 25292, Melanchthon, Erotemata, with Egenolff from 1532. 13 VD16 B 871, Hans Baumann, Wie und in welcher gestalt…Philipps von Hessen…den fußfall gethon, probably printed at Hohensolms; see Uhlhorn, Reinhard, p. 87. 14 Based on Pauli, Hans Sebald Beham, pp. 1‒255. 15 Judith Sitting in a Window, P. 13; Job Conversing with His Friends, P. 17; Death and the Standing Nude Woman, P. 151, all 1547. 16 Peasants’ Brawl, P. 185, 1547; Hercules and the Nemean Lion, P. 99, and Death of Hercules, P. 109, from Labours of Hercules, both 1548. 17 See Alison G. Stewart’s essay in this volume. 18 Kratz, ‘Wortschatz’, pp. 332‒333.

Private Viewings: The Fr ankfurt Contex t of Sebald Beham’s Die Nacht 

creeping up on a sleeping nude woman.19 The message about carnal peril gives way to humour in Three Women in the Bath House. The panelling and stove made the bath a space familiar to contemporary viewers; the corpulent figures may have underlined that point.20 Public baths were associated with sexual activity, and here a boy watches as a woman spreads her legs to reveal her vulva while tickling a companion’s crotch. The horseplay parallels other bath scenes but also echoes Beham prints that show a man thrusting a hand under a woman’s skirts or between her legs.21 An independent creation with an imported subject, Leda and the Swan (1548, P. 114), represents Beham’s sole venture into the Loves of the Gods, among the most popular erotic subjects in Italy and France at the time.22 Beham obeyed convention in setting the story outdoors, but he Germanised his classicism with a castle on a hill. Nude Leda sits on the ground, the swan beside her, not between her legs. The swan opens his wings and bill as he lays a claw on her thigh, and the print’s label, ‘Leda embraced by Jove, turned into a swan’ (Leda a Iove, in cygnum verso[,] compressa), testifies to a humanist viewer who corrected the faulty Latin (compressu) in its first state.23 The inscription also hints at impending intercourse, as do the swan’s neck and bill, curving to Leda’s mouth, implying ejaculation.24 Beham’s second new creation was Die Nacht (1548, P. 154), the most extreme among his many vulva depictions. The subject emerged early, in the woodcut wallpaper showing trellised grapevines that resolve into penis and vulva forms (n.d., P. 1342 and 1342a).25 Beham also depicted the vulva in Joseph and Potiphar’s Wife (1526, P. 14; 1544, P. 15).26 To seat the nameless Egyptian woman on a bed and to bare her breasts or strip her nude, as other artists did, was not enough. Beham opened the woman’s legs to the person outside the scene, the viewer-voyeur, whom he teased even in ornamental prints, hiding the vulva behind a cartellino (Ornament with Female Demon, 1544, P. 230) or leaving it open to view (Ornament with Three Satyrs, n.d., P. 236).27 Bent legs frame the subject’s vulva in Die Nacht’s closest relative, the Sleeping Girl with a Dog (n.d., P. 213; fig. 2.2), a child who also crooks her right arm while the left rests at her side. 19 Levy, ‘Erotic’, p. 46. 20 Mentzel, ‘Obszönität’, p. 409. 21 E.g., Lovers by a Fence, 1522, P. 1229; The Prodigal Son Wasting His Fortune, 1540, P. 34; Peasants behind the Fence from The Peasants’ Festival and Twelve Months, n.d., P. 165 and reverse copy, n.d., P. 186; Nessus and Deianira, n.d., P. 110. 22 Levy, ‘Erotic’, p. 42. 23 Pauli, Hans Sebald Beham, p. 119. For an example of the first state, see https://www.britishmuseum. org/collection/object/P_1883-1110-481 (19 July 2021). 24 Turner, Eros, pp. 277, 377, citing Aretino; see also Guerzoni, ‘Erotic’, p. 77, fig. 2.7. 25 See Stewart, ‘Woodcuts’, pp. 79‒83. 26 See Alison G. Stewart’s essay in this volume. 27 For Beham’s model, see discussion in Turner, Eros, p. 61, esp. fig. 1.27.

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Figure 2.2: Sebald Beham, Nude Girl with a Dog, P. 213, engraving, n.d., Ø 53 mm (plate), Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, inv. RP-P-OB-10.925.

An avid collector might have recognised the prints’ kinship, but more viewers would have seen Beham adapting an Italian subject. The nude lying spread-legged on a bed appeared in Jupiter and Antiope (T. 6) and Mercury, Aglauros, and Herse (T. 14; fig. 2.3) from Gian Jacopo Caraglio’s Loves of the Gods (c. 1527).28 The engravings spawned many copies and imitations and are close to Die Nacht, as some in Beham’s audience likely realised. Other viewers may have understood the nudes’ relationship to Michelangelo’s Leda and the Swan (1529–1530; lost), which Beham knew from either the Cornelis Bos engraving (n.d., fig. 2.4) or another copy: he put Leda’s braid-wrapped tiara on Potiphar’s wife (1544, P. 15). Beham – and at least some collectors – must also have figured among those who saw Leda’s link to Night (1524–1527) in the Medici Chapel. The sculpture has long been posited as the model Beham had in mind; its name and pose accord with his engraving.29 He made some changes, including to the point of view. Such change is not rare in Beham’s oeuvre or in his Michelangelo paraphrases.30 The Sistine Adam and Eve re-enacted their expulsion in an engraving (1543, P. 8; fig. 2.5), where Beham slightly altered Eve while setting Adam in twisting motion.31 Presenting a model from a different point of view challenged Beham’s viewer, deepening intellectual and aesthetic pleasure and even following Michelangelo’s own practice.32 If Die Nacht is another borrowing from Michelangelo, Beham again adapted the figure to increase a humanist viewer’s delight. He gave the composition an extra jolt by leaving out the supplementary figures that appear in similar Italian and French prints. That raised its voyeurism to its height, but as indecency was a charge also brought against Michelangelo, framing the shift in Night’s position as a mocking 28 Catalogue numbers from Turner, ‘Caraglio’, pp. 378‒380. 29 Kirch, ‘Looking’, pp. 62‒68; Müller and Küster, ‘Prediger’, pp. 26‒27, 32, n. 54, and Müller, p. 153, in Gottlosen Maler, ed. by Müller and Schauerte; Turner, Eros, p. 380. 30 See also Müller, ‘Albrecht’, pp. 12‒15; Talvacchia, Taking, p. 153. 31 Kirch, ‘Looking’, p. 64. 32 Turner, Eros, p. 304.

Private Viewings: The Fr ankfurt Contex t of Sebald Beham’s Die Nacht 

rejection of Italian ideals seems forced.33 Humanists would not have seen the work as anything but a visual translation from Italian into German. Die Nacht’s small size, 110 × 78 mm, surely impressed humanists as exemplifying Beham’s virtuosity but struck others as convenient for discreet perusal. Yet Beham also opened Die Nacht to the less educated, as Gustav Pauli noted of his oeuvre in general.34 The print is among the engravings from the late 1540s that exist in three states and a full quality spectrum, testifying to the several thousand impressions that Beham must have pulled. The spectrum is still partly visible at the British Museum, where one of their two contemporary impressions came from a plate so worn that Night appears washed out.35 Naked and nakedly sexual, the f igure’s pose remained visible even in inferior impressions, and enjoying the image for that reason did not require understanding its allusions to other art. The Latin inscribed on Night’s headboard would not have disturbed viewers illiterate in that language, for unreadable inscriptions on monuments belonged to their familiar landscape. At least the figure’s name was in German, which Beham sometimes added as guidance to a print’s potentially confusing subject.36 A parallel to Beham’s appeal to audiences high and low lies in the work of Hartmann Kistener. A goldsmith and assayer at the city mint, Kistener carved marzipan or pastry moulds, some of them with bawdy scenes. Claus Stalburg, Frankfurt’s wealthiest patrician, owned a 40-mould collection by Kistener that included erotic subjects from Venus to women joking with fools.37 Fools and bathing women appear on an extant Kistener mould, dated 1530 and found walled into a building in the Rosenthal, then Frankfurt’s bordello district near the Römerberg.38 This district also linked Frankfurt’s high to its low. The city had two municipal and many private brothels, which may, like some of the baths, have been in buildings leased from patrician owners; the building that housed one municipal brothel belonged to the priests at St. Leonhard.39 Customers crowded this area during the fair, when they also pressed into the baths, which with other businesses were temporarily freed from normal restrictions on opening hours. 33 Müller and Küster, ‘Prediger’, p. 30, and Müller, p. 153, in Gottlosen Maler, ed. by Müller and Schauerte. Talvacchia, Taking, pp. 111‒113; Turner, Eros, pp. 78, 316‒319, sketch the most famous accusations against Michelangelo. 34 Pauli, Hans Sebald Beham, p. 2. 35 See https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/P_1853-0709-63 (19 July 2021). 36 E.g., Amnon’s Incest (n.d., P. 16); Cimon and Pero, second state (1544, P. 79). 37 Bothe, Frankfurter, pp. 113‒115; see also Bothe, ‘Stein- und Tonmodell’, pp. 84‒85; Aus auffrichtiger Lieb, p. 94. 38 Bothe, ‘Stein- und Tonmodell’, pp. 88‒90; for an image, see https://historisches-museum-frankfurt. de/de/node/33949 (19 July 2021). 39 Kriegk, Deutsches, p. 294.

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Figure 2.3: Gian Jacopo Caraglio, perhaps after Perino del Vaga, Mercury, Aglauros, and Herse, from Loves of the Gods, T. 14, engraving, n.d., state I, 211 × 134 mm (trimmed), Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, inv. RP-P-OB-35.615.

Private Viewings: The Fr ankfurt Contex t of Sebald Beham’s Die Nacht 

Figure 2.4: Cornelis Bos after Michelangelo, Leda and the Swan, engraving, n.d., 302 × 413 mm (sheet), New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, inv. 57.658.153.

The crush at the fair, where Beham surely sold prints, encouraged lax sales oversight. In 1517, a dealer from nearby Friedberg was outraged to find a woodcut Crucifixion in the playing cards she had bought in Frankfurt. An image of Christ had no place in a game that provided unsavoury entertainment, and her city council affixed the print to their letter complaining to Frankfurt that it was ‘insulting to the Christian faith’.40 Prints were easy to hide, as evidence from other cities shows, and other offensive works may have been hidden in the year-round storage vaults that booksellers maintained; additionally, books available at the fair could be banned in other cities. 41 The ‘shameful and sinful little book’ that got Hans Guldenmund into trouble with Nuremberg authorities was an Augsburg product that he had intended to sell at the fair in 1535 but ended up taking to Leipzig.42 Leipzig booksellers earned officials’ wrath in 1557 for offering a volume on the Schmalkaldic War ‘that the papists…caused, undertook, and waged against the Protestant estates’. 43 The 40 ‘[C]hristlichem glauben schmelich’, Wagner, Bilder, p. 175, fig. 110. 41 Meurer, ‘Lautensack’, pp. 125, 129; Kapp, Geschichte, pp. 280, 469. 42 Translation by Landau and Parshall, Renaissance, p. 225; see Stewart’s essay in this volume. 43 ‘[W]elchen die Papisten…wider die Protestierende stende erreget, fürgenommen, und gefürt haben’, VD16 M 6168, Aleman (Monner), Bedencken, A ii.

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Figure 2.5: Sebald Beham, Expulsion from Paradise, P. 8, engraving, 1543, 82 × 58 mm (plate), Williamstown, Mass., Clark Art Institute, inv. 1990.16.

booksellers’ defence was that they had bought the book wholesale at Frankfurt, where crowds made it impossible to do more than glance at a title page before deciding to buy; only upon unpacking such purchases could buyers leaf through any given book to gain a better sense of what it said. 44 Humanists, the prime audience for Die Nacht and other engravings, sometimes wrote prohibited books, and the fair made Frankfurt a humanist centre twice a year, when visitors may have doubled the city’s population. 45 This was, after all, where in the 1450s the first mass audience encountered a book printed with movable type. 46 The fair acted as a distribution hub for books and ideas and enabled large sales, such as the 1400 copies of Luther’s disputation with Johannes Eck that sold in a few days in 1518. 47 Bookselling became the ‘Fair of the Muses’ that turned Frankfurt into a ‘new Athens’. 48 Erasmus was not alone in pressing to get a book printed in time for the next fair, an event that drew intellectuals who shopped for new books and spoke with colleagues, while Melanchthon and other professors keyed lecture contents to texts available at the fair. 49 Individual 44 Kapp, Geschichte, p. 470. 45 Rothmann, Frankfurter, p. 493. 46 See Rothmann, Frankfurter, p. 14. 47 Kapp, Geschichte, p. 411. 48 Kapp, Geschichte, p. 465; Rovelstad, ‘Frankfurt’, p. 116; Skala, ‘Vom neuen’, p. 197. 49 Kapp, Geschichte, pp. 456‒457; Rothmann, Frankfurter, p. 17.

Private Viewings: The Fr ankfurt Contex t of Sebald Beham’s Die Nacht 

prints were available from fair-going booksellers, and they likely sold wholesale; Berit Wagner has suggested that the book trade alone could have allowed prints to spread through Europe.50 Frankfurt provides key testimony to humanists’ print usage and connoisseurship. An early description appears in a letter to Willibald Pirckheimer in April 1520, after that year’s spring far.51 Frankfurt mayor Philipp Fürstenberg, joined Johann Cochlaeus to admire and discuss Dürer’s St. Jerome and Melencolia I. Similar conversations may have unfolded around the print albums assembled by Heinrich Kellner, who became Frankfurt syndic in 1574, and in a musaeum, a book-filled study that in the 1590s also contained prints in the house of lawyer Johann Faust von Aschaffenburg, former chancellor of Elector Palatine Ludwig VI.52 The humanistically educated men who could most enjoy Beham’s engravings held powerful positions in Frankfurt, and an interest in ancient Rome manifested itself in overlapping generations of syndics. Syndic Heinrich Kellner owned an album with prints from Antoine Lafréry’s antiquarian compendium, the Speculum Romanae magnificentiae, and Hieronymus zum Lamb, syndic from 1541, became a specialist in organising and cataloguing Roman coin collections.53 Lamb, like Kellner, entered city service through Johann von Fichard, syndic for decades. A prominent jurist, Fichard authored numerous books, three published by his friend, Christian Egenolff; Fichard’s relations with Frankfurt printers were so close that they served as his pall bearers.54 Fichard also provides evidence of Frankfurt patricians’ reactions to classicism and classicising erotica such as Die Nacht. He won impeccable humanist credentials in Heidelberg, Freiburg, and Basel, earning his doctorate before he was 20. He became Frankfurt’s syndic at 21 and rose into the patriciate through marriage in 1539. He interrupted his career in 1536 to advance his legal studies in Pavia and Padua, spending the first six months travelling and recording the journey. The resulting book was never published during his lifetime but has gained fame as the first cohesive description of an educational trip to Italy.55 Its testimony reveals Fichard’s interest and observational skills. He was, for instance, one of only two sixteenth-century foreigners to mention the Castel Nuovo arch in Naples, and he described the Marsyas sculptures in Florence more accurately than Vasari.56 However, Michelangelo’s 50 Wagner, Bilder, pp. 185‒187. 51 Cochlaeus to Pirckheimer, Frankfurt, 5 Apr. 1520, Dürer, Nachlass, no. 59, p. 265. 52 Kirch, ‘Art’, pp. 92‒93. 53 Sander and Schedl, ‘Frankfurter’, pp. 50‒51; 144, no. 17; Kirch, ‘Many’, pp. 30‒32; Kellner, ‘Kunstbuch’. 54 VD16 F 920, Schola Apiciana, 1534; VD16 F 683, Clarissimi Iureconsulti, 1535; VD16 F 921, Virorum qui, 1536; Heyden, Gallerie, p. 429. 55 Sünderhauf, ‘Wahrnehmung’, pp. 426‒427. 56 Stock, ‘Foreign’, p. 276; Jacobs, ‘(Dis)assembling’, pp. 429‒430.

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confusing iconographic choices led Fichard to misidentify David and the Medici Chapel Day and Night as Orpheus, Hercules, and Minerva.57 Fichard emphasised Michelangelo’s fame but left the sculptures’ nudity unmentioned; he had seen many nudes and understood their rationale before reaching Florence. Only in describing Clement VII’s Castel Sant’Angelo bathroom did Fichard moralise about ‘nude girls’, and he quipped that he did not doubt His Holiness touched them with great devotion.58 The decoration offended Fichard not for bathroom-appropriate nudity but for the illicit pleasure he assumed it provided to the room’s patron. Audience mattered, not erotic content. The notion that erotic imagery was welcome in the elite Frankfurt house finds further support in Conrad Faber von Kreuznach’s double portrait of patricians Justinian von Holzhausen and Anna Fürstenberg, Philipp Fürstenberg’s daughter (fig. 2.6). Fichard’s older contemporary, Justinian von Holzhausen, belonged to Frankfurt’s oldest patrician family. He was educated at Wittenberg under his father’s friend, Philipp Melanchthon, became mayor multiple times, and served with Fichard on many diplomatic missions. For this double portrait, dated 1536, Holzhausen turned to the painter of the city’s uppermost patriciate, but here Faber did not portray newlyweds; Justinian and Anna had married in 1528. When the portrait was painted, Anna had already borne five of their twelve children, and the boys had received the classicising names that scholars have often noted.59 The names underscore the value the Holzhausens placed on humanism, which shaped this portrait, anomalous in Faber’s oeuvre, to impart an individualised message about their marriage. The couple’s poses are among the departures from convention in the panel. Unlike Faber’s other subjects, Anna and Justinian do not hold their arms and hands close to the body. Rather, they open their arms, drawing attention to the nude, blindfolded Cupid between them. Justinian supports Cupid’s back with his left hand while reaching for the flaming tip of the infant god’s arrow with his right. Anna echoes Justinian’s pinching gesture with her right thumb and index finger, dangling grapes that Cupid grasps and resting her left hand on the foot of a crystal bowl filled with grapes and pears.60 The fruit points to more than fertility in marriage; grapes carried many meanings, some of them sexual.61

57 Fichard, ‘Italia’, p. 103; Günther, ‘Michelangelo’, p. 74. 58 ‘Sunt et plures inibi nudae puellae depictae. Ex quibus non dubito quin magna devotione tangatur’, Fichard, ‘Italia’, p. 51; Pfisterer, ‘Kunst-Liebe’, p. 598. 59 Anna (b./d. 1529); Trajan (1530–1571); Justinian (1532–1579); Margarete (1534–1574); Achilles (1535–1590); see Holzhausen family tree insert in Aus auffrichtiger Lieb. 60 Kratz, ‘Wortschatz’, pp. 135, 137, on pears. 61 Simons, Sex, pp. 249‒250.

Private Viewings: The Fr ankfurt Contex t of Sebald Beham’s Die Nacht 

Figure 2.6: Conrad Faber von Kreuznach, Portrait of Justinian von Holzhausen and Anna Fürstenberg, mixed media on linden panel, 1536, 68.6 × 98.5 cm, Frankfurt am Main, Städel Museum, inv. 1729.

Erudite interpretations of such overtly sensual details have cast the painting as tying humanism to Christianity and embodying Reformation teachings about marriage.62 Although scholars have acknowledged the role that such teachings assigned to sexual pleasure, a gap divides their interpretations from the Städel’s judgement that the portrait is ‘an astonishingly frank avowal of sexuality’.63 Previous discussions omit details that support the Städel’s assessment. One detail is in Justinian’s doublet, where one of its fashionable slashes has become a rip. Behind Cupid’s fiery arrowhead, the rip has opened enough to let Justinian’s shirt puff out. The arrowhead may have caught in the doublet; perhaps it took its fire from Justinian. The rip lies above his liver, the seat of desire in prevailing medical theory.64 The rip highlights the shirt, which is loosely tied at Justinian’s throat. It is the only such shirt in Faber’s oeuvre. Also unique is the long necklace that Anna 62 De Jongh, ‘Grape’, pp. 187‒190; Hinz, ‘Studien’, pp. 172‒174; Hinz, ‘Innerlichkeit’; Bedaux, ‘Fruit’, pp. 165‒166; Baldwin, ‘Plutarch’; Brinkmann in Aus auffrichtiger Lieb, pp. 88‒90; Brinkmann in Brinkmann and Kemperdick, Deutsche Gemälde, pp. 313‒320; Schmidt-Funke, ‘Buben’, pp. 147‒148; Fickinger, ‘Conrad’, pp. 40‒42. 63 https://sammlung.staedelmuseum.de/de/werk/doppelbildnis-des-justinian-von-holzhausen (15 June 2020). 64 Purnis, ‘Renaissance Discourses’, p. 63.

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Figure 2.7: Heinrich Aldegrever, A Couple of Lovers Seated, engraving, 1529, Ø 52 mm, Washington, D.C., National Gallery of Art, Rosenwald Collection, inv. 1943.3.284.

wears. A gold chain, it lacks the orderliness of women’s jewellery in portraits by either Faber or his contemporaries. Rather than hanging straight, it has snagged on Anna’s bodice and now lies crookedly across her chest, at odds with proper dress. The asymmetrical chain has parallels outside portraiture. Heinrich Aldegrever’s A Couple of Lovers Seated (1529, fig. 2.7) illustrates the sexual context in which the motif usually appears, also in engravings by Sebald Beham.65 In contrast to Anna’s necklace, this chain has been pulled from inside the woman’s bodice. Eve-like, she holds a fruit, perhaps an apple, in one hand. What were Anna and Justinian doing before the viewer walked in on them? Anna, gazing down as she extends grapes to Cupid, would not answer if she could. Justinian looks out, about to extinguish the fire on Cupid’s arrow. But an apple from the bowl under Anna’s fingers rests on the red marble ledge before Justinian, and the viewer who looks at it also sees the flap and laces at the crotch of Justinian’s breeches. The viewer then sees that at Cupid’s lower back another arrow burns in a quiver, a phallic symbol like the arrows it holds.66 Its flame reflected on the fruit bowl’s curve, this arrow points toward Anna’s lower body. Sexual references in portraiture were not uncommon, hiding in plain sight in works such as Jan van Eyck’s Arnolfini Portrait.67 Moreover, Holzhausen knew that his painting would be a private image; portraits were rare in Frankfurt and located in less accessible parts of the patrician house.68 Few would have seen this portrait, ensuring appropriate recipients for its message about the physical foundation on which the Holzhausen marriage stood. The painting, like Die Nacht, could not be further removed from the chaos that descended on Frankfurt in late 1546. Night’s passivity and pose identify it as a marketable subject. While it and other prints of the late 1540s may reflect 65 E.g., Two Couples and a Fool, 1535, P. 214; The Prodigal Son Wasting His Fortune, 1540, P. 34; The Lady and the Fool, 1540, P. 149; The Lady and Death, 1541, P. 150. 66 Brinkmann in Brinkmann and Kemperdick, Deutsche Gemälde, p. 319; for arrows as phallic symbols, see Simons, Sex, pp. 118, 120‒121. 67 See Harbison, ‘Sexuality’; Bedaux, ‘Reality’. 68 Hinz, ‘Innerlichkeit’, p. 97; examples in Kirch, ‘Art’, p. 88.

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Beham’s personal interests, they more certainly reveal his grasp of the market, a characteristic Gustav Pauli found distasteful, but Alison G. Stewart identifies as entrepreneurship.69 Beham knew Holzhausen and Fichard, powerful men who saw him as an upstanding citizen and would protect him if needed.70 Both turned to him for the coat of arms on their patents of nobility, and Holzhausen supervised a payment from an Augsburg printer to Beham in 1548.71 Sitting on the city council, Holzhausen may have been in attendance when Beham presented a panel painting at New Year’s 1550.72 Holzhausen and Fichard’s connection to Beham bears on the experience that humanists brought to viewing prints such as Die Nacht. A connoisseur could have looked at it with an acquaintance, as Cochlaeus and Fürstenberg did with Dürer’s engravings. Draped in a line from a great poet, the imagery suited private use, much like the Holzhausen portrait or a bathroom’s erotic scenes, which Fichard judged inappropriate only because they appeared in a papal residence. He, Holzhausen, and their peers would have seen Die Nacht and the other three erotic prints of 1548 as a coherent group despite the varied tones they strike. Such variety was common, characterising Hartmann Kistener’s moulds and Heinrich Kellner’s 1588 prints album.73 Copyists’ decision to reject Die Nacht’s daring supports conclusions about Beham’s circumstances. Heinrich Aldegrever censored his reverse copy (P. 154a) with a shadow that falls across Night’s vulva. A second reverse copy (P. 154b) covered the vulva with leaves on a twig. In both cases, the copyist hid what Beham accentuated. Not every printmaker could be as blunt; not every printmaker had such good financial motives for explicit indecency. The Main flowed past Sebald Beham’s apartment, and ships bore Die Nacht away with them. It is in prints’ nature to become unmoored. Portable, small, and inexpensive, they were made to move across space and time. In that floating, they lend themselves to interpretations that change, even as the prints do not, a process simplified by missing information about artists and collectors. These people also drift on currents without a biographical context to anchor them, as Beham scholarship shows. According to Pauli, Sebald Beham suffered from failing imagination and slipping technical skill toward the end of his life, when his latent ‘vulgar attitude’ came 69 Pauli, Hans Sebald Beham, pp. 14‒15; Stewart, ‘Sebald Beham: Entrepreneur’. 70 For a parallel example of protection, see Landau and Parshall, Renaissance, p. 224. 71 Stewart, ‘Sebald Beham and the Augsburg’, pp. 7‒9. 72 Stewart, ‘Sebald Beham: Entrepreneur’, p. 44. 73 Sander and Schedl, ‘Frankfurter’, pp. 51, fig. 36; 54, figs. 40‒41, 142, nos. 14.7‒14.9. Beham’s Adonai from 1534 Bible on same page; p. 143, no. 14.10. Digital edition: http://sammlungen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/ msneuz/content/titleinfo/10722799 (8 July 2020).

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to the fore.74 Pauli saw the entire 1540s as a lesser period, despite acknowledging that Beham produced the bulk of his engravings in that decade. Pauli pinpointed Beham’s final slide into insignificance: 1546–1547, but he made no connection to Frankfurt events, unlike Adolf Rosenberg and G.K.W. Seibt.75 They mentioned the Schmalkaldic War, as did Keith Moxey many decades later.76 Moxey argued against reading Beham through the Nuremberg lens that some scholars still use.77 Either overlooking or downplaying Beham’s later circumstances, densely learned studies build on his 1525 testimony to infer an enduring radicalism that shaped his spirituality and led him to subvert classicism – Italian and thus Catholic – in Die Nacht and other Frankfurt work.78 Without hesitation, such arguments assign Beham’s erotica the same evidentiary role it played for credulous, older studies that spread lurid gossip disguised as scholarship. The Nuremberg documents are seductive, and Beham’s Frankfurt records cannot compete with them. A young rebel claiming in 1525 to see nothing special in baptism fascinates; not so much a middle-aged artist in church, assisting at his godson’s christening in 1541.79 The former gives insight into personal belief, while the latter performs an expected function. Beyond such everyday documentation, Beham’s Frankfurt years remain uncertain territory, yet closer investigation still permits new conclusions. Like much that has been written about him over the centuries, the argument rests on inferences and includes erotica. As in his youth, erotica was critical to his survival. After the disaster visited upon Frankfurt in 1546–1547, socially secure but financially struggling, Sebald Beham made a canny marketing decision, resulting in Die Nacht and her sisters of 1548.

Abbreviations P: Pauli, Gustav, Hans Sebald Beham: Ein kritisches Verzeichniss seiner Kupferstiche, Radirungen [sic] und Holzschnitte (Strasbourg: Heitz, 1901). T: Turner, James Grantham, ‘Caraglio’s Loves of the Gods’, Print Quarterly, 24, no. 4 (2007), pp. 359‒380. USTC: Universal Short Title Catalogue, https://www.ustc.ac.uk/ (19 July 2021).

74 Pauli, Hans Sebald Beham, pp. 14‒16; Pauli, ‘Beham, Hans Sebald’, p. 195. 75 Pauli, Hans Sebald Beham, p. 163; Rosenberg, Sebald, p. 46; Seibt, Hans Sebald Beham, pp. 28‒29. 76 Moxey, ‘Beham Brothers’, p. 27. 77 Merback, ‘Nobody’, p. 1091, mentions the Schmalkaldic War, but not its effects on Frankfurt. 78 E.g., Merback, ‘Nobody’, pp. 1037‒1105; Müller and Küster, ‘Prediger’, pp. 20‒32. 79 See Schwerhoff, ‘Wie gottlos’, p. 36; Zülch, Frankfurter, p. 331.

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VD16: Verzeichnis der im deutschen Sprachbereich erschienenen Drucke des 16. Jahrhunderts. https://www.gateway-bayern.de/TouchPoint_touchpoint/start.do?SearchProfile=Altb estand&SearchType=2 (19 July 2021).

Works Cited Aleman, Christian [Monner, Basilius], Bedencken vonn dem Kriege… (Basel: Bartholomäus Stähelin, 1557). Ambach, Melchior, ‘Chronik des Prädikanten Melchior Ambach über die Ereignisse von 1546–1547’, in Jung (ed.), Chroniken, pp. 325‒343. Aus auffrichtiger Lieb vor Franckfurt: Patriziat im alten Frankfurt, ed. by Andreas Hansert et al. (Frankfurt am Main: Waldemar Kramer, 2000). Baldwin, Robert, ‘Plutarch’s Wife as Mirror in a German Renaissance Marriage Portrait’, Source: Notes in the History of Art, 4:2/3 (1985), pp. 68‒71. Bedaux, Jan Baptist, ‘Fruit and Fertility: Fruit Symbolism in Netherlandish Portraiture of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries’, Simiolus: Netherlands Quarterly for the History of Art, 17:2/3 (1987), pp. 150‒168. Bedaux, Jan Baptist, ‘The Reality of Symbols: The Question of Disguised Symbolism in Jan van Eyck‘s “Arnolfini Portrait”’, Simiolus: Netherlands Quarterly for the History of Art, 16:1 (1986), pp. 5‒28. Bothe, Friedrich, Frankfurter Patriziervermögen im 16. Jahrhundert: Ein Beitrag zur Charakteristik der bürgerlichen Vermögen und der bürgerlichen Kultur (Berlin: Alexander Duncker, 1908). Bothe, Friedrich, ‘Stein- und Tonmodel als Kuchenformen’, Repertorium für Kunstwissenschaft, 43 (1922), pp. 80‒92. Brinkmann, Bodo and Stephan Kemperdick, Deutsche Gemälde im Städel 1500–1550 (Mainz: Philipp von Zabern, 2005). Collischonn, Paul, Frankfurt A./M. im Schmalkaldischen Kriege (Strasbourg: Karl Trübner, 1890). Degenhard, Jakob, ‘Die Chronik des Dr. Jakob Degenhard über die Ereignisse von 1346–1347’, in Jung (ed.), Chroniken, pp. 344‒350. Digitale Sammlung, Städel Museum https://sammlung.staedelmuseum.de/de/werk/ doppelbildnis-des-justinian-von-holzhausen (11 July 2020). Dürer, Albrecht, Schriftlicher Nachlass, 1, ed. by Hans Rupprich (Berlin: Deutscher Verein für Kunstwissenschaft, 1956). Fichard, Johann, ‘Italia’, Frankfurtisches Archiv für ältere deutsche Litteratur [sic] und Geschichte, 3 (1815), pp. 1‒130. Fickinger, Samuel, ‘Conrad Faber von Kreuznach, die Familie von Holzhausen und das Renaissanceporträt’, in Die Welt im BILDnis: Porträts, Sammler und Sammlungen in

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Frankfurt von der Renaissance bis zur Aufklärung, ed. by Jochen Sander (Petersberg: Michael Imhof, 2020), pp. 39‒45. Die gottlosen Maler von Nürnberg. Konvention und Subversion in der Druckgrafik der BehamBrüder, ed. by Jürgen Müller and Thomas Schauerte, exh. cat., Albrecht-Dürer-Haus Nürnberg (Nuremberg: Museen der Stadt Nürnberg, 2011). Guerzoni, Guido A., ‘The Erotic Fantasies of a Model Clerk: Amateur Pornography at the Beginning of the Cinquecento’, in Erotic Cultures of Renaissance Italy, ed. by Sara F. Matthews-Grieco (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2010), pp. 61‒88. Günther, Hubertus, ‘Michelangelo’s Works in the Eyes of His Contemporaries’, in The Beholder: The Experience of Art in Early Modern Europe, ed. by Thomas Frangenberg and Robert Williams (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006), pp. 53‒85. Harbison, Craig, ‘Sexuality and Social Standing in Jan van Eyck’s Arnolfini Double Portrait’, Renaissance Quarterly, 43:2 (1990), pp. 249‒291. Heyden, Eduard, Gallerie berühmter und merkwürdiger Frankfurter: Eine biographische Sammlung (Frankfurt am Main: H.L. Brönner, 1861). Hinz, Berthold, ‘Innerlichkeit und ihre äusserlichen Bedingungen: Das humanistische Bildnis des Justinian und der Anna von Holzhausen’, Städel-Jahrbuch, n.s., 5 (1975), pp. 97‒110. Hinz, Berthold, ‘Studien zur Geschichte des Ehepaarbildnisses’, Marburger Jahrbuch für Kunstwissenschaft, 19 (1974), pp. 139‒218. Jacobs, Fredrika, ‘(Dis)assembling: Marsyas, Michelangelo, and the Accademia Del Disegno’, The Art Bulletin, 84:3 (2002), pp. 426‒448. Jongh, Eddy de, ‘Grape Symbolism in Paintings of the 16th and 17th Centuries’, Simiolus: Netherlands Quarterly for the History of Art, 7:4 (1974), pp. 166‒191. Jung, Rudolf (ed.), Chroniken der Reformationszeit nebst einer Darstellung der Frankfurter Belagerung von 1552 (Frankfurt am Main: Carl Jügel, 1888). Kapp, Friedrich, Geschichte des deutschen Buchhandels bis in das siebzehnte Jahrhundert (Leipzig: Börsenverein der Deutschen Buchhändler, 1886). Kellner, Heinrich, ‘Kunstbuch’, 1588, Ms. Ff. H. Kellner 1 ‒ Kunstbuch, Universitätsbibliothek Frankfurt am Main, http://sammlungen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/msneuz/content/ titleinfo/10722799 (11 July 2020). Kirch, Miriam Hall, ‘Art, Collecting, and Display in the Sixteenth-Century Patrician House in Frankfurt am Main’, in Crossroads: Frankfurt am Main as Market for Northern Art, 1500‒1850, ed. by Miriam Hall Kirch, Birgit Ulrike Münch, and Alison G. Stewart (Petersberg: Michael Imhof, 2019), pp. 76‒101. Kirch, Miriam Hall, ‘Looking into Night: An Erotic Engraving by Sebald Beham in Context’ (M.A. thesis, University of Texas at Austin, 1998). Kirch, Miriam Hall, ‘“Many Kinds of Old, Heathen, Imperial Pennies and the Like Antiquities”’, Journal of the History of Collections, 25:1 (2013), pp. 29‒43. Kratz, Henry, ‘Über den Wortschatz der Erotik im Spätmittelhochdeutschen und Frühneuhochdeutschen’ (Ph.D. thesis, Columbus, OH: University of Ohio, 1949).

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Kriegk, Georg Ludwig, Deutsches Bürgerthum im Mittelalter nach urkundlichen Forschungen mit besonderer Beziehung auf Frankfurt a. M., 2 vols. (Frankfurt am Main: Literarische Anstalt, 1868‒1871). Landau, David, and Peter Parshall, The Renaissance Print, 1470–1550 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994). Levy, Janey L., ‘The Erotic Engravings of Sebald and Barthel Beham’, in The World in Miniature: Engravings by the German Little Masters, 1500–1550, ed. by Stephen H. Goddard (Lawrence: Spencer Museum of Art, 1988), pp. 40‒53. Medenbach, Jakob, ‘Chronik des Schuhmachers Jakob Medenbach über die Ereignisse von 1546–1547’, in Jung (ed.), Chroniken, pp. 305‒324. Mentzel, Jan-David, ‘Zwischen Obszönität und Ideal: Überlegungen zu zwei Badedarstellungen der Beham-Brüder’, in Peiraikos’ Erben: Die Genese der Genremalerei bis 1550, ed. by Birgit Ulrike Münch and Jürgen Müller (Wiesbaden: Ludwig Reichert, 2015), pp. 391‒414. Merback, Mitchell B., ‘Nobody Dares: Freedom, Dissent, Self-Knowing, and Other Possibilities in Sebald Beham’s Impossible’, Renaissance Quarterly, 63:4 (2010), pp. 1037‒1105. Meurer, Susanne, ‘Lautensack’s Troubles with Censorship’, Print Quarterly, 25:2 (2008), pp. 119‒132. Moxey, Keith, ‘The Beham Brothers and the Death of the Artist’, Register of the Spencer Museum of Art, 6:6 (1989), pp. 25‒29. Müller, Jürgen, ‘Albrecht Dürer’s Peasant Engravings: A Different Laocoön, or the Birth of Aesthetic Subversion in the Spirit of the Reformation’, Journal of Historians of Netherlandish Art, 2:1 (2011), https://jhna.org/articles/albrecht-durer-peasant-engravings-differentlaocon-birth-aesthetic-subversion-spirit-reformation/ (18 July 2021). Müller, Jürgen, and Kerstin Küster, ‘Der Prediger als Pornograf? Konvention und Subversion in der Bildpoetik Sebald und Barthel Behams’, in Die gottlosen Maler von Nürnberg, pp. 20‒32. Pauli, Gustav, ‘Beham, Hans Sebald’, in Allgemeines Lexikon der Bildenden Künstler von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart, ed. by Ulrich Thieme and Felix Becker (Leipzig: Engelmann, 1907), III, pp. 193‒195. Pfisterer, Ulrich, ‘Kunst-Liebe/Liebes-Kunst’, in Liebessemantik: Frühneuzeitliche Darstellungen von Liebe in Italien und Frankreich, ed. by Kirsten Dickhaut (Wiesbaden: Otto Harassowitz, 2014), pp. 583‒634. Purnis, Jan, ‘Renaissance Discourses of Emotions’, in Emotions, Community, and Citizenship: Cross-Disciplinary Perspectives, ed. by Rebecca Kingston et al. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2017), pp. 52‒74. Rosenberg, Adolf, Sebald und Barthel Beham: Zwei Maler der deutschen Renaissance (Leipzig: E.A. Seemann, 1875). Rothmann, Michael, Die Frankfurter Messen im Mittelalter (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 1998). Rovelstad, Mathilde, ‘The Frankfurt Book Fair’, Journal of Library History, Philosophy, and Comparative Librarianship, 8:3/4 (1973), pp. 113‒123.

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Sander, Jochen and Michaela Schedl, ‘Der Frankfurter Patrizier und Jurist Heinrich Kellner: Gelehrter, Autor und Kunstsammler’, in Die Welt im BILDnis: Porträts, Sammler und Sammlungen in Frankfurt von der Renaissance bis zur Aufklärung, ed. by Jochen Sander (Petersberg: Michael Imhof, 2020), pp. 47‒55. Schmidt-Funke, Julia A., ‘Buben, Hausväter und neue Mönche: Reformatorische Männlichkeiten’, in Glaube und Geschlecht ‒ Gender Reformation, ed. by Eva Labouvie (Cologne: Böhlau, 2019), pp. 103‒130. Schwerhoff, Gerd, ‘Wie gottlos waren die “gottlosen Maler”? Zur Rekonstruktion des Nürnberger Verfahrens von 1525 und seiner Hintergründe’, in Die gottlosen Maler von Nürnberg, pp. 33‒45. Seibt, G.K. Wilhelm, Hans Sebald Beham, Maler und Kupferstecher (Frankfurt am Main: Heinrich Keller, 1882). Simons, Patricia, The Sex of Men in Premodern Europe: A Cultural History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014). Skala, Dieter, ‘Vom neuen Athen zur literarischen Provinz: Die Geschichte der Frankfurter Büchermesse bis ins 18. Jahrhundert’, in Brücke zwischen den Völkern ‒ Zur Geschichte der Frankfurter Messe, ed. by Patricia Stahl with Roland Hoede and Dieter Skala, 3 vols. (Frankfurt am Main: Historisches Museum, 1991), II, pp. 195‒202. Stewart, Alison G., ‘Sebald Beham: Entrepreneur, Printmaker, Painter’, Journal of Historians of Netherlandish Art, 4:2 (2012). https://jhna.org/articles/sebald-beham-entrepreneurprintmaker-painter/ (19 July 2021). Stewart, Alison G., ‘Sebald Beham and the Augsburg Printer Niclas vom Sand: New Documents on Printing and Frankfurt before 1550’, in Imagery and Ingenuity in Early Modern Europe: Essays in Honor of Jeffrey Chipps Smith, ed. by Catharine Ingersoll, Alisa McCusker, and Jessica Weiss (Turnhout: Brepols, 2018), pp. 149‒161. Stewart, Alison G., ‘Woodcuts as Wallpaper: Sebald Beham and Large Prints from Nuremberg’, in Grand Scale: Monumental Prints in the Age of Dürer and Titian, ed. by Larry Silver and Elizabeth Wyckoff (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008), pp. 72‒84. Stock, Beate, ‘Foreign Impressions of Neapolitan Art in the Sixteenth Century’, Renaissance and Reformation ‒ Renaissance et Réforme, n.s., 12:4 (1988), pp. 272‒290. Sünderhauf, Esther Sophia, ‘Von der Wahrnehmung zur Beschreibung: Johann Fichards Italia (1536/1537)’, in Übersetzung und Transformation, ed. by Hartmut Böhme, Christof Rapp, and Wolfgang Rösler (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2007), pp. 425‒453. Talvacchia, Bette, Taking Positions: On the Erotic in Renaissance Culture (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1999). Turner, James Grantham, Eros Visible: Art, Sexuality and Antiquity in Renaissance Italy (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2017). Uhlhorn, Friedrich, Reinhard Graf zu Solms, Herr zu Münzenberg, 1491‒1562 (Münster: Elwert, 1952).

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Urban, Jakob, ‘Chronik des Rathschreibers Jakob Urban über die Ereignisse von 1546’, in Jung (ed.), Chroniken, pp. 297‒304. Wagner, Berit, Bilder ohne Auftraggeber: Der deutsche Kunsthandel im 15. und frühen 16. Jahrhundert mit Überlegungen zum Kulturtransfer (Petersberg: Michael Imhof, 2014). Zülch, Walther Karl, Frankfurter Künstler 1223–1700 (Frankfurt am Main: Diesterweg, 1935).

About the Author Miriam Hall Kirch is professor of art history at the University of North Alabama. She studies sixteenth-century Germany. Her chapter in this book builds on Frankfurt research with Alison G. Stewart. Her work has received support from the American Philosophical Society, the Renaissance Society of America, and Fulbright.

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To Show or Not to Show?Marcantonio Raimondi and the Representation of Female Pubic Hair Mandy Richter

Abstract In the visual arts of Early Modern period, female pubic hair was mostly considered indecorous, troublesome, or even indecent because it highlighted one’s most intimate parts. In treatises and medical literature of that period, it was perceived, as body hair in general, as a vehicle for the expulsion of the body’s own excretions. In addition to these rather unbecoming connotations, this article will address and propose more positive ideas surrounding a particular set of depictions of pubic hair that referenced a specific artistic model. I will show that Marcantonio Raimondi’s application of pubic hair to some of his female nudes, the Venus Wringing her Hair, Young Man Protected by Fortune, and Mars, Venus, and Cupid, all created between 1506 and 1508, becomes a highly significant detail that should be seen in connection with his imitation and emulation of Albrecht Dürer. Marcantonio’s different approaches to pubic hair indicate also its potential as a field of artistic experimentation. Keywords: Albrecht Dürer; artistic imitation; female nude; Marcantonio Raimondi; pubic hair

In the visual arts of the Early Modern period, female pubic hair was mostly considered indecorous, troublesome, or even indecent because it highlighted one’s most intimate parts. In treatises and medical literature of that period, it was perceived as body hair in general, as a vehicle for the expulsion of the body’s own excretions.1 * I would like to thank Ariella Minden and Alison G. Stewart for their help with the translation of this text. 1. See n. 3.

Jonietz, F., M. Richter, A.G. Stewart (eds.), Indecent Bodies in Early Modern Visual Culture. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2023 doi 10.5117/9789463725835_ch03

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In addition to these rather unbecoming connotations, this article will address and propose more positive ideas surrounding a particular set of depictions of pubic hair that referenced a specific artistic model. I will show that Marcantonio Raimondi’s application of pubic hair to some of his female nudes, created between 1506 and 1508, becomes a highly significant detail that should be seen in connection with his imitation and emulation of Albrecht Dürer. Marcantonio’s different approach to pubic hair indicates also its potential as a field of artistic experimentation. In real life, body hair, including pubic hair, def ines or marks physical differences, in particular between human and animal, male and female, adult and child,2 even though such an understanding should be applied to the visual arts only with caution. Individual case studies have shown that the understandings of depictions of pubic hair could vary depending on time and place, hold nuanced meanings, and be conditioned by very different considerations. From Antiquity to the present, body hair has belonged to a discourse on bodily treatments that often resulted in the manipulation or even elimination of that hair.3 Based on findings in treatises and medical literature from the Early Modern period, the ideal of the female hairless beauty in real life appears to have been both an aesthetic choice and based on the assumption that body hair was considered, on a medical and hygienic level, as a stain on the human body, as argued recently by Sandra Cavallo: ‘Hair and beards are seen as the natural way through which the head purges itself’. 4 According to her analysis of sixteenth-century popular medical literature, the body’s own excretions are transported from the inside to the outside with the aid of body hair, which gave hair the association of something ignoble that had to be removed.5 Bushes or bushiness of hair might ‘not only produce a proliferation “of vermin and f ilth” but the blocking of poisons to be expelled from the body’.6 There is a clear difference between the representation of male and female body hair. Male hair, especially facial hair such as beards, was prominently depicted and belonged to art-theoretical discourses on artistic excellence.7 Pubic hair is clearly visible in numerous depictions of male nudes and is considered an integral part of such representations around 1500.8 While female hair on the head became the 2 Smelik, ‘A Close Shave’, pp. 233‒251, as well as Jolly, ‘Pubics and Privates’, pp. 183‒206. 3 See for example the series of publications A Cultural History of Hair. For other bodily impurities and their treatments, see the essay of Romana Sammern in this volume. 4 Cavallo, Artisans of the Body, p. 40. 5 Cavallo, Artisans of the Body, in particular ch. 2. 6 Cavallo, Artisans of the Body, p. 40. 7 See for example Saviello, Verlockungen; Hendler, ‘Pelo Sopra Pelo: Sculpting Hair and Beards as a Reflection of Artistic Excellence during the Renaissance’, pp. 7‒21. 8 For an overview see Simons, The Sex of Men.

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focus of attention of numerous painters in the Early Modern period, female body hair, in particular pubic hair, was often skipped over in visual representations. This goes hand in hand with the depiction of the labia or the mons veneris which are both depicted only in rare cases. Because in most cases neither pubic hair nor a visual reference to the female anatomy can be seen in images of nudes, this leads to the conclusion that the female genitals in images of nudes are generally omitted through was has been called by Anne-Sophie Lehmann ‘non-representation’.9 This omission makes the case for depiction even more striking. Images with depictions of pubic hair often play with subtle transitions between visibility and invisibility of the female pubic area by applying fine hairs, shadows, or even cover-ups, but they might also verge on the edge of appropriateness (decorum), depending on the individual beholder. In most cases, a more natural representation of the pubic area is found when the artist wanted to stress connections of the represented f igures to human nature, corporeality or fertility, for example in depictions of Eve. This is also often the case in anatomical illustrations or humorous approaches to the female body.10 In the latter, violations of decorum are common and might be part of the sought-after interpretation in the eye of the beholder. Instead, in images with female nudes outside of such contexts, the exhibition of the pubic area might be considered indecorous, offensive or even indecent. That is why these parts are often at most briefly mentioned, if not ignored in treatises on paintings, as for example Lodovico Dolce’s dialogue Aretino (1557) shows: A cartoon by Raphael with the Coronation of Roxana depicts the protagonist ‘…completely naked, except that in order to maintain decency a rather soft little piece of drapery conceals those parts of her which should keep themselves hidden.’11 This silence in treatises on painting regarding representations of the pubic area can be interpreted as the tendency toward a conscious concealing or passing over of these parts due to the above-mentioned reasons. Giovanni Paolo Lomazzo’s Trattato dell’arte della pittura, scultura ed architettura (1585) is even more radical when talking about the representation of private parts (le parti vergognose)12 or most private acts whose depictions he deems as dishonourable: ‘La disonestà fa gli atti sporchi, nefandi, vergognosi, infami, che in niun loco nè tempo devono usarsi, dei quali per essere 9 Lehmann, ‘Das unsichtbare Geschlecht’. 10 To mention only one example: Antonio Vignali’s La cazzeria (p. 66) provides the following colourful description: ‘…se egli non fosseno i peli che la natura aveva posti d’intorno al pettignone, poche volte si sarebbono fottuti l’uomo e la donna, che l’uno dei due pettignoni per lo arrotar non si fussi sbucciato o guasto, per il che la natura sagace ci puose rimedio col mettervi intorno la lana.’ 11 ‘…& è tutta ignuda, fuorche, per cagione di serbar la honestà, un morbidetto panniccino le nasconde le parti, che debbondo tenersi nascose.’ Roskill, Dolce’s “Aretino”, p. 168‒169. 12 For example, when mentioning the very same painting by Raphael with the naked Roxane in the sixth book, ch. XXXIII.

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Figure 3.1: Marcantonio Raimondi, Venus Wringing her Hair, engraving, 1506, 214 × 152 mm, New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, inv. 29.44.13, anonymous gift, 1929.

To Show or Not to Show? 

solamente dimostrazioni di membra più vergognose, ed effetti più disonesti, per cui Iddio mandò fuoco dal cielo, che uomini e case arse e distrusse…’.13

Marcantonio Raimondi and the Female Nude It seems that only in rare cases do representations of the female body in sixteenthcentury Italian art actually mirror social practices.14 Rather, the arts have oriented themselves toward a self-created ideal for which artistic practices should be placed in closer conversation with artistic models or conventions,15 as I will show in the following pages. I will focus on a group of three works created by Marcantonio Raimondi (c. 1480‒1534). In his early Bolognese works dating from the first decade of the cinquecento to c. 1506, the female nude is less prominently depicted. It was only from his Venetian sojourn onwards beginning c. 1506 that female nudes became more commonplace in his work. Although it is not known how long he stayed in Venice, around 1508 he ultimately went to Rome, where from about 1510 he began working with Raphael.16 The works which will be the focus of this essay, the Venus Wringing her Hair (fig. 3.1), Young Man Protected by Fortune (fig. 3.5), and Mars, Venus, and Cupid (fig. 3.7), were all created in the period between 1506 and 1508 and demonstrate a similar approach to female pubic hair. The Venus Wringing her Hair (fig. 3.1) depicts the goddess of love in the moment after her arrival at the shores of Kythira,17 still wringing her wet hair in front of a tree. The goddess is completely naked apart from her sandals. According to Innis H. Shoemaker, the print refers to Albrecht Dürer for its stylistic model in both the ‘soft modeling of Venus’s nude body’ as well as the landscape.18 Laura Aldovini also compared the sheet to Dürer’s on a technical level. She argues that the use of the stippling technique, clearly visible on the body of the goddess, may actually refer to Dürer’s Adam and Eve engraving of 1504,19 rather than to Giulio Campagnola 13 Second book, ch. XIII, p. 251. 14 See also Burke, ‘Did Renaissance Women Remove their Body Hair’. 15 The connection to artistic conventions was also stated by Penny Howell Jolly in more general terms for the history of body hair, see Jolly, ‘Hair Power’, p. 62. 16 Rebecchini and Wouk, ‘Biographical Notes on Marcantonio Raimondi’, pp. 12‒15. In 1988, Oberhuber hypothesised a first stay in Rome as early as 1502‒1503, but recently the opinion has changed that Marcantonio Raimondi came to Rome only after his stay in Venice; Oberhuber, ‘Marcantonio Raimondi: Gli inizi a Bologna’, pp. 51‒88. 17 Henry Thode identified the reference to the Venus Anadyomene, whose most famous precursor was the painting by Apelles for the temple of Asclepios in Kos, see Bologna e l’Umanesimo 1490‒1510, cat. 28 (Marzia Faietti). 18 The Engravings of Marcantonio Raimondi, p. 68, cat. 9 (Innis Shoemaker). 19 Aldovini, ‘Bologna 1506’, p. 138, as well as Bologna e l’Umanesimo, p. 144.

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Figure 3.2: Marcantonio Raimondi, Venus Wringing her Hair, engraving, 1506, 215 × 150 mm, Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, inv. RP-P-OB-11.950.

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who is perhaps better-known for his use of stippling.20 Dürer models his figures in Adam and Eve through the use of parallel and cross-hatchings complemented by stippling. In contrast, Giulio Campagnola uses exclusively stippling in the print Nude Seen from Behind21 in order to form the female body. Marcantonio would therefore not necessarily have needed the works of Giulio Campagnola to get an idea of how to apply stippling on the human body. Formally, Marcantonio’s figure of Venus is not oriented towards one particular model, rather it seems to be a combination of various prototypes: the upper part appears to come from a seated or a bent-forward figure whose skin folds at the waist, which harkens back to the Torso Belvedere. The lower part appears to refer to a standing Venus type, like the Mazarin Venus22 or Cnidian Venus.23 In this print Marcantonio created his own version of the Venus Anadyomene, ‘Venus Rising from the Sea’, with a reference to her birth from the sea indicated by the foam at lower right. A spherical object at upper left, which cannot be further identified, is pierced by cupid’s arrow that hangs from the tree, probably a reference to the unique power of Venus to make everyone fall in love. Her physical beauty is the focal point of the print. A small detail deviates from other representations of Venus around 1500 in Italy. The small locks visible in her pubic area suggest pubic hair. Comparing the different impressions of the print in Amsterdam (fig. 3.1) and in New York (figs. 3.2, 3.8), differences in the rendering of the locks are visible that indicate the existence of two different states of this print. While the artist used curved lines to depict pubic hair in the print in New York, their forms very similar to the letter C, the impression in Amsterdam includes more lines, a combination of forms similar to the letters C and S that give the pubic area more visibility. Such differences in the details of representation of pubic hair reveal that they are probably less linked to specific social practices of hair removal because they vary too much in their depiction. What can instead be deduced is the artist’s wish to depict a female nude with a clear reference to the female parts. Following the thesis of Ann-Sophie Lehmann that any kind of hair applied to those parts, ranging from stubble to bushy hair, highlights the female parts instead of hiding them, 24 Marcantonio follows, I argue, the same path of emphasising the female genitals, consequently depicting the female body with reference to sexuality and procreation that, in turn, imbued the notion of profane love for this image of Venus. 20 Aldovini, ‘Bologna 1506’, pp. 133‒146, in particular p. 136. 21 British Museum, engraving, 121 × 182 mm, inv. 1864,0509.136. 22 See for example the copy in the J. Paul Getty Museum, inv. 54.AA.11. 23 The original did not survive, but various copies are known today, for example the Colonna Venus in the Musei Vaticani, which is supposed to be one of the most faithful replicas. 24 Lehmann, ‘Das unsichtbare Geschlecht’, p. 319.

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Figure 3.3: Albrecht Dürer, Adam and Eve, engraving, 1504, 251 × 200 mm, New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, inv. 19.73.1, Fletcher Fund, 1919.

Marcantonio Raimondi and Albrecht Dürer Marcantonio purposefully referred to a different mode of representing female beauty, one based not exclusively on ancient sculpture, but instead on Northern

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models. Probably the most famous Northern example of a representation of ideal nudes, and one very similar in the conception of the female nude with regard to pubic hair, is Dürer’s engraving of Adam and Eve from 1504 (fig. 3.3), created two years before Marcantonio’s Venus. The print was immediately and fervently received by contemporaries and resulted in many innovative and original works to follow.25 It served as Dürer’s own statement on the concept of ideal beauty. Anne-Marie Bonnet refers to Dürer’s sheet as the ‘icon of nudes in the North’ (‘Akt-Ikone des Nordens’)26 and highlights the immense effect the print had north of the Alps, which included how body hair was represented.27 According to Bonnet, Dürer’s engraving is an example of nudity converted into something positive – despite depicting the original sin. Dürer provided nudity with a new-found importance given his careful underlying studies of human proportions and antiquity.28 Eve’s pubic locks are clearly visible even though Dürer created a sort of accidental fig leaf cover. Rather than mere hatchings or simple lines, they are conceived as a clearly defined mass or field of three-dimensional objects interfering with each other, each single hair circumscribed by contour lines.29 Various extant drawings and proofs have been placed in connection with the genesis of this print.30 Most of them show the figures on separate sheets apart from the drawing in the Morgan Library and Museum.31 The overall composition of the Morgan drawing is similar to that of the print even though the focus is on the two figures and their relationship. In this preparatory drawing, Dürer did not dwell on unnecessary details; he sketched Adam’s pubic hair by means of eight individual curved lines while Eve’s private parts show no such detail. This indicates that the artist decided only at the final stage to adorn Eve with pubic hair, perhaps to make her appear more similar to Adam. There are about 70 prints by Marcantonio that copy works by Dürer, with the engravings after the Life of the Virgin and the Small Woodcut Passion as 25 Among them for example Hans Baldung Grien, see Hans Baldung Grien. Heilig | Unheilig, ch. XII: ‘Sündenfall’, as well as Carrasco, ‘Ein “Fall” von selbstbewusster Ambivalenz’, pp. 106‒117. 26 Bonnet, ‘Albrecht Dürer, “Adam und Eva”’, p. 60. The effect it had on other artists is also stated in Eichberger ‘Dürer and the Netherlands’, pp. 149‒165, 258‒262. 27 Schrader, ‘Gossaert’s Neptun and Amphitrite’, pp. 40‒57. 28 Bonnet, ‘Albrecht Dürer, “Adam und Eva”’, pp. 51‒60. 29 Penny Howell Jolly sees the rather prominent depiction of pubic hair as ‘a somewhat unusual choice’ as it had been used before to stress an ‘excessive sexuality’. Jolly, ‘Hair Power’, p. 64. 30 See for example Hinz, ‘Albrecht Dürer: Adam & Eva’, pp. 37‒50. David Landau and Peter Parshall indicate a period of about four years during which Dürer created studies and proof for this print, see The Renaissance Print, pp. 313‒314. 31 Dürer joined two pieces of paper by adding a vertical strip in the middle and applying brown wash to unify them. Signed with the artist’s monogram and dated at lower right, 1504, pen and brown ink, brown wash, corrections in white, 242 × 201 mm. Purchased by Pierpont Morgan, 1910n inv. I, 257d.

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the most famous examples.32 In addition to these visual sources, scholars have revisited the writings of Giorgio Vasari on Marcantonio’s copies after Dürer.33 In 2014, Grischka Petri argued that Vasari’s account of Marcantonio’s prints after Dürer and the legal case that followed constituted a sort of phantom invented by Vasari who probably knew about a similar case from Nuremberg, where in 1512 Dürer achieved the rights to protect his business products through the use of his monogram, but not for his original ideas themselves.34 Together with the fact that Vasari knew the artists’ copies after Dürer’s Life of the Virgin, executed by Marcantonio probably between 1506 and 1508, he presumably transferred the events of Nuremberg onto Venice and Marcantonio. Petri demonstrated that the works of foreigners produced outside of Venice were not protected by Venetian privileges and that Dürer should have sought a Venetian privilege for any prints he made in Venice in order to be able to assert himself against copyists.35 Petri concluded that Marcantonio probably copied Dürer’s woodcuts with the intention of studying and imitating Dürer as well as to make money by selling his engravings. Mentioned by Lisa Pon36 and deepened by Stefano Rinaldi and Ilaria Andreoli, a more specific context for the cycle has been offered: Marcantonio’s copies of the Life of the Virgin may actually have been a commissioned work from the brothers Niccolò and Domenico Sandri dal Jesus, whose monograms, the Christogram YHS

32 While the Life of the Virgin was engraved by Marcantonio in the first decade of the cinquecento, the Small Woodcut Passion was copied only in the second decade. The exact dates are still controversially discussed, see The Engravings of Marcantonio Raimondi, p. 62, cat. 6 (Carolyn Wood); Pon, Raphael, Dürer, and Marcantonio Raimondi; Fara, Albrecht Dürer; Bologna e l’Umanesimo, cat. 31 (Marzia Faietti); Andreoli, ‘Dürer sotto torchio’. 33 See for example Pon, Raphael, Dürer, and Marcantonio Raimondi, p. 41 and Fara, Albrecht Dürer nelle fonti, pp. 24‒28. 34 The decision of the council of Nuremberg reads as follows: ‘The stranger who is selling prints below the Town Hall, and among them a number that bear Albrecht Dürer’s monogram, which has been fraudulently copied, shall be obliged to remove the same sign from all of them and to cease selling them here, else, should he defy this, all these sheets shall be confiscated as forgeries and handed over to the Council.’ (Ashcroft, Albrecht Dürer, vol. I, p. 346; see also Koerner, The Moment of Self-Portraiture, p. 209) ‒ ‘Dem frembden, so under dem rathaus kunstbrief fayl hat und unnder denselben etlich, so Albrecht Dürers hanndzaichen haben, so im betrüglich nachgemacht sind, soll man in pflicht nemen, dieselben zaichen alle abzethun und der kaine hie fail ze haben, oder, wo er sich des widere, soll man im dieselben brief alle als ain falsch auffheben und zu ains rats hannden nehmen’ (Nuremberg, Staatsarchiv, Ratsverlass from 3 January 1512). See also Rinaldi, ‘Marcantonio Raimondi e la f irma di Dürer’, p. 284; Vogt, Das druckgraphische Bild nach Vorlagen Albrecht Dürers, pp. 86‒88; Wagner, Bilder ohne Auftraggeber, pp. 110‒111. 35 ‘Dürer hätte um ein venezianisches Privileg für in Venedig hergestellte Drucke ersuchen müssen, um dort eine durchsetzbare Position gegen Nachstecher erlangen zu können.’ Petri, ‘Der Fall Dürer vs. Raimondi’, pp. 56. See also Rinaldi, ‘Marcantonio Raimondi e la firma di Dürer’, p. 281. 36 Pon, Raphael, Dürer, and Marcantonio Raimondi, p. 41 as well as Pon, ‘Prints and Privileges’.

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as well as the letters NDSF, are to be found on some of the sheets.37 In addition to prints, the brothers published books in which they indicated most cases of their sources.38 Dürer’s monogram, which appears in the Life of the Virgin, if connected with their printing house, would be interpreted by both Andreoli and Rinaldi less as an act of fraudulent intent, but rather as an ‘homage to the model reproduced’39 or ‘to demonstrate the expressive potential of the burin in the hand of the young artist and his ability to rival an illustrious chisel’. 40 In the copies of Dürer’s Small Passion cycle, perhaps by Marcantonio or a member of his workshop, the monogram is no longer to be seen. The aforementioned court case of Nuremberg may be a possible reason because it preceded the Passion cycle by a few years. What are probably less well known are the existing drawings by Marcantonio that demonstrate his study of Dürer’s prints. Marcantonio’s drawing with a male nude in the Princeton University Art Museum (f ig. 3.4) documents his knowledge of Dürer’s Adam and Eve engraving and his interest in it. Dating 1505‒1509, it shows the figure of Adam, the arms only partially copied, including the covering leaf which the artist modified into a fig leaf. Even Adam’s chest hair was of interest as the sketchy c-shaped lines indicate. Interestingly, a very similar approach to chest hair is to be found in both states of Marcantonio’s Massacre of the Innocents, in the frontally depicted male nude on the left side, wonderfully visible also in the preserved plate of the version ‘with fir tree’. 41 However, in the Princeton drawing the artist did not include the clearly visible male pubic hair. The drawing by Marcantonio is therefore highly signif icant because it reveals much about the artist’s personal interest in Dürer’s work. Marcantonio may have studied Dürer’s canon of ideal beauty, as seen in this engraving, then applied aspects of it to his own work, going so far as to imitate body hair, as in the chest hair of Adam, and in my opinion the pubic hair of Eve, which can be seen in his prints, as shown above. 42

37 Andreoli, ‘Dürer sotto torchio’, pp. 56‒59. Rinaldi, ‘Marcantonio Raimondi e la firma di Dürer’, p. 285. Rinaldi describes the ‘marche editoriali’ in the following way: ‘La prima, che raffigura il cristogramma YHS, campeggia vistosamente sull’anta di un mobile nello sfondo, mentre sullo scudo in primo piano a sinistra si trova un simbolo composto dai caratteri NDSF (i.e. “Niccolò e Domenico Sandri fratelli”)’. 38 Rinaldi, ‘Marcantonio Raimondi e la firma di Dürer’, p. 288. 39 Rinaldi, ‘Marcantonio Raimondi e la firma di Dürer’, p. 288. 40 Andreoli, ‘Dürer sotto torchio’, p. 59. 41 Pavia, Biblioteca Civica, inv. St. Mal. 5436. As far as can be judged from the today’s still preserved drawings by Raphael, no single one shows hair on the breast of the threatening soldier. Therefore, this detail must have been decided in the very last stage of the print, probably by the printmaker. 42 See also Turner, Eros visible, p. 98.

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Figure 3.4: Marcantonio Raimondi, Adam, pen and brown ink on light tan paper, 1505–1509, 195 × 109 mm, Princeton University Art Museum, inv. X1945-47, gift of Frank Jewett Mather Jr.

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Of Single Lines and Hatchings Two additional sheets by Marcantonio show a similar approach to female pubic hair: one is the famous Mars, Venus, and Cupid, dated 1508, and the other is a Young Man Protected by Fortune (fig. 3.5), dated stylistically to the period from 1506 to 1508. The latter print, showing similarities in the treatment of lines and in the stippling to the aforementioned Venus Wringing her Hair, has already been placed by Marzia Faietti in connection with Dürer as a model on a technical level. 43 The preparatory sketch in Bayonne, whose discovery by Oberhuber quelled any doubts of an attribution to Marcantonio for the design, shows no signs of body hair. 44 This might have been due to the fact that at this stage the artist would not dwell on details while he was still figuring out the composition as a whole. In the print, the artist presents a female nude seen frontally, completely naked apart from a headpiece and drapery over her arms. With closed eyes, her left hand on the shoulder of the male figure, and a flaming vessel in the other hand, she seems to perform a ritualistic act. The bowl with flames in the hand of the female figure as well as the sphere under her feet have led this figure to be interpreted as Fortuna. 45 Next to her a male nude, seen from the side and behind, presents the viewer with the curly back of his head. The small burning sphere in the hand of the male nude might be interpreted in the context of flaming passions, as might the even larger flames in the vessel she holds. The body of the female figure, modelled through a combination of parallel and cross hatching with stippling, is presented to the viewer in its naked entirety and is in this regard similar to the aforementioned print Venus Wringing her Hair. The artist depicted individual curved hairs in the pubic area which are distributed almost evenly and merge in the lower part into parallel hatchings. This hair adds to the naturalistic (and sensual) approach in the modelling of the female nude in this print. Even though most of the artist’s female figures around this time show formal similarities to ancient and contemporary models, these kinds of details and their different realisations in the works (different number of lines in diverging forms and positions) show that Marcantonio experimented in his modes of representing the female nude down to the smallest detail. Noteworthy impressions of this print are preserved that have been taken from the cancelled plate (fig. 3.6). 46 The plate has been marked by a censor with nine diagonal strokes. David Landau mentioned, as a possible explanation for these 43 Bologna e l’Umanesimo, no. 22, pp. 132‒134, as well as Faietti, ‘Marcantonio Raimondi e la grande stagione del bulino in Italia’, pp. 64‒65. 44 Oberhuber, ‘Marcantonio Raimondi: gli inizi a Bologna’, fig. 1, p. 75. 45 For a different interpretation of the subject (‘Young Men Protected by Venus’), see Bologna e l’Umanesimo, no. 22, pp. 132‒134. 46 Another example is the copy in the Albertina in Vienna, inv. DG1971/384.

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Figure 3.5: Marcantonio Raimondi, Young Man Protected by Fortune, engraving, 147 × 91 mm, Yale University Art Gallery, inv. 1941.248, gift of the Associates of Fine Art.

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Figure 3.6: Marcantonio Raimondi, Young Man Protected by Fortune, engraving, 148 × 91 mm, Bologna, Pinacoteca Nazionale, inv. PN 2256 © su concessione del Ministero della Cultura – Archivio Fotografico Direzione regionale Musei dell’Emilia-Romagna.

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Figure 3.7: Marcantonio Raimondi, Mars, Venus, and Cupid, engraving, 1508, 298 × 209 mm, New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, inv. 17.37.302, gift of Henry Walters, 1917.

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strokes, the censure in 1823 by Pope Leo XII of hundreds of plates showing nudes marked for their offensiveness.47 Other authors including Natascia Arletti and Lisa Pon date the censorship earlier, even without precise dates, concentrating their interpretations on ‘a taste for limited editions or rather few impressions’ (Pon). 48 Because the diagonal strokes extend over the whole plate, and not just only the potentially offensive parts, I am inclined to agree with Arletti and Pon and to see these strokes as a way to limit the print run of the marked plate and not as a comment on the representation and its possible offensiveness. In the third print by Marcantonio, Mars, Venus, and Cupid (fig. 3.7), dated 1508,49 again the protagonists are nude in front of a pastiche of Düreresque and Northern landscape motives. Scholars have identified two or even three states of the print and have highlighted the remarkable impressions of the second state that were printed on parchment and exhibit technical anomalies carried out by manual manipulation like scraping or masking.50 In all states, one detail remains the same: the female pubic hair is depicted in single c-shaped lines, rarely touching or overlapping, as is the depiction of the male equivalent shown with its more voluminous character, elaborated much like a three-dimensional object. In the second state, increased parallel hatchings within the female’s upper pubic area augment the shadings in this area and better adapt it to the modeling of the rest of Venus’s body, which is shaped mostly through cross-hatching and stippling. The male and female body, both based on ancient or contemporary models, can not only be distinguished by the opposition of muscles and softer flesh, but also by the structure and the execution of the hair on the head and body. In this juxtaposition, the print might therefore be a kind of mythological counterpart to Dürer’s opposition of the male

47 The Genius of Venice: 1500‒1600, p. 317, cat. P14 (David Landau): ‘The very Venetian beauty of Fortune must have deeply offended the decorous nature of Pope Leo XII, since in 1823 he had the plate – together with hundreds of other Renaissance prints of nudes – scored through in what must be one of the most extraordinary cases of censorship in the history of prints, if not of art.’ 48 Dea Fortuna. Iconografia di un mito, p. 51, cat. 13 (Natascia Arletti). See also Lisa Pon, ‘Marcantonio Printing / Printing Marcantonio’, p. 71 (‘sometime before 1813’). Bartsch has interpreted the strokes as a marking due to too much usage: ‘On trouve des épreuves de cette estampe, tirées de la planchet, après a été très-usée et qu’on l’avait biffée par neuf barres qui se croisent diagonalement…’. (Bartsch XIV, 377). 49 In this impression from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the date 1508, originally placed between the tip and point of the halberd, has been scratched out. 50 See Marcantonio Raimondi, Raphael and the Image Multiplied, no. 13, pp. 145‒146 (Rheagan E. Martin). There are only three known f irst-state impressions: one in the British Museum, one in Chatsworth, and a third in the Kupferstichkabinett in Berlin. Four of the second-state impressions were exhibited in the Yale University Art Gallery in 1999, see Dean, ‘Changing Impressions on Parchment’, pp. 22‒43. As the Reconciliation in Stanford shows, Marcantonio Raimondi added in certain cases parts in pen for improving the print, see Dean, ‘Changing Impressions on Parchment’, p. 25, as well as the catalogue entry by Alessandro Nova in Stanford University Museum of Art: The Drawing Collection, pp. 10‒13.

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Figure 3.8: Details of figs. 3.1 and 3.2 (Venus Wringing her Hair), fig. 3.5 (Young Man Protected by Fortune), and fig. 3.7 (Mars, Venus, and Cupid).

and female figures in Adam and Eve, similar also in the treatment of male and female pubic hair. The three prints by Marcantonio form a coherent group in the manner the female nude is treated in its details, with the realisation of the pubic area as just one point of similarity. Apart from the reference to Dürer as an artistic model, in displaying pubic hair Marcantonio turned the three above-mentioned female nudes into what Ann-Sophie Lehmann called ‘sexual being[s]’, which means with an explicitly represented and highlighted pubic area.51 Around the same time, he created the so-called Dream of Raphael in which female nudes show no sign of hair in the pubic area. Was such a depiction of hair perhaps connected to a certain category of female nude in which a particular reference to female anatomy was sought after? After 1508 there are no more prints in Marcantonio’s œuvre that show female nudes with pubic hair. Either he decided to apply a different ideal to the female nude or the wishes of his audience had changed. Small details such as pubic hair, which might escape the eye of the beholder initially, reveal much more than we might suspect at first glance. Such details might even become highly significant: different modes in the representation of such particulars within the œuvre of one artist show their potential as fields of artistic experimentation. They may also be seen as evidence of Marcantonio Raimondi dealing with the concept of decorum,52 in particular in finding the proper measure for depicting nudes, while studying ancient and contemporary models, and adapting to the wishes of his audience.

51 Lehmann, ‘Das unsichtbare Geschlecht’, in particular pp. 327‒328. 52 For a contextualisation of decorum, see the introductory part of this volume.

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Works Cited A Cultural History of Hair, ed. by Geraldine Biddle-Perry, 6 vols. (London et al.: Bloomsbury Academic, 2019). Aldovini, Laura, ‘Bologna 1506: l’incontro grafico tra Marcantonio e Dürer’, in Crocevia e capitale della migrazione artistica: forestieri a Bologna e bolognesi nel mondo (secoli XV-XVI), ed. by Sabine Frommel (Bologna: Bononia University Press, 2013), pp. 133‒146. Andreoli, Ilaria, ‘Dürer sotto torchio. Le quattro serie xilografiche e i loro reflessi nella produzione editoriale veneziana del Cinquecento’, Venezia Cinquecento, 19 (2009), pp. 5‒135. Ashcroft, Jeffrey, Albrecht Dürer: Documentary Biography: Dürer’s Personal and Aesthetic Writings, Words on Pictures, Family, Legal and Business Documents, the Artist in the Writings of Contemporaries (New Haven, London: Yale University Press, 2017). Bartsch, Adam von, Le peintre graveur, 21 vols. (Würzburg: Verlagsdruckerei Würzburg, 1920). Bologna e l’Umanesimo 1490‒1510, ed. by Marzia Faietti and Konrad Oberhuber, exh. cat., Bologna, Pinacoteca Nazionale (Bologna: Nuova Alfa Editoriale, 1988). Bonnet, Anne-Marie, ‘Albrecht Dürer, “Adam und Eva”. Der Kupferstich von 1504’, Kunsthistorische Arbeitsblätter, 3 (2002), pp. 51‒60. Burke, Jill, ‘Did Renaissance Women Remove their Body Hair’, in Jill Burke’s Blog, December 9, 2012, https://renresearch.wordpress.com/2012/12/09/did-renaissance-women-removetheir-body-hair/ (18 December 2020). Carrasco, Julia, ‘Ein “Fall” von selbstbewusster Ambivalenz. Die Adam-und-Eva-Darstellungen Baldungs und ihr Verhältnis zu Dürer’, in exh. cat. Hans Baldung Grien. Heilig | Unheilig, pp. 106‒117. Cavallo, Sandra, Artisans of the Body in Early Modern Italy: Identities, Families and Masculinities (Manchester et al.: Manchester University Press, 2007). Dea Fortuna. Iconografia di un mito, ed. by Manuela Rossi, exh. cat., Carpi, Palazzo dei Pio (Carpi, 2010). Dean, Clay, ‘Changing Impressions on Parchment: Marcantonio Raimondi’s Mars, Venus, and Cupid’, in Changing Impressions: Marcantonio Raimondi & Sixteenth-Century Print Connoisseurship, ed. by Clay Dean, Theresa Fairbanks Harris, and Lisa Pon, exh. cat., Yale University, Art Gallery, New Haven, Conn. (New Haven: Yale University Art Gallery, 1999), pp. 22‒43. The Engravings of Marcantonio Raimondi, ed. by Innis H. Shoemaker and Elizabeth Broun, exh. cat., Lawrence, KS, Spencer Museum of Art (Lawrence, KS: Spencer Museum of Art, 1981). Eichberger, Dagmar, ‘Dürer and the Netherlands: Patters of Exchange and Mutual Admiration’, in The Essential Dürer, ed. by Larry Silver and Jeffrey Chipps Smith (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2010), pp. 149‒165, 258‒262. Faietti, Marzia, ‘Marcantonio Raimondi e la grande stagione del bulino in Italia’, in Le tecniche calcografiche d’incisione diretta. Bulino, puntasecca, maniera nera, ed. by

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Ginevra Mariani (Rome: De Luca Editori d’Arte, 2006, reprint from 2003), Lineamento della storia delle tecniche, II, pp. 58‒66. Fara, Giovanni Maria, Albrecht Dürer. Originali, copie, derivazioni (Florence: Leo S. Olschki, 2007). Fara, Giovanni Maria, Albrecht Dürer nelle fonti italiane antiche 1508‒1686 (Florence: Leo S. Olschki, 2014). The Genius of Venice: 1500‒1600, ed. by Jane Martineau and Charles Hope, exh. cat., London, Royal Academy of Arts (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson 1983). Hans Baldung Grien. Heilig | Unheilig, ed. by Holger Jacob-Friesen, Julia Carrasco, and Johanna Scherer, exh. cat., Karlsruhe, Staatliche Kunsthalle (Berlin, Munich: Deutscher Kunstverlag, 2019). Hendler, Sefy, ‘Pelo Sopra Pelo: Sculpting Hair and Beards as a Reflection of Artistic Excellence during the Renaissance’, Sculpture Journal, 24 (2015), pp. 7‒21. Hinz, Berthold, ‘Albrecht Dürer: Adam & Eva – Mann und Weib’, in Aspekte deutscher Zeichenkunst, ed. by Iris Lauterbach and Margret Stuffmann (Munich: Veröffentlichungen des Zentralinstituts für Kunstgeschichte, 2006), pp. 39‒50. Hollander, Anne, Seeing Through Clothes (Berkeley et al.: University of California Press, 1993). Jolly, Penny Howell, ‘Hair Power’, in Hair: Untangling a Social History, exh. cat., Skidmore College, Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery (Saratoga Springs, NY: The Frances Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery, 2004), pp. 59‒73. Jolly, Penny Howell, ‘Pubics and Privates: Body Hair in Late Medieval Art’, in The Meanings of Nudity in Medieval Art, ed. by Sherry C. M. Lindquist (Farnham, Surrey et al.: Ashgate, 2012), pp. 183‒206. Klein, Inga, Nadine Mai and Rostislav Tumanov, ‘(Un-)Sichtbares und die Perspektiven der Hüllen. Zur Einführung’, in Hüllen und Enthüllungen. (Un-)Sichtbarkeit aus kulturwissenschaftlicher Perspektive, ed. by Inga Klein, Nadine Mai and Rostislav Tumanov (Berlin: Reimer, 2017), pp. 7‒21. Koerner, Joseph Leo, The Moment of Self-Portraiture in German Renaissance Art (Chicago, London: University of Chicago Press, 1996). Landau, David, and Peter Parshall, The Renaissance Print: 1470‒1550 (New Haven et al.: Yale University Press, 1994). Lehmann, Ann‐Sophie, ‘Das unsichtbare Geschlecht. Zu einem abwesenden Teil des weiblichen Körpers in der bildenden Kunst’, in Körperteile: Eine kulturelle Anatomie, ed. by Claudia Benthien and Christoph Wulf (Reinbek: Rowohlt, 2001), pp. 316‒339. Lomazzo, Giovanni Paolo, Trattato dell’arte della pittura, scultura ed architettura, diviso in 7 libri (Rome: Del Monte, 1844). Marcantonio Raimondi, Raphael and the Image Multiplied, ed. by Edward H. Wouk with David Morris, exh. cat., University of Manchester (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2016). Oberhuber, Konrad, ‘Marcantonio Raimondi: gli inizi a Bologna ed il primo periodo romano’, in Bologna e l’Umanesimo 1490‒1510, pp. 51‒88.

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Petri, Grischka, ‘Der Fall Dürer vs. Raimondi. Vasaris Erfindung’, in Fälschung – Plagiat – Kopie. Künstlerische Praktiken der Vormoderne, ed. by Birgit Ulrike Münch et al. (Petersberg: Michael Imhof, 2014), pp. 52‒69. Pon, Lisa, ‘Marcantonio Printing / Printing Marcantonio’, in Changing Impressions: Marcantonio Raimondi & Sixteenth-Century Print Connoisseurship, ed. by Clay Dean, Theresa Fairbanks Harris and Lisa Pon, exh. cat., Yale University, Art Gallery, New Haven (New Haven: Yale University Art Gallery, 1999), pp. 60‒74. Pon, Lisa, ‘Prints and Privileges: Regulating the Image in 16th-Century Italy’, Harvard University Art Museums Bulletin, 6:2 (1998), pp. 40‒64. Pon, Lisa, Raphael, Dürer, and Marcantonio Raimondi: Copying and the Italian Renaissance Print (New Haven et al.: Yale University Press, 2004). Rebecchini, Guido, and Edward H. Wouk, ‘Biographical Notes on Marcantonio Raimondi and the Publisher Baviera’, in Marcantonio Raimondi, Raphael and the Image Multiplied, pp. 12‒15. Rinaldi, Stefano, ‘Marcantonio Raimondi e la firma di Dürer. Alle origini della ‘stampa di riproduzione’?’, Opera Nomina Historiae, 1 (2009), pp. 263‒306. Roskill, Mark W., Dolce’s “Aretino” and Venetian Art Theory of the Cinquecento (New York: New York University Press, 1968). Saviello, Julia, Verlockungen. Haare in der Kunst der Frühen Neuzeit (Emsdetten: Edition Imorde, 2017). Schrader, Stephanie, ‘Gossaert’s Neptun and Amphitrite and the Body of the Patron’, in Body and Embodiment in the Netherlandish Art, ed. by Anne-Sophie Lehmann, Nederlands Kunsthistorisch Jaarboek, 58 (2008), pp. 40‒57. Simons, Patricia, The Sex of Men in Premodern Europe: A Cultural History (Cambridge et al.: Cambridge University Press, 2011). Smelik, Anneke, ‘A Close Shave: The Taboo on Female Body Hair’, Critical Studies in Fashion & Beauty, 6:2 (2015), pp. 233‒251. Stanford University Museum of Art: The Drawing Collection, by Lorenz Eitner, Betsy G. Fryberger and Carol M. Osborne (Seattle et al.: University of Washington Press, 1993). Turner, James Grantham, Eros Visible: Art, Sexuality, and Antiquity in Renaissance Italy (New Haven, London: Yale University Press, 2017). Vignali, Antonio, La cazzaria, ed. by Pasquale Stoppelli (Rome: Edizioni dell’Elefante, 1984). Vogt, Christine, Das druckgraphische Bild nach Vorlagen Albrecht Dürers (1471‒1528). Zum Phänomen der graphischen Kopie (Reproduktion) zu Lebzeiten Dürers nördlich der Alpen (Berlin, Munich: Deutscher Kunstverlag, 2008). Wagner, Berit, Bilder ohne Auftraggeber. Der deutsche Kunsthandel im 15. und frühen 16. Jahrhundert. Mit Überlegungen zum Kulturtransfer (Petersberg: Michael Imhof, 2014). Wiesner-Hanks, Merry, The Marvelous Hairy Girls: The Gonzales Sisters and their Worlds (New Haven, London: Yale University Press, 2009).

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Mandy Richter

About the Author Mandy Richter works at the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz – Max-PlanckInstitut. In 2014, she received her Ph.D. in Art History and is the author of the monograph Die Renaissance der Kauernden Venus. Ihr Nachleben zwischen Aktualisierung und Neumodellierung von 1500 bis 1570 (Petersberg: Harrasowitz, 2016).

4. Treating Bodily Impurities: Skin, Art, and Medicine Romana Sammern

Abstract Early modern physicians, theorists, and artists shared a knowledge of the human body that merged aesthetics with empirical knowledge about the realities of the physical constitution. For instance, books of secrets, such as Giovanni Marinello’s ‘Women’s Embellishments’ (Gli ornamenti delle donne, 1562), discussed at great length ‘infirmities’ of the skin, including stains, odours and bodily fluids that unsettled normative beauty standards. This essay considers examples of such ambivalent discourses in medical writings (Mercurialis) and books of secrets (Marinello, Della Porta) written in humanistic settings with regard to treatments of the body such as cosmetics practices in the context of Early Modern dietetics. Keywords: art theory; books of secrets; complexion; cosmetics; dermatology; skin

Early modern physicians, theorists, and artists shared a knowledge of the human body that merged aesthetics with empirical knowledge about the realities of the physical constitution. For instance, books of secrets, such as Giovanni Marinello’s ‘Women’s Embellishments’ (Gli ornamenti delle donne, 1562), discussed at great length male and female indecencies and ‘infermities’ of the skin (infermità del corpo di fuori), including stains, odours and bodily fluids, that unsettled the book’s normative beauty standards.1 This essay considers examples of such ambivalent discourses in medical writings and books of secrets written in professional humanistic settings with regard to treatments of the body such as cosmetics practices in the context of Early Modern dietetics. 1 See, with further references, Brunello, ‘Profumeria e cosmesi’, pp. 14‒16; Eamon, Science and Secrets, p. 361; Bondio, ‘Giovanni Marinello’, pp. 55‒84; Spicer, ‘A Fare Bella’, pp. 39, 138; Lazzarini, ‘Marinello’, pp. 209‒219; Burke, How to Be A Renaissance Woman.

Jonietz, F., M. Richter, A.G. Stewart (eds.), Indecent Bodies in Early Modern Visual Culture. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2023 doi 10.5117/9789463725835_ch04

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In the Early Modern period, the term ‘complexion’ meant more than just the colouration, texture, and appearance of human skin. Instead, deriving from the Latin word complexio (‘complex’, ‘connection’, gr. κρáσις, transl. krásis, ‘mixture’, ‘compound’), it referred to the combination of the humours, the four body fluids – black bile, yellow bile, phlegm and blood – that were thought to influence the human constitution, temperament and health according to the ancient tradition of humouralism.2 Accordingly, the modern conception of the human skin as the outer border of the body as well as its largest organ was unknown in the premodern area.3 Instead, the skin (Latin cutis or pellis) was considered a porous membrane without function, permeable to both the inside of the body and its environments.4 Likewise, the ideal of a flawless, intact unity of the dermis was unfamiliar. Rather, bathers cut and bled it by means of purification techniques such as bloodletting and cupping.5 Vernacular terminologies referring to the skin across languages reflected this concept, such as in the Italian ‘outer flesh’ (carne di fuori, carne, carnagioni), or the French ‘flesh’ (chair, carnations).6 It was only the discoveries of eighteenth-century medical research and the development of modern dermatology that this view changed to a concept of the skin as a sensible body part of its own.7 Corresponding to these conceptions of skin and complexion, well-proportioned bodily fluids resulted in a pleasing complexion, and vice versa. Thus, it was believed that efforts to improve the physical appearance had a physiological effect on the entire body – therefore striking a balance between adornment and defacement. These concepts of “beautifying physic” belonged to both, male and female medical practitioners:8 Edith Snook and others showed for sixteenth- and seventeenth2 Schattner, ‘Komplexion’. 3 For the modern conception, see, with further references, Fend, Fleshing Out Surfaces; Benthien, Haut. 4 Sutton, Sixteenth Century Physician and his Methods, p. 11; Reinarz and Siena, A Medical History of Skin; Connor, The Book of Skin, pp. 9‒26. For the correspondence between the middle-class body and the development of the modern subject, Benthien, Haut, pp. 49‒75. 5 Stafford, Body Criticism, pp. 281‒339; Benthien, Haut, pp. 53‒54. 6 See for the medical history, with further references: Gadebusch Bondio, La Carne di fuori; Koslofsky, ‘Knowing Skin’; for an art historical approach Bohde, ‘Skin and the Search for the Interior’; Harvey, ‘The Touching Organ’; Weder Haut noch Fleisch. 7 See Stafford, Body Criticism; Benthien, Haut; Fend, Fleshing Out Surfaces; Connor, The Book of Skin. Nevertheless, Koos, in ‘Haut als mediale Metapher in der Malerei’, p. 67, demonstrated that the concept of the epidermis as the outer, covering layer of a body was indeed known in Early Modern art literature: Leon Battista Alberti in his treatise on architecture, for instance, described the crafted surfaces of wooden floors as ‘skin’ (i.e. pelle). Similarly, in his treatise on painting, Alberti described the exterior quality of painting. Metonyms that described paint layers as uniform skin turned up throughout the Early Modern period, e.g., in Liotard. See Koos, ‘Malerei ohne Pockenspuren’. 8 Snook, Edith, Women, Beauty and Power, p. 23. See, with further references, Hunter and Hutton, Women, Science and Medicine 1500‒1700; Leong and Rankin, ‘Introduction’; Leong, Recipes and Everyday Knowledge.

Treating Bodily Impurities: Skin, Art, and Medicine 

century English society that cosmetic discourses reflected the professionalisation politics of physicians and other ‘artisans of the body’9 by discrediting women’s cosmetics practices. Merging the fields of medicine, cosmetics, and painting, the following essay examines the ambiguous notion of the complexion between surface and canvas, translucency and porousness – and gender.

Concepts of Hygiene The six non-natural aspects of the classical dietetics tradition – the Sex Res Non Naturales of air, nutriment, rest, exercise, metabolism, and affections – provided regimens to influence one’s own health by means of maintaining it and preventing disease.10 However, analogous to the notion of the skin, the Early Modern idea of hygiene differed distinctively from modern conceptions: Instead of cleaning skin soiled by exterior pollutants, sanitary measures designed to uphold one’s health focused on cleansing the soiling excretions that issued endlessly from the body’s own interior.11 In the humoural tradition this bodily waste was considered a remainder of the digestive process (coctio) that turned food into blood and other physical matters.12 Counted among such impurities were not only faeces and urine but also, and more importantly, a wide range of fluids and vaporous bodily emissions, which were considered self-purging mechanisms of the body. Sandra Cavallo and Tessa Storey have demonstrated that Early Modern writings including the physician and astrologer Levinus Lemnius’s (1505‒1568) humoural treatise on the human complexion (Della complessione, 1564), or the physician and humanist Viviano Viviani’s (fl. 1626‒1644) health regimen (Trattato di custodire la Sanità, 1626), distinguished ‘excrements of the head’, which exit the mouth, nose, eyes, and ears (but also hair from transpirations like sweat and grime that pass by imperceptibly and reflexively through the pores of the skin).13 As a consequence, Early Modern health regimes equated health, cleanliness, and ref inement and turned their attention to questions of the toilette and techniques of purification. Indeed, Early Modern conceptions of hygiene should be considered first and foremost in this

9 For medical practices in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Italian society, see Cavallo, Artisans of the Body in Early Modern Italy. 10 Cavallo and Storey, Healthy Living, p. 3. See also with further references Wear, ‘The History of Personal Hygiene’. 11 Sutton, Sixteenth Century Physician and His Methods, p. 11. Cavallo and Storey, Healthy Living, pp. 240‒241. 12 Zedler, ‘Blut, Sanguis, Haema’. 13 Cavallo and Storey, Healthy Living, p. 240‒241. On hair, see also Mandy Richter’s essay in this volume.

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Figure 4.1: French or Italian, Comb, ivory, paint and gilding, fifteenth or sixteenth century, 88 × 129 × 4 mm, New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, acc. no. 17.190.245.

sense of expulsion and purging in order to preserve one’s health, rather than as an ornamental cleansing of the body’s exterior.14 The health regimen ‘Three Books about Life’ (De vita libri tres, 1489) by the Florentine scholar Marsilio Ficino (1433‒1499) is considered the first recommendation of daily hygiene.15 The best seller included three independent treatises about preserving the health of a scholar. Its first book advised those with a melancholic humoural character, in particular, about preserving their health (de vita sana): A learned man should rise early in order to allow every single limb of the body to purge (purgare) itself from all the excrements that sleep has restrained during the night.16 Once up, he should devote at least half an hour to purification (purgatio), and then, after an hour of meditation, and while still relaxing, he should comb his hair approximately forty times with an ivory comb. Subsequently, this morning routine should conclude with a massage of the neck using a rough cloth.17 This ideal toilette did not aim to 14 Cavallo and Storey, Healthy Living, p. 267. 15 Cavallo and Storey, Healthy Living, p. 243. 16 Ficino, De vita, I, 7, p. 70. 17 Ficino, De vita, I, 8, p. 74. Cf. Cavallo and Storey, Healthy Living, pp. 242‒243.

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embellish the scholar’s appearance. In contrast, it was intended to cleanse the scalp from the internal cranial excrements his humours had produced during sleep time. Sandra Cavallo and Tessa Storey argue that Renaissance double-combs (fig. 4.1) were meant to scrape off the ‘excrements’ of the head – in addition to hairdressing.18 By the seventeenth century, Ficino’s De vita had been reprinted several times and translated into several European vernacular languages.19 De vita marked the beginning of a ‘culture of prevention’ effecting all aspects of Early Modern culture.20 It ranged from techniques of the body such as purging, massaging, and cleansing to the creation of spaces for daily hygiene and its material culture, which produced combs, mirrors, dressing tables and other tools of embellishment (f ig. 4.2).21 Writers produced instructions in manuscripts and incunables and promoted the book genre of the ‘book of secrets’ (libri dei segreti), by providing practical knowledge of all kinds from natural philosophy, alchemy, and medicine including pharmacology, alchemy, metallurgy, distillery, as well as cosmetics – all in the vernacular.22

Cosmetics Early modern cosmetics included all methods of altering the colour of the skin through the application of pharmaceutical substances: Writers in the Galenic tradition distinguished between paint that covered the skin (ars comptoria, ars comotica) and preparations that changed the complexion itself, such as waters and ointments (cosmetica medicamenta, ars decoratoria).23 The exemplary treatise on cosmetics ‘On Adornment’ (De decoratione, 1585) by the Italian physician, historian and scholar Hieronymus Mercurialis (1530‒1606) (fig. 4.3), also known as Girolamo Mercuriale, sets medical considerations about skin within the misogynist patristic tradition of Tertullian and others.24 Early Christian theologians, from Tertullian and Cyprian to Ambrose, deemed facepainting a female pursuit and denounced it as a distortion of the human face 18 Ficino, De vita, p. 244. Cavallo and Storey, Healthy Living, p. 243. For the comb as ambivalent object in early modern culture, see Saviello, ‘Purgat et ornat’. 19 Benesch, Marsilio Ficino’s ‘De triplici vita’, p. 8. 20 Cavallo and Storey, Healthy Living, p. 7. 21 See Le bain et le miroir. 22 See, with further references Eamon, Science and the Secrets of Nature; Le bain et le miroir, pp. 280‒297; Wheeler, Renaissance Secrets; Leong and Rankin, ‘Introduction’, pp. 2‒20. 23 E.g. Mercurialis, De decoratione, pp. 1‒2. 24 For Mercurialis’ De decoratione, see Siraisi, ‘History, Antiquarianism and Medicine’; Peruzzi, ‘La concezione della bellezza nel De decoratione’; Walker-Meikle, ‘Mercuriale on Pimples’.

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Figure 4.2: French painter, detail of Venus with a Mirror, oil on wood, sixteenth century, 54 × 34 cm, Mâcon, Musée des Ursulines, inv. A.700, photo © Wikimedia Commons (public domain).

with paint because it falsifies the divine creation of humankind in God’s image.25 Accordingly, Mercurialis contrasted holistic ars decoratoria which strove for ideal beauty, with the turpitude and vice (vitia) created by superficial make-up (ars comotica) – which, he argued, afflicted the body both physically and morally.26 Mercurialis’s distinction of good and bad cosmetics, however, did not refer to the patristic tradition. Instead, it rooted in classical medical conceptions about the difference between face-painting and dermatology and revived in Early Modern cosmetics writings.27 Mercurialis’ treatise was based on his lectures for medical students at the University of Padova and compiled by his student Giulio Mancini (1559‒1630) for a humanistic audience.28 De decoratione is the most thorough of sixteenth-century writings on cosmetics from a medical perspective. Setting cosmetics in a humanistic context, it focuses on skin diseases and indecencies of the face and hands and how

25 E.g., Tertullian, De cultu feminarum, 2, 5 2‒4 (II.5: 2‒4); Cyprianus, De habitu virginum, 15; Ambrosius, Hexaemeron, 6, 8, 47. See, in nuce, Bloch, ‘Medieval Misogyny’; Löhr, ‘Korrekturen’. 26 Mercurialis, De decoratione, pp. 3, 17. 27 See, e.g., Galen, De compositione medicamentorum secundum locos, I.2 (Kühn 12, 434‒435). 28 The complete title reads: De decoratione liber non solum Medicis, & Philosophis; verum etiam omnium disciplinarum studiosis apprimè vtilis.

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Figure 4.3: Lavinia Fontana, Hieronymus Mercurialis with an edition of Vesalius’ ‘On the Fabric of the Human Body’ (1542), oil on canvas, 130.8 × 97.1 cm, Baltimore, Walters Art Museum, acc. no. 37.1106, photo © Wikimedia Commons (public domain).

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to treat them, in order to preserve, or restore the ‘natural beauty’ (pulchritudo naturalis) of the body.29 In contrast to Mercurialis’s approach, Marinello’s book of secrets Gli ornamenti delle donne (1562) defended a woman’s self-care as an impulse to improve and complete herself.30 In a similiar sense, Ovid’s Ars Amatoria had declared cosmetics an art, a téchne that reduces the physical to artist’s material in order to refine oneself – malleable at will.31 In the Ovidian sense, polished people were the product of a cultivated society. Analogously, Marinello compared a beautiful woman unable to engage in self-cultivation with a most beautiful horse that is worthless as long as it remains untamed.32 This argument of nature itself being imperfect and requiring enhancement correspondingly occurred in contemporary art theory. Indeed, in the ‘Lives’ (Le vite de’ più eccellenti pittori, scultori, e architettori, 1550 and 1568), Giorgio Vasari (1511‒1574) based his teleological system of art history on the assumption that only art is able to complete nature.33 In this conception, nature provides the mere basics, but only an artist can create a perfect artwork by selecting and composing the elements skilfully to create something new. This idea was a classical postulate that Cicero introduced in his story of Zeuxis choosing his models in the context of rhetoric.34 Vasari’s adaption of the idea of the artist being able not only to imitate nature, but to surpass it, was exceedingly intriguing for sixteenth-century writers such as Dolce, Danti, Marinello, della Porta, and others, because stereotypical descriptions of beautiful body parts and colourations were objectives aiming beyond nature.35

Dermal Indecencies Seen against this backdrop, what, then, did indecencies of the skin mean in the Early Modern period? According to the humoural understanding of physiology, health and disease relied on the balance of the humours. A disproportion of bodily fluids might cause a disease and, as such, afflict the entire body.36 Indeed, cutaneous alterations 29 Mercurialis, De decoratione, p. 2. 30 Marinello, Gli ornamenti delle donne, s.p. III-III verso. 31 Ovid, Ars amatoria, III, 210. 32 ‘…benche una donna sia bella; non le si disdica lo accrescere della sua bellezza: conciosia che niuna cosa sia al mondo perfetta: oltre che un bellissimo cavallo, ma non domato, non è di gran pregio.’ Marinello, Gli ornamenti delle donne, p. V verso. 33 Proemio della terza parte, Vasari, Le vite, IV, p. 9. 34 Cicero, De inventione, II, 1‒3. See Saviello, ‘Perfekte Schönheit als Komposit’, pp. 39‒48. 35 Cf. Lodovico Dolce’s account of the Zeuxis-story, Dialogo della pittura intitolato l’Aretino, 1557, p. 172. For Danti, and others, Summers, Michelangelo and the Language of Art, pp. 186‒191. 36 Nutton, ‘Humoralism’, p. 281. See also Hot Dry Men, Cold Wet Women.

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such as those made by rushes could refer to disease symptoms such as plaque, syphilis, smallpox, or leprosy. In this understanding, the skin was especially tricky because the classical authorities did not provide proper definitions.37 Mercurialis was the first to publish a survey on the skin, ‘On Diseases of the Skin and All of the Excrements of the Human Body’ (De morbis cutaneis, et omnibus corporis humani excrementis), which was compiled by his student Paolo Aicardi after lectures at the University of Padua and printed at Venice in 1572 with Mercurialis’s consent.38 Remaining within the Galenic framework of medicine, Mercurialis compared the skin with a ‘fisherman’s net’ – a Platonic figure39 – and ‘receptacle for waste materials’, with the sole function of protecting from and allowing excrements to pass through. 40 Therefore, he did not consider the skin as being ill itself, rather, disfigurements in appearance involved the body’s harmony and ranked thus as diseases in this respect. In theory, the dermis (and hair, viewed as a dermal attachment) manifested signs of physical malfunctioning on the body’s surface. 41 Accordingly, therapy too was holistic, advising of dietetic measures including all six non-naturals. Mercurialis classified dermatological diseases threefold by colour, smoothness/roughness, and size. 42 In a similar sense, Firenzuola’s ‘Celso, or Dialogue On the Beauty of Women’ (Dialogo delle bellezze delle donne, intitolato Celso, 1541), the era’s most detailed and rationalised description of ideal physical beauty, described impurities as alterations that differ from ideal proportions and colouration (pale, ‘white, tinged with blood’) caused by physiological imbalances. 43 As such, dermal blemishes reflected physical imbalances, as beauty was considered the external manifestation of overall physical health: For, just in a body whose humours are well balanced and whose parts well arranged one finds health, and health produces a bright and lively complexion that outwardly reveals its presence within the body, so too the perfection of each

37 Murphy, ‘Skin and Disease’, pp. 180, 188. For pre-sixteenth-century conceptions and terminologies of the skin, see Veneziani, ‘Le lezioni dermatologiche di Girolamo Mercuriale’, pp. 203‒205; for the classical approach to dermatology, Saiko, Cura dabit faciem, pp. 87‒88, 116‒117. 38 For De morbis cutaneis, see Veneziani, ‘Le lezioni dermatologiche di Girolamo Mercuriale’; Siraisi, ‘History, Antiquarianism and Medicine’; also Girolamo Mercuriale: Medicina e Cultura; Hennepe, ‘Of the Fisherman’s Net and Skin Pores’, pp. 26‒29; Murphy, ‘Skin and Disease’, pp. 180‒181. 39 Plato, Timaeus, section 79d. Cf. Hennepe, ‘Of the Fisherman’s Net and Skin Pores’, p. 26. 40 Sutton, Sixteenth Century Physician and His Methods, p. 11. 41 Sutton, Sixteenth Century Physician and His Methods, p. 13. Cf. Stolberg, Homo patiens, pp. 144‒150. 42 Sutton, Sixteenth Century Physician and His Methods, p. 12. Cf. Mercurialis, De decoratione, ch. V, pp. 4‒5. 43 Firenzuola, On the Beauty of Women, p. 49.

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specific part united in the creation of the whole will spread the color necessary for the perfect union and harmonious beauty of the entire body. 44

According to the humoural tradition, the four fluids of the body were equated with the four elements and with the colours black, yellow, white, and red. The mixture of the humours could cause changes in the colour of the skin. Well-proportioned bodily fluids resulted in a pleasing complexion, and vice versa. Thus, in Firenzuola’s ideal of a beautiful complexion – a stereotypical composition of white and red, flawless, and free from hair and wrinkles – nature, art, and medicine merge and represent more than a literary topos; they give way to a more empirical realm at the intersection of art, cosmetics, and medicine, which was highly influential for cinquecento writings about the body. Correspondingly, books of secrets written in the vernacular, such as Giovanni Marinello’s Gli ornamenti delle donne, described ‘impurities of the skin’ (infermità del corpo di fuori). 45 Marinello even copied passages directly from Firenzuola. 46 Its first book is dedicated to scabies (rogna), pruritus (prurito), leprosy (lepra), others that ‘diminish one’s comeliness’ (diminuiscono la vaghezza nostra), bad odours, sweat and various ‘stained’ (lordo, corotto) fluids that emerge from the body, as well as unwanted body hair. 47 Marinello introduced their treatments as artisanal techniques in terms of téchne – treatments ‘as best as possible by the means of art’ (inquanto si puo [sic] con l’arte), 48 including classical medical therapies such as baths, instructions about cosmetics practices like hair removal and preparations such as fragrances, waters, ointments, rubs, and others. When it came to proper dermatological issues such as scabies, pruritus, and leprosy, the physician Marinello distinguished symptoms concerning their colouration, smoothness/roughness, and size, just as Mercurialis did. However, in contrast to his colleague, he refrained from elaborations on humoural causes and restricted himself to practical descriptions of how to prepare remedies to combat these diseases. 49 Another best-selling book of secrets of the period included a chapter on female cosmetics (De mulierum cosmetica): The extended edition of Giovan Battista Della Porta’s ‘Natural Magic’ (Magia Naturalis libri XX, 1589) (fig. 4.4) listed exemplarily treatments against deviating colourations, spots, pimples, marks, warts, wrinkles,

44 Firenzuola, On the Beauty of Women, p. 15. 45 Marinello, Delle bellezze delle donne, book I, title page. 46 Lazzarini, ‘Marinello’, p. 218, n. 24. 47 Marinello, Delle bellezze delle donne, book I, 1 verso-2 recto. 48 Marinello, Delle bellezze delle donne, book I, title page. 49 Marinello, Delle bellezze delle donne, book I, ch. 4‒5, pp. 8‒22.

Treating Bodily Impurities: Skin, Art, and Medicine 

ringworms (dermatophytosis), and bad teeth.50 In contrast to more theoretical approaches of the physicians Mercurialis and Marinello, however, the book of secrets by the Neapolitan polymath and natural philosopher Della Porta omitted theoretical frameworks and explanations as well as dietetic advice, adhering instead to recipes for external preparations. These included formulas for hair dyes, hair restorers, and hair removers, dyes for the eyebrows, instructions for altering the colour of the face (from reddish or brownish to white, from pale-white to different hues of red), remedies against warts and wrinkles, and dentifrices and deodorant. Among several recipes to remove ‘disgracing’ spots from the face by whitening it, for instance, the first directs users to ‘anoint the Face with Oyl of Tartar [potash], and let it dry on, and wash it not at all; do this for ten days: then wash it with a Lixivium [lye], and you shall see the spots no more. If the part be not yet clean enough, do it once more.’51 With the exception of white lead and cinnabar, the ingredients in Della Porta’s recipes probably did not effect a change in colour the way applying paint does. As they belonged to the field of pharmacology (materia medica), however, they may have altered the appearance of the complexion by provoking a physiological response. The alkaline preparation for the removal of spots quoted above may have caused irritation and corroded the skin. Thus, indecencies of the skin could also result from cosmetics remedies. In Firenzuola’s Celso, Mona Lampiada, one of the conversing ladies of the dialogue, describes cosmetics recipes as a cause of facial flaws: ‘Waters and powders were invented in order to remove scales, or freckles and other such marks, and today they are used to paint and to whiten the face, not unlike plaster (calcina) or gypsum (gesso) on the surface of walls.’52 Besides this intersection of cosmetic ingredients and sculptural materials, the use of cosmetics oscillated between accentuating and disguising as Mona Lampiada continues: And perhaps these little simpletons believe that the men they seek to please are not aware of such concoctions which, besides ruining their skin and making them grow old before their time, also ruin their teeth and make them look like carnival clowns all year round. Think for a moment about Mona Betola Gagliana, what does she look like? The more she smooths her skin out (tanto più si ritira), the more she makes herself up (quā[n]to piu si azima), the older she looks. She looks like a gold ducat that has been dropped in acid (acqua forte). 50 Della Porta, Magia naturalis, ch. IX, pp. 163‒178, transl. 1658: Della Porta, Natural Magick, pp. 233‒253. Cf. Orlandi, Le edizioni dell’opera, pp. 45‒47; Piccari, Giovan Battista Della Porta; Verardi, La scienza e i segreti della natura. 51 Della Porta, Natural Magick, p. 246. 52 Firenzuola, On the Beauty of Women, p. 54. Prose di M. Agnolo Firenzuola Fiorentino, Florence 1548, pp. 96 verso-97 recto.

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Figure 4.4: Giambattista della Porta (John Baptista Porta), Natural Magick (London: Thomas Young and Samuel Speed, 1658), title page with author portrait, London, Wellcome Collection, photo Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0).

Treating Bodily Impurities: Skin, Art, and Medicine 

She would not have turned out like that if, when she was younger, she had not groomed (strebbiata) herself so much. For my part, if I have kept myself well…, it is for no other reason than the well water (acqua del pozzo) that has always been my wash….53

According to Firenzuola’s Mona Lampada, dermal indecencies resulted from cosmetics treatments, and not vice versa. Her argument is very reminiscent of the famous chapter on face painting in Cennino Cennini’s ‘treatise on painting’ (Trattato della pittura, c. 1400).54 Addressing the women of Padua, Cennini stressed the side effects of the substances used for skin preparations: But I will tell you that if you wish to keep your complexion for a long time, you must make a practice of washing in water – spring or well or river: warning you that if you adopt any artificial preparation, your countenance soon becomes withered, and your teeth black; and in the end ladies grow old before the course of time; they come out the most hideous old women imaginable.55

Warning against ‘artificial preparations’ (manual fattura), Cennini instead suggests a minimalist approach to skin care, reduced only to water. This adds an aspect of his artisanal experience referring to his knowledge of colourants that belonged to the materia medica. Cennino’s description of withered faces and black teeth indicate the side effects of white lead, i.e., lead poisoning. In the painter’s workshop of this time, lead white was the only used white pigment.56 Considering both the medicinal and artisanal use of toxic metals such as lead or mercurous chloride as colourants, preservatives, and anti-inflammatories, he stresses the side effects of these substances when it comes to female cosmetic practices. Using the case of white lead, Edith Snook concludes that for Early Modern England the important categories in distinguishing recommended materials and approaches from dangerous ones were gender divergences in the production and use of cosmetics, not the effects of the ingredients themselves: …the use of chemical ingredients alongside herbal ones in the practice of dermatological treatments illustrates a form of experimental and intellectual authority

53 Prose di M. Agnolo Firenzuola Fiorentino, pp. 96 verso-97 recto; Firenzuola, On the Beauty of Women, p. 54. 54 Ricotta, Il ‘Libro dell’arte’ di Cennino Cennini, ch. CCVIII, p. 265. Cf. Löhr, ‘Schöpfung und Schminke’; Brennan, Painting as a Modern Art, pp. 93, 104. 55 Cennini, The Craftman’s Handbook, p. 132. 56 Gettens, Chase, and Kühn, ‘Lead White’, p. 69.

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and a challenge to attempts by scientists and physicians to delineate exclusionary, gendered categories of knowledge.57

Merging artistic and cosmetic practice, both Firenzuola and Cennino Cennini described facial indecencies as a consequence of a misuse of cosmetics, because they could result in premature aging as well as symptoms of lead poisoning such as blackened teeth. The example of white lead shows that these connotations were determined by the proportion and composition of the pharmaceutical substances, their preparation, and the gender of the people involved in the production process: as a face-paint, white lead corrupted female integrity both morally and physically; as a pharmaceutical substance, it was a common remedy in medical practice as well as an essential pigment in the painter’s workshop.58 To sum, what can we learn from infirmities of the skin with regard to representations of skin, especially in female portraiture? Since the medical authorities favoured natural beauty, the ‘descent’, i.e. the depiction of flawless and well-coloured skin (well-balanced between pale and tanned) was more than a mere topical feature of beauty. Rather, it gave proof of personal constitution, complexion and character – the nature of a person as a whole.59 If one takes skin, respectively the concept of complexion, seriously as a significant factor of a persona, indecencies of the skin can serve as tools for interpreting portraits.60 To conclude, sixteenth-century writings about cosmetics, both in books of secrets and in medical writings, included ambivalences about necessary measures to preserve the natural beauty of the body and cosmetics treatments rejected by the writers. Key to the distinction between those two poles was the gender of the person employed with cosmetics knowledge and practice. The gendered dialectic of adorning and disfiguring was the subject of the cosmetics pranks at the end of the chapter on women’s cosmetics (De mulierum cosmetice) in Della Porta’s Magia Naturalis. His paragraph on ‘Sports Against Women’ (Adversus mulieres ludicra) reversed the audience from those seeking cosmetics recipes to those wishing to reveal concealing make-up.61 In the vein of classical motifs of exposing the use of cosmetics,62 Della Porta provided five recipes to ‘know a painted Face’ in order to

57 Snook, ‘Beautifying Part’, p. 24. 58 Cf. Sammern, ‘Colors of Beauty’, p. 427. 59 See Griffey, ‘The Rose and Lily Queen’. 60 Cf. the considerations of Bette Talvacchia in this volume. Taking into account the sitters’ complexions would support her argument. 61 Della Porta, Magiae naturalis, p. 178. Della Porta, Natural Magick, p. 253. See Walker-Meikle, ‘Cosmetics Pranks’. 62 E.g. Xenophon’s Oikonomikos, 10, 2‒8; Saiko, Cura dabit faciem, pp. 75‒79.

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reverse the claim of the chapter to ‘adorn Women, and make them Beautiful.’63 The breath of a person chewing saffron, for instance, would dye a painted face yellowish; burning brimstone would turn preparations with white lead or quicksilver dark. In short, the instructions would ridicule and even disfigure the person using make-up. Kathleen Walker-Meikle sets them in the context of the similar pranks and magic tricks of Della Porta’s book XX.64 However, they are also rooted in the convergence of artistic, medical, and alchemical knowledge of the genre. Despite the analogies between painting, sculpture, and cosmetics concerning materials, techniques, and terminology, there existed a fundamental difference between painted and sculpted artworks, and living beings using their own bodies in an artisanal manner, like a sculptor fashioning a sculpture. While there were, in theory, no longer any limits to the arts – neither to the arts of disegno nor to the art of healing – and even nature could be perfected by concealing and hiding blemishes and faults,65 the limit was reached when practitioners of these arts were seen as treating themselves as works of art. Only Roger de Piles (1635‒1709) enjoyed the paintings of Peter Paul Rubens (1577‒1640), comparing them appreciatively with both face-painting and artifice ( fard).66

Works Cited Benesch, Dieter, Marsilio Ficino’s ‘De triplici vita’ (Florenz 1489) in deutschen Bearbeitungen und Übersetzungen – Edition des Codex palatinus germanicus 730 und 452 (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 1977). Benthien, Claudia, Haut. Literaturgeschichte – Körperbilder – Grenzdiskurse (Reinbek bei Hamburg: Rowohlt, 1999). Bloch, Howard R., ‘Medieval Misogyny’, Representations, 20 (1987), pp. 1‒24. Bohde, Daniela, ‘Skin and the Search for the Interior: The Representation of Flaying in the Art and Anatomy of the Cinquecento’, in Bodily Extremities: Preoccupations with

63 Della Porta, Natural Magick, p. 253. 64 Walker-Meikle, ‘Cosmetics Pranks’. 65 ‘Conciosia che al pittore conviene che sempre accresca nelle faccie grandezza e maestà, coprendo il difetto del naturale, come si vede che hanno fatto gl’antichi pittori, i quali solevano sempre dissimulare et anco nascondere le imperfezioni naturali con l’arte’. Lomazzo, ‘Trattato dell’arte della Pittura, Scoltura et Architettura’, pp. 374‒375. 66 De Piles, Cours de peinture, pp. 436‒437: ‘Il est vrai que c’est un fard: mais il seroit à souhaiter que les Tableaux qu’on fait aujourd‘hui, sussent tous fardés de cette sorte. L’on fait assez que la peinture n’est qu’un fard, qu‘il est de son essence de tromper, & que le plus grand trompeur en cet Art, est le plus grand Peintre.’ Cf. Suthor, Augenlust bei Tizian, pp. 42‒43.

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the Human Body in Early Modern European Culture, ed. by Florike Egmond and Robert Zwijnenberg (Aldershot: Routledge, 2003), pp. 10‒47. Brennan, Robert, Painting as a Modern Art in Early Renaissance Italy (London: Harvey Miller Publishers, 2019). Brunello, Franco, ‘Profumeria e cosmesi a Venezia nel Rinascimento’, La farmacia nuova, 37 (1981), pp. 3‒16. Burke, Jill, How to Be A Renaissance Woman (London: Wellcome Collection, forthcoming 2023). Cavallo, Sandra, Artisans of the Body in Early Modern Italy: Identities, Famlies and Masculinities (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2007). Cavallo, Sandra and Storey, Tessa, Healthy Living in late Renaissance Italy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014). Cennini, Cennino, The Craftman’s Handbook: The Italian ‘Il Libro dell’ Arte’, transl. by Daniel V. Thompson (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1933). Companion Encyclopedia of the History of Medicine, ed. by William F. Bynum and Roy Porter, 2 vols. (London: Routledge, 1993). Connor, Steven: The Book of Skin (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2004). Dolce, Lodovico, ‘Dialogo della pittura intitolato l’Aretino’, in Trattati d’arte del Cinquecento fra manierismo e controriforma, ed. by Paola Barocchi, 3 vols. (Bari: Laterza, 1960‒1962), I, pp. 141‒206, 433‒493. Eamon, William, Science and the Secrets of Nature: Books of Secrets in Medieval and Early Modern Culture (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994). Fend, Mechthild, Fleshing out Surfaces: Skin in French Art and Medicine, 1650‒1850 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2017). Ficino, Marsilio, De vita libri tres / Drei Bücher über das Leben, ed. and transl. by Michaela Boenke (Munich: Fink, 2012). Firenzuola, Agnolo, ‘Della bellezza delle donne, intitolato Celso’, in Prose di M. Agnolo Firenzuola Fiorentino (Florence: Bernardo Giunti, 1548), pp. 61 recto-108 verso. Firenzuola, Agnolo, On the Beauty of Women, ed. and transl. by Konrad Eisenbichler and Jacqueline Murray (Philadelphia: Philadelphia University Press, 1992). Gadebusch Bondio, Mariacarla, ‘Giovanni Marinello, gallant physician of the late XVI century’, Medicina nei secoli, 11 (1999), pp. 55‒84. Gadebusch Bondio, Mariacarla, ‘La Carne di fuori. Discorsi medici sulla natura e l’estetica della pelle nel ‘500’, Micrologus, 13 (2005), pp. 537‒570. Gettens, Rutherford J., Chase, W.T. and Kühn, Hermann, ‘Lead White’, in Artists’ Pigments: A Handbook of their History and Characteristics, II, ed. by Roy Ashok (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), pp. 67‒81. Girolamo Mercuriale: Medicina e Cultura Nell’Europa del Cinquecento, ed. by Alessandro Acrangeli and Vivian Nutton (Florence: Leo S. Olschki, 2008). Griffey, Erin, ‘‘The Rose and Lily Queen’: Henrietta Maria’s Fair Face and the Power of Beauty at the Stuart Court’, Renaissance Studies, 35 (2021), pp. 811‒836.

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Harvey, Elizabeth D., ‘The Touching Organ: Allegory, Anatomy, and the Renaissance Skin Envelope’, in Sensible Flesh: On Touch in Early Modern Culture, ed. by Elizabeth D. Harvey (Philadelphia: University of Philadelphia Press, 2003), pp. 81‒102. Hennepe, Mieneke te, ‘Of the Fisherman’s Net and Skin Pores: Reframing Conceptions of the Skin in Medicine 1572‒1714’, in Blood, Sweat and Tears ‒ The Changing Concepts of Physiology from Antiquity into Early Modern Europe, ed. by Helen King, Claus Zittel, and Manfred Horstmanshoff (Leiden, Boston: Brill, 2002), pp. 523‒548. Hot Dry Men, Cold Wet Women: The Theory of Humors in Western European Art, 1575‒1700, exh. cat., ed. by Zirka Z. Filipczak (New York: American Federation of Arts, 1997). Hunter, Lynette and Sarah Hutton (eds.), Women, Science and Medicine 1500‒1700: Mothers and Sisters of the Royal Society (Stroud: Sutton, 1997). Koslofsky, Craig, ‘Knowing Skin in Early Modern Europe, c. 1450–1750’, History Compass 12 (2014), pp. 794‒806. Koos, Marianne, ‘Haut als mediale Metapher in der Malerei von Caravaggio’, in Weder Haut noch Fleisch, pp. 65‒85. Koos, Marianne, ‘‘Malerei ohne Pockenspuren’. Oberfläche im Werk von Jean-Étienne Liotard’, Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte, 70 (2007), pp. 545‒572. Lazzarini, Elena, ‘Giovanni Marinello: Kosmetische Rezepte (1562)’, in Schönheit – der Körper als Kunstprodukt, pp. 209‒219. Le bain et le miroir. Soins du corps et cosmétiques de l’Antiquité à la Renaissance, exh. cat., ed. by Isabelle Bardiès-Fronty and Michèle Bimbenet-Privat (Paris: Gallimard, 2009). Leong, Elaine, Recipes and Everyday Knowledge: Medicine, Science, and the Household in Early Modern England (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2018). Leong, Elaine and Rankin, Alisha, ‘Introduction’, in Secrets and Knowledge in Medicine and Science, 1500‒1800, ed. by Elaine Leong and Alisha Rankin (Farnham, Burlington: Ashgate, 2011), pp. 2‒20. Löhr, Wolf-Dietrich, ‘Korrekturen. Schöpfung und Schminke bei Franco Sacchetti’, in Parlare dell’arte nel Trecento. Kunstgeschichten und Kunstgespräch im 14. Jahrhundert in Italien, ed. by Annette Hoffmann, Lisa Jordan and Gerhard Wolf (Berlin, Munich: Deutscher Kunstverlag, 2020), pp. 103‒119. Lomazzo, Giovan Paolo, ‘Trattato dell’arte della Pittura, Scoltura et Architettura, Milano 1584’, in Giovan Paolo Lomazzo. Scritti sulle Arti, ed. by Roberto P. Ciardi, 2 vols. (Florence: Marchi & Bertolli, Centro Di, 1973‒1975), II, pp. 7‒589. Marinello, Giovanni: Gli ornamenti delle donne. Tratti dalle scritture d’una reina greca (Venice: Franceschi de Francesco, 1562). Mercurialis, Hieronymus, De decoratione liber (Venice: Paul Meietus, 1588). Murphy, Hannah, ‘Skin and Disease in Early Modern Medicine: Jan Jessen’s De cute, et cutaneis affectibus (1601)’, Bulletin of the History of Medicine, 94 (2020), pp. 179‒214. Nutton, Vivian, ‘Humoralism’, in Companion Encyclopedia of the History of Medicine, I, pp. 281‒291.

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Orlandi, Antonella, Le edizioni dell’opera di Giovan Battista della Porta (Pisa: Serra, 2013). Peruzzi, Enrico, ‘La concezione della bellezza nel De decoratione’, in: Girolamo Mercuriale: Medicina e Cultura nell’Europa del Cinquecento, ed. by Alessandro Arcangeli and Vivian Nutton (Florence: Leo S. Olschki, 2008), pp. 247‒256. Piccari, Paolo, Giovan Battista Della Porta: il filosofo, il retore, lo scienziato (Milan: Franco Angeli 2007). Piles, Roger de, Cours de peinture par principes (Paris: Charles-Antoine Jombert, 1708). Porta, Giovan Battista Della, Magiae Naturalis libri XX (Naples: Horatius Salvianus, 1589). Porta, John Baptista, Natural Magick (London: Thomas Young and Samuel Speed, 1658). Reinarz, Jonathan, and Siena, Kevin Patrick: A Medical History of Skin: Scratching the Surface (London: Pickerin Chatto, 2013). Ricotta, Veronica, Il ‘Libro dell’arte’ di Cennino Cennini. Edizione critica e commento linguistico (Milan: Franco Angeli, 2019). Saiko, Maren, Cura dabit faciem. Literarische, kulturhistorische und medizinische Aspekte (Trier: Wissenschaftlicher Verlag, 2005). Sammern, Romana, ‘Red, White, and Black: Colors of Beauty, Tints of Health, and Cosmetic Materials in Early Modern English Art Writing’, Early Science and Medicine, 20 (2015), pp. 397‒427. Schönheit – der Körper als Kunstprodukt. Kommentierte Quellentexte von Cicero bis Goya, ed. by Romana Sammern and Julia Saviello (Berlin: Reimer, 2019). Saviello, Julia, ‘Perfekte Schönheit als Komposit’, in Schönheit – der Körper als Kunstprodukt, pp. 39‒48. Saviello, Julia, ‘‘Purgat et ornat’: die zwei Seiten des Kamms’, in Dinge im Kontext. Artefakt, Handhabung und Handlungsästhetik zwischen Mittelalter und Gegenwart, ed. by Thomas Pöpper (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2015), pp. 133‒144. Schattner, Angela, ‘Komplexion’, in Enzyklopädie der Neuzeit, ed. by Friedrich Jaeger, 16 vols. (Stuttgart: Metzler, 2005‒2012), VI, cols. 1038‒1041. Siraisi, Nancy, ‘History, Antiquarianism and Medicine: The Case of Girolamo Mercuriale’, Journal of the History of Ideas, 64 (2003), pp. 231‒251. Snook, Edith, ‘‘The Beautifying Part of Physic’: Women’s Cosmetic Practices in Early Modern England’, Journal of Women’s History, 20 (2008), pp. 10‒33. Snook, Edith, Women, Beauty and Power in Early Modern England: A Feminist Literary History (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011). Spicer, Jacqueline, ‘A Fare Bella’: The Visual and Material Culture of Cosmetics in Renaissance Italy (1450‒1540) (Ph.D. thesis University of Edinburgh, 2014). Stafford, Barbara Maria, Body Criticism: Imaging the Unseen in Enlightenment Art and Medicine (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1992). Summers, David, Michelangelo and the Language of Art (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981).

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Suthor, Nicola, Augenlust bei Tizian. Zur Konzeption sensueller Malerei in der Frühen Neuzeit (Munich: Fink, 2004). Sutton, Richard L., Sixteenth Century Physician and his Methods: Mercurialis on Diseases of the Skin (Kansas: The Lowell Press, 1986). Stolberg, Michael, Homo patiens. Krankheits- und Körpererfahrung in der Frühen Neuzeit (Cologne: Böhlau, 2003). Vasari, Giorgio, Le vite de’ piu’ eccellenti pittori, scultori e architettori nelle redazioni del 1550 e 1568, ed. by Rosanna Bettarini and Paola Barocchi, 11 vols. (Florence: Sansoni, 1966‒1997). Veneziani, Sabrina, ‘Le lezioni dermatologiche di Girolamo Mercuriale’, in Girolamo Mercuriale: Medicina e Cultura nell’Europa del Cinquecento, ed. by Alessandro Arcangeli and Vivian Nutton (Florence: Leo S. Olschki, 2008), pp. 203‒215. Verardi, Donato, La scienza e i segreti della natura a Napoli nel Rinascimento: la magia naturale di Giovan Battista Della Porta (Florence: Firenze University Press, 2018). Walker-Meikle, Kathleen, ‘Cosmetics Pranks’, https://renaissanceskin.ac.uk/themes/ misbehaving/ (16 January 2020). Walker-Meikle, Kathleen, ‘Mercuriale on Pimples’, https://renaissanceskin.ac.uk/themes/ misbehaving/ (16 January 2020). Wear, Andrew, ‘The History of Personal Hygiene’, in: Companion Encyclopedia of the History of Medicine, ed. by William F. Bynum Roy Porter, 2 vols. (London: Routledge, 1993), II, pp. 1283‒1308. Weder Haut noch Fleisch. Das Inkarnat in der Kunstgeschichte, ed. by Daniela Bohde and Mechthild Fend (Berlin: Gebr. Mann, 2007). Wheeler, Jo, Renaissance Secrets: Recipes and Formulas (London: V&A Publishing, 2009). Zedler, Johann Heinrich, ‘Blut, Sanguis, Haema’, in Grosses vollständiges Universal-Lexicon aller Wissenschaften und Künste, 68 vols. (Halle, Leipzig: Johann Heinrich Zedler, 1731‒1754), IV, pp. 207‒214.

About the Author Romana Sammern (née Filzmoser) is Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Salzburg. Her research and teaching interests include early modern visual culture, the materiality of artworks, image theories and art theory, and the human body and sexuality at the convergence of art and medicine.

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Indecent Exposure and Honourable Uncovering in Renaissance Portraits of Women Bette Talvacchia

Abstract Commissioning portraits of Renaissance women was a more common practice than is generally imagined. An impressive corpus was produced in Venice, although the sitters’ names are lost. Their identity is further clouded by the repetition of similar features, including elaborately dressed blond hair, and similar luxurious attire. Rather than reading these elements as an erasure of identity, they can be understood as markers of wealth and beauty of individual women within highly restrictive codes. Another device introduces partial nudity, which has been interpreted as portrayals of courtesans. Evidence, however, shows that in many cases the unveiling of a breast functions in the context of betrothal and marriage imagery; so far from creating a category of ‘Courtesan Portraits’ the nudity, along with other symbols, establishes iconography pertaining to the chaste sexuality of virtuous wives. Keywords: courtesans in art; betrothal imagery; Early Modern portraits of women; Flora imagery; sexual imagery; Venetian Renaissance art

Commissioning portraits of women in the Renaissance was a more common practice than is generally imagined. Ironically, while a large number of representations of women comes from the second half of the sixteenth century in Venice, this group of paintings has sustained considerable scholarly argument about its relation to the genre of portraiture. The doubts stem from two concerns, which at times are intertwined. The first objection centres on the observable fact that the women, almost all unidentified, convey similar features conforming to the narrowly defined

Jonietz, F., M. Richter, A.G. Stewart (eds.), Indecent Bodies in Early Modern Visual Culture. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2023 doi 10.5117/9789463725835_ch05

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standards of beauty found in literary topoi.1 From this it is often concluded that what we have are not portraits of real women, but abstract embodiments of beauty. The second objection is that many of the representations exhibit some degree of nudity, with the implicit or stated belief that this would not be possible for a ‘respectable’ woman. This moralising assumption has led to the belief that the women delineated are prostitutes.2 I want to problematise both the perceived absence of living women and the categories of decent vs. indecent, which have been applied to Renaissance representations of women. Removal of the binary opposition helps to clarify the identity of the sitters, although their names are not recoverable. My argument hinges on two premises. By definition, the genre of portraiture operates across gender lines to record real people; and the incorporation of nudity into the representation of a woman does not authorise us to label her a courtesan.3 It will be shown that in many cases the women depicted literally uncover their partial identities as brides and spouses. We will see that it is the uneasy eyes of observers and commentators that have imposed indecency on these bodies; the passionate communication of the sitters is of another, honourable, order. The considerable number of female portraits that survive from this time and place encourages us to question what caused the particular focus on women, which contradicts the more expected private nature of their lives. The fact that in almost all cases the names of the Venetian ladies have been lost makes the equation even more intriguing: their existence was recorded, but in accordance with cultural norms, these women were not written into history as individuals. Scholarly reckoning might have approached the question on this basis, to discern the circumstances that would call for a woman to be memorialised as the centre of attention at the same time that her individual name need not be emphasised. An arguable answer to the riddle comes to mind immediately; this might happen when the woman is being featured in the quality of a promised or recently wedded bride. The tradition of commemorating a young woman at the moment she was re-positioned from virginal daughter within one family to legitimate, sexually * I would like to thank the editors for their invitation to contribute to this volume, and for their enthusiasm and helpful collaboration. I would like particularly to express my gratitude to Alison G. Stewart for her encouragement and supportive interest in my work. 1 The establishing study on ideal feminine beauty in the Renaissance is by Cropper, ‘On Beautiful Women’; a recent discussion that builds upon this tradition is Steele, ‘In the Flower of their Youth’, with extensive bibliography. The studies illuminate sources codifying the idealisation of the women; I would like to argue for its application in portraiture to women who existed. 2 This is taken for granted in much of the literature; see, for example, Lawner, Lives of the Courtesans. For an important collection of material based on this approach, see Il Gioco dell’amore. 3 The term ‘courtesan’ is generally used to indicate a prostitute with a high level of clientele, culture, and income.

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active spouse in another, was one of the few moments a woman’s portrait would be called for and celebrated. It would also be the single instance when a reference to her sexuality was warranted. Before addressing the question of libido, however, a working hypothesis about the ‘realness’ of the depicted women is necessary. Doubt has arisen because numerous representations of Venetian women employ the same conventions of beauty, resulting in a generalised rather than detailed particularisation of a female sitter’s appearance.4 A justifiable link to similar descriptions of feminine beauty in literary sources has been turned on its head to posit that these paintings – which employ every convention we normally use to describe the genre of portraiture – are not portraits at all. Instead, the women portrayed are said to stand in for concepts of beauty. This is put forward as a statement of fact in many discussions, ignoring both the nuances of the original hypothesis and the fact that no documentation of any sort backs up this postulation. What we have in the end is a problem not so much of genre, as of gender. Since the identities of these women have not come down to us, so runs the line of reasoning, and their images incorporate strict conventions of beauty, the sitters never existed. In this way, the women portrayed were first written out of history, then removed from art history, their existence erased for a second time. To rectify this, the evidence can be examined with a more straightforward approach, positing that if a painting follows all the formal conventions of a portrait, it is most likely to be one. If certain depictions present aspects that do not conform to our expectations of how a portrait should function with regard to veracity, then it is up to us to explore the dissonance, rather than to deny the visually convincing claim that formal qualities affirm with regard to genre. To stake the claim for gender discrimination within critical discussion of the Renaissance portrait genre, it is enough to consider the critical response to unidentified portraits of men. Put briefly, in cases where the identity of a male subject has been lost, insistent research might be carried out to procure it, on the logical assumption that the man immortalised by the commission had lived and breathed. Even when the nameless man has been endowed with lyrical beauty by the painter, as happens regularly in Titian’s male portraits, the certainty of his existence has not been cast into doubt; that is reserved for depictions of women whom we cannot name. When the sitter in question is female, the loss of identity instead becomes a factor moving in the 4 This is also the case in the maiolica bella donna tradition, where the application of a name can make the representation referential, thus a type of portrait, as well as in the Tuscan profile portraits, which are largely schematic. For the maiolica, Ajmar and Thornton, ‘When is a Portrait Not a Portrait?’; for individual examples, Thornton and Wilson, Italian Renaissance Ceramics, nos. 318, 319, male subjects nos. 203, 204; for the profile portraits Simons, ‘Women in Frames’.

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opposite interpretive direction, making her a cypher – a mere passive construction standing in for female beauty.5 The factor of anonymity is exacerbated in the portraits of women by the similarities in their appearance. For the most part their features are generalised, smoothing over idiosyncrasies and particularities, resulting in a uniformity of appearance. Indeed, the criteria of beauty manifest in the portraits are identical to the ones praised at length in literature. However, this does not necessarily lead to the conclusion that imaginative embodiments of female beauty were fabricated in the place of living women, constructed solely as a vehicle for the pleasure of the male gaze. Rather, real women made every effort to conform to the established norms of beauty – the obsession with bleaching hair to a ‘gold standard’ is thoroughly documented – and were complimented by depictions that visually praised them by altering their features to adhere closely to the ideal. It may be that the idealisation was in the end not that radical; women already considered to be the beauties of that society were perhaps the most likely to end up as brides of the aristocrats and the wealthy who could afford to commission the most exquisite portraits from the most accomplished artists. The reign of a very narrow construction of female beauty, along with a more elastic sense of what constituted a commemorative portrait, makes the nature of the representations more understandable. The celebration of favored and desired qualities, both physical and moral, were of paramount importance; individuality, in our sense, was of less concern and non-emphatic in portraits of status. Strict resemblance was subservient to meaningful characterisation; the idiosyncratic features of individual women were subordinate to ideal types, and delineated in compliance with them. I suggest that women who are presented as manifestations of ideal beauty assume that function as an enrichment of their identity, rather than as its obliteration. One aspect of ‘self-fashioning’ for Venetian women in this period was to observe as strictly as possible the established conventions of beauty. The process of idealisation that veiled the sitters’ features did not erase their subjectivity. Rather, they made a rhetorical point about the individual’s worth in a culture that privileged beauty, made it a metaphor for goodness, and developed rigorous, if poetic, codes about its definition. Within the problematic gender-biased reading of Renaissance portraiture, an even more troubling classification has emerged in criticism. Although one consensus is that the images are idealisations of beauty, another, even more heavily trodden interpretive path, is that when the portrayals depict real women, they are often representations of courtesans. An arbitrary portrait genre, based on moral 5 For thoughts on the ‘sensuous portrait’ as it applies to both genders, see my essay ‘Erotica: The Sexualized Body’, pp. 180‒182.

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judgement, the so-called ‘Courtesan Portrait’ has been invented. This is a category that constructs the fault-line in interpreting images of women to be either decent or indecent. Of course, the classification existed in Venetian culture of the time; the question is whether we can identify the distinction in portraits. It is demonstrably a falsely imposed criterion for the interpretation of undocumented portraits, and one that must be dismantled. The appellation ‘courtesan’ (rather than prostitute) is meted out since it implies the higher social and economic status necessary for the commissioning of a portrait. It is in fact the ability of the sitter to afford the finery she wears that is the common bond; a woman flaunting rich brocades, costly jewelry, and exquisitely crafted lace, tells us first of all that she is wealthy. If there is no other distinguishing information attached to the portrait, either through a pictorial system of symbolism or from external documentation, we have no way of knowing if the lavish accoutrements come by way of a virtuous marriage into the nobility, or have been gained by immoral commerce, according to the precepts of the time. Despite the general absence of concrete information, scholarship has regularly labelled the women as courtesans when decorum is deemed to be lacking. This leads to an alarming situation in the critical literature. The two most often explored interpretive strategies divide and define the nameless women either as examples of theoretical, non-existent beauties, or conversely, as prostitutes. The single gauge for the claim of respectability is that the sitter be represented fully clothed; even partial nudity of the f igure plunges her into a category of opprobrium. It is supposed that if the female body is ‘pictured’ undraped, it is indecent, hovering on the obscene. Assumptions are made that a commissioned portrait of a respectable, upper-class woman would never involve nudity. This ahistorical assumption does not allow for the Renaissance period’s deeply ingrained appreciation of the human form as the privileged site of symbolic meaning, with nudity often signifying unblemished heroism, naked honesty, or truth revealed, to name a few traditional metaphors.6 In point of fact, the preponderance of painted female bodies on display in the works I will discuss are the opposite of indecent. Following long-established allegorical practices, not only can partially unclothed sitters be presented as decent, they most often should be construed as virtuous. It is instructive to begin with consideration of a visual puzzle presented by two closely related paintings in the Prado Museum by Domenico Tintoretto, depicting unnamed women (figs. 5.1, 5.2). Domenico, whose fellow Venetians hailed him as a portrait painter, was the son of the more famous Jacopo. High praise came in 1642 from Domenico’s biographer, Carlo Ridolfi, who was among those the artist 6 This works across gender lines, with ‘heroic nudity’ particularly used to embody noble concepts in the male nude. See Eisler’s argument in ‘The Athlete of Virtue’. I discuss examples of the symbolic use of male nudity in ‘Bronzino’s Corpus’, esp. pp. 58‒63.

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Figure 5.1: Domenico Tintoretto, Lady Covering her Breast, oil on canvas, 1580 – 1590, 65 × 51 cm, Madrid, Prado Museum, inv. P000384, © Museo del Prado.

Figure 5.2: Domenico Tintoretto, Lady Revealing her Breast, oil on canvas, 1580 – 1590, 62 × 55.6 cm, Madrid, Prado Museum, inv. P000382, © Museo del Prado.

portrayed. Ridolfi tells us that ‘every lady of consequence of the time wanted to be made famous by Domenico’s brush’.7 The tribute alerts us to reconsider often repeated claims that since women of high standing led private rather than public lives, portraiture would be anathema to their respectability. With regard to the Prado portraits, the mystery begins with the uncertainty of whether or not the same woman appears in the two representations. Although quite similar, there are slight discrepancies in the women’s features. Yet they may be due to the differing angles from which she is viewed in each; it is difficult to come to an indisputable conclusion. The more glaring disjunction, however, is that one of the bust-length portraits details the woman’s opulent clothes, while the other shows them removed. The hypothesis of a shared subject is strengthened by the material fact that the canvases have nearly the same dimensions; it is tempting to assume they were commissioned as companion pieces.8 I would suggest that there 7 Ridolfi, Life of Tintoretto, p. 92. 8 The entries for the paintings on the museum’s online site, www.museodelprado.es, contain conflicting information. The suggestion is made that the canvasses were ‘probably intended as a pair’, which would imply one sitter. This is contradicted by hypothesising one portrait to be an ‘Honest Courtesan’, and linking it without factual basis to Veronica Franco, while the other escapes a similar interpretation. The assigned titles, Lady Covering her Breast and Lady Revealing her Breast, however, indicate a moralising premise that underlies the entries: the woman whose breasts are covered is respectable; the one with

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is a temporal link implied between the two: the woman’s incipient movement to remove her garment is hinted at in one, and the result is manifest in the other. The inadequacy of a prejudicial reading of the painting displaying nudity is clear, since one woman, or even two such similar women, shown in almost identical renderings, could hardly portray a respectable woman and a courtesan at the same time, in the same terms. I understand these two paintings as portraying a woman in her differing roles characteristic of a newlywed wife. One represents her public persona as a member of an elite clan, her beauty and finery symbolic of her status; a second painting displays her as a chastely sexual spouse, who reveals herself intimately in her procreative capacity. This double identity was not only allowable, but deemed necessary for a wife, therefore seductive nudity can signify a young married woman as well as a courtesan. What, beyond the partial removal of her clothing, demands that we consign the image of an uncovered woman to a hypothetical category of ‘Courtesan Portraiture’? To question the matter from the opposite deliberation, we may ask if incontestable portraits of courtesans survive to supply us with an iconographic formulation defining the genre. Staying within the oeuvre of Domenico Tintoretto, a putative example exists, which by convention carries the title Portrait of a Courtesan (fig. 5.3).9 In contrast to the expectations posited by the courtesan genre, no nudity is involved; the elegantly coiffed, seated young woman, posed at a slight angle to the picture plane, is dressed sumptuously. Her red gown is a rich brocade, the stiff bodice cut low, offset by transparent lace punctuated by gold beads, which lightly veils her breasts and extends into a stiff, high collar behind her neck. The lace is repeated at the cuffs of the garment, complemented by beads in the form of bracelets, echoing those placed at the shoulder seams. Golden beads punctuate the v-shaped borders of the lace plunging down her chest, in addition to the exquisite pearl necklace and earrings, as well as rings and substantial gold link belt that adorn her. Which of all these details signals that she is a courtesan? Every iterated element of her attire was worn by matrons of the highest social classes in Venice, and they were luxuriantly combined in a single ensemble. A claim to the over-abundance of rich appointments as the ruling iconography of courtesans cannot be substantiated. In point of fact, we could only be sure the seated woman delineated by Tintoretto was a courtesan rather than a ‘gentildonna’ if documented evidence existed to tell us so. bared breasts is a courtesan. In fact, it is not possible to ascertain with certainty if the so-called ‘covered’ woman is pulling her over-garment on, or starting to remove it, although I find the later reading more convincing, as argued in my discussion. 9 First published in 1990, in Il Gioco dell’amore, cat. 6, p. 111; the basis for the identification as a courtesan is the luxuriousness of the clothing and jewelry worn by the subject.

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Figure 5.3: Domenico Tintoretto, Portrait of a Courtesan, oil on canvas, 1590s, 100 × 84 cm, Venice, Private Collection.

A comparison with a portrait by Paolo Veronese demonstrates the fallacy of attempting to isolate a genre of courtesan portraits by elaborate attire. The woman known as La Belle Nani, from c. 1560, is also dressed to the nines, with identical accessories.10 The traditional association of the sitter with the aristocratic Nani 10 Portrait de Femme, dit La Belle Nani, oil on canvas, 119 × 103 cm, Louvre Museum, Paris.

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family, even if the label is now doubted, has prevented this woman from being seen as a courtesan, model/prostitute, or figment of Veronese’s imagination, the fate of many other female sitters. In historical portraits of women, a name is everything. This patrician lady is also embellished with lustrous pearls and lavish lace, which emphasise the deeply cut neckline of her garment. In his study of the painting, Jean Habert emphasises that the abundant display of cleavage was thought to be proper for a virtuous, married woman, on the pretext that she, and presumably those with whom she came into contact, would not be tempted to lasciviousness, since her sexuality was bound to her husband.11 This peculiar line of reasoning was seen to be distinctly Venetian, which, again according to Habert, the French identified with the Serenissima, interpreting the espoitrinement (baring of breasts) to be a sign of nobility.12 The fashionably displayed or transparently covered breast, status-conscious rather than self-conscious, therefore had a very different valence from total nudity. The contrast is made clear if we consider a rendering of the famous courtesan, Veronica Franco, found in an album amicorum from the late sixteenth century, known as the Mores Italiae (Fig. 5.4).13 These albums were personal collections that travellers compiled to record memories and collate information about the customs of the places they visited. The intimate nature of the small-scale image is apparent, sketched in red ink with a wash of dark colour to form the background and to describe her deftly wrought hair style. The image terminates at bust length, fully revealing Veronica’s nude torso, but with a lack of shading or emphasis that results in a strangely static corporality, more like the torso of a marble statue. The intensity of the face endows the representation with life; the bared torso in this case seems to indicate the nature of the encounter. Following the genre of the travel album, the drawing presumably records an appointment with the famous Venetian courtesan, taken from life. The sheet features the name Veronica Franco prominently inscribed above the portrait sketch.14 We can assume, then, that while courtesans would have been depicted in formal portraits as indistinguishable from respectable women of status, an informal sketch might exceptionally record a sexual encounter whose nature is underscored by the 11 Habert, Une dame, p. 48. 12 Habert, Une dame, p. 51. 13 Rippa Bonati and Finucci, Mores Italiae. A digitised version of the Mores Italiae, held in the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University, can be consulted at: https://collections.library.yale. edu/catalog/2003570. 14 A similar presentation appears on folio 3 of the Mores Italiae, where a courtesan is shown in profile, identified by her name ‘La Ragusea’. However, this time she is embellished with an elaborate coiffure and jewelry, while both of her breasts are revealed by her lowered chemise. It once more attests to an intimate encounter, privately recorded in a souvenir journal.

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Figure 5.4: Mores italiae, ‘Veronica Franco’, water-colour drawing on paper, 1575, 185 × 130 mm, Beinecke MS 457, fol. 6, New Haven, Yale University, Beinecke Library.

stark nudity of the figure. In contrast, a formal, costly painting would present the woman in a manner that insists upon her economic status and social standing, manifest through the idealised beauty of her features and the material splendour of her apparel, in exactly the same way as a wealthy young spouse. Evidence for this conclusion exists in the form of printed costume books, a genre related to the individually composed travel albums, but which systematically record clothing as documentation of place and types. The compilations stake a claim that attire, which differs from city to city and culture to culture, is nothing less than a system of signs capable of showing where you are and with whom you are likely to interact. Most famous in the genre is Cesare Vecellio’s The Clothing, Ancient and Modern, of

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Various Parts of the World (Degli habiti antichi et moderni di diverse parti del mondo), published at Venice in 1590. Vecellio’s commentary adds to our knowledge at the same time it undercuts the genre’s contention that appearances provide clear classifications. However, a few salient assertions when addressing his hometown of Venice make Vecellio an invaluable guide to our inquiry. He categorically states that there is no single way in which courtesans dress in public places; they deck themselves with as much finery as their income allows.15 Vecellio also observes that when outdoors, courtesans dress like the nobility; at home, they might simply increase the amount of adornment, including items like pearls, although officially forbidden to wear them whether indoors or out. The likelihood of confusion is such that Vecellio offers a caveat to potential visitors to Venice who might be tricked into thinking they are being offered sexual favors by a noblewoman, only to discover she is a finely dressed courtesan.16 The study of Venetian portraits of women should take to heart Vecellio’s protestations that it is not possible to distinguish courtesans from the nobility by their dress; rather, he avers, only their bold comportment gives away their profession.17 Circumspection is thus demanded, and more signifiers than the obvious are required to discern the status of the woman gazed upon. With this in mind, I would suggest that with regard to the two portraits just discussed (and despite the title appended to the Tintoretto), both show married women of the richest class. Their outfits conform to the attire recorded by Vecellio, which as we have seen is not definitive; however, the additional symbols included in the paintings specify the position of the women. Tintoretto’s lady is flanked by a vase of white flowers, always a symbol of purity and virtue (fig. 5.3); its inclusion makes a statement about her status. Veronese’s sitter gracefully places one hand over her heart in a gesture of fealty, while the fingers of the other catch the transparent fabric flowing down from her breast through her fingers in a way that signals the golden wedding ring she wears. In each case attributes are featured to make clear statements about the identity of the sitter, beyond her material wealth, as a woman of virtue. In the wake of Vecellio’s comprehensive universal catalogue came Giacomo Franco’s more targeted compilation of Venetian modes of dress, Clothes of Venetian Men and Women (Habiti di huomoni et donne venetiane), from 1610. Franco’s captioned illustrations provide our most firmly documented examples of the appearance of elite courtesans and married women of high status. The two prints chronicling the contemporary costumes of wealthy noblewomen and affluent courtesans are 15 Vecellio, p. 147, in Jones and Rosenthal, Clothing, p. 199. 16 Vecellio, p. 143, in Jones and Rosenthal, Clothing, p. 195. 17 Vecellio, pp. 138, 144, in Jones and Rosenthal, Clothing, pp. 190, 196.

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Figure 5.5: Giacomo Franco, ‘A Noblewoman’, from Habiti delle Donne Venetiane, engraving and woodcut, c.1591–1610, 280 × 210 mm, New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, acc. no. 34.68, Harris Brisbane Dick Fund, 1934.

Figure 5.6: Giacomo Franco, ‘A Famous Courtesan’, from Habiti delle Donne Venetiane, engraving and woodcut, c.1591–1610, 280 × 210 mm, New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, acc. no. 34.68, Harris Brisbane Dick Fund, 1934.

almost interchangeable (figs. 5.5, 5.6), and again closely compare to the paintings by Tintoretto and Veronese. Echoing his predecessor, Franco recognises courtesans as one of the classifications of women whose attire he illustrates, and reiterates the impossibility of distinguishing them from noblewomen by dress. Once again it is the text that must describe the social class of the represented type, because in the case of the courtesan/noble lady divide, the deciding factor is moral rather than economic, and cannot be illustrated.18 In other words, clothing alone fails to supply a visual differentiation between wealthy women who are sexually active within marriage, and those who derive income independently through sexual performance. There is one notable exception to the exclusive use of types in Franco’s group of 20 printed plates; he specifies that the example of a Famous Courtesan portrays a real woman.19 We now are certain that we are looking at the portrait of a courtesan, yet it tells us frustratingly little. The author forbears to give her name, nor are her features 18 Jones, ‘Labor and Lace’, p. 418, has eloquently commented on the situation in her study of the use of lace in Franco’s plates: ‘because specific rank cannot be visually discerned from the luxurious apparel he shows his donne wearing in his images, he has to use his texts to specify social difference’. 19 Jones, ‘Labor and Lace’, pp. 422‒423; my information on the text related to the courtesan image comes from this source.

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more individualised than those of her respectable peer; in the Venetian manner, they look exactly the same. Franco transforms her individuality into a stereotype, illustrative of her category, minimally but tellingly marked by a few details that proclaim her outlaw status. She holds a tiny dog, which in other circumstances might refer to fidelity; her sort of lapdog, however, is one of this particular courtesan’s personal accessories, and in this situation alludes to lasciviousness. We are told as much by Franco, who must lean on his text to inform us that this woman was known for keeping ‘small dogs of a French breed’, in that persistent Franco/Italian rivalry where one culture consistently accuses the other of decadence. It is also an instance of high-status courtesans appropriating accessories from respectability and making them their own, when having the means to do so. The second compositional element alerting the viewer to the characterisation of the courtesan is connected to her cradling the dog she displays; it replaces the noble lady’s tender gesture, also noted in Veronese’s painting, of loving devotion conveyed by the placement of two fingers extended across the heart. Franco’s confection of a symbolic portrait of the Cortigiana Famosa, not necessarily tied to the verisimilitude of the subject’s features, provides unequivocal documentation of the way in which such a woman would have been portrayed in the late sixteenth century. No distinction is made by her clothing; rather, attributes and captions are required. Most important for this discussion, the courtesan displays no nudity as an emblem of her profession. If a bared breast was a fundamental signifier of the courtesan, both Franco and Vecellio would have recorded it in the taxonomy of their catalogues. With this evidence we can reiterate the resounding claim made by Augusto Gentili years ago, ‘Courtesan portraits do not exist!’ or if so, only in the moralising of observers.20 Proceeding with prudence rather than prudery, what can be understood from imagery where women are displayed with uncovered breasts? Looking further into the Mores Italiae brings to light an important clue. Folio 24 shows a young bride (Una sposa, as written on the drawing) clothed in her wedding finery (fig. 5.7). She wears her hair in the typical arrangement of a newlywed, half flowing loose in the manner of a maiden, half pulled back and intricately coiffed as a young matron, alluding to her changing station in life.21 Her costume and accessories are exclusively white, symbolising her chastity, accented only by the gold of her floor-length belt and the handle of her fan. Yet within this pristine vision, a discordant detail 20 Gentili states this with a scathing indictment of lax methodology in ‘Amore e amorose persone’, pp. 95‒96. 21 Vecellio, p. 127, in Jones and Rosenthal, Clothing, p. 179, comments that brides continued to wear their hair loose during the first year after their marriage. Dal Pozzo, Colori d’amore, p. 89, suggests that hairstyles bound by nets, veils and bonnets served to ‘rimarcare i concetti di regolazione e ordine richieste a livello sociale’.

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Figure 5.7: Mores italiae, ‘A Bride’, water-colour drawing on paper, 1575, 185 × 130 mm, Beinecke MS 457, fol. 24, New Haven, Yale University, Beinecke Library.

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appears, unremarked in the modern commentary.22 The square-cut neckline of the bridal gown is entirely revealing, with the young woman’s breasts veiled by fabric so transparent that we see only the dark edge of its border. An eyewitness shows us in his souvenir of Venice the fashion so startling to foreigners; the bride’s purity is symbolised at the same time her body is displayed. It is possible this custom/ costume evolved precisely in relation to the celebration of married women, their breasts exposed to reify fecundity and fertility, while visually acknowledging the seduction that is inherent in the process of procreation. Vecellio hints at this interpretation when, at the end of the passage describing a woman’s elaborate outfit worn at home, including the gauzy veils draped from her neck, he adds that she adorns herself this way ‘in order to preserve conjugal love.’23 On the basis of this information, we can move on to consider signs that denote honourable women, even when nudity is involved (and recall Tintoretto’s two related portraits of women, figs. 5.1 and 5.2).24 Far from lascivious courtesans, these women are instead depicted as sensuous yet chaste spouses, who lovingly offer the delights of carnality to their legitimate husbands. The accuracy of this reading has been further ‘uncovered’ through clarification of a particular iconography developed in the context of betrothal and wedding imagery, confirming that the bared breast conveys sentiments exuding from the heart rather than from lewd intent. Recent research has connected the motif to its articulation in L’arte de’ cenni, a treatise written by Giovanni Bonifacio, published at Vicenza in 1616.25 In the attempt to collate all of the gestures that, according to Bonifacio, constitute a universal language potentially more efficacious than the spoken word, the author organised his treatise anatomically, according to each body part. The section explicating signs centred on the breast contains the heading Aprir il Seno, which can be idiomatically translated as uncovering or revealing the breast. However, the literal translation, ‘to open the breast’ (to something or someone), is more strikingly imagistic, and closer to the visual adaptation of the phrase that appears in paintings when a garment is opened to partially disclose a woman’s torso. Bonifacio explains the gesture as indicating a sweet desire to receive someone 22 A puzzling lack in the exemplary scholarship of the facsimile edition; Rippa Bonati and Finucci, Mores Italiae. In the notes to the manuscript in the Beinecke Library, despite the clear inscription as to her status, the young woman has been labelled ‘a courtesan’, presumably because her breasts are so thinly veiled as to be exposed. 23 Vecellio, pp. 139‒140, in Jones and Rosenthal, Clothing, pp. 191‒192. 24 These conventions developed in Venice, but were not limited to that city. Pairing two images of a beloved can be considered in the striking portraits by Raphael of the Donna Velata and the so-called Fornarina. The latter wears a wedding ring (once painted over, but now evident after cleaning); the same betrothal jewel as her clothed version; and similarly gestures toward heart and womb. 25 Dal Pozzolo, Labirinti del cuore.

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into your heart.26 It is therefore eloquent of an intimacy that has nothing to do with mercenary sexuality. The connotation was drafted into the iconography of betrothal and marriage, and combined with symbols articulating an intended spouse’s purity, such as transparent veils, lustrous pearls, and jewelry symbolising the ‘chains’ or ‘sweet bonds’ of love. A betrothed woman thus pledges both her chastity and her openness to the carnal love of her husband. The bared breast in this context, while clearly retaining its erotic charge, becomes a gesture of loving and legitimate invitation, linked to the sensuality that also signals fertility and procreation. We can posit that such a portrayal was intended primarily for the eyes of a spouse, viewed above all in the privacy of the bed chamber. Interpreted through this prism, the revealed breast is not indecent, but evokes the generative outcome, as well as the carnal pleasures, of the bridal bed. Incontrovertible support for this reading comes from a portrait by Bernardino Licinio, which Augusto Gentili has recently identified as Agnese Licinio, the artist’s sister-in-law.27 Her features are the same as those found in a later group portrait, also by Licinio, of his brother’s family.28 In the single portrait, the pensive, intricately coiffed woman is far from a standardised beauty, with features drawn more insistently from reality, a tendency of Licinio’s style. She is given an introspective air as she grasps a sumptuous robe that falls off her right shoulder, framing a luxurious camicia (flowing undergarment or chemise) that reveals her breast. The atmosphere of serenity and contemplation, added to the pure white of the pearls and undergarment, hardly alludes to sex for sale. Rather, the atmosphere is proper for a wife and potential mother, her identity re-enforced by the pendant marriage-jewel, the golden link bracelet or ‘chain of love’ circling her wrist, and the gesture toward her womb. The composition provides another example of the hand to heart motif, mentioned earlier, a gesture that proliferates in Venetian portraiture of the time, operating across gender lines as a universal symbol of love and devotion. It takes on a special valence, more dramatic and more explicitly sexual, when combined with the motif of the bared breast in portraits of women. As with so many other conventions in Venetian art of the Renaissance, the motif of the honourably uncovered breast can be traced back to Giorgione, in the exhaustively discussed portrait of ‘Laura’. Convincingly recontextualised by the thorough scholarship of Enrico Maria Dal Pozzolo, it can be seen as a definitive formulation of 26 ‘Quest’apertura di seno accenna voler alcuna cosa caramente, come nel core, ricevere’, Bonifacio, L’arte de’ Cenni, p. 365, see: https://archive.org/stream/lartedecenniconl02boni#page/n4/mode/1up (accessed 23 April 2021). 27 The portrait, signed and dated 1536, painted in oil on canvas, measuring 83 × 69 cm, is in a private collection in Bergamo. See entries in Dal Pozzolo, Labirinti, pp. 274‒275 and 290‒301. 28 Arrigo Licinio with his Wife and Children, c. 1535, oil on canvas, 107 × 163 cm, in the collection of the Galleria Borghese, Rome.

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the betrothal portrait.29 Placed within the framework of bridal imagery a coherent reading emerges, which takes into account the external documentary evidence (an inscription that a ‘Messer Giacomo’ commissioned the painting), and what we see in the pictorial elements. The latter ostentatiously includes laurel, connoting virginal sexuality; the uncovering of the breast as a sign of intimacy and legitimate seduction; and the transparent veiling, a further allusion to chastity. We have no reason to question the portrait’s credentials as a testimonial, called into being by a prospective or recent spouse, to the beauty, fidelity, constant chastity, and future fecundity of his bride and sexual partner, who may (or may not) have been named Laura. If the personal nature of the portraits is a key to their open display of sexuality, the nudity could be further legitimised by its representation as a ‘costume’, a kind of metaphorical cover allowed by role-playing. The overlay of a symbolic reading sanctioned the bold representation of respectable women without accusation of superbia (pride), or lack of decorum. No great leap is required to move from a portrait composed with articulate gestures and a meaningful system of symbols to one that represents the sitter in historical guise. I would argue that commissioning allegorical portraits occurred frequently within the genre of women’s portraiture. It is a particularly effective strategy of presentation, providing a cover of modesty while at the same time capable of praising both outward aspects and interior virtues. It allows individual visibility at the same time it fuses personal identity with the qualities of the heroine, saint, or mythological persona chosen. To borrow an apt formulation put forward by Torquato Accetto regarding the positive uses of subterfuge in his 1641 treatise, Della dissimilazione onesta (Regarding Honourable Dishonesty), allegorical portraiture permitted women to be both ‘manifest and hidden’ at the same time.30 We can extend that concept to a woman being both uncovered and chaste when she is undraped in an allegorical portrayal. A compelling example of this has recently been exhibited and commented upon in two works by Lavinia Fontana, A Lady of the Ruini Family and Venus and Cupid.31 The features of the half-length Venus, who looks toward the viewer with a knowing smile, are those of a noblewoman from the prominent Bolognese family who was also portrayed in all her finery by Fontana in the following year. The ‘disguised portrait’ of 1592 shows the woman, possibly Isabella Ruini, nude to the waist, wearing only a plethora of fabulous jewels and a completely transparent, elaborately draped piece of gauze, whose thin veins 29 Dal Pozzolo, Colori d’amore, pp. 31‒53, for ‘Il lauro di Laura e delle “Maritate Venetiane”’. 30 Accetto is quoted in Paulicelli, Writing Fashion, p. 163. 31 See Vera Fortunati’s entries, where a convincing case is made for the identification of the sitter and the many similarities in the two paintings, in Ruiz Gómez, A Tale of Two Women Painters, pp. 218‒221.

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of golden threads form a lively pattern playing across the figure’s exposed flesh. Isabella was acclaimed as a legendary beauty in her time; endowing Venus with the lady’s features (or painting Isabella with the attributes of Venus) proclaimed and documented the beauty of a living woman, while the allegorical nature of the portrayal assured the proper decorum. Having established an iconographic justification for nudity and sensuality as components allowable through their symbolic function in portraits of women, it can similarly be applied to numerous non-narrative paintings with imagery connected to the mythological figure of Flora, which have proven difficult to categorise within our established genres as either portraits or mythological subjects. The vexing issue around many representations of Flora once more centres on our inability to name the sitter, and thus to establish if her image constitutes a portrait, or solely a mythological subject. Themes involving Flora have multifaceted meanings, sometimes conflictual. We can add further nuances to the rich interpretive possibilities by linking Flora, a metonym of fertility, to the realm of nuptial imagery by combining her persona with the motif of the bared breast. Among the most famous examples is Titian’s depiction of the subject in the Uffizi Galleries.32 To formulate a nuanced reading, it is important to note all the pictorial elements, beginning with the traditional portrait format.33 The bunch of flowers proffered to the viewer by the woman is a still-life motif from everyday life, but it is also the telling attribute of the harbinger of springtime. Her camicia is a basic article of contemporary clothing; worn alone, it insinuates informal dishabille, but also suggests a classical chiton. A study of theatrical costume contemporary to the painting has demonstrated that the camicia was worn on the stage precisely when performing the role of a nymph or goddess, adding to the consistency of the painting in the use of attributes that can refer to both a living woman and a mythological nymph.34 Details alluding to the actual woman encourage us to hold on to the portrait intent, no matter if disguised with props that allow for an allegorised reading. We should, for example, evaluate the lurking presence of dark roots at the base of Flora’s ‘golden’ hair as a reference to the living model. It compares to a similar observation by Licinio in his splendid Portrait of a Woman Wearing a Balzo in the Accademia in Venice.35 This phenomenon, mentioned earlier, might suggest an entire study by 32 Titian, Flora, c. 1515‒1517, oil on canvas, 79.7 × 63.5 cm, Uffizi Galleries, Florence. 33 I have also discussed Titian’s Flora as a portrait in my ‘Erotica’, pp. 179‒180. 34 Mellencamp, ‘The Costume of Flora’. 35 Bernardino Licinio, Ritratto di dama col balzo, c. 1530‒1540, oil on canvas, 47 × 45 cm, in the collection of the Gallerie dell’Accademia, Venice. The ‘balzo’ is a luxurious headdress that gathers the hair within its ample folds. Licinio’s attention to its gold decoration, above the blond hair whose dark roots are clearly visible, composes the main visual interest of the portrait.

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itself, since we have an abundance of evidence describing how Venetian women bleached their hair while basking in the sun on their altane (rooftop gardens), spreading their long locks on special visors and applying a compound whose recipe has come down to us.36 Cesare Vecellio attests to the widespread use of bleaching when he offhandedly states that all Venetian women have blond hair; here again is a fact that helps to explain the generic similarity in the appearance of Venetian belle donne.37 A range of examples characterised by diverse styles, artists, and dates can be cited to attest the popularity of the allegorised portrait of a woman as Flora, presumably commissioned at the time of her betrothal or wedding. I would suggest this reading for the unidentified portrait by Bartolomeo Veneto in the Städelsches Kunstinstitut, Frankfurt, an early example whose bridal imagery is prominent; Paris Bordone’s Flora in the Louvre; Palma Vecchio’s portrait in London’s National Gallery; and Domenico Tintoretto’s very individualised Flora in the Prado Museum, to cite several Venetian examples. I would extend the identification to the Leonardesque version usually attributed to Francesco Melzi in the Hermitage collection.38 The complexity encountered in interpreting the valence of the unclothed female figure is exacerbated when dealing with Flora imagery. The equation Flora/Courtesan has an authoritative source in Renaissance iconography. Giovanni Boccaccio propagated a version of the Flora legend in his Famous Women (De mulieribus claris), a compilation of stories recording the lives of exceptional females, written between 1361 and 1362. According to Boccaccio, an individual going by the name of Flora was a rich prostitute from the ancient world who left funds in her will establishing yearly games that became fantastically popular with the Romans. In order to camouflage the shameful source of the bequest, writes Boccaccio, a subterfuge was employed, identifying Flora with a nymph of the woods who was a minor deity of flowers and springtime, thus forging a link to the name with the disgrace of prostitution. Yet this is just one source – singular if important – a fourteenth-century text with a propensity toward the misogyny of its time, a discordant note in an otherwise festive mythological tradition. It cannot be assumed to have had hegemony over iconographic interpretations from one end of Italy to another, over a span of a few centuries. There were other, more influential, mainstream traditions in circulation attached to the figure of Flora, and privileged in the visual arts.

36 See, for example, Ray, Daughters of Alchemy, pp. 29‒30. 37 Vecellio, pp. 135 and 141, in Jones and Rosenthal, Clothing pp. 187 and 193. 38 Bordone’s painting is found on the Louvre’s site; all others are available for viewing on the Web Gallery of Art, www.wga.hu, under the name of the artist. A related painting by Melzi in the Galleria Borghese shows a bust-length Flora clothed, although with very transparent fabric, attesting to the clothed/unclothed options.

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The fundamental significance of Flora is her embodiment of springtime’s blossoming, with its prolific vegetation. Florence, or the archaic Fiorenza, the city whose name means flower, proudly engaged Flora’s iconography throughout the Renaissance. Locally produced art tended to honour her as a goddess of fertility, and consequently of marriage. Well known is Botticelli’s poetic morphing of the nymph Chloris into Flora, wed to Zephyr under the aegis of a resplendent Venus, in the Primavera. Less familiar is the fact that the semi-deity continued to be closely associated with the Medici throughout their rule, into the seventeenth century. In 1631, an opera entitled La Flora was performed at the wedding of Margherita de’ Medici to Duke Odoardo Farnese. Flora was frequently chosen by the Medici as a symbol for the celebrations of births and weddings, with a personification of the goddess honouring Duke Cosimo I and Eleanora di Toledo at their marriage feast in 1539.39 Even more significant for the present discussion is a portrait of Vittoria della Rovere de’ Medici, Grand Duchess of Tuscany, presented as Flora. Painted by Justus Sustermans c. 1637, this depiction of the Grand Duchess has been linked to the date of her wedding, with the imagery confirming the role of the new wife of Florence’s ruler in a double analogy, Vittoria/Flora, Flora/Florence.40 Vittoria is shown crowned with a wreath of flowers while holding a colourful bouquet of blossoms; her left breast is discreetly though clearly uncovered, and she is more highly idealised here than in her other numerous portraits, both straightforward and disguised. Employing a bright palette for the clothing and skin tones, Sustermans appears to be consciously referring to earlier Venetian conventions for this characterisation of his subject, following all of the established iconography, including the subtly unveiled breast. Thus, the honourable tradition of Flora as a symbol of wedded fecundity circulated in the most distinguished venues, and was arguably much more influential in the visual arts than the less honourable one found in Boccaccio. From all this we see that in the Renaissance, Flora was a polyvalent symbol. The eroticism of her representation, most evident in the Venetian tradition, could be connected to a legitimate sexuality leading to procreation in marriage, and thus would be an apt personage for a bride to enact. I believe the large number of ‘Flora portraits’ attests to their popularity as a vehicle for representing betrothed and newlywed women in the context of fertility, with a breast bared to signify the virtue of a wife’s fealty and devotion. The range of symbolic meanings associated with nudity allows us to reconsider a generally accepted identification of a painting by Paris Bordone in the Thyssen 39 See Harness, ‘“La Flora”’. 40 See the entry on Sustermans in Chiarini and Pizzorusso, Sustermans, pp. 39‒40.

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Bornemisza collection.41 In an influential exhibition of 1990, this young woman was claimed to be ‘without doubt’ a courtesan. Today she is catalogued by the museum more guardedly as Portrait of a Young Woman; the ‘amorous key’ of the scene is noted, but no further characterisation is given.42 I would argue that the abundance of readable symbols surrounding the figure points to an allegorical portrait of a bride as Flora. The young woman enchains base lasciviousness, as symbolised by the monkey on the leash she controls and flaunts for all to view; she has released the scattered springtime flowers from the domain of the lustful satyr carved in relief on the classicising vase, and catches a few in her right hand. The golden chain, held in her other hand to govern the subdued monkey, wraps around the young woman’s forearm, indicating its relation to a catena d’amore (chain of love), echoed by the two slender chains that encircle her ring finger. Bridal imagery is also present in the pristine white of the camicia framing her breast, and the gleaming hair fashioned so that some falls loosely to her shoulders, with the rest caught up in a braid, interlaced with golden beads, surmounted by a medallion placed like the diadem of a goddess. The young beauty stares away from the viewer, thoughtfully, leaving no possibility for brazen interaction. At times we can glean more information about how types and prototypes functioned by seeing how they were understood and employed by later artists, and the popularity of the Flora motif extended into the Early Modern period. When the adaptations are by artists of surpassing inventive capacity, reworkings become eloquent testimony to the import of their paradigm. Rembrandt paid tribute to his wife, Saskia, more than once by depicting her as Flora, confirming the widespread tradition of its context within marriage imagery.43 While Rembrandt produced touchingly immediate and non-literary treatments, the more sensuous, Italianate Flora continued to be a model for artists throughout the seventeenth century. Notably, Anthony van Dyck referred to the Venetian tradition in a portrait of Queen Henrietta Maria, wife of Charles I of England. Although the original is lost, we can discern the motif in a studio copy of excellent

41 Paris Bordone, Portrait of a Young Woman, c. 1543‒1550, oil on canvas, 103 × 83cm, Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid; the online catalogue is found at www.museothyssen.org. 42 Il Gioco dell’amore, p. 82, for Filippo Pedrocco, ‘Iconograpfia delle cortigiane di Venezia,’; he draws this conclusion despite acknowledging that nudity can mean many things. For the current description, see www.museothyssen.org. 43 Rembrandt, Saskia as Flora, 1634, oil on canvas, 125 × 101 cm, The Hermitage; see www.wga.hu. Also see his painting in the National Gallery, London, catalogued as Saskia van Uylenburgh in Arcadian Costume, 1635, oil on canvas, 123.5 × 97.5 cm, yet is described as ‘dressed as Flora, the Roman goddess of spring and fertility’ (see www.nationalgallery.org.uk). Rembrandt interpreted the subject once more around 1654, listed as perhaps based on the memory of Saskia, in the collection notes of the Metropolitan Museum, Flora, oil on canvas, 100 × 91.8 cm, www.metmuseum.org.

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quality in Munich.44 The uncovering of the Queen’s right breast is extremely subtle, a glancing evocation rather than a bold quotation of the motif. Yet the court artist has imagined the Queen in league with Flora; the compliment is evinced by the bunched flowers cradled in her lap, following the Venetian manner of posing Flora’s attribute. A number of paintings by Peter Lely, another continental European transplanted to the English court in the 1660s, attests to his astute borrowings from the seductive iconography of the Italian masters to flatter the belle donne of the Restoration court. 45 Lely’s variations on the Flora persona operate as an understated motif of femininity rather than an outspoken connection to the mythological source. In addition to the flowers, the one constant is the breast that is uncovered, or nearly so. We have his sitters’ high-ranking titles to prove their social status. They include Lady Elizabeth Strickland, Lady Penelope Spencer, and Henrietta Spencer, Countess of Rochester. Like their Venetian prototypes, it is impossible to differentiate the married women from mistresses, and in the case of court favorites, they may have been both. Lely’s most arresting version shows Diana Kirke, imposing in threequarter-length format, gazing knowingly at the viewer as she delicately holds a flower aloft in her left hand. 46 The uncovering of the figure’s breast, framed by a narrow rim of pristine camicia and softly lit in unison with the hand and flower emerging from the dark landscape background, manifests the eventual Countess’s participation in the Venetian tradition of beloved partners emulating Flora. Despite its buoyant survival into the British eighteenth century, the mythological reference and its respectable costume of nudity were eventually erased from cultural memory in England. An innovative study of textile art recounts that when the portrait of Diana Kirke was transformed into advertisement for an exhibition in which it was featured, the poster was ‘banned from display in the London Underground’.47 It is not made clear whether the censorship intended to shield the Countess from an environment deemed to be ill-suited, or endeavoured to limit the perceived danger skulking in the image of a partially undraped, allegorical female body on 44 Anthony van Dyck (copy after), Queen Henrietta Maria of England, 1636‒1637, oil on canvas, 119 × 98 cm, Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen, Staatsgalerie im Neuen Schloss Schleißheim, www.sammlung. pinakothek.de. 45 It is significant that a group of paintings by Lely, known as the ‘Windsor Beauties’, has also faced critical disparagement, treating the subjects as women of loose morals because of the sensual nature of their depictions. Recent scholarship has begun to address this issue in English Restoration paintings, problematising ‘assessments that conflate aesthetic and moral judgment’. See McCloud and Marciari Alexander, Painted Ladies, pp. 62‒71, for Marciari Alexander, ‘Beauties, Bawds, and Bravura: The Critical History of Restoration Women’. 46 Diana Kirke, later Countess of Oxford, c. 1665‒1670, oil on canvas, 135.3 × 108.6 cm, Yale Center for British Art. See the entry positing its combined imagery of Flora and Venus in McCloud and Marciari-Alexander, Painted Ladies, pp. 100‒101. 47 Millar and Kettle, Erotic Cloth, pp. xvii-xviii.

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display in an enclosed space. Moralising judgements about portraits of women, therefore, continue to have their effect. For hundreds of years the convention of posing women as Flora functioned as a compliment, a distinction for a betrothed or newlywed young women, which gave poetic license for the display of virtuous partial nudity. Since a courtesan lived her sexuality illicitly rather than within the sanctioned bonds of marriage, Flora’s legitimising ‘cover’ as an allegorical figure of fertility was not applicable. Rather than uncovering herself in a formal portrait whose interpretation would be open to question, the courtesan could make a positive point about her exclusive status and wealth only by appearing fully clothed in all her finery.48 Since neither the social class nor morality of high-born wives would be called into question, this group could indulge in ‘honourable’ uncovering while impersonating Flora, whose multifaceted connections to fecundity and marriage confer a flattering and symbolically apt meaning to the representation. It is crucial to emphasise that revealing a woman’s breast is most often a signifier of ‘femaleness’ in the Renaissance and Early Modern visual traditions. It was one part of a larger symbolic system, which might further characterise the woman as chaste, libidinous, heroic, saintly or nurturing, among the many possibilities. Here we are in the terrain of imagery that employs the body symbolically, without our current reflex fear of ‘obscenity’, which we unthinkingly transpose to representations of nudity in every era. In historical art the body is made to speak an articulate language, to which we must carefully listen; it might loudly proclaim decency in conceptual spaces where our eyes see only indecent bodies. The many images of sensuous wives and women who celebrated their sexuality by donning a costume of chaste nudity eloquently ask us to reconsider our reception of their representations.

Works Cited Ajmar, Marta, and Dora Thornton, ‘When is a Portrait Not a Portrait? Belle Donne on Maiolica and the Renaissance Praise of Local Beauties’, in The Image of the Individual, ed. by Nicholas Mann and Luke Syson (London: British Museum Press, 1998), pp. 138‒153. Bonifacio, Giovanni, L’arte de’ Cenni (Vicenza: Francesco Grossi, 1616). 48 It is interesting to note that a portrait formerly widely thought to be of the famous courtesan Veronica Franco, attributed to Jacopo Tintoretto, shows her fully and elaborately clothed, with conspicuous jewels. In the collection of the Worcester Art Museum, it now bears the title Portrait of a Lady, with an attribution to a Follower of Tintoretto, undated, oil on canvas, lined, 61.5 × 47.2 cm. The catalogue entry stipulates, with reference to an inscription on which the earlier identification was based, ‘On the relining canvas is faintly written in capitals V.FRANCO’ although ‘there seems no good reason to give credit to the inscription on the back of the Worcester picture, which may be fairly old but is clearly not very old.’ See European Paintings in the Collection of the Worcester Art Museum, pp. 480‒481, for the entry by Martin Davies.

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Chiarini, Marco, and Claudio Pizzorusso, Sustermans: Sessant’anni alla corte de’ Medici (Florence: Centro Di, 1983). Cropper, Elizabeth, ‘On Beautiful Women, Parmigianino, Petrarchismo, and the Vernacular Style’, The Art Bulletin, 58 (1976), pp. 374‒394. Dal Pozzolo, Enrico Maria, Colori d’amore. Parole, gesti e carezze nella pittura veneziana del Cinquecento (Treviso: Edizioni Canova, 2008). Dal Pozzolo, Enrico Maria (ed.), Labirinti del cuore. Giorgione e le stagioni del sentimento tra Venezia e Roma (Naples: Prismi, 2017). Eisler, Colin, ‘The Athlete of Virtue: The Iconography of Asceticism’, in De artibus opuscula XL: Essays in Honor of Erwin Panofsky, ed. by Millard Meiss, (New York: New York University, 1961), pp. 82‒97. European Paintings in the Collection of the Worcester Art Museum, 2 vols. (Worcester, MA: Worcester Art Museum, 1974). Gentili, Augusto, ‘Amore e amorose persone: tra miti ovidiani, allegorie musicali, celebrazioni matrimoniali’, in Tiziano. Amor sacro e amor profano, exh. cat., Rome, Palazzo delle Esposizioni (Milan: Electa, 1995), pp. 82‒105. Habert, Jean, Véronèse: Une dame vénitienne dite la Belle Nani (Paris: Musée du Louvre, 1996). Harness, Kelley, ‘“La Flora” and the End of Female Rule in Tuscany’, Journal of the American Musicological Society, 51 (1998), pp. 437‒476. Il Gioco dell’amore: Le cortigiane di Venezia dal Trecento al Settecento, exh. cat., Venice, Casinò Municipale di Venezia (Milan: Berenice Art Books, 1990). Jones, Ann Rosalind, ‘Labor and Lace: The Crafts of Giacomo Franco’s Habiti delle donne venetiane’, I Tatti Studies in the Italian Renaissance, 17 (2014), pp. 399‒425. Jones, Ann Rosalind, and Margaret F. Rosenthal (eds.), The Clothing of the Renaissance World, (facsimile edition of Cesare Vecellio, Habiti Antichi et Moderni), transl. and with essays (London: Thames and Hudson, 2008). Lawner, Lynne, Lives of the Courtesans: Portraits of the Renaissance (Milan: Rizzoli, 1986). McCloud, Catherine, and Julia Marciari Alexander, Painted Ladies: Women at the Court of Charles II (London: National Portrait Gallery, 2001). Mellencamp, Emma H., ‘A Note on the Costume of Titian’s Flora’, The Art Bulletin, 51 (1969), pp. 174‒177. Millar, Lesley, and Alice Kettle (eds.), The Erotic Cloth: Seduction and Fetishism in Textiles (London: Bloomsbury, 2018). Mores Italiae, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, MS 457, Yale University. Digital version: https://collections.library.yale.edu/catalog/2003570. Paulicelli, Eugenia, Writing Fashion in Early Modern Italy (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2014). Ray, Meredith K., Daughters of Alchemy: Women and Scientific Culture in Early Modern Italy (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2015).

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Ridolfi, Carlo, The Life of Tintoretto, and of his Children, Domenico and Marietta, transl. by Catherine Enggass and Robert Enggass (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1984). Rippa Bonati, Maurizio, and Valeria Finucci (eds.), Mores Italiae: costumi e scene di vita del Rinascimento, with English translation (Cittadella, Padua: Biblos, 2007). Ruiz Gómez, Leticia (ed.), A Tale of Two Women Painters: Sofonisba Anguissola and Lavinia Fontana (Madrid: Museo Nacional del Prado, 2019). Simons, Patricia, ‘Women in Frames: The Gaze, the Eye, the Profile in Renaissance Portraiture’, in The Expanding Discourse, ed. by Norma Broude and Mary D. Garrard (New York: Harper Collins: 1992), pp. 39‒57. Steele, Brian D., ‘In the Flower of their Youth: “Portraits” of Venetian Beauties ca. 1500’, Sixteenth Century Journal, 28 (1997), pp. 481‒502. Talvacchia, Bette, ‘Bronzino’s Corpus between Ancient Models and Modern Masters’, in Agnolo Bronzino: Medici Court Artist in Context, ed. by Andrea M. Gáldy (Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2013), pp. 51‒66. Talvacchia, Bette, ‘Erotica: The Sexualized Body in Renaissance Art’, in A Cultural History of Sexuality in the Renaissance, ed. by Bette Talvacchia (Berg: Oxford, 2011), pp. 175‒201. Thornton, Dora, and Timothy Wilson, Italian Renaissance Ceramics: A Catalogue of the British Museum Collection (London: British Museum Press, 2009).

About the Author Bette Talvacchia is Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor Emerita, The University of Connecticut. She holds a Ph.D. in Art History from Stanford University. Her scholarship focuses on the art of the Italian Renaissance and issues of sexuality and gender. Her most recent book, The Two Michelangelos, explores the relationships in the art of Michelangelo Buonarroti and Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio.

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6. Lust in Translation: Agency, Sexuality, and Gender Configuration in Pauwels Franck’s Allegories of Love Ricardo De Mambro Santos

Abstract Usually referred to as Allegories of Love, the four paintings at the Kunsthistorisches Museum of Vienna created by Pauwels Franck (1540‒1596), aka Paolo Fiammingo, present scenes of almost choreographic sexual encounters and love-related narratives. The visual strategies adopted by the artist in these moralising stories, along with their interconnected iconographies, appear in line with the debate on sexuality and gender expectations promoted in sixteenth-century Venice, reflecting ideals conveyed by contemporary treatises on love. Powerful in their representations, these images endorse the trope of Honest Lust, which stresses the temporary legitimacy of depicting potentially indecent images for morally instructive purposes, thus allowing the beholder to visualise – and virtually experience – forms of (mis)behaviour pertaining to the taboo-filled domains of sexuality and social normativity. Keywords: art and obscenity; allegories of love; gender construction; Northern Renaissance art; Renaissance sexuality

Formerly attributed to Agostino Carracci (1557‒1602), a series of four oil paintings representing scenes of vivid, almost choreographic sexual encounters at the Kunsthistorisches Museum of Vienna (figs. 6.1‒6.4) – usually referred to as Allegories of Love – is now consensually assigned to Pauwels Franck, also known as Paolo Fiammingo (1540‒1596).1 While a few significant studies have been dedicated to 1 The most relevant scholarly contributions to the study of this series remain to this day: Kurz, ‘Gli Amori de’ Carracci’; Puttfarken, ‘Mutual Love and Golden Age’. In regard to the attribution of the paintings to Paolo Fiammingo see, in particular, Mason Rinaldi, ‘Appunti per Paolo Fiammingo’; Mason Rinaldi, ‘Paolo

Jonietz, F., M. Richter, A.G. Stewart (eds.), Indecent Bodies in Early Modern Visual Culture. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2023 doi 10.5117/9789463725835_ch06

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explore the visual metaphors depicted in this series, along with the scrutiny of its literary sources, little (to no) attempt (at all) has been made so far to examine the connections between these paintings and the social context of sixteenth-century Venice, in association with ideas and ideals conveyed by contemporary treatises of love.2 In fact, both primary and secondary sources consecrated to this series have consistently built up their discourses without investigating in detail, aside from providing formal and iconographic considerations, the most blatant feature of these works: their pervasive, nearly sonorous eroticism. This silence has operated what could be called a ‘hermeneutic neutralisation’ of the social as well as ideological implications of these works on canvas. Previous studies have dated this group of paintings around 1584‒1589.3 The intricate narrative of their provenance has been reconstructed by Otto Kurz in a seminal article published in 1951, which represents the first scholarly oriented study ever dedicated to the series. By the time Kurz was writing, however, ‘[t]he artist’s name was forgotten’ and the canvases were ‘listed as works of the Venetian School, c. 1600’. 4 From a critical standpoint, Kurz’s procedure paradigmatically exemplifies the ‘hermeneutic neutralisation’ mentioned above: while acknowledging Fiammingo’; Meijer, ‘Paolo Fiammingo tra indigeni e “forestieri” a Venezia’. Puttfarken acknowledges the fact that the Vienna paintings were no longer accepted as Carracci’s works and recalls, in a footnote, that the attribution to Paolo Fiammingo was sustained in DeGrazia Dohlin, Prints and Related Drawings by the Carracci Family, without, however, mentioning the contributions by Mason Rinaldi. See Puttfarken, ‘Mutual Love’, p. 203, n. 7. 2 Many treatises devoted to the topic of love were published in Venice in the Cinquecento. On this particular field of art literature see: Pozzi, Trattati d’amore del ‘500; Bayer (ed.), Art and Love in Renaissance Italy; Moulton, Love in Print in the Sixteenth Century. 3 In line with his attribution to Agostino Carracci, Kurz sustains that these works are ‘[c]losely related in spirit as well as in style’ to the Scherzi lascivi, ‘which were dated by Bodmer between 1584 and c. 1587’, in Kurz, ‘Gli Amori’, p. 232. Mason Rinaldi at first dated the series between 1585 and 1589 (Mason Rinaldi, ‘Appunti’, p. 99) and, in a later essay, clarif ied that the paintings were produced around 1585 (Mason Rinaldi, ‘Paolo Fiammingo’, pp. 68‒70). From a methodological perspective, the study of the chronology is essential to examine the reception of these images in their particular context of production, that is, sixteenth-century Venice. Pauwels Franck is documented at the Serenissima in those years, working for many local art patrons, while maintaining a very consistent relationship with Hans Fugger, for whom he prepared a large number of works for the decoration of Kirchheim Castle, near Augsburg. While the Vienna paintings are not recorded among the documented commissions by Fugger, one should not underestimate, however, that there is a relevant gap – from 1586 to 1592 – in the epistolary between Hans Fugger and his representatives in Venice, namely, David Otto and his sons, Hieronymus and Christophe. This lacuna had been already remarked by Mason Rinaldi (‘Paolo Fiammingo’, p. 50, note 12). For further information on this matter, see Lill, Hans Fugger (1531‒1598) und die Kunst. Given the regularity with which Fugger has commissioned works for Kirchheim, it would not come as a surprise if, thanks to future archive-based research, new evidences should emerge regarding the Vienna paintings in connection to this location. See the points raised in Roeck, ‘Venice and Germany’. 4 Kurz, ‘Gli Amori’, p. 223.

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the sexual contents of the images and examining them in connection to their literary and iconographic sources, the scholar does not make any attempt to interpret the symbolic discourses on sexuality, gender distinction, and agency conveyed by these works on the basis of the actual historical context in which they were produced. Such a recurrent ‘hermeneutic neutralisation’ emerges, even more programmatically, in the studies conducted by Stefania Mason Rinaldi, focusing exclusively on stylistic questions, attributive matters and chronological issues. Particularly revealing of Mason Rinaldi’s method is an article published in 1978, in which she underlines ‘the taste of inserting the mythological or allegorical theme in the pleasantness of nature, an inclination toward the voluptuous and the idyllic, which materialises in the softness disposition of the various passages, made out of trees, rocks and hills, through planes of muted lights thanks to which is attained a fusion between figures and space’.5 The taxonomic language of this sentence is eloquent: no mention is made of the massive presence of naked bodies in sexual positions displayed in the scenes. Trees, rocks, and hills are all listed – on account of their ‘softness disposition’ – while a veil of silence falls on the image, operating an implicit censorship of its visual narrative.6 This essay intends to investigate the social functions and the moral implications carried out by Pauwels Franck’s paintings, in light of the ethical, pedagogical, and behavioural parameters promoted by sixteenth-century treatises published in Venice, focusing, in particular, on the dynamics of a gender-based concept of agency set in relation to what could be called the paradigm of ‘Onesta Lussuria’ – or Honest Lust – discussed in those texts. From a morphological standpoint, three major components strike immediately the eyes of the viewer: the naked bodies of men and women represented in various positions; the presence of putti strategically spread across the painting, holding different objects; and, finally, the variable, yet interconnected, settings. Undoubtedly, the most prominent element of the series is the rich, well-calculated dispositio of nudes displaying a kaleidoscope of sexual positions that, depending on the horizon of expectations of sixteenth-century audiences, could be perceived as erotic, obscene, or ‘dishonest’.7 5 ‘Si accorge già il gusto di inserire il tema mitologico o allegorico nella piacevolezza della natura, un’inclinazione al voluttuoso e all’idillico che si attua nella mollezza della disposizione dei diversi passaggi, fatti di alberi rocce e monti, attraverso piani a luci smorzate, tali da ottenere una fusione tra soggetto e ambiente’, in Mason Rinaldi, ‘Paolo Fiammingo’, p. 53. 6 Interestingly, Mason Rinaldi employs the term mollezza, or ‘softness’, which appears frequently in sixteenth-century art treatises, such as Giorgio Vasari’s Lives and Lodovico Dolce’s Aretino, in strict reference, however, to the depiction of anatomies. In the scholar’s sentence, the category clearly refers, on the contrary, to the description of the setting. The critical sublimation of any sexual contents of the painting is, once again, at work. 7 For insightful remarks on this lexical and conceptual debate, see Kieran, ‘On Obscenity’. For a thought-provoking collection of essays on this topic, see Maes and Levinson (eds.), Art and Pornography.

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Figure 6.1: Pauwels Franck, Allegories of Love (Love), oil on canvas, c. 1585, 159 × 257.5 cm, Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum.

The first scene (fig. 6.1) presents two monumental couples in the foreground, caught in an alluring moment of intimacy, enhanced by the intensity of their gazes and the unprejudiced naturalness of their gestures, outlining the central role played by Sight and Touch in this episode.8 Rhythmically split in two sides, these couples create a frame of visual compression that invites the eyes of the viewer to penetrate the scene, allowing the beholder to observe other pairs in the middle ground, namely, two swans in the water,9 a man, and a woman sensually reclined on a blue blanket and two putti fighting for a palm leaf. The background displays, almost in transparence, a group of naked figures dancing in a circle, while two musicians, wearing classical clothes, play a lute and a viola da braccio.10 In the vanishing left For narratives more directly related to Renaissance discursive practices, see Talvacchia (ed.), A Cultural History of Sexuality in the Renaissance, and also Randolph, ‘Gendering the Period Eye’. I am grateful to Mandy Richter for suggesting me this article. 8 One may as well include a third sense in this description – i.e., Smell – due to the evocative presence of flowers held by the couple in the right portion of the painting. On the relevance of gestural semiotics in Renaissance images, see Harvey (ed.), Sensible Flesh: On Touch in Early Modern Culture. 9 It is worth recalling the mythographic association between swans and Venus diffused in sixteenthcentury Europe. For example, Cartari reminds that white swans draw the chariot of the goddess. See Cartari, Images of the Gods of the Ancients, p. 390. 10 The compositional orchestration of this scene in the middle ground suggestively echoes the iconography of Apollo and the Muses, further stressing the atmosphere of perfect harmony that permeates the setting and the figures’ actions.

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side of the canvas, two other couples – once again rigorously heterosexual – are represented in intimate positions. Overall, the composition presents a very balanced distribution of figures, with a calculated distinction between areas in shadow (in the foreground) and brighter zones (in the middle- and background), which creates a space where prevails symmetry, harmony and a nearly cosmic sense of correspondences. Later engraved by Agostino Carracci and accompanied by verses in Italian,11 the composition has been called by Malvasia, in 1678, ‘The Golden Age’, and described as a scene ‘in which men and women lie down together’.12 Bartsch, on the other hand, paraphrasing the first verse of the inscription, entitled the work ‘Reciprocate Love’.13 For these sources, the scene offers a depiction of love in the Golden Age, when reciprocity and tempered sexual dispositions set the foundations for an undisturbed harmony among lovers, under the aegis of a balance symbolically expressed by the fight of Eros and Anteros, represented in the middle ground of the painting.14 As Kurz and Puttfarken have pointed out, the main mythographic source for this metaphor can be found in Vincenzo Cartari (c. 1531‒post 1569).15 The sixteenth-century author recalls, in fact, that Greek populations had erected an image ‘of a Cupid holding a palm branch in his hand’ and another ‘of Anteros trying to snatch the palm away from Cupid’16 to emphasise the mutual dynamics that should characterise the realms of love.17 What both Kurz and Puttfarken 11 The verses recite: ‘Del reciproco Amor, che nasce e viene / Da pia cagion di virtuoso affetto / Nasce a l’alme sincere almo diletto / Che reca a l’huom letitia e’l trahe di pene’ [Reciprocate love is born and originated from pious reasons of virtuous care, giving birth to the utmost pleasure of sincere souls, which gives men solace and subtract them from pain ‒ transl. of the author]. 12 ‘ove huomini, e donne nude trescano insieme’ (Kurz, ‘Gli Amori’, p. 224). See also Puttfarken, ‘Mutual Love’, p. 203. 13 Kurz, ‘Gli Amori’, p. 224. 14 For the theme of Eros and Anteros, see Merrill, ‘Eros and Anteros’; Halperin, ‘Plato and Erotic Reciprocity’. For a rich collection of essays on this topic, see Beecher and Ciavolella (eds.), Eros and Anteros: The Medical Tradition of Love in the Renaissance. On the Neoplatonic concept of Love as reciprocity, or a ‘voluntary death’, see Devereux, ‘The Object of Love in Ficino’s Philosophy’. 15 Cartari’s name is mainly associated with the publication, in Venice in 1556, of Le imagini con la spositione de i dei de gli antichi, which became throughout the sixteenth century a highly influential repertoire of mythological narratives. Puttfarken points out that ‘Eros and Anteros signifying mutual love – reciproco amore – had been described accurately and in detail by Cartari’ (Puttfarken, ‘Mutual Love’, p. 204). 16 Cartari, Images, p. 386. 17 ‘This means that someone responding to love must not love even a tiny bit less than the one who first loved, and that’s why Anteros tries to wrest the palm from Love’s hand’, Cartari, Images, p. 386. The dialectical opposition between Eros and Anteros is developed by Cartari in different passages of his book. In another paragraph, for instance, he asserts that “[t]the ancients did not revere Anteros because he stopped people from loving each other, but because he punishes the person who refuses to return the love he has received from someone else’ (Cartari, Images, p. 384). Reciprocity is the key concept in

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neglected to underline, however, is the fact that such a narrative implies a very specific kind of ‘tempered’ love and provides compelling visual codes in support of a particular ideological claim: the normative form of sexual interaction that is presented as ‘balanced’ – and socially acceptable – is a heterosexual union focused on reproductive goals. The hypothesis that this scene represents acts devoted to procreation is suggested by the two putti displayed in the foreground: to the left, a winged child plays a harp and, to the right, a child holds ‘a kind of puppet mounted on a stick and consisting of a female head, hooded and with a plait dangling in front of it’ to quote Kurz’s words.18 The scholar links the presence of these children to Petrus Apianus’ Inscriptiones and, thanks to a reference to Horace, he interprets the putto to the left as a visual metaphor evoking the power of Jocus.19 In addition to these two sources, however, there is a third relevant connection that neither Kurz, nor Puttfarken have indicated. In the chapters of Cartari’s Images dedicated to Venus, there is an illustration in which the goddess stands next to two winged putti that strikingly resemble the children depicted by Franck. Their association with Venus – as the divinity who rules the sphere of love and, consequently, also the kingdoms of sexuality – is clearly explained by the accompanying text, in which the images are interpreted as a metaphor of the force of procreation.20 Alluding to the symbolic values of Jocus and Musica, play and harmony, the two children provide a visual commentary on the potentially problematic territory of sexual performances, suggesting that the playfulness of sensual pleasures must be neutralised in its potential lust by means of an adequate control through order, grace, and decorum, encompassed by the mathematical regularity of music. Tempered the definition of love as a perfect, symbiotic, constant give-and-take relationship: ‘Thus Anteros was a divinity who punished anyone who did not return the love he received; he did not cause anyone to hate anyone else. We can therefore define him specifically as mutual love’ (Cartari, Images, p. 385). 18 Kurz, ‘Gli Amori’, p. 224. It is important to point out that both figures, represented close to the edges of the canvas, had their dimensions altered when the laterals of the painting were partly cut. 19 Kurz, ‘Gli Amori’, p. 225. The name-personification Jocus could be translated in English as Play or Game, which entails a ludic aspect attached to its symbolic value. Cartari explains the metaphorical connotations of Jocus in a paragraph devoted to the description of Laughter-Loving Venus: ‘When Horace sings about Venus, he makes her happy and laughing, and he says that Play [i.e., Jocus], who signifies a jest containing many happy and pleasant witticisms (he was also made in human shape by the ancients), goes flying around her along with Cupid’ (Cartari, Images, p. 413). 20 ‘Immagini di Venere, di Cupido e del giuoco, & del Capro, quali significano la generatione, & l’imagine della testudine hieroglifico che dinota il pericolo delle donne maritate, è parturienti & qual deve essere il loro ufficio nella cura familiare 7 alevar figliuoli, & il silentio esser necessario alle donne sopra ogni virtù’ [Images of Venus, of Cupid, Play, and the Goat, all of which symbolise generation. And the image of the tortoise, a hieroglyphic that refers to the danger that married women experience in giving birth, and a reminder that their real responsibility is to take care of their families and bring up children. And that Silence, more than any other quality, is essential for women] in Cartari, Images, p. 416.

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by an Arcadian atmosphere, the discourse on sexuality is thus channeled toward the life-preserving goals of procreation, which eradicates any earthly desires from the sphere of egotistic sensuality. In this process of sublimation of the senses, the figures are appropriately represented as classicising types more than distinguishable individuals. Moreover, the children in the foreground significantly extend the dichotomy embodied by Eros and Anteros. These metaphorical putti evoke also the Platonic theory of the two Venuses – Celestial and Earthly21 – diffused in the sixteenth century largely thanks to the work of mythographic authors such as Cartari, who recalls in fact that, according to Plato, ‘[t]there is the celestial Venus, whose child is the celestial Cupid, and that divine Love that elevates the human mind to the contemplation of God…This Love is totally pure, spotless, and completely genuine’.22 On the opposite spectrum, there is an impure love, which ‘is the vice of an insane mind when it abandons its proper function, and what was once a kindly flame now starts burning up the soul’.23 By means of a highly classicising depiction of the bodies every ‘indecency’ – or allusion to sexual acts – is filtered through the cultural lens of mythological images and philosophical assumptions. The visual narrative created by Pauwels Franck suggests the sublimation of individual pleasure into a socially accepted collective behaviour associated with procreation. Therefore, more than depicting the ‘erotic freedom’ or the ‘sexual freedom’ of the Golden Age, as Kurz has argued,24 this painting should be interpreted as a well-composed ideological construct that imposes, de facto, very specific limits to such a ‘liberty’ of the senses, presenting an image that leaves no room for any kind of ‘deviation’ from well-accepted canons, practices, and values. In other words, the painting sets a clear model of normativity, in which heterosexual couples are shown in the preliminary stages of a procreation-oriented act of copulation, which should occur, in accordance with a sixteenth-century mentality, within the boundaries of marriage.25 Ironically, lust has been banished from the first scene just to reemerge, more powerfully, in the second panel (fig. 6.2). Strangely misinterpreted by Kurz as the 21 For insightful remarks on the Renaissance uses of Platonism, see Moulton, Love in Print, pp. 27‒60. 22 Cartari, Images, p. 382. 23 Cartari, Images, p. 384. In these sentences, the author adopts rather revealing words: while Love is ‘totally pure’ and ‘spotless’, Lust appears as its fallen dark reverse for having lost track of ‘its proper function’. The religious-sounding language used by Cartari can hardly be overstated: involving carnal and sensual exchanges, the only redeeming quality of Love stands on its procreative, reproductive function. Aiming at the perpetuation of one’s own species in a super-individual chain of continuity, the otherwise ‘earthly’ sphere of sexuality is transformed into an act of collective duty. 24 Kurz, ‘Gli Amori’, p. 227. This opinion is supported also in Puttfarken, ‘Mutual Love’, p. 204. 25 On the importance of marriage in sixteenth-century sex-related discourses and the problematic ideal of chastity, see See, ‘Learning Virginity’.

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Figure 6.2: Pauwels Franck, Allegories of Love (Lust), oil on canvas, c. 1585, 158.7 × 257.3 cm, Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum.

depiction of ‘appropriate love’ (amor conveniente),26 this composition has been read by Puttfarken as the beginning of the Silver Age.27 While the first image had offered a ‘pastoral’ view of the Golden Age, the second one provides what the scholar calls a ‘critical’ reassessment of the progress of Humankind during the Silver Age. Puttfarken neglects to mention, however, an important point regarding the power dynamics exhibited in this painting: the fact, that is, that the male bodies are undeniably overpowering the female nudes and act in accordance with variable models of behaviour, ranging from what appears to be a scene of consensual intimacy (the couple to the left side) to one of potential physical violence (the couple to the right). Not only the bodies are programmatically distinguished on the basis of their genders, but they are also associated with a clear-cut scale of agency (men) and passivity (women).28 No wonder if the putti depicted in the previous composition have been substituted by a couple of children mimicking a sexual position that brings to mind one of the

26 Kurz, ‘Gli Amori’, p. 228. Rather unexpectedly, in his (mis)interpretation of this composition, Kurz stresses the resemblance between the scene by Franck and the verses of Tasso in praise of ‘dolci arti lascivi’, thus considering the second panel a mere amplification of the first scene. 27 Puttfarken, ‘Mutual Love’, p. 204. 28 The distinction between agency and passivity often emerges in gender-centred debates. For critical remarks on this topic, see Scott, ‘Gender: A Useful Category of Historical Analysis’.

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Figure 6.3: Pauwels Franck, Allegories of Love (Oblivion), oil on canvas, c. 1585, 169 × 260 cm, Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum.

most antagonised sex-taboos of the time: sodomy.29 Rather emphatically, the pose of these children comments on the dynamics of agency and passivity embodied by the couples in the foreground, whose actions are significantly framed by very palpable and bright pieces of fabric. The (mythologically justif ied) sensuality of the first painting gives space, in the second one, to an unbridled effusion of (potentially indecent) sexuality. Consequently, the Arcadian harmony that used to inform the first panel shifts into a frantic choreography of unrestrained passion, visualised, for instance, at the upper right background where the relationship appears to be consummated and sexual intercourse takes place. In this fallen idyll, lust overpowers love.30 The third painting (fig. 6.3) represents – somehow unexpectedly – a break within the narrative chain thus far followed by the artist, introducing a slightly different compositional arrangement, based on a gender divide: for the first time the foreground displays only female bodies. The male figures are pushed toward the back of the pictorial space and appear almost dematerialised in their reduced, transparent forms. Kurz has correctly associated this episode with Cartari’s paragraphs devoted

29 On this subject, see Cantarella, Bisexuality in the Ancient World, especially pp. 17‒53. 30 As Cartari argues: ‘Love is nothing but foolish desire as long as the mind concentrates exclusively on lust’, Cartari, Images, p. 395.

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to Amore Letheo, or Lethean Love.31 But how does this painting fit in the general sequence of this series? To better understand its connections with the previous compositions, it might be useful to summarise the main points established up to this moment. If one were to choose adequate titles for these paintings, the first one could be called Love, for it provides a tangible representation of this concept according to its recurrent sixteenth-century definition as a mutual, reciprocal feeling, frequently described in contemporary love treatises.32 On the opposite, the second panel could be entitled Lust, since every aspect of the harmonic atmosphere that used to characterise the precedent painting has been brushed away and substituted by a frantic animation of bodies in sexual pursuits that are not necessarily rooted on the territories of consensual agreement. The mutual empathy that pervaded the first scene has been transformed into a violent expression of male power and agency. The third canvas represents a break within the narrative previously unfolded, for the artist adopts a programmatic gender-based organisation of the space, creating a composition in which the female bodies become the undisputed protagonists. Somewhat paradoxically, agency is now held by the – otherwise passive – female bodies: more than a group of women, the scene showcases the epitome of an ideologically constructed paradigm of Womanhood, directly rooted on classical prototypes, which prevent the image from being accused of indecency,33 even if a female figure – that clearly recalls the Spinario-type – is depicted while exposing her intimate parts. The distribution of the bodies in the foreground of this panel suggests an almost cinematic motion. Behind the Spinario-resembling figure, seated next to the centre of the composition, four women move toward the middle ground of the scene, assuming a stunning variety of positions. In the opposite direction, a large female body is represented while climbing a small hill, almost as though she were about to move away from the pictorial space. Strategically located in the geometric centre of the foreground, Cupid is depicted in the act of extinguishing a torch34: the fire of love 31 ‘The ancients even had a Love that made people cease to love; they called it Lethean Love, because it managed to blot all good will for others out of the mind…the Greeks…just washed themselves in the river Selene…causing all the men and women to forget every love they wanted to forget’, Cartari, Images, p. 387. 32 See, for instance, Trattati d’amore, pp. 8‒9. 33 For a most insightful study on the construction of the normative canons of ‘womanhood’ and ‘femininity’, see Nead, The Female Nude. 34 This action brings to mind another paragraph by Cartari: ‘The image of Love has also been provided with a burning torch, to show how we pursue beloved objects with burning affection, taking continual pleasure from them (our reference is only to divine objects). But let’s think about Love’s torch as one that brings nothing but light, and shines as something joyful and delightful to see, not something that burns and singes, because that becomes evil and irritating. This latter kind of torch would be more suitable

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is drowned in the waters of the Lethe – the river of forgetfulness35 – significantly in proximity to the group of women and far removed from the men in the background. This painting could be entitled Oblivion, since it metaphorically evokes the loss of reciprocity in love, caused by the immersion in the river of concealment, emphatically stressing, from a visual as well as conceptual perspective, the prominent role played by women in this process. Agency is thus reversed: women’s actions are implicitly presented as the main cause of the terrifying conclusion of this narrative, represented in the fourth panel of the series. Given the carefully planned arrangement of the figures within the allegorical setting of the third scene, it is more than plausible to infer that the action of cleansing oneself performed by the f igures must be read as the consequence of the lustful intercourses illustrated in the previous episode.36 Due also to the discourse on procreation introduced in the very f irst painting, through the subtle, yet incisive, insertion of the putti with the attributes of Jocus and the harp, one must bear in mind this important element in order to determine the symbolic narrative of the entire series. If, in the depiction of Love, sex was strictly associated with a pleasure justified for its procreative goals, the representation of Lust displayed, on the contrary, forms of behaviour that no longer follow the marriage-oriented prescriptions of decorum.37 The representation of Oblivion offers, in turn, a misogynistic explanation of the transformation of love into lust. for the love of earthly objects, which never provide complete pleasure or delight; such objects are never possessed without torment’, Cartari, Images, p. 383. 35 See Cartari, Images, p. 387. 36 These lustful intercourses are often described in sixteenth-century love treatises as manifestations of ‘amore bestiale’, in opposition to ‘amore divino’ and ‘amore umano’: a kind of feeling and behaviour in which the senses, excited by the presence or the sight of alluring bodies, forget to focus on higher spiritual matters and shows an ‘excessive appetite for corporeal things dissociated from honesty and held without reason’, as Giuseppe Betussi claimed in the pages of his treatise Il Raverta. Betussi is very emphatic in the distinction of these three forms of love, lust and appetite: ‘Ed essendo in noi tre qualità d’amore, cioè amore bestiale, umano e divino, il bestiale si deve intendere: quello affetto eccessivo delle cose corporee disgiunte dalla onestà e rette senza ragione’ in Pozzi (ed.), Trattati d’amore, pp. 18‒19. Betussi was a humanist who lived in Venice and was member, since 1542, of the Accademia degli Infiammati in Padua. For further remarks on his life and intellectual pursuits, see Pozzi (ed.), Trattati d’amore, pp. xxi–xxiv. 37 The stark contrast between love and lust are summarised in a dialogue called Specchio d’amore, published in 1547 by Bartolomeo Gottifreddi, an author who was well-acquainted with a group of illustrious writers and artists in Venice, including Pietro Aretino, Francesco Sansovino and Giuseppe Betussi. See Pozzi (ed.), Trattati d’amore, pp. xxxi–xxxiii; pp. 249‒302. In these pages, the author distinguishes, for instance, between playful lust affairs and serious marital commitments, arguing that ‘D’altro sapore è il giogo maritale, d’altro è il nodo amoroso’ [of one flavour is the matrimonial yoke, of another is the amorous knot], in Trattati d’amore, p. 290. He, then, proceeds providing a brief list of the functions and implications of getting married: ‘Pigliasi moglie per avere f igliuoli, fare parentadi, mantener le case, conservar la robba, accrescer le facultà ed altri simili cagioni’ [One gets married to have children, to make

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Figure 6.4: Pauwels Franck, Allegories of Love (Punishment), oil on canvas, c. 1585, 160 × 260 cm, Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum.

By depicting large-scale female bodies in proximity of Cupid, extinguishing his love torch, the image literally stages the central part played by women in this process. Such a visual construction suggests, in fact, a conceptual parallel that carries many significant ideological consequences: in their larger-than-life poses, women appear prominently associated with the causes of the extinction of love, which, in turn, implies that women – compared to the nearly invisible men depicted in the background – are more inclined to forget their matrimonial vows of mutual love and reciprocity, as though they had washed their promises along with their ideal bodies in the waters of the Lethe. The gender-based organisation of the pictorial space emphasises, therefore, women’s agency, stressing their positions in the corrupting transformation of ‘honest’ love into ‘dishonest’ lust.38 Women’s (mis)behaviour has opened the gates to moral indecency.39 The tangible misogyny conveyed by this series reaches its climax in the final panel of the story (fig. 6.4), in which the female body is presented in a way that relatives, to keep households, to preserve possessions, to increase faculties and other similar reasons’], in Pozzi (ed.), Trattati d’amore, p. 291. 38 The monumentality of these figures is not just a tribute to a voyeuristic sixteenth-century male gaze, but carries also complex consequences in perpetuating a misogynistic discourse in relation to gender expectations in sixteenth-century Europe, in general, and in Cinquecento Venice, in particular. 39 Misogynists’ arguments are consistently presented in Renaissance love treatises. See the excellent study by McLean, The Renaissance Notion of Woman.

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might have certainly crossed the lines of decorum for certain audiences. Kurz has offered a rather questionable interpretation of the scene, claiming that the work ‘has tragic passion for its subject’. 40 Nevertheless, the scholar has provided also a most accurate description of the episode: ‘The God of Love rides on his chariot like a triumphator brandishing a flaming sword in his right hand, the scales of Justice in his left. Under the threat of the weapon that drove Adam and Eve from Eden, a couple of unfortunate lovers have to pull the chariot, to which they are harnessed by golden chains. To the left one woman is fleeing in horror, another has stabbed herself, the dagger is still in her right hand. At the foot of a precipice the body of a young man lies prostrate, while another hurls himself to certain death’. 41

The mention of Adam and Eve sounds particularly insightful in this paragraph, since the painting clearly capitalises on the iconography of the Expulsion from Paradise in order to highlight the humiliation inflicted to the couple by a ferocious-looking Cupid. From a compositional standpoint, this panel presents many differences compared to the previous ones. Without exploring, for instance, the aerial perspective of vast landscapes, the artist adopts a more severe compartmentalisation of the pictorial plan in two halves, rigidly marked by the presence of a massive tree in its centre. While the right side reinterprets the Petrarchan theme of Triumphs with an unexpected twist, since the characters are receiving punishments instead of rewards for their actions, the other side of the painting looks like a fragment of a Last Judgment, with the distorted depiction of faces, gestures and bodies effectively expressing the penances that these men and women are being subjected to, transitioning from shame to death. Once again, Franck adopts an almost cinematographic unfolding of the action, echoing poses in a way that creates a net of optical correspondences among the various elements within the painting. The large woman in the foreground, for instance, who brings to mind the frantic pose of Daphne escaping from Apollo, follows the diagonal axis that characterises the postures of the couple tied to the chariot as well as Cupid’s pose. Such a visual reiteration powerfully enhances the dynamism of the scene, inviting the viewer to read the composition from right to left, thus moving from Love (wearing the symbolic physiognomy of a revengeful god) to the punishments of Lust (whose tangibility is further increased by the tactile physicality of the figures displayed in this portion of the painting).

40 Kurz, ‘Gli Amori’, p. 229. 41 Kurz, ‘Gli Amori’, p. 229.

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Kurz has perceptively argued that, in the pages of Cartari, ‘we find an explanation for the two young men under the precipice’, 42 referring to the episode of Miletus and Timagoras, in which the two lovers, incapable of finding reciprocity in their feelings, decided to take their lives: Melitus ‘threw himself down from a cliff’s peak’ and Timagoras, seeing the consequences of his actions, ‘rushed to throw himself down from the peak from which Melitus had f irst leaped to his death’. 43 This source adds an interesting element to the narrative of Lust (and its punishment) for it describes a case of same-sex unmatched love within a series that embraces a definition of love – and, accordingly, prescribes its socially justified forms of sexual performances – as a heterosexual union exclusively devoted to procreation. Reciprocity – the very core of love according to the definitions circulating in Cinquecento Venice – seems to be inevitably excluded from any homoerotic relationship, on the basis of the moralised, moralising and moralistic assumptions braced by these paintings. The normative agenda of the series gradually emerges with programmatic transparency. The female body plays, once again, a central role in the fourth panel, coming out as the leading vessel of sex-related misconducts. It is true that both man and woman appear enchained to the chariot. However, it is undeniable the structural – and, implicitly, the discursive – prominence of the female body within this painting: for instance, the suicidal woman lying on a blanket with a blade in hand and what appears to be a bleeding wound in her side (fig. 6.5) has been subjected to a process of physical scrutiny and voyeuristic invasiveness that resembles a moralised version of a dissection. The ‘fallen’ femininity is exposed with cruel perspicuity and nailing evidence, showcasing the female genitalia in a most palpable way. Compositionally, this figure appears in the darkest area of the painting, her body depicted at the very end of the diagonal axis that ties the entire composition together, creating a strong visual cohesion from the wings of Cupid to the abandoned arms of her seemingly lifeless body. It is not an accident if, in order to represent this particular body, Pauwels Franck has chosen to borrow a model from Jacopo Caraglio’s well-known 1527 engraving depicting Jupiter and Antiope44 (f ig. 6.6), slightly altering the contrapposto between the raised arms and the open legs of the f igure to better accommodate her anticlassical pose in the narrow space of the painting reserved for it. Signif icantly, a very similar pose had been adopted also in one of the illustrations created by Étienne de la Rivière for Charles Estienne’s treatise on 42 Kurz, ‘Gli Amori’, p. 229. 43 For an account of this episode see Cartari, Images, pp. 384‒385. 44 On this engraving see Talvacchia, Taking Positions, especially pp. 125‒160 and Turner, ‘Caraglio’s “Loves of the Gods”’.

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Figure 6.5: Pauwels Franck, Allegories of Love (Punishment), detail of the suicidal woman, Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum.

Figure 6.6: Jacopo Caraglio after Perino del Vaga, Jupiter and Antiope, engraving, 1527, 211 × 135 mm, Budapest, Szépművészeti Múzeum, inv. 6749.

anatomy (fig. 6.7) – De dissection partium corporis humani libri tres, published in Paris in 154545 – in which the author offered a pedagogically instructive image of the female genitalia, providing a visually exposing representation of the vagina and the uterus for didactic purposes. As a final note regarding this iconographic motif, it is worth mentioning the fact that this pose will have a long-lasting impact on the history of images, reemerging in erotic photographs circulating in nineteenth-century Europe. 46 The use of this pose in erotic-didactic paintings, pedagogical-anatomical illustrations and even in Modern pornographic images reveals the variable facets of its reception. In the case of Pauwels Franck’s panel, such a frontal depiction of the nude, unapologetically showing the genitalia in a most exposing way, contrasts with 45 Rifkin et al. (eds.), Human Anatomy, pp. 82‒93. 46 For an example, see https://monovisions.com/lesbian-women-nudes-1880s-vintage-19th-xix-century/ (last accessed 24 May 2022).

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Figure 6.7: Jean Jollat after Étienne de la Rivière, Dissection of Female Genitalia, engraving, from Charles Estienne, De dissectione partium corporis humani libri tres (Paris: Simon de Colines, 1545), New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, acc. no. 42.138.

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the artist’s programmatic and, sometimes, nearly acrobatic efforts to avoid any depictions of the male genitals in the entire series. In fact, the only time in which a penis is represented in the Vienna paintings is in the falling body in the left side of the final scene: a detail that is barely visible due to the extremely reduced size of the figure. By means of a classicising, idealised and, yet, very palpable depiction of the bodies, the compositions created by Franck stimulate the imagination of sixteenth-century spectators, inciting them to undertake a process of appreciation in which voyeuristic pleasures and social expectations surrounding sexual encounters and gender distinctions appear profoundly intertwined, thanks especially to the mediating power of gaze: a point amply discussed by sixteenth-century love treatises. 47 In such a context of aesthetic sublimation of taboos, the making of images that could temporarily disregard the canons of decency is justified by the moralistic urge to acknowledge, classify, and illustrate as vividly as possible modes of (mis)behaviour rendered, however, through the controlling lens of mythological fables. The goal of such a visual as well as ideological manipulation is as clear as it is calculated: by presenting images of explosive sensuality as explicitly construed narratives with a sharp moral message, underlined by the dramatic epilogue of the story, the artist offers a set of examples to be followed a contrario, showing arousing forms of interaction that were not supposed to be praised or repeated, but recognised as inappropriate and, consequently, abolished as morally condemnable practices. The images elaborated by Franck – in line with the mentality of Cinquecento Venice – display, in their interconnected parables of Love, Lust, Oblivion, and Punishment, the dynamics of a gender-based concept of agency set in relation to what could be called the paradigm of ‘Honest Lust’: a literary trope of moralisation adopted by sixteenth-century love treatises, which allows the paradoxical representation of what should be, in fact, forbidden. 48 As Leo the Hebrew explained in his Dialogues of Love, for instance, by exposing one’s eyes to the ‘shadowy sensuality’ (tenebrosa 47 On the sixteenth-century leitmotiv of the power of the eyes, Betussi uses the well-known Platonic interpretive key of the distinction/interaction between ideal and corporeal to assert in his treatise Il Raverta: ‘si come gli occhi visibili solamente figurano le bellezze fragili corporali, così gli occhi della mente meglio veggono le bellezze dell’anima intellettuale’ [as the visible eyes depict only fragile corporeal beauties, the eyes of the mind can better see the beauties of the intellectual soul], in Pozzi (ed.), Trattati d’amore, p. 45. The reciprocal eroticism of seeing and being seen had been remarked by Plato in many of his dialogues and, as David Halperin comments, ‘in order to see ourselves truly, we have to see ourselves seeing’ (Halperin, ‘Plato and Erotic Reciprocity’). To stress the social dynamics of looking and being seeing, on the basis of an often gender-centred biopower, Bette Talvacchia has coined the expression ‘erotics of viewing’ (Talvacchia, Taking Positions, pp. 154‒155). For futher remarks on the sixteenth-century reception of erotic images, see also Talvacchia, ‘Il mercato dell’eros’. 48 On the pedagogical function of using negative examples as ‘cautionary tales’ see Frantz, ‘“Leud Priapians” and Renaissance Pornography’ and also Zarri, ‘Eyes and Heart, Eros and Agape’.

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sensualità) of images powerfully exhibiting the ‘pleasure of the senses’ (sensual delettazione), one can learn how to ascend from lust to honesty and fuse these contrasting concepts through a ‘happy copulation’ ( felice copulazione), according to a model of transcendental sublimation that not only transforms vices into virtues, but also guarantees that ‘mutual love is always preserved and keeps growing continuously’.49 Programmatically exposed in their allegorical constructedness, the representations ‘en(gender)ed’ by Pauwels Franck endorse the momentary legitimacy of depicting sensual, provocative – but never gratuitously indecent – bodies on account of their didactic, moralistic aims and symbolic values. Examined from this perspective, the gestural semiotics, the emphatic body language exhibited in the Vienna paintings provide a compelling visual translation of culturally conditioned experiences of sexuality based on a gender-constructed notion of agency and role expectations. By capturing the viewer’s attention and, at the same time, unapologetically arousing the spectator’s sensual ‘appetites’ – to use a recurrent sixteenth-century expression – the painter reinstates the incendiary visuality of his works as a necessary, if somewhat paradoxical, prerequisite to effectively give shape to otherwise unapproachable, or blatantly forbidden, discourses on sexuality, gender, and agency. In other words, see what one does, but don’t do what one sees.

Works Cited Bayer, Andrea (ed.), Art and Love in Renaissance Italy, exh. cat., New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art (New Haven, London: Yale University Press, 2008). Beecher, Donald A., and Massimo Ciavolella (eds.), Eros and Anteros: The Medical Tradition of Love in the Renaissance (Ottawa: Dovehouse Editions, 1992). Cantarella, Eva, Bisexuality in the Ancient World (New Haven, London: Yale University Press, 1992). Cartari, Vincenzo, Images of the Gods of the Ancients: The First Italian Mythography, transl. by John Mulryan (Arizona: ACMRS, 2012). DeGrazia Dohlin, Diane, Prints and Related Drawings by the Carracci Family: A Catalogue Raisonné (Washington, DC: National Gallery of Art, 1979). Devereux, James A., ‘The Object of Love in Ficino’s Philosophy’, Journal of the History of Ideas, 30 (1969), pp. 161‒170. Ebreo, Leone, Dialoghi d’amore, ed. by Delfina Giovannozzi (Rome, Bari: Editori Laterza, 2008). Frantz, David, ‘“Leud Priapians” and Renaissance Pornography’, Studies in English Literature, 12 (1972), pp. 157‒172. 49 Leone Ebreo, Dialoghi d’amore, pp. 25‒27.

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Halperin, David M., ‘Plato and Erotic Reciprocity’, Classical Antiquity, 5 (1986), pp. 60‒80. Harvey, Elizabeth D. (ed.), Sensible Flesh: On Touch in Early Modern Culture (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2003). Kieran, Matthew, ‘On Obscenity: The Thrill and Repulsion of the Morally Prohibited’, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 64 (2002), pp. 31‒55. Kurz, Otto, ‘“Gli Amori de’ Carracci”: Four Forgotten Paintings by Agostino Carracci’, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 14 (1951), pp. 221‒233. Lill, Philip George, Hans Fugger (1531‒1598) und die Kunst (Leipzig: Duncker & Humblot, 1908). Maes, Hans, and Jerrold Levinson (eds.), Art and Pornography: Philosophical Essays (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012). Mason Rinaldi, Stefania, ‘Appunti per Paolo Fiammingo’, Arte Veneta, 19 (1965), pp. 95‒107. Mason Rinaldi, Stefania, ‘Paolo Fiammingo’, Saggi e Memorie di storia dell’arte, 11 (1978), pp. 45‒80. McLean, Ian, The Renaissance Notion of Woman (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980). Meijer, Bert W., ‘Paolo Fiammingo tra indigeni e “forestieri” a Venezia’, Prospettiva, 32 (1983), pp. 20‒32. Merrill, Robert V., ‘Eros and Anteros’, Speculum, 19 (1944), pp. 265‒284. Moulton, Ian Frederick, Love in Print in the Sixteenth Century: The Popularization of Romance (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2014). Pozzi, Mario (ed.), Trattati d’amore del ‘500 (Rome, Bari: Gius. Laterza & Figli, 1975). Nead, Lynda, The Female Nude: Art, Obscenity and Sexuality (London, New York: Routledge, 1992). Puttfarken, Thomas, ‘Mutual Love and Golden Age: Matisse and ‘gli Amori de’ Carracci’’, The Burlington Magazine, 124 (1982), pp. 203‒208. Randolph, Adrian William Bourke, ‘Gendering the Period Eye: Deschi da Parto and Renaissance Visual Culture’, Art History, 27 (2004), pp. 538‒562. Rifkin, Benjamin et al. (eds.), Human Anatomy: A Visual History from the Renaissance to the Digital Age (New York: Abrams, 2006). Roeck, Bernard, ‘Venice and Germany: Commercial Contacts and Intellectual Inspirations’, in Renaissance Venice and the North: Crosscurrents in the Time of Bellini, Dürer, and Titian, ed. by Bernard Aikema and Beverly Louise Brown (New York: Rizzoli, 1999), pp. 45‒59. Scott, Joan W., ‘Gender: A Useful Category of Historical Analysis’, The American Historical Review, 5 (1986), pp. 1053‒1075. See, Alan W., ‘Learning Virginity: Erasmus’ Ideal of Christian Marriage’, Bibliothèque d’Humanisme et Renaissance, 3 (1995), pp. 551‒567. Talvacchia, Bette (ed.). A Cultural History of Sexuality in the Renaissance (London: Bloomsbury, 2011). Talvacchia, Bette, ‘Il mercato dell’eros’, in Monaca, moglie, serva, cortigiana: vita e immagine delle donne tra Rinascimento e Controriforma, ed. by Sara F. Matthews-Grieco (Florence: Morgana Edizioni, 2001), pp. 193‒245.

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Talvacchia, Bette, Taking Positions: On the Erotic in Renaissance Culture (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1999). Turner, James, ‘Caraglio’s “Loves of the Gods”’, Print Quarterly, 24 (2007), pp. 359‒380. Zarri, Gabriella, ‘Eyes and Heart, Eros and Agape’, Historical Reflections, 41 (2015), pp. 53‒69.

About the Author Ricardo De Mambro Santos is Professor of Art History and Cinema Studies at Willamette University (Salem, Oregon), where he teaches mainly courses on Renaissance art, theory and criticism. He has curated various exhibitions of Northern and Italian Renaissance art both in Europe as well as in the United States.

7.

‘So This Guy Walks into a Forest…:’ Obscenity, Humour, Sex, and the Equine Body in Hans Baldung’s Horses in a Forest Woodcuts (1534) Pia F. Cuneo Abstract Baldung’s enigmatic woodcuts depicting horses in a forest (signed and dated 1534) have mostly been interpreted as sardonic yet serious commentaries on the making and limits of art, and as a scathing if general critique of human sexuality, in which the horses play a mostly symbolic role. This essay, by contrast, considers the familiar physicality of equine bodies as a key augmentation of obscene humour wittily engaged by the prints in their function to critique historically specific sexual practices and gender roles. Keywords: Hans Baldung; 1534 woodcuts; Early Modern hippology; Early Modern sexuality, Early Modern humour; Renaissance horses

Taken together as a series, the three woodcut prints by Hans Baldung (c. 1484‒1545), dated 1534 and depicting horses in a forest, have been nearly universally interpreted as a condemnation of unbridled human sexuality and the violence and chaos that follow in its wake.1 That interpretation is surely, if partially, correct. The viewer 1 Most art historians assume the three woodcuts function as a series; Koerner, Self-Portraiture, pp. 426‒437. I believe they can also function independently, especially what is most frequently designated as the third sheet. Examples of the prints’ interpretations regarding sexuality in general include Koerner, Self-Portraiture; Brinkmann, Hexenlust, pp. 182‒191; and Söll-Tauchert, Hans Baldung Grien, pp. 234‒253. The latter engages with a very careful and appropriately critical review of the literature on the prints. Another important strand of interpretation, outside the focus of the current essay, deals with the series as an engagement with classical and contemporary notions of art-making. Important and recent examples of this scholarship are Peinelt, ‘Verschwendeter Samen’, pp. 157‒174 and Pf isterer, Kunst-Geburten, pp. 137‒140.

Jonietz, F., M. Richter, A.G. Stewart (eds.), Indecent Bodies in Early Modern Visual Culture. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2023 doi 10.5117/9789463725835_ch07

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of the prints is forced to bear uncomfortable witness to the stallion’s powerful and shockingly explicit sexual arousal (fig. 7.1), to the explosion of male orgasm robbed of procreative potential (fig. 7.2), and to the subsequent frenetic brutality that results (fig. 7.3). Sexuality is depicted here as literally bestial, uncontrollable, and dangerous. How might sixteenth-century viewers have responded to these unusual and unsettling images? More precisely, and to address specifically the issues explored in this volume, would the spectrum of their response have included finding the images indecent? My essay proposes that Baldung’s prints would have been understood as obscene, and that they also would have provoked laughter.2 I suggest that Baldung used obscene humour as a particularly effective strategy to critique not just human sexuality in general but normative sexual expressions and practices as formulated in his own day. In addition to the concept and exercise of obscene humour in sexual imagery, Baldung’s prints add a further facet to the consideration of indecent bodies in this volume. In his woodcuts, the bodies in question belong to horses. Rather than assuming that Baldung merely settled for equine bodies as an acceptable substitute for the human form, this essay posits that Baldung affirmatively chose horses to convey his obscenely humorous response to sexual norms. Concerned with sexualised imagery in the print medium circulating north of the Alps, my essay dialogues particularly with those by Alison Stewart and Miriam Hall Kirch in this volume. Our essays also share an interrogation of the prints’ possible audiences. Exactly who belonged to the audience of Baldung’s Horses in a Forest prints must remain a matter of informed speculation. My working assumption is that the prints were meant to be viewed individually or to be discussed by a few, drawn primarily – like Baldung and his family – from well-educated and culturally sophisticated individuals belonging to the upper tiers of social, economic and political groups.3 These would include people with whom Baldung and his family would have had social and professional connections, and those who would have been potentially familiar with those humanist ideas about obscenity, humour, and sexuality discussed in my essay. Nonetheless, as citizens of urban centres like Strasbourg, and as Christians, these participants in elite culture would have also been familiar with more wide-spread experiences and kinds of humour accessible to general audiences and that also served to shape discourses of sexual normativity, such as the public celebration of carnival and the communal reception of religious proselytising in sermons. Furthermore, 2 Brinkmann, Hexenlust, p. 35 and Söll-Tauchert, Hans Baldung Grien, p. 245. 3 My assumption aligns with what Brinkmann hypothesises about the audience and function for other works by Baldung, p. 36.

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belonging to groups for which display of wealth and erudition was expected, these individuals would likely have had physical contact with fine horses who functioned as requisite status symbols. For the above reasons, I assume that the audience was primarily male.

Baldung’s Prints and Obscenity Although the exact equivalent of the word ‘obscene’ is not used in the early modern German language, it does appear (obscoenus) in early modern Latin texts. In his treatise on Christian marriage (Institutio christiani matrimonii, 1526) Erasmus of Rotterdam (1466‒1536) devotes several pages to answer the question ‘What is obscene?’4 According to Erasmus, ‘obscenity is to name directly things that, for decency’s sake, should be described more guardedly.’ Erasmus locates obscenity in the realm of language, in the unmitigated naming of parts of the body, especially but not exclusively male and female genitalia, and also of bodily processes, especially but not confined to the sexual. For Erasmus, the problem with obscene language was that it tended to corrupt morals and lead to the exercise of vice. Citing Aristotle, Erasmus notes, ‘A foul mouth will not shrink from foul deeds.’5 But what Erasmus viewed as an even greater threat to morality and Christian virtue than bad language were dirty pictures. Noting that an image ‘is more graphic by far than words and generally makes a deeper impression on the mind’6 he maintains: Just as dirty talk has no place in the family circle, neither have licentious pictures. A silent painting can be very eloquent and work its way stealthily into people’s consciousness. It seems that there is no limit to the filth that modern painters and sculptors will depict and yet some people decorate their living rooms with this charming stuff…If modesty requires that we conceal our own bodies, why are they stripped bare in pictures? If there are actual sights that you think will endanger the morals of your sons and daughters, why allow them constantly to be placed before their eyes?7

Erasmus points out that offensive images are those that depict those body parts usually concealed, and that the power of images includes moral turpitude and sexual 4 5 6 7

Erasmus, ‘Institution’, pp. 427‒428. Erasmus, ‘Institution’, p. 427. Erasmus, ‘Institution’, p. 428. Erasmus, ‘Institution’, p. 384.

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arousal of the viewer. His description of some people’s living rooms decorated with ‘this charming stuff’ confirms that this kind of imagery was in fact purchased and openly appreciated. Like Erasmus, the Strasbourg cathedral preacher Geiler von Kaysersberg (1445‒1510) was also concerned about the effects of seeing sex. In 1501 and again in 1505 he warned against the corrupting influence of viewing sexually explicit imagery. For the same reason, he also urged his audiences not to watch, listen to, and/or touch animals while they mate.8 According to Geiler, seeing the faces of the animals as they prepare to copulate leads the person to think about what that intercourse must be like, and thinking leads to the desire and the will to do likewise. Geiler’s warnings underline the intimate familiarity that potentially characterised relationships between animals and humans that may well have included Baldung, his audiences and horses. In the first two woodcuts in Baldung’s 1534 series (figs. 7.1, 7.2), we can see the congruity between what is represented in the images and what the artist’s contemporaries defined as obscene. In foregrounding with such unabashed clarity the mare’s vulva and the stallion’s erection and ejaculation, Baldung clearly depicts body parts and bodily processes in a visual language that Erasmus would have condemned as ‘name[ing] directly things that, for decency’s sake, should be described more guardedly.’9 The fact that animal, not human genitalia are depicted makes little difference to the obscene and morally corruptive nature of the images as we know from Geiler. Viewers of the print are confronted by the face of an animal as he prepares to mate, just as Geiler warned might happen in observing the behaviour of real animals. Baldung’s visual highlighting of sexual organs, their movements, and the sensations they provoke may well have caused viewers of the prints, just like Geiler’s observers, to wonder what that feels like, and then to be led from wonder into action. Baldung’s images would probably have been understood by most contemporaneous viewers as obscene and by some as morally corruptive. Even the third sheet in the 1534 series (fig. 7.3) could be interpreted similarly if we use Rüdiger Krohn’s more general definition of obscenity as anything contrary to the moral code.10 In the depiction of the horses brutally attacking one another, the offending behaviour would not be sex, based on the sin of lust, but violence, based on another equally grievous sin, anger.

8 Voltmer, Wächter, p. 728 and n. 1642, 1643. 9 Erasmus, ‘Institution’, p. 427. 10 Krohn, Der unanständige Bürger, p. 6.

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Figure 7.1: Hans Baldung, Horses in a Forest: Stallion Approaching a Mare, woodcut, 1534, 227 × 335 mm, New York, The Metropolitan Museum, acc. no. 22.67.58, Rogers Fund, 1922.

Figure 7.2: Hans Baldung, Horses in a Forest: Stallion Ejaculating, woodcut, 1534, 228.6 × 333.4 mm, Los Angeles, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles County Fund (60.4)

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Figure 7.3: Hans Baldung, Horses in a Forest: Horses Fighting, woodcut, 1534, 218 × 326 mm, New York, The Metropolitan Museum, acc. no. 33.54.2, Harris Brisbane Dick Fund, 1933.

Baldung’s Prints and Humour But obscenity in sixteenth-century Germany was not only condemned as morally reprehensible. Some people clearly thought it could also be rather funny. Baldung’s prints may well have been informed by obscene humour at home in both popular and elite cultures. Obscene humour was regularly on public display at least once a year during the raucous celebration of carnival (Fastnacht). Evidently carnival was celebrated in Strasbourg with such verve and enthusiasm that Geiler frequently (but ineffectively) castigated its excessive revelry and warned about the dangers such activities posed to the moral fiber of the city. Carnival, Geiler thundered from his cathedral pulpit, was personally invented by the devil himself.11 Opportunities for people of all social groups to participate in carnival were plentiful. Many dressed up in costumes and paraded down the streets. Some carried gigantic phalluses, others pretended to do suggestive things with one another. Horses were also present during carnival, ridden in procession and in festival tournaments. Some people disguised themselves as horses, and other animals deemed to be particularly licentious. A church edict from Regensburg

11 For carnival in Strassburg, and Geiler’s response, see Voltmer, Wächter, pp. 518‒526.

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in fact specifically prohibits the participation in mass of anyone dressed like a horse.12 In addition to processions and tournaments, plays regularly featuring sexual encounters were publicly performed in the streets and in taverns. Equine metaphors and references play a colourful role in the animation of obscene humour in these plays. For example, in one play, a woman describes to the audience how she begged her husband in bed to sexually satisfy her, but ultimately had to admit defeat: ‘I just could never make him ready to go so that he would want to climb on top of his mount and learn to ride.’13 As in the plays, equestrian metaphors are also operative in the various collections of jokes, ditties, and anecdotes known as Schwänke in German, many of which provided obscenely humorous commentary on sexual interaction. For example, in a songbook published around 1510 in Cologne, a man and his would-be sexual partner argue about their encounter. When the man faults the tournament equipment (i.e. his female partner’s genitalia) for his failures at the ‘joust’, she remarks that it is actually his own equipment (too small, short, and fragile) that is not up to the task.14 But obscene humour was not only the stuff of bawdy performances and suggestive songs. Humanists themselves contributed to this genre. Of particular interest to the interpretation of Baldung’s prints is the collection of jokes and anecdotes assembled by the humanist Heinrich Bebel (1472/3‒1518). A friend of Erasmus, Bebel taught poetry and rhetoric at the University of Tübingen and was well connected with humanists active in the southwest German area, including Strasbourg.15 In the third volume of his Facetien, Bebel informs his readers that here he will include anecdotes that could be regarded as obscene (as lascivious in particular: ‘videbunter…lasciviam’).16 True to his word, stories follow in which certain body parts are regularly exposed and various objects find their way into women’s vaginas. These are essentially the same kind of narratives found in the songs, plays, and texts produced in the vernacular for more popular consumption. But Bebel offers these colourful and earthy stories in polished and elegant Latin. The contrast between the rather base level of the content and the elevated level of the language must have contributed to the humour through a delightful exercise of incongruity.17 12 These activities are described in Simon, ‘Carnival Obscenities’, pp. 193‒213. The church edict dates c. 1460. 13 Both cited in Krohn, Der unanständige Bürger, pp. 178, 226. 14 Wolf, ‘Spiel und Norm’, pp. 485‒486. 15 For Bebel and the literary context of his collection see Kipf, Cluoge Geschichten, pp. 224‒294. 16 Heidemann, ‘Grob und Teutsch’, pp. 419‒420. 17 Castiglione recognises the role of incongruity in humour: The Book of the Courtier, pp. 155‒156.

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Bebel frames these stories by noting that only some people will find them offensive. Well-educated and experienced readers, he says, will have no problem with such material because the stories Bebel recounts are the same ones that he has heard being told at the dinner-tables of highly respected people.18 Bebel makes the reception of obscenity dependent on the level of education; in particular, the higher the degree of education, the funnier and less offensive obscene humour becomes. Equally significant, Bebel’s remarks reveal not only that social elites appreciated such ribald jokes and anecdotes, but that telling them to each other and laughing together about them constituted a significant mechanism of sociability. Like the scenario described by Bebel of a private gathering around the dinner table, at which people recounted and laughed together at naughty jokes, songs, and anecdotes, Baldung’s images, printed on easily held sheets of paper (c. 23 × 44 cm), may have been perused by a small circle of friends, passed from one person to another, to be discussed and laughed over. The culturally and socially sophisticated people described by Bebel are precisely the kinds of the university-educated and socially elite men with whom Baldung socialised and who likely constituted the audiences of his work, including the 1534 prints. Such viewers would not be offended by the obscenity on display in Baldung’s forest but may have found it amusing. In collectively savoring this piquancy, they reinforced the social and cultural ties that bound them together. For example, viewers might have found the artist’s detailed rendering of the stallion’s penis (figs. 7.1, 7.2) engaging. Baldung depicts it with keen attention both to its specific anatomical details as well as to its vigorously active movements. Foregrounding the stallion in the composition, the animal’s powerful sexual urge is literally and visually unavoidable, demanding attention and response. The viewers may have well responded with laughter, as they did when seeing some of the carnival plays and hearing some of the Schwänke in which urgent lust provides the driving force for the ensuing comical events. In addition, seeing certain parts of the body exposed was not only obscene, according to Erasmus, it was also considered enormously funny, as demonstrated by the plays and Schwänke, and as stated outright by Laurent Joubert in his later Treatise on Laughter (1579): ‘If one happens to reveal the shameful parts, which by nature or public decency we are accustomed to keep hidden, in as much as this is ugly yet unworthy of pity, it incites the onlookers to laughter.’19 The other figures included in the sheets might also have been regarded as comical. The voyeur depicted in the background of the first sheet peers pruriently and conspiratorially from behind his tree (fig. 7.1). Like a peeping tom, he lurks on the 18 Heidemann, ‘Grob und Teutsch’, pp. 420‒421. 19 Joubert, cited in De Rocher, Rabelais’s Laughter, p. 22.

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margins, watching perhaps with guilty pleasure the forces of nature at work which would remain discreetly hidden away in the depths of the forest if not for the fact that Baldung thrusts them in the viewers’ faces. The viewers of the prints may have been amused by seeing their own activities of looking and appreciating modelled and mirrored by the voyeuristic spectator in the background. Even the diminutive monkey who paws awkwardly at the tablet upon which Baldung names himself is oddly funny. Crouched below the stallion’s robust erection, the creature is obviously incongruent in a German forest and thus risibly conspicuous in his function as an ironic symbol of the artist. The grazing mare in the first sheet is like many of the clueless victims described in the plays and Schwänke. She has no inkling of what is happening behind her, aware neither of the stallion and his muscular lust, or of the viewers whose line of sight takes in her fortuitously exposed genitals. Some of the other horses are rather doltishly oblivious, scratching their bodies against tree-trunks or with their teeth, while others react with histrionic expressions and ridiculously exaggerated movements. These horses, so completely and nakedly consumed by their creaturely drives – to mate, to eat, to dominate, to flee, to scratch all of their various itches – would have amused an audience on several levels. Derisive and mocking laughter would serve to objectify and reject such forms of animal and/or human behaviour. Similar to the laughter of urban residents and elites provoked by plays and stories about coarse and doltish peasants during carnival, this kind of humour experienced by the viewers of Baldung’s prints served to draw boundaries: between the viewers on the one hand, and the animals and their human counterparts on the other; and around the viewers as an internally cohesive group.20 And yet, that boundary of laughter may ultimately have proved disturbingly unstable. As in the carnival plays, the viewers of Baldung’s prints are also implicated as potential participants. Actors in the plays would often address the spectators by speaking directly to them. Baldung draws his viewers in visually by placing them directly in the horses’ space and by making their confrontation with animal sexuality utterly inescapable. Referencing Erasmus’s and Geiler’s warnings about the effects of sexually explicit images, and the latter’s injunction against watching animals mate, part of the viewers’ laughter may have come from an uneasy and embarrassed recognition of their own feelings aroused by the prints. Despite one kind of laughter that reassured them of their difference from the depicted animals, the stirrings of their own sensations told a different and less comfortable story. The viewers may have been forced to admit to themselves, and perhaps to a group of intimates, that they shared more with the animals, especially the stallion, than they might 20 For a model analysis of the intersection between art and humour in Northern Renaissance Europe, see Gibson, Pieter Bruegel.

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have liked. Alternatively, some viewers may have laughed in self-congratulatory triumph, professing pride in an affinity with the stallion as a powerful model of their own robust masculinity and sexual prowess.

Baldung’s Prints and Sex But the stallion’s adventures in the prints do not end well for him. The mare resists his advances and the stallion is forced to ejaculate onto the ground (fig. 7.2). Fury ensues (fig. 7.3). If the activities of the horses in Baldung’s prints are transposed into the human world, they would appear to address specifically the nature of sexual arousal, roles and behaviours of men and women during sexual intercourse, and even the physical trajectory of the ejaculate. All were issues discussed in sixteenth-century sermons and treatises on marriage. Because there was a lot individually and collectively at stake in getting sex ‘right’, marital sex in the Medieval and Early Modern periods was a very serious subject. Catholic as well as Reformed texts and sermons identify sexual lust as an incontrovertible sign of humankind’s postlapsarian sinful nature. Therefore it was the church’s role to carefully circumscribe sexual activity but not only for the sake of a person’s own soul. The sin of sexual promiscuity was regarded especially by Reformers as a stain not only on the individual but also on the entire community.21 Reformers carefully articulated codes of sexual practice within marriage, its sole appropriate setting, as sanctioned guidelines for the individual expression of sexuality consistent with the larger community’s parameters of piety. The Reformers rejected the Roman church’s definition of marriage as a sacrament, and therewith ended strictly ecclesiastical control over marital issues, including those involving sexuality. To deal with such matters they created a secular institution, the marriage tribunal. The fact that establishment of a marriage tribunal in Strasbourg occurred in the same year as the prohibition of the Catholic mass (1529) indicates just how crucial a role that sexual discipline played in the institutionalisation of the Reformation and the expression of Reformed identities.22 Like some of the marriage treatises and sermons, Baldung’s first sheet deals with the topic of sexual arousal (fig. 7.1). In depicting not only the stallion but also males of other species – the monkey, the voyeur, and the stag – this print seems specifically to address male sexuality. The stallion registers the mare’s hormonal 21 See for example Roper, Oedipus, pp. 79‒103. 22 Wiesner-Hanks, Christianity and Sexuality, pp. 61‒68. For a case study of nearby Basel, see Burghartz, Zeiten der Reinheit, pp. 11‒23, 286‒293. For the establishment of the marriage tribunal in Strasbourg, see Derksen, Radicals, p. 59.

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state of readiness for conception through her scent. In depicting the stallion with his head stretched up, mouth open and upper lip curled, Baldung accurately represents him displaying a flehmen response, a kind of extra-keen smelling activity typical for example of stallions reacting to female horses in heat.23 What the stallion registers through smell triggers his vigorous erection. In the marriage treatises, sexual arousal is understood as the by-product of lust. For Catholics and Reformers alike, the institution of marriage provided the only legitimate outlet for the active expression of human sexuality. By each partner agreeing to provide an outlet to one another’s sexual urges, lust could be effectively channeled and confined.24 Nonetheless, couples were admonished to keep their lovemaking as restrained and chaste as possible. Such efforts would include refraining from various activities and positions that enflamed desire. Albertus Magnus (1200‒1280) uses equestrian metaphors to describe the dynamic between lust as the uncontrolled horse and the virtue of temperance as the force that bridles and restrains it. Albertus notes that because horses were known to be such lustful creatures, they functioned as an especially effective symbol for human sexual passion.25 Although Luther and his followers rejected much of canon law, they nonetheless retained significant portions of the Roman church’s teachings on Christian marriage and marital sex. More frankly than most, Luther acknowledged the fierceness of physical passions aroused during sexual intercourse that brought men and women, married or not, down to the levels of animals.26 And yet, through the miracle of His mercy, God, according to Luther, did not hold this sin against husband and wife. When they were engaged in sexual intercourse, the All-seeing God simply averted His gaze from their coupling.27 But Baldung does everything in his power to ensure that the viewers do not avert their gaze from his prints. All that bestial passion that so troubled theologians and pastors is on full display here, acted out with maximal vigour and untrammeled freedom. There is no place in this forest for Albertus Magnus’s virtue of temperance. It should be noted that, as animals, the horses themselves are not committing a sin. Rather, sin resides in the thoughts and sensations aroused in the viewers by watching the animals, and by viewing the horses as projections of their human selves and desires. In identifying with the stallion and seeing him prepared to mount 23 This action of the stallion has been mostly misidentif ied by most scholars until it was correctly recognised by Sroka, Das Pferd, but he incorrectly identif ies the stallion’s ejaculating as urinating: pp. 65‒88. 24 Payer, Bridling, p. 85; Harrington, Marriage and Society, pp. 59‒84. 25 Payer, Bridling, 144‒147. 26 Karant-Nunn, The Personal Luther, p. 105. 27 Luther, cited in Suppan, Ehelehre, p. 45.

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the mare from behind, the viewer might have remembered that this position was forbidden by theologians and pastors for human coitus precisely because it turned husband and wife into a pair of rutting animals.28 Furthermore, the viewer’s own implied physical position vis-à-vis the mare, whose genitals are turned towards him, might have invoked the fantasy of bestiality. Through their animal surrogates, and within their own hearts, the viewers do not just see lust but are also guilty of it. And yet, because of the obscene humour operative in the prints as described above, the viewers are at the same time ‘absolved’ of that sin by laughter. Baldung’s viewers would surely have been aware of norms and expectations of sexual behaviour articulated through sermons and printed treatises, and inversely suggested by the carnival plays and Schwänke discussed above. The theological hair-splitting about the exact degrees of sin committed during marital sex,29 notions that God politely looks away when husband and wife are so engaged, expectations that in the heat of sexual intercourse couples should bridle their pleasure and curb their lust – these notions treated in sermons and tracts must have struck Baldung’s viewers as particularly feeble and largely irrelevant in the face of the ferocious lust animating the male figures – both those that were depicted and those that were viewing them – in this first print. Attempting to control sexuality, this explosive and irresistible force of nature, by texts carefully thought up and painstakingly written down in the quiet studies of monks, pastors and theologians, must have seemed utterly laughable.30 And yet laughter could cut both ways. Laughing at the sexual urges of animals might be a way of acknowledging the like natures of man and horse, and thus of admitting the near impossibility of sexual control. This empathetic laughter humbly affirming the deep connection between human and animal would also serve to ridicule theologically promulgated norms as completely unrealistic and unattainable. On the other hand, laughing at the horses could just as well diminish their relatedness to humans. Viewers could laugh at the irrational animals precisely because, unlike the horses, they themselves possessed rationality and were capable of exercising it. Like this kind of haughty laughter of superiority, embracing and affirming sexual norms was a way to demonstrate human identity and to separate it from animal nature. Baldung’s second print continues to address the nature of sexual arousal, i.e. lust and its obscenely humorous consequences (fig. 7.2). Primed for copulation but unable to mount the mare, the stallion is no longer able to restrain himself and 28 Wolf, ‘Spiel und Norm’, p. 493; Voltmer, Wächter, p. 676. 29 Schnell discusses the various theological discourses on sexual arousal and activities and the varying degrees of sin assigned to them in Sexualität und Emotionalität, pp. 401‒409. 30 For the scholarly genesis of many early modern marriage treatises, see Schuritalla, ‘Ehetraktate’, pp. 79‒114.

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spills his seed on the barren ground. The only legitimate aim of sexual arousal for Catholics and Reformers alike was as preparation for marital sex. A man who ejaculated outside of a woman’s vagina committed a mortal sin.31 This condemnation of arousal without the goal of engaging in marital sex was certainly a castigation of masturbation, a sin to which the unmarried could not help but be particularly prone, forced as they were to confront lust without access to its sanctioned outlet. Not surprisingly, Luther is particularly blunt about this. In 1522, as a still unmarried man, he remarked: ‘Nature never lets up. We are all driven to the secret sin. To say it crudely but honestly, if it doesn’t go into a woman, it goes into your shirt.’32 In insisting on the inevitability of sexual arousal as a part of nature itself, Luther essentially mocks expectations of taming lust. Baldung’s second print functions similarly, although here too, the interpretation of human superiority over animal nature, and thus an affirmation of sexual norms, remains a possibility. In the print, the stallion has been aroused by the mare’s scent. Yet her recalcitrance thwarts his attempt to complete the task as nature intended. Stimulated beyond control, he reaches his climax outside of her body. In seeing the stallion’s predicament, the viewer might have been reminded of his own personal experiences of, as Luther says, nature never letting up. Analogous to the stallion, the male viewer may have at some point been aroused, in his case by something he saw rather than smelled. Calling to mind Erasmus’s and Geiler’s warnings against viewing sexually explicit imagery, and in Geiler’s case, also against watching the sexual activities of animals, helps us to imagine the possible physical response of a male viewer studying Baldung’s prints depicting just those subjects. But looking at a picture is like trying to mate with an unwilling mare – consummation is impossible. Like the stallion, the viewer too may have been driven by his arousal to the point of no return and, to paraphrase Luther, wound up with it in his shirt. A viewer might find the image of the ejaculating stallion obscenely humorous as a reference to frustrated sexuality, to a messy capitulation to sexual arousal intimately and glutinously familiar to the viewer himself. The cause of the stallion’s sexual frustration, and the catalyst for his wasted ejaculation, is the resistant mare. In its depiction of the relationship between the mare and the stallion, Baldung’s second print also addresses the roles of and expectations for women during intercourse as formulated in contemporaneous sexual discourse. In this print, Baldung does not ridicule or mock sexual norms and expectations but instead affirms and reinforces them. Although paying the conjugal debt applied equally to women as well as men, marriage treatises and sermons emphasise the need for women’s obedience, in sexual as in other matters. 31 Schnell, Sexualität und Emotionalität, p. 401. 32 Luther, cited in Harrington, Marriage and Society, p. 63.

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In the anonymous Mirror of Women (Frauenspiegel), which appeared in five editions between 1518 and 1565, the bride is instructed that she must not only relinquish her body to her husband but also her will.33 Erasmus echoes this charge. In a dialogue published in 1523 On Marriage, Erasmus maintains that ‘[a] woman’s highest praise is to be obedient to her husband.’34 Through the purported conversation between an older woman, who functions as Erasmus’ mouthpiece, and her younger, impulsive friend, Erasmus spells out uxorial obligations. In the dialogue, Eulalia explains to the young wife Xanthippe how it is her duty to always be agreeable to her husband. She compares the skills that Xanthippe will need to develop for this purpose to those of a horse-trainer: ‘How much labour men put into training a horse! And shall we be hesitant about labouring to make our husbands more tractable?’35 But Xanthippe responds to Eulalia’s well-meaning advice only with irascible intransigence. Erasmus has constructed the figure of Xanthippe as the vicious shrew, not only through her bad-tempered speech and behaviour, but also by giving her the name of one of classical antiquity’s most infamous termagants, the ill-tempered wife of Socrates. In her disquisition on wifely duties, Erasmus’s Eulalia particularly castigates women who are nasty and disobedient in the marital bed: Some women are so peevish that they even quarrel and complain during sexual intercourse and by their tactlessness render disagreeable that pleasure which ordinarily rids men’s minds of whatever vexation may be therein…Even though a wife should always be careful not to offend her husband on any occasion, she should take special pains to show herself wholly complaisant and agreeable to him in that union.36

Luther apparently thought similarly. In his 1522 sermon On Marriage, the reformer’s censure of a sexually uncompliant wife is especially harsh. He instructs the husband to give his halstarrig weyb (‘obstinate woman’) a reprimand, and to tell her: ‘If you don’t want to [have sex], another woman will. If the wife isn’t willing, then bring on the maid.’37 The mare in Baldung’s second print appears to be just the kind of halstarrig weyb castigated by Luther and Erasmus. She rejects the stallion’s advances in no uncertain terms, viciously kicking out at him with both of her powerful hind-legs. In so doing, her vulva remains visible to the viewers, allowing them to identify this 33 34 35 36 37

Wolf, ‘Spiel und Norm’, pp. 497‒499. Erasmus, ‘Marriage,’ p. 319. Erasmus, ‘Marriage,’ p. 313, 320. Erasmus, ‘Marriage,’ p. 317. Luther, ‘Vom ehelichen Leben’, p. 289.

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uncooperative equine figure as the female in the thwarted encounter. She is precisely not the compliant, sweet-tempered sexual partner described in sources, so eager to please and entirely subservient to male needs. Like Erasmus’ Xanthippe, the bad-tempered mare takes her place among the chorus of disobedient and unpleasant females constructed in numerous kinds of early modern sources, including humanist dialogues, marriage treatises, carnival plays, and Schwänke, most of which were to function as objects of derisive laughter. By thwarting the expectations of her sexual compliance so savagely, the mare serves by negative example to reinforce dominant gender expectations for women and associated sexual norms. But if viewers of the print found the mare’s ornery obstinance laughable, they may have found her male counterpart’s inability to dominate her even more so. As both Catholic and Reformed marriage treatises make clear, the foundation for Christian marriage rested on male predominance.38 Although he shared equal responsibility with his wife in paying his part of the marriage debt, in all other ways the husband was the head of the household and exercised ultimate authority in making all decisions, including those that pertained to his wife. It was therefore expected that husbands should be able to control their wives and to compel them, no matter by what methods, to obedience. From medical treatises discussing conception, it is also clear that a husband’s responsibility included sexually arousing and satisfying his wife.39 But not all men were able to meet these expectations. Erasmus addressed husbandly incompetence in his 1526 treatise on Christian marriage (Institutio christiani matrimonii). In castigating men for a range of marital delinquencies, he likens excessively lustful ones to hot-blooded stallions,40 and others who don’t know how to handle their wives to inept horsemen. Erasmus shames men who, having married above their station, try to humiliate their well-born wives in order better to dominate them: ‘you might as well teach a large and spirited horse to bend its knees to let you mount because you are too short, weak or clumsy with horses to get on by yourself.’41 In addition to posing a serious problem, male impotence, whether measured sexually or behaviourally, also provided a subject that seems to have aroused raucous laughter in carnival plays and Schwänke. These plays and texts describe how, time after time, crafty wives outwit their inadequate husbands in order to find opportunities to revel instead in the physical prowess of their lovers. 42 Male viewers of Baldung’s first two prints would presumably have found it ridiculous 38 Harrington, Marriage and Society, pp. 38‒47. 39 Schnell, Sexualität und Emotionalität, pp. 391‒394. 40 Erasmus, ‘Institution’, p. 344. 41 Erasmus, ‘Institution’, p. 364. 42 See Bachorski, ‘Verlachte Männlichkeit’, pp. 263‒281.

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and also laughable that this male of the species, depicted as so well-endowed and vigorous in the first print, would prove to be utterly ineffectual at obtaining the female’s subordinance and at achieving his sexual satisfaction, and hers, in the second. Like the malicious mare, the subpar stallion serves by negative example to affirm gender and sexual norms of masculinity and dominance.

Conclusion: Laughing with Horses The treatment of human sexuality and contemporaneous sexual norms in Baldung’s obscenely humorous prints would have provoked a range of responses. Drawing on insights provided by Erasmus and Bebel regarding the reception of obscene subject matter, well-educated and more worldly viewers may well have been moved by the prints to laughter, albeit of different kinds. At one end of the spectrum, scornful and derisive laughter would serve to separate and elevate the viewers from and above the figures and their actions; at the other end, good-natured and empathetic laughter would have served as an acknowledgement of failings and inadequacies shared by subjects and viewers alike. As treated in the contemporaneous marriage treatises and sermons, sexual lust was acknowledged as an irresistible force of nature with the fearsome capacity to wreak moral, physical and social havoc on those who abandoned themselves to its overwhelming pleasures. Laughing at something as potentially dangerous as sexual lust served at least to some extent to undermine its power and render it less frightening. At the same time, laughing at the carefully crafted but ultimately penetrable moral armor forged to protect a soul from the sin of lust was a way of freeing oneself, at least temporarily, from a sense of shame and from the fear of perdition, the likely results of sexual transgression. As Bakhtin reminds us, ‘Laughter is victory over fear, over the awe inspired by the forces of nature, and most of all over the oppression and guilt related to all that was consecrated and forbidden’.43 But laughter was not only about overcoming fear; it also provided its own source of particular delight. In producing prints that engaged with issues of human sexuality in a way that mobilised obscene humour, Baldung may have been banking on what Laurent Joubert described in 1579 as a ubiquitous and deep desire for that distinctive pleasure belonging only to laughter. 44 And according to Aristotle, laughter was so foundational to humankind that it – not just rationality – was what separated humans from animals. 45 The carnival plays and Schwänke provided Baldung with 43 Bakhtin, Rabelais, p. 90. 44 Joubert, cited in De Rocher, Rabelais’s Laughter, p. 96. 45 Aristotle, Animals.

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delectably amusing theatrical and textual precedents for the happy marriage of sexuality with obscene humour. This essay has argued that Baldung used this cultural substrate, familiar to him as well as to his viewers, as inspiration for visual commentary on the sexual practices and norms of his day. From this same cultural substrate, Baldung borrowed but also elevated the figure of the horse as the vehicle for his commentary. As analysis of the various texts, plays, and sermons in this essay clearly demonstrates, references to horses frolic abundantly among the words spoken, printed, and performed in the Early Modern period. But Baldung was surely acquainted with horses not only in texts but also in the flesh, as dynamic animal presences of striking physical and emotional power. There is no documentary evidence linking Baldung directly with horse-ownership or explicitly describing his personal experience with the animals. Nonetheless, there is plentiful circumstantial evidence relating to his physical environment, his family background (including university educated jurists and physicians), and his social and professional networks that suggest his consistent proximity to horses. Such a proximity may in fact also serve to explain the forcefully expressive equine figures Baldung fashioned throughout his career. 46 How would Baldung have come into contact with horses in Strasbourg? Presumably he would have seen, heard and smelled the working, draft animals who transported people and goods into and out of the city. In addition, Strasbourg had a civic stable where horses were kept presumably for official government business such as travel and reconnaissance. It was one of the highest marks of social and economic distinction to support the stable by supplying horses and paying for their maintenance. The names of the citizens who did so, all from the richest merchant and patrician families, were carefully listed in the now fragmentary remains of the Stallbuch. 47 Baldung may well have known some of these families and others like them, for whom horse-ownership was economically viable and socially expected. Some of the city’s wealthiest merchants and patricians lived in Baldung’s neighbourhood, including Conrad Joham (d. 1551) and Friedrich VI von Gottesheim (1506‒1581).48 One of the men listed in the Stallbuch was the goldsmith Diebold Sebott, who from 1520 until his death in 1534 was the head of Baldung’s own guild, Zur Stelz. 49 Having risen to the position of guild assessor in 1533 and thus as part of the guild’s upper administration, Baldung probably knew Sebott. Baldung may thus have seen members of these families riding their fine horses on the street and in the neighbourhood. He also would have seen horses at the 46 For example, in his startling woodcut from c. 1544 depicting a horse, a groom, and a witch, see Cuneo, ‘Horses as Love Objects’, pp. 151‒168. 47 Brady Jr., Ruling Class, p. 108. 48 Brady Jr., Ruling Class, p. 141 (for Joham) and pp. 315‒316 (for Friedrich von Gottesheim VI). 49 Brady Jr., Ruling Class, pp. 347‒348.

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Rossmarkt, the area immediately to the north of his own street, the Brantgasse, where horses were bought and sold.50 In addition, Baldung’s activities as an investor in real estate may have brought him into contact with horses. A property he purchased in Illkirch, one of Strasbourg’s rural territories, included not only a house but also a farmstead, barn, stables, and a garden. Baldung’s purchase of the property is recorded on 8 September 1528; he sells it again on 11 June 1529, turning a nice profit of 40 guilders in the process.51 Although Baldung surely never lived on this property during the short time he owned it, he presumably would have gone a few times to inspect it, at least before purchasing it and perhaps also before selling it. Although no livestock is mentioned in the recorded transaction of the land and buildings, it is possible that animals belonged to the farmstead and that horses sheltered in the stables and grazed on the property. Perhaps it was here, or at a similar holding Baldung may have seen on travels through the countryside, that the artist observed a herd of horses engaging in the kinds of activities he depicted in the 1534 prints. Indeed, in a later treatise on horse-breeding written in 1578 by the Augsburg patrician Marx Fugger, the author describes how he himself had initially bred horses by allowing the stallion to roam free among a herd of mares. Fugger states that he came to reject this method for a number of reasons, including the danger to stallions when kicked by unwilling mares.52 The stallion in Baldung’s second print (fig. 7.2) finds himself in precisely this potentially perilous situation. Baldung’s use of horses in his 1534 prints to comment on human sexuality was more than an exercise in symbolism. Nor did Baldung simply settle for them as the next-best substitute for humans in order to acquiesce to cultural norms of decency – indecency, in fact, seems to be the whole point of the series. In fashioning his equines Baldung could certainly draw on references to horses in a wide variety of texts including those that dealt specifically with horses in terms of their physical care and training.53 As an artist, Baldung would also have been cognisant of a plethora of equine imagery key to secular as well as sacred subject matter. But none of these textual and visual sources adequately accounts for what we see in Baldung’s prints. It therefore seems appropriate to suggest that Baldung’s and his viewers’ active knowledge and physical experience of horses, as ubiquitous presences in early modern life, made a vital contribution to the prints’ meanings. Albeit in varying degrees and in varying ways, humans lived in relation to horses, and this 50 Brady Jr., Ruling Class, p. 141. 51 The documents are reproduced in Von der Osten, Gemälde und Dokumente, p. 294, docs. 81‒83, and p. 295, doc. 85; commentary p. 311. 52 Fugger, Gestüterey, 1584, 84v. The title-page woodcut by Jost Amman is clearly influenced by Baldung’s 1534 prints. See Cuneo, ‘Marx Fugger’s Von der Gestüterey’. 53 Most printed texts on horsemanship date from the second half of the sixteenth century, although there are a few books on bitting and treatments printed from the late fifteenth century on.

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lived relation provides the very foundation of the prints’ ability to communicate.54 The animals’ robust physicality, at once familiar and prodigious, provided Baldung with a strikingly effective means of communication about the powers of the flesh. Not as bloodless symbols, abstract concepts, or second-rate substitutes, the horses f igure as fellow creatures ensnared by the same potentially perilous urges as humans. Whether rejected or embraced, this shared physical animality contributed fundamentally to the prints’ interrogation of sexual norms by tickling an array of fantasies and provoking a range of laughter.

Works Cited Aristotle, On the Parts of Animals, transl. by William Ogle, Book III, Part 10: http://classics. mit.edu/Aristotle/parts_animals.3.iii.html (7 July 2021). Bachorski, Hans-Jürgen, ‘Das aggressive Geschlecht. Verlachte Männlichkeit in Mären aus dem 15. Jahrhundert’, Zeitschrift für Germanistik, Neue Folge 8 (1998), pp. 263‒281. Bakhtin, Mikhail, Rabelais and His World, transl. by Hélène Iswolsky (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1968). Brady, Thomas A. Jr., Ruling Class, Regime, and Reformation at Strasbourg 1520‒1555 (Leiden: Brill, 1978). Brinkmann, Bodo, Hexenlust und Sündenfall. Die seltsamen Phantasien des Hans Baldung Grien, exh. cat., Städel Museum, Frankfurt am Main (Petersberg: Michael Imhof Verlag, 2007). Burghartz, Susanna, Zeiten der Reinheit, Orte der Unzucht. Ehe und Sexualität in Basel während der Frühen Neuzeit (Paderborn: Ferdinand Schöningh, 1999). Castiglione, Baldassare, The Book of the Courtier [1528], transl. by George Bull (London: Penguin Books, 1967). Cuneo, Pia F., ‘Horses as Love Objects: Shaping Social and Moral Identities in Hans Baldung Grien’s Bewitched Groom (c. 1544) and in Sixteenth-century Hippology’, in Animals and Early Modern Identity, ed. by Pia F. Cuneo (London: Routledge, 2014), pp. 151‒168. Cuneo, Pia F., ‘Marx Fugger’s Von der Gestüterey. Horses, Humanism, and Posthumanism in Early Modern Augburg’, in Tiere Texte Transformationen: Kritische Perspektiven der Human-Animal Studies, ed. by Reingard Spannring, Reinhard Heuberger, et al. (Bielefeld: Transcript Verlag, 2015), pp. 69‒84. Derksen, John D., From Radicals to Survivors: Strasbourg’s Religious Nonconformity over Two Generations 1525‒1570 (Utrecht: Hes & de Graaf, 2002). 54 For tendencies to see humans and animals as both belonging to a continuous spectrum of being and thus admitting a strong sense of relation, see Münch, ‘Die Differenz zwischen Mensch und Tier’, pp. 324‒325.

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Erasmus, Desiderius, ‘The Institution of Christian Matrimony (Institutio christiani matrimonii [1526])’, transl. by Michael J. Heath, in Desiderius Erasmus, Spiritualia and Pastoralia, ed. by John W. O’Malley and Louis A. Perraud (Toronto: Toronto University Press, 1999). Erasmus, Desiderius, ‘Marriage (Conubium [1523])’, transl. by Craig R. Thompson, in Erasmus, Desiderius, Collected Works of Erasmus: Colloquies, 89 vols. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1997), pp. 306‒327. Fugger, Marx, Von der Gestüterey (Frankfurt: Sigmund Feyrabend, 1584). Gibson, Walter S., Pieter Bruegel and the Art of Laughter (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006). Harrington, Joel, Reordering Marriage and Society in Reformation Germany (Cambridge: University of Cambridge Press, 1995). Heidemann, Kyra, ‘“Grob und Teutsch mit Nammen Beschryben”. Überlegungen zum Anstößigen in der Schwankliteratur des 16. Jahrhunderts’, in Ordnung und Lust: Bilder von Liebe, Ehe und Sexualität im Spätmittelalter, ed. by Hans-Jürgen Bachorski (Trier: Wissenschaftlicher Verlag, 1991), pp. 415‐26. Karant-Nunn, Susan C., The Personal Luther: Essays on the Reformer from a Cultural Historical Perspective (Leiden: Brill, 2018). Kipf, Johannes Klaus, Cluoge Geschichten. Humanistische Fazetienliteratur im deutschen Sprachraum (Stuttgart: S. Hirzel, 2010). Koerner, Joseph Leo, The Moment of Self-Portraiture in German Renaissance Art (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993). Krohn, Rüdiger, Der unanständige Bürger. Untersuchungen zum Obszönen in den Nürnberger Fastnachtsspielen des 15. Jahrhunderts (Darmstadt: Scriptor Verlag, 1974). Luther, Martin, ‘Vom ehelichen Leben’, in D. Martin Luthers Werke: kritische Gesamtausgabe, 121 vols. (Weimar: Herman Böhlaus Nachfolger, 1883ff). Münch, Paul, ‘Die Differenz zwischen Mensch und Tier. Ein Grundlagenproblem frühneuzeitlicher Anthropologie und Zoologie’, in Tiere und Menschen. Geschichte und Aktualität eines prekären Verhältnisses, ed. by Paul Münch (Paderborn: Ferdinand Schöningh, 1998), pp. 323‒347. Von der Osten, Gert, Hans Baldung Grien. Gemälde und Dokumente (Berlin: Deutscher Verlag für Kunstwissenschaft, 1983). Payer, Pierre J., The Bridling of Desire: Views of Sex in the Later Middle Ages (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1993). Peinelt, Sabine, ‘Verschwendeter Samen – Unsterbliche Kunst. Die Pferdeserie von Hans Baldung und ihr kunsttheoretischer Hintergrund’, in Von der Freiheit der Bilder: Spott, Kritik und Subversion in der Kunst der Dürerzeit, ed. by Thomas Schauerte et al. (Petersberg: Michael Imhof, 2013), pp. 157‒174. Pfisterer, Ulrich, Kunst-Geburten. Kreativität, Erotik, Körper in der Frühen Neuzeit (Berlin: Wagenbach, 2014).

‘So This Guy Walk s into a Forest…:’ 

De Rocher, Gregory, Rabelais’s Laughter and Joubert’s Traité de Ris (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1979). Roper, Lyndal, Oedipus and the Devil: Witchcraft, Sexuality and Religion in Early Modern Europe (London: Routledge, 1994). Schnell, Rüdiger, Sexualität und Emotionalität in der vormodernen Ehe (Cologne: Böhlau, 2002). Schuritalla, Johannes, ‘Textsortenstile und Textherstellungsverfahren in Ehetraktaten des 15. und 16. Jahrhunderts’, in Text und Geschlecht. Mann und Frau in Eheschriften der frühen Neuzeit, ed. by Rüdiger Schnell (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1997), pp. 79‒114. Simon, Eckehard, ‘Carnival Obscenities in German Towns’, in Obscenity. Social Control and Artistic Creation in the European Middle Ages, ed. by Jan M. Ziolkowski (Leiden et al.: Brill, 1998), pp. 193‒213. Söll-Tauchert, Sabina, Hans Baldung Grien. Selbstbildnis und Selbstinszenierung (Cologne: Böhlau, 2010). Sroka, Jens Jochen, Das Pferd als Ausdrucks- und Bedeutungsträger bei Hans Baldung Grien [Doctoral Dissertation, 2003, University of Zurich] (Zurich: Studentendruckerei, 2003). Suppan, Klaus, Die Ehelehre Martin Luthers (Salzburg: Universitätsverlag Anton Pustet, 1971). Voltmer, Rita, Wie die Wächter auf dem Turm. Ein Prediger und seine Stadt. Johannes Geiler von Kaysersberg (1445‒1510) und Straßburg (Trier: Porta Alba Verlag, 2005). Wiesner-Hanks, Merry, Christianity and Sexuality in the Early Modern World (New York: Routledge, 2000). Wolf, Gerhard, ‘Spiel und Norm. Zur Thematisierung der Sexualität in Liebeslyrik und Ehelehre des späten Mittelalters’, in Ordnung und Lust: Bilder von Liebe, Ehe und Sexualität im Spätmittelalter, ed. by Hans-Jürgen Bachorski (Trier: Wissenschaftlicher Verlag, 1991), pp. 477‒509.

About the Author Pia F. Cuneo (Ph.D. Northwestern University) is Professor Emerita of Art History at the University of Arizona where she taught from 1990 to 2021. She has published widely on the nexus between art, visual culture, politics, and hippology in early modern Germany. She competes locally in dressage.

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8. Indecent Creativity and the Tropes of Human Excreta Fabian Jonietz

Abstract This essay explores depictions and descriptions of bodily excretion in light of theories of creativity and artistic practices. References to physical effluxes and excretions by early seventeenth-century Northern painters, I argue, pursue sixteenth-century concepts which connect lower body parts and physical activities to visual perception and human production. The visual arts were inclined to reflect on such ideas not only because of ubiquitous metaphors comparing the absorption of intellectual matter and their subsequent mental digestion to the conversion of food, but also because waste products had a fundamental role in artist’s workshops. The dual quality of excrements as indecent waste and as fertilising manure was predestined to mirror concepts of imitation, and lead to a reconsideration of the general relation of artworks to the products of nature. Keywords: Galaton; Gegorio Leti; Peter Flötner; scatology; Sebastian Stoskopff; urination

The publication of David Foster Wallace’s The Suffering Channel in 2002 most likely marks the very moment when the art world became saturated by scatological artworks: sculptures and paintings thematising excrement had become a conceptual genre in their own right, making it necessary to address this class of artworks in yet a different genre ‒ literature. In fact, Wallace wrote the novella at a time when ‒ with the exception of Wim Delvoye’s startling Cloaca (2000) ‒ highly promoted artworks such as Marc Quinn’s Shit Head and Shit Paintings (1997/1998) and the oeuvre of Andres Serrano had successfully capitalised on these ideas, and had been feeding the mainstream art market with blunt reinterpretations of provocations raised decades earlier, for instance by Andy Warhol’s Oxidation Paintings (1977/1978), Paul McCarthy’s Shit Face Painting (1974), and especially by Piero Manzoni’s multiple Merda d’artista

Jonietz, F., M. Richter, A.G. Stewart (eds.), Indecent Bodies in Early Modern Visual Culture. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2023 doi 10.5117/9789463725835_ch08

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(1961). Yet, the continued success of the genre proves that the perception of human excretion as indecent had not changed over time. The Suffering Channel revolves once again around the question of decency: the story narrates a journal’s difficulties in publishing an article on the fecal creations of a fictive sculptor, Brint Molke, and the artist’s shy resistance to publicity, which results in a distressing performance of his art of defecation, and eventual death. Wallace was, however, a notoriously eager reader and an even more ambitious author who sought to overwhelm his audience with intertextual references to even the most remote sources. Arguably, he might have outmatched many art critics commentating on the twentieth-century ‘shit movement’ (a term coined by Hal Foster) by alluding in his novella, as some details of the text suggest, to a much broader tradition of interrelations between creativity and bodily excretion.1 It is significant and certainly not a coincidence, for example, that the German name of the fictional creator of fecal sculptures, Molke, translates as ‘whey’, hence a component of the very liquid connected to birth. Comparable concepts were featured frequently in Early Modern writings such as in the story of the origin of Michelangelo’s sculptural genius, described as the result of accidentally being fed by a wetnurse from Settignano, the stone cutter’s village north-east of Florence.2 Despite this assumed absorption of talent through his earliest nourishment, Michelangelo was also one of many Renaissance artists who metaphorically matched artistic production to the painful expulsion of bodily excretions (nelle mie opere, caco sangue ‒ ‘in my works, I shit blood’).3 In fact, the analogy of defecation and giving birth was widely diffused in popular works. 4 Recent studies on Early Modern art have interpreted expressions referring to bodily fluids in relation to, among others, the notion of artistic ‘influence’ or the ‘birth’ of an artwork.5 Yet, very few attempts have been made to take human waste into account in order to better understand art theoretical metaphors and concepts of creation.6 An important exception in the scholarship is the famous passage in which Karel van Mander describes how Pieter Bruegel the Elder had ‘swallowed’ alpine landscapes during his travels (had in gheswolghen), which he later ‘spat out’ or, rather, ‘vomited’ as panel paintings (en Penneelen uytghespogen hadde). Such a formulation can be convincingly explained in light of the belief that sight and bodily absorption were interrelated, and that things seen could be 1 Foster, ‘Obscene, Abject, Traumatic’, p. 118. 2 Wallace, ‘Michelangelo’s Wet Nurse’, with further examples of this topos in the Renaissance. 3 Chantelou, Journal du voyage, p. 174. 4 For further references see Bakhtin, Rabelais, esp. pp. 148‒151. 5 Pfisterer, Kunst-Geburten. 6 For the relation of urine and semen, or fertility, Simons, ‘Body Fluids’; cf. most recently Koering, ‘To Drink Pictures’.

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subsequently expulsed as digested artistic matter.7 In the context of the Dutch art history, we find further sources which connect bodily excretion to the artist’s talent: Samuel van Hoogstraten claims that one painter demonstrated his gift when, being a very young child, he drew his first figures with his own urine (met zijn eygen geel).8 Yet, in contrast to the complex interpretations of scatological imagery in the Middle Ages proposed by Michael Camille, comparable depictions from the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, which are the subject of this essay, have generally received less attention, although a number of significant studies have disclosed their relation to genre painting, peasantry, the Land of Cockaigne, or moralising allegories commenting on gluttony and other vices.9 Most contributions on feces and urine in Early Modern art have overwhelmingly concentrated on the prevailing negative notion of this iconography or its undeniably humorous effect.10 In some cases, scatological details have been generally reduced to being either ‘polemical’ or ‘subversive’, as they seem to ridicule or ironise the primary object of a painting, or more broadly, aesthetic ideals.11 Other scholars, inspired by Mikhail Bakhtin’s groundbreaking Rabelais and His World, summarise such indecent depictions under the highly problematic category of Early Modern ‘realism’.12 In order to better understand such imagery, it is my intention instead to focus on expressions and metaphors relating human excretion to a physiological concept of visual perception and of creativity. These aspects are, in fact, at the very centre of Bakhtin’s considerations of the body in the literature of the sixteenth century, such as, among others, the dual quality of excrements as waste, but also as fertilising manure. It is worth keeping in mind that such 7 Van Mander, Schilder-Boeck, p. 233 recto. For this passage’s possible meaning for frequent depictions of defecating men in Early Modern landscape paintings, see Weemans, ‘Les rhyparographes’; Bartilla, ‘Vykřičený motiv?’; Ribouillault, ‘Regurgitating Nature’. In these studies, the reading of Van Mander’s passage as a supposedly pejorative critique of Brueghel’s crude realism (e.g. in Müller, Paradox, pp. 14‒15) has been convincingly rejected. 8 ‘een ander, de konst niet vremd, schilderde met zijn eygen geel, kenbare dingen, toen hy noch in de lange rok liep.’ Van Hoogstraten, Inleyding, p. 14. For the meaning of an artist’s first works in Early Modern art theory, see Pfisterer, ‘Erste Werke’. 9 Camille, Image on the Edge; for the Early Modern period, see Fecal Matters (for the visual arts here esp. Stewart, ‘Top and Bottom’); see also Susanne Meurer’s essay in the present volume. With a broader geographical and chronological frame, see Scatological Art; Lebensztejn, Figures pissantes; Verrips, ‘Excremental Art’. I very much profited from the comprehensive essay by Frank Matthias Kammel, ‘Analmetaphorik’, which takes into account a number of indecent Early Modern everyday objects with scatological motifs. 10 Grössinger, Humour and Folly, pp. 1‒11, 171‒181. 11 For example, Jürgen Müller has repeatedly argued for Northern scatological images critically responding to stylistic models and ideals deriving from Italy. 12 Bakhtin, Rabelais.

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analogies were not purely rhetorical. Similar to Pliny’s assumption of a direct connection of the eye, the stomach, and a regurgitating effect,13 the Early Modern discourse about human excretion was based on the observation of actual physical interrelations and reactions. Such connections are, I will demonstrate, even more intriguing for the visual arts due to the omnipresence of waste products as a working material in artist’s workshops: aspects and practices which in a certain sense anticipate the twentieth-century concept of transforming excrement into art. The fact that this circumstance was persistently neglected in art historical scholarship might be explained by the paradigm of a ‘clean’ Renaissance, which is continuously pursued when talking about artworks by great masters, or the history of collecting.14 In this respect, it seems legitimate to compare the ambiguous visual history of excretion to that of explicit eroticism. Although the use of excrement as an extreme form of criticism has a long tradition (numerous cases of throwing feces against artworks, or defecating on them are recorded),15 its depiction has been considered a breach of decorum depending on the context and respective normative concepts. Furthermore, the character of such graphic imagery was never unequivocally shared by all recipients. One copy after a sixteenth-century engraving of a Triumph of Bacchus, for example, shows a nude female satyr squirting a powerful stream of urine out of her labia, which the artist drew with great care for details. An earlier copy though covers the f igure with an apron, while leaving still visible the urine splattering at her feet (f ig. 8.1).16 The same dichotomy can be observed with regard to public artworks. Figures seemingly spitting and urinating fountain water were without doubt a favourite subject, and omnipresent all over Europe.17 Although harsh words of criticism are documented against such depictions of indecent bodily activities (for instance by a French visitor to mid-seventeenth century Rome), it would be misleading to reduce such elaborate works of art to alluding to vicious and immoral themes.18 In any case, indecent depictions are frequently featured on objects of great value, and were often contemplated by learned men of the highest social classes. Significant examples 13 Nat. hist. XI, 150. 14 Cf. Biow, Cleanliness; and the introduction to the present volume. 15 Connell and Constable, Sacrilege and Redemption. 16 One copy of a yet third version documents the owner’s attempt to censor the detail by adding with brown ink an apron to the engraving: London, British Museum, inv. H,6.6. 17 For the fountain motif of a pissing boy (Puer mingens), see Catherine Emerson’s contribution to this volume. 18 Saint-Amant, Rome Ridicule, p. 19, verses XLVIII–L. For an earlier critique against lascivious fountains, see Pirro Ligorio’s remarks in Barocchi, Scritti d’arte, II, pp. 1419‒1421.

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Figure 8.1: Left: François Chauveau (attr.) after Cornelis Bos, detail of Triumph of Bacchus, engraving, midseventeenth century, 315 × 880 mm, Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, RP-P-OB-7421; right: Johann Theodor de Bry after Cornelis Bos, detail of Triumph of Bacchus, engraving, c. 1600, 113 × 279 mm, Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, RP-P-BI-5247.

include a figure ‘pissing into a urinal’ (dont l’un pisse en une orine) in a sumptuous tapestry documented in the allowance of King Charles VI of France in 1422,19 or the extremely explicit acts of bodily excretions such as defecation, vomiting, and farting on the Holzschuher-Pokal, a precious masterpiece of goldsmithery and woodcarving,

19 Guiffrey, ‘Inventaire des tapisseries’, p. 100, no. 223.

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Figure 8.2: Virgil Solis after Peter Flötner (?), details of the Triumph of Bacchus featured on the HolzschuherPokal, engravings, mid-sixteenth century, 55 × 245 mm, 58 × 245 mm, and 58 × 246 mm, Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, RP-P-OB-54.647, 54.648 and 54.649.

dated c. 1537‒1541 (fig. 8.2).20 Peter Flötner’s printed card game, which features a woman farting or shitting on someone’s face, pigs consuming turds, and much more, has been convincingly linked to a commission by Francesco d’Este, the brother of 20 The attribution to Peter Flötner (with Michael Baier?) has been much disputed throughout the nineteenth and twentieth century. This issue is directly related to the question of the design’s inventor which is also reproduced in three cast plaques (sometimes attributed to Flötner, too) and three engravings by Virgil Solis. These prints bear more compositional details and a convincing argument to prove the precedence of the cup over Solis’s engravings has never been presented and should be reconsidered; the suggestion of a yet different, now lost Italian design is highly speculative. Cf. Weber, ‘Plakettenwerk’, pp. 523‒524. For the engravings, see O’Dell-Franke, Virgil Solis, pp. 97‒98, nos. d 68‒70; Hollstein’s German Engravings Etchings and Woodcuts, LXIII:11, pp. 204‒206, nos. 265‒267.

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the Duke of Ferrara and Modena in 1541: one scholar of games suggested that the set was probably not even intended for everyday use, but as a collectible item for a Kunstkammer, hence a context in which these indecent acts would have been interpreted in the light of the interrelations of art and nature in the macrocosm.21

Looking into a Rear-View Mirror One of the cases which certainly would not have primarily addressed a lower class of viewers is a mid-sized Still-life, painted in the early seventeenth century by the Alsatian painter Sebastian Stoskopff (fig. 8.3). Since the exact dating is disputed, it can only be roughly placed in the turbulent period during which the painter repeatedly changed residence in French, German, and Italian cities. In the painting, a statuette of a female f igure ‒ possibly accompanied by a peacock? ‒ is placed on a pedestal with the painter’s initials, surrounded by various objects exemplifying aspects of creation, visibility, and different material qualities. Thin, see-through glasses are juxtaposed to a simple wooden box. Five coloured sea-shells ‒ items which Lucretius had introduced as representations of the ingenuity of Natura pictrix (‘Nature the Painter’), and which once housed long-deceased creatures ‒ are accompanied by relics of long-deceased beasts whose skin was used to bind various volumes. The only one of these copies opened for the beholder reveals an etching, identifiable as belonging to a series of prints published by Jacques Callot a few years earlier (fig. 8.4).22 Yet, the sheet Stoskopff chose is the most explicit within this series, as it shows a crouching peasant defecating and urinating in the shadow of a tree. It seems barely satisfactory to account for the diligently painted trompe-l’œil purely as a visual joke, based on the contradictory levels of appropriate decorum, or decency. The peasant’s presence might, for one, be explained as one of the very few social classes possible to depict during a bowel movement, but might represent man in general: Pietro Aretino, for instance, mentioned micturating peasants as a symbol of all men’s equality.23 The pessimistic Christian perspective that man was ‘born between feces and urine’ (inter faeces et urinam nascimur), and was nothing more than a ‘container of dung’ (vas sterquilini), would have been familiar enough to fit into comparable motifs of earthly vanity which so many still-lives 21 See Schadendorf, ‘Spielkarten’; Hoffmann, Spielkarten, pp. 70‒75, 185‒187 (here p. 70); see also Raupp, Bauernsatiren, pp. 108‒114. For the necessary differentiation of audiences for prints and paintings cf. Stewart, ‘Top and Bottom’. 22 Callot’s series Capricci di varie figure was published in 1617 and re-issued in 1622. 23 Simons, ‘Body Fluids’, p. 334.

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Figure 8.3: Sebastian Stoskopff, Still Life, oil on canvas, 1625/1630 (?), 52 × 73 cm, Paris, Musée du Louvre, inv. RF 1981-18.

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Figure 8.4: Jacques Callot, Squatting Peasant, from the series Capricci di varie figure, etching, 1617, 53 × 79 mm, New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, acc. no. 40.52.52, Rogers Fund, by exchange, 1940.

express.24 In Stoskopff’s original design, this comparison was even clearer through a juxtaposition with a vessel that the artist, however, decided to overpaint in the course of preparing his final version.25 Nevertheless, the lack of more obvious symbols typical for a vanitas piece suggests that the painting and the illusionistic etching have more to say about art and its place in nature. This reading might be supported if the statuette were indeed accompanied by a peacock and could therefore be identified with Juno, a goddess symbolising ‒ among other things ‒ beauty and childbirth. It is highly significant in this regard that Stoskopff placed his monogram in no other work so prominently ‒ an aspect which suggests that the painter might have intended to showcase his art and his own art theoretical concepts of creation. Having read Callot’s dedication at the beginning of the series, Stoskopff was aware of the etcher’s repeated use of phrases that compare his art to earthly crops: he offered his patron ‘the first flowers grown in the field of his mind’ (i primi Fiori che io ho colti nel campo del mio sterile ingegno), ‘the early fruits of his work’ (le primitie delle mie fatiche), 24 The first quote is variously attributed to St Augustine, Cyprian, or the circle of Bernard of Clairvaux. For the metaphorical notions of the human body as a vessel, see Davitt Asmus, Corpus quasi vas. 25 Hahn-Woernle, Stoskopff, pp. 186‒187.

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and he promised to ‘produce some more fruits…if only your rays will fecundate’ his art (atto a produrre qualche frutto…con i raggi della sua gratia di fecondarlo).26 If Stoskopff had in fact intended to pursue such analogies, it was not to ridicule his own work as being grown on a shat upon acre, but to include it into a group of mundane artefacts that eventually turn into ashes and dirt, or to emphasise the false pretense of illusionistic painting. Significantly, his reproduction of Callot’s etching is the most eye-catching and meticulous detail in the still-life, for Stoskopff went so far as to carefully copy the exact measurements of the original print. If his intent was indeed to point out the general vanity of art, his symbolic use of the defecating peasant would continue a line of thought expressed in long standing visual traditions. Few decades earlier, in an allegory engraved around 1570, a pile of excrement presented in a valuable cup and admired by its female holder is deployed as the main attribute of fraudulent dissimulation (fig. 8.5).27 The German tradition of the sixteenth century similarly satirised the adoration of earthly treasures in carnival rituals when real human turds were presented on pillows during processions.28 The ambiguous use of feces and of the rectum to address men’s vanity is also a frequent motif in the Eulenspiegel literature. The protagonists’ repeated jokes including feces, or the exposing of his bare behind, are intrinsically related to his role of laying open men’s vanity by mirroring their errors, as some scholars have pointed out. This similarity is already contained in the figure’s name: still today in the German hunter’s phrase book ‘Spiegel’ means both ‘mirror’ and ‘the behind’, though the latter use of the word was more common in the sixteenth century. Johann Fischart’s 1572 Eulenspiegel forces peasants to ‘look into his mirror’ when he exposes his backside (Und bot den Bawren fein den rucken / Und ließ sie in den hindern kucken / Ließ sie seinen spiegel sehen). On another occasion he remarks that the world has to mirror itself in his ass (Vnd weist das Gesaeß jr [i.e. the world] nun zur schandt / Darinn sie sich nun spiegeln mag).29 Earlier, illustrations of a fool’s or a devil’s backside appear frequently in works such as Sebastian Brant’s Freidanck (1508) or the Basel edition of Der Ritter vom Turn (1493) within a mirror, and the personification of Death who, in the same city, 26 Hahn-Woernle, Stoskopff, pp. 118‒120, observed that the painter was most likely in possession of a bound volume of Callot’s Capricci due to the fact that he copied another etching from this series, too. More generally for Stoskopff and prints, see Böhmer, ‘Imitation et invention’. 27 For this series see The Illustrated Bartsch LV (Supplement), pp. 254‒265, nos. 071.1‒12 (here p. 259, no. 071.6); Veldman, De Wereld, pp. 69‒85, nos. 6.1‒6.12, here p. 75, no. 6.6; Horst, De Opstand, pp. 162‒171, here p. 166. 28 ‘ettlich tragen eyn frischen menschen koht auff eynem küssen herumb / und weren yhm der fliegen.’ Franck, Weltbůch, fol. 131 recto. 29 Bässler, Sprichwortbild und Sprichwortschwank, pp. 239‒241; Richardson, Bruegel, pp. 182‒193.

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Figure 8.5: Dirck Volkertsz. Coornhert after Adriaen de Weert, detail of Hypocrisy, engraving, c. 1572–1576, 206 × 121 mm, Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, RP-P-BI-6577.

accompanied a noblewoman in the famous Dance of Death (c. 1440), exposed his ass in her hand mirror.30 In the German and Flemish tradition, several sources underline the idea that connects the anus to the eye, and excrement to visual perception, attracting the viewer by the indecent subject and by inviting him to a closer inspection and subsequent reflection. A predecessor of this humorous thematisation of eyesight and seeing can be found in woodcuts illustrating the encounter between King Solomon and the fool Marcolf who, because the wise King does not wish to look 30 Bässler, Sprichwortbild und Sprichwortschwank, pp. 239‒241.

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Figure 8.6: Red und wider red Salomo[n]is un[d] marcolfÿ (Augsburg: Johann Schobser, 1490), woodcut on fol. 22 recto, Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, urn:nbn:de:bvb:12-bsb00026758-9.

him into his eye, shows him his asshole instead ‘to look inside it’ (fig. 8.6).31 In the early sixteenth century, some prints go farther by addressing perspectival issues as well. The inscription in Erhard Schön’s anamorphic woodcut Jonah and the Whale (1538) asks, when the sheet is viewed from the left side, ‘what do you see’ (was · sichst · dv) below the depiction of a peasant defecating. In this case, the whale’s expulsion of Jonah is somewhat ironically parallel to the bowel movement, and the discovery and critical interrogation of this analogy is the print’s primary intention.32 Another contemporary case is Peter Flötner’s puzzling Human Sundial that shows a defecating man’s body used as a bizarre solar clock: the woodcut was recently interpreted as a satire of new methods for visualising space and geometrical illusions of capturing truth.33 The at times painful experience of viewing, and the potentially negative results of curiosity, may probably be best 31 ‘Marcolffus lag auff seinem angesichte krū[m]m vnd hete die pruch [i.e. trousers] abgeczogen das man jm die hoden vnnd den arß sahe auch den toldrian [i.e. penis]…Marcolfus antwurt / nun hast du mir verpoten dz du mich fürbas vnder augen nitt ansehen darumb mich vnder augen nitt ansehen so sihe mir in den arß.’ Red und wider red, not paginated [fols. 22 verso – 23 recto]. 32 Hollstein’s German Engravings Etchings and Woodcuts, XLVII, pp. 174‒177, no. 111; cf. Nelson, ‘Directed Leering’. 33 Smith, ‘Theater of the World’, pp. 183‒185; cf. most recently Mentzel, ‘Sonnenuhr’.

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encompassed in a famous Flemish diptych in Liège, dated around 1520/1530, which bears an inscribed warning to not open it. By doing the contrary, the beholder is confronted with two panels: on the left, a close-up image of an anus with a thistle in front of the scrotum, which both shocks the viewer visually and evokes the idea of physical pain. At right, a grimacing face simultaneously taunts the mocked viewer.34

Territorial Pissings In these and comparable Early Modern images, typically a male, hairy bottom shows the ugly truth to the beholder. Its appearance is ironically juxtaposed with the concept of beauty, as is furthermore expressed in idioms calling the showing off of the behind a ‘beautiful sight’ (belvedere).35 Given that the Early Modern German spelling of arse, ‘ars’ (occasionally ‘arß’, today ‘Arsch’) also denoted the Latin word for ‘art’, it can be assumed that linguistic differences favoured or impeded observers to think of such analogies.36 The same is true for the dissemination of indecent wordplays, or proverbs such as the often-quoted ‘to piss against the moon’: since many of these adages were only known in Northern countries and not in Southern Europe, scatological imagery based on the vernacular language were in some cases used to claim artistic identity. Callot and Stoskopff, in this regard, are interesting cases as both belong to the group of Northern artists active in the early seventeenth century in Italian centres such as Venice, Florence, and Rome. Filippo Baldinucci’s artists’ biographies offer a further example capturing both national differences between Northern and Italian painters and the use of urine as a weapon of choice. According to Baldinucci, Giovanni da San Giovanni’s recently begun fresco painting in the Roman Palazzo Pallavicini Rospigliosi was spoiled day after day by someone spraying it with emiction (annaffiato coll’orina). Apart from the insult, the attack made the wet plaster moldy, so that the artist had to begin once again. Tellingly, the perpetrators turned out to be Northern ‒ allegedly French ‒ painters. The fact that they used urine to spoil a painted personification of the moon (una figura, che rappresentava la Luna), however, suggests that their nasty assault included a pun which neither

34 The comparison of the diptych with the woodcuts illustrating Marcolf’s story has already been proposed by Kammel, ‘Analmetaphorik’, pp. 150‒151. 35 In some anti-papal and Lutherian pamphlets, the exposed male behind is ironically described as the figure’s ‘belvedere’ (Und zeigen dirs, Bel vedere / Ecco qui papa el mio bel uedere). 36 Cf. Müller-Jabusch, Götzens grober Gruss, pp. 49‒50.

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their Italian competitors ‒ who did not know the expression ‘to piss against the moon’ ‒ nor Giovanni’s biographer Baldinucci could grasp.37 This story, which most likely refers to an incident that took place in 1622, corresponds perfectly with a social-artistic change which took place in Rome shortly after 1600. Due to the flood of Northern painters streaming into the city, the excessive performance of all kinds of bodily excretions during the alcohol-centred festivities and rituals in the circles of the Bentvueghels (or Schildersbent), as well as the Bamboccianti, became much more publicly visible. Hazing initiation ceremonies of these groups revolved furthermore around rituals such as the insertion of a lit candle into the anus, and the members cared to divulge such infamous practices in drawings and prints in order to create the association’s public image.38 Scholarship has repeatedly observed how indecent details of defecating, urinating and vomiting men and animals in the works of painters reflect this artistic self-conception, going so far as to instigate entire classes of new subjects: the numerous depictions of the Acqua Acetosa ‒ the famous ‘sour spring’ located in the Roman periphery ‒ by Flemish painters are rooted in the fountain’s laxative effect, which led them to paint numerous figures experiencing the purgative effect of the ferruginous water. Following a short delay, the provocative language of excretion was taken up by Italian artistic circles in order to distinguish themselves. A significant source is a drawing by Pier Francesco Mola, precisely dated 27 February 1649, and accompanied by an inscription identifying the two depicted figures as Mola himself and the art dealer Niccolò Simonelli, who are both shown urinating in the park of the noble Pamphilj family.39 In the drawing both the dealer and the painter ‘did this’ (Lo fece il Simonelli…et il Mola), while the artist ‘made this figure’ ( fece questa figura), thus paralleling the improper behaviour of pissing in the princely garden with the act of drawing. Yet, even if a number of Italian examples from the Early Modern period include details of excreting figures in the context of monumental palace decorations, there seems to be no indication that Italian painters used bodily excretion to a similar extent as did their Northern colleagues.40 Various sixteenth-century artists including 37 Baldinucci, Notizie, V, pp. 26‒27. The same story is reported in the context of Antonio Domenico Gabbiani’s work in the Florentine Palazzo Medici Riccardi: again, the biographer identifies the perpetrator as a foreign painter: Baldinucci, Vite, p. 69; cf. furthermore p. 128 for a similar account. 38 Cf. I Bamboccianti. 39 For Simonelli, see Bayer, ‘A Note’; for the often-discussed drawing e.g. Lebensztejn, Figures pissantes, p. 113. The interest of Mola and his collectors in this topic is further demonstrated by a little-known caricature of a defecating man, formerly in the possession of Don Livio Odescalchi: New York City, The Morgan Library & Museum, inv. 1988.75. 40 During their stay in Parma, the Carracci brothers from Bologna played scatological pranks on local residents, such as shitting into boots and removing chamber pots: Malvasia, Felsina Pittrice, I, p. 479. Likewise, the seventeenth-century artists Domenico Gargiuolo and Martino Longhi are said to have

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Joachim Patinir, Peter Flötner, Erhard Schön, and reasonably also Pieter Bruegel as well as Barthel and Sebald Beham, rendered such elements in their works with high visibility that they seem to resemble a kind of signature or trademark ‒ not unlike the Grumus merdae, the traditional shit left behind by burglars at the site of their crime.41 Although Van Mander named Patinir’s ‘shitters’ (kacker or kackerken) as some sort of individual feature for his landscapes, their function as a distinct sign of the painting’s maker remains disputable. 42 A similar discussion whether or not piles of excrement should be understood as a truly individual signature revolves around Peter Flötner, whose surname is documented in the variations ‘Flettner’ and ‘Flattner’ (words which identify someone leaving Unflat, the most repellent filth). The use of a pile of excrement is commonplace in his woodcuts, and further elements prove that he thought about such visual signatures attentively. His name also resembles the German flute-player (Flöter) and the word for someone ‘flapping’ ( flattern). 43 Apart from the addition of the attribute of his profession, a gouge or woodcarving chisel, into a pile of crap (as can be seen in the Human Sundial), a number of other sheets figure either flutes sticking in the excrement, winged feces (e.g. the Escutcheon of the Land of Cockaigne [see fig. 9.5 in Susanne Meurer’s essay] and the sausage-like feces-phallus in the Figurative Alphabet) or, in the case of Flötner’s personal coat of arms, wings encircling a gouge. The numerous flies surrounding piles of excrement in the woodcuts might allude to ‘flapping’ as well. However, the authorship of these and other prints, such as the Family of Pigs at the Dungheap, has been disputed in favour of Erhard Schön, who is thought to have also used the turd with a flute or a shawm. Vice versa, the letter ‘S’, featured prominently in some of the prints typically given to Flötner, stands perhaps not ‒ or not exclusively ‒ for the land of Cockaigne (Schlaraffenland), but rather for Schön’s initial. 44 To deal with these manifold difficulties, it is helpful to engaged in similar jokes. The architect Longhi filled wine into a urinal in order to pretend drinking his urine, while the painter Gargiuolo tricked people into actually drinking his piss: De Dominici, Vite, II, pp. 228‒229, 398. 41 For the Grumus merdae see Handwörterbuch des deutschen Aberglaubens, III, cols. 1178‒1180. 42 Van Mander, Schilder-Boeck, p. 219 recto. Cf. above, note 7. 43 For the meaning of his name and Flötner’s pictorial signatures, see Lange, ‘Bildschnitzer’, pp. 175‒177; Lange, Bahnbrecher, pp. 15‒17; cf. Dienst, Kosmos, pp. 37‒42. Also a recently rediscovered drawing in the university library of Erlangen features a turd with a flute. 44 For prints attributed to Flötner, see Hollstein’s German Engravings Etchings and Woodcuts, vol. VIII, pp. 116‒160; for Schön, see vols. XLVII-XLVIII (for the Family of Pigs, see vol. XLVIII, pp. 172‒173, no. 225; for the Escutcheon of the Land of Cockaigne, pp. 171‒172, no. 224). See also Meurer’s essay with more extensive bibliographical references. Mentzel, ‘Sonnenuhr’, p. 110, draws attention to a mnemonic woodcut from 1482, which uses the shape of a turd to help memorise the letter ‘S’. Some ornamental initials used by printers allude to ‘scheißen’ (to shit), too, as can be observed in several books printed by the Swiss Johann Rudolf Genath, in which the engraved letter ‘S’ is represented by a defecating putto.

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take into consideration an idea recently proposed by Jeffrey Chipps Smith. Rather than individual trademarks, Smith suggests that the sometimes gigantic piles of excrements in numerous northern artworks refer to their ‘Germanness’, thus rooted in a tradition leading back to Tacitus’s description of this tribe’s excessive eating habits:45 a reference that, I would add, for Southern European recipients would have meant the Germanic ‘barbarians’ and thus included parts of France and certainly the Netherlands, whose name (pays bas) was even used by the mid-sixteenth century jokingly as a synonym for the body’s lower parts. 46

Dirty Workshops: Natura, Ars, and Techné The pile of excrement prominently featured on the flag waved by Peter Flötner’s Ruined Artisan, an allegory of a poor artist’s pains to survive, could therefore very well refer to the author of this woodcut, to his origin, or to his trade in general. Several satires including a ‘Schwank’ from 1562 ridicule craftsmen and artists in a way that might substantiate this assumption, for a goldsmith is named a ‘shit-solder’ (drecklöter), the colourer of prints and papers a ‘shitter’ (den brieffmaler ein gackier).47 Behind such insults rests, however, a truth, since waste products were constantly used and present in Early Modern artist’s workshops. The illusion of an etching in the Still-life by Stoskopff, depicting a urinating and defecating man, would have reminded informed beholders that the very ink used for such prints often included as an ingredient the compound urine, the same liquid employed to clean printing plates and metal printing types. The fact that leather ink balls used to distribute ink over a metal plate were in the past softened by soaking them overnight in urine is described in nineteenth-century editions of the Encyclopaedia Britannica as ‘the nastiest processes imaginable, which converted the press room into a stinking cloaca’. In more recent times, Colin H. Bloy suggested that Early Modern printer’s shop must have been the ‘most unhealthy and stinking place in which to work.’48

I believe Flötner’s interest in pseudo-etymological homonymies suggests that the Human Sundial, dated roughly around 1540, might be somehow related to the family Sonnenschein (‘sunshine’): the artist’s second wife Margarethe was the widow of Gregor Sonnenschein, and in 1542, after Jorgen Sonnenschein’s death, Flötner accepted the tutelage of his children; for these familial relationships see Lange, ‘Bildschnitzer’, p. 169; Lange, Bahnbrecher, p. 8. 45 Smith, ‘Theater of the World’, p. 178. 46 Leuchtmann, Orlando di Lasso, II, p. 36, doc. 1. 47 Fatzwerck auff etliche handwerck. 48 Bloy, History, p. 51.

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Painter’s and sculptor’s workshops, however, were not much cleaner. In The Body of the Artisan, Pamela H. Smith briefly touched upon the use of urine, saliva and ear wax in recipes described by Theophilus Presbyter, Cennino Cennini, and Benvenuto Cellini, with the latter differentiating methods based on urine from a buck, a non-castrated bull, young children, or red-haired boys. 49 Leonardo da Vinci set the use of urine at the very beginning of each painterly creation by recommending cleaning a varnished wooden painting support with urine (poi laua con orina) before starting the preparatory drawing.50 Methods known to sculptors and medalists included urine and feces to harden tools forged to work stone or to change the colour on the surface of metal pieces and of marble, and they engaged in experiments comparing urine of men and women, including after the consumption of beer or wine, to create a different coloured patina.51 Collectors and admirers of artworks did not need to have privileged access to orally transmitted workshop secrets to be familiar with the various possibilities of turning waste into artistic material. Popular literary genres such as the Dreckapotheke (‘Pharmacy of dirt’) and the ‘Books of secrets’ were commonly available in the sixteenth century and often translated. Johann Jacob Wecker’s De secretis for example includes a recipe for making ultramarine with a young boy’s urine (cum vrina infantis), and various ways of colouring green also include the use of urine.52 Among encyclopedic works, Girolamo Cardano’s De Subtilitate mentions numerous recipes using urine for manufacturing lead white, a verdigris patina on metal, and for cleaning gold.53 The artist’s main task, however, is barely limited to furnishing waste products, but rather to transform such matter into works of art.54 The saying ‘that what’s shat is not painted’ (cacatum non est pictum), recorded in Germany in various versions since the sixteenth century ‒ including Fischart’s Geschichtsklitterung (‘he believed… shat would mean painted’) ‒ is a variation on the ancient expectation that the design shaped by an artist must surpass the value of the material (materiam superabat 49 Smith, Body of the Artisan, pp. 112‒113. 50 Richter, Literary Works, I, p. 362, no. 628. According to the list of books in his possession (Cod. Madrid II, fol. 2v), Leonardo owned Bartolomeo Montagnana’s 1487 treatise De urinarum iudiciis and the Fasciculus medicinae. 51 The potential use of excrement was seemingly infinite: the sculptor Bernard Palissy, e.g., discovered that he could use urine, due to its acidic composition, to kill animals without visible harm to the cadaver, a condition necessary for his life-casts: Amico, Palissy, p. 87. 52 Wecker, De secretis, pp. 886‒887. 53 Forrester, ‘De Subtilitate’, I, pp. 331‒332 and 345. 54 A painter adding a fresh turd to the colours on his palette is illustrated in Aert van Waes’s well-known etching (1645). Daniel Lindtmayer’s design of St Luke painting the Virgin (1575) for a stained-glass window (Zurich, Schweizerisches Landesmuseum, inv. LM25643) shows a putto defecating on the Evangelist’s palette; Büttner, ‘Cacatum non est pictum’, p. 155.

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Figure 8.7: Sebald Beham, The Little Buffoon, engraving (state II), 1542, 46 × 81 mm, New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, acc. no. 17.3.467, Harris Brisbane Dick Fund, 1917.

opus).55 The necessary effort and difficulty of being creative, thus the alleged ease of taking a shit, is expressed in Michelangelo’s saying, as above, to ‘shit blood’ in his works. In this sense, Sebald Beham’s self-referential engraving from 1542 of a fool who holds up the artist’s initials on his bauble while being entangled in a voluminous, winding scroll bearing the phrase ‘I have sketched you until I beshat myself’ (on dir hab ich gerisen das ich mich hab beschisen), a statement underscored by the pile of excrement between the figure’s legs, is such a reference to artistic difficulty, playfully alluding at the same time to the equivocal meaning of the term gerisen as ‘drawn’ and ‘ripped’, which is literally depicted in the many cracks of the ripped scroll (fig. 8.7).56 Maerten van Heemskerck participated in the tradition of painters proving their art’s capacity to represent figures from different angles by painting a mirror-holding putto behind a kneeling satyr, in order to show the beholder the action taking place, invisible from that perspective: the mirror reveals the detailed excretion of a long turd from the satyr’s anus (fig. 8.8).57 Yet, even the at times physical challenge of defecation can be a challenging subject for painters. When Adriaen Brouwer was arrested under the false suspicion of being a spy, he is said to have demonstrated his artistic ability through making a portrait of one 55 ‘meynt…geschissen sey gemalt’; for further references see Deutsches Sprichwörter-Lexikon, IV, col. 122. 56 For the print’s disputed interpretation, cf. World in Miniature, pp. 216‒217, no. 59. 57 See Grosshans, Heemskerck, pp. 126‒130, no. 24; Harrison, Heemskerck, I, pp. 279‒295, no. 18 (for this detail esp. p. 285); Richardson, Bruegel, pp. 127‒129; Lebensztejn, Figures pissantes, p. 80.

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Figure 8.8: Maerten van Heemskerck, detail of Triumph of Bacchus, oil on oak wood, c. 1536/37 (?), 56 × 106.6 cm, Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum, inv. Gemäldegalerie 990, photo © Wikimedia Commons (public domain).

of his guardians during a bowel movement. Brouwer captured the intense facial gestures of the crouching soldier, thus proving his claim of being an excellent artist.58

Galaton’s Heirs An unnamed painter from Brussels gained a certain fame for a very different acquaintance with excrements. According to a report published by the physician 58 ‘En inzonderheid om een die in ’t verschiet zat te kakken, waar in het drukken, als wilde het zich niet gemakkelyk ontlasten, zoo natuurlyk en potzig vertoont was, dat men ’t zelve zonder te lachen niet konde aanzien.’ Houbraken, Groote Schouburgh, I, p. 330. In a comparable proof of artistic bravery, Vasari acknowledged Giotto for the life-like depiction of a man spitting into the sea (particolarmente una figura, che…sputa in mare, fa conoscere l’eccellenza di Giotto): Vasari, Le vite, II, p. 111.

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Figure 8.9: Johannes Sadeler the Elder after Christoph Schwartz, detail of Warning Against Venereal Disease, engraving, c. 1588/95, 241 × 305 mm, London, Wellcome Library, inv. 524739i.

Jean-Baptiste van Helmont in 1648, he survived a twenty-three-day hideout in the woods by eating his own feces.59 This remarkable incident might be seen as an early record of an artist’s inclination towards mental instability: apart from questionable medical recipes which advise the consumption of urine or feces in the Dreckapotheke, documented cases of coprophagy were typically explained as extreme gluttony provoked by demons, or as forms of insanity.60 This was, for example, the case for women who eat feces due to their mentally instable situation 59 ‘Pictor Bruxellensis, per intervalla furiosus: sub furoris initio aufugit in nemus vicinum, ibique longe à conspectu hominum, repertus est 23 dies, proprio stercore vixisse.’ Helmont, Ortus Medicinæ, p. 215 (chapter XXXVI.36). 60 Cf. Patrologia Latina LXXIII, 1111C (‘saepe sua comedebat excrementa, et lotium bibebat’). For the medical use of urine (among others, to cure various eye diseases), see Pliny, Nat. hist. XXVIII, 65‒66. For reasons to drink urine (e.g., to stimulate a missing menstrual period), see furthermore Ramazzini, De morbis artificum diatriba, pp. 96‒98.

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during pregnancy, and an engraving warning against syphilis shows a male victim of the disease drinking from a creek that has been polluted by a pissing dog (fig. 8.9).61 In short, consuming excrement was generally considered a sacrilege, analogous to perversions such as sodomy or incest.62 This explains why such behaviour by men was exclusively ‒ if at all ‒ depicted in Hieronymus Bosch-like hellish scenes. Quite frequent, on the other hand, is the contrary relation of men and beasts in Early Modern depictions. Especially in paintings by Flemish artists in seventeenth-century Rome, when this motif prevalently reappears, the cyclical relation of food and waste products is illustrated by men urinating into a pond from which animals drink. In sixteenth-century Netherlands and Germany, the consumption of feces, urine, or vomit by animals is even more frequent. The hearty eaters are mostly dogs and pigs (Flötner’s card game and several other prints present turds like a barbecue, or a meal nicely arranged on a plate and eaten by pigs with spoons).63 If men were clearly differentiated from animals in such details, the re-use of excrement and its place in a cyclical process of nature is indirectly connected to the pessimistic definitions of men mentioned in the introductory remarks. Around the time of Callot’s and Stoskopff’s depictions of a peasant fertilising his field with his feces and urine, Caspar Dornau’s poem De furno, et latrina described the twofold nature of man as an oven, burning matter, and as a lavatory, excreting waste.64 Despite its humorous touch, the poet (who was a trained and practicing physician) acknowledges that being part of a greater natural cycle means consumption of earthly goods, and the return of feces and salty urine that serve as a generative fertiliser. This idea is connected to the ancient discussion of a possible preference for using human waste as manure over that of beasts. Columella, for example, recommends human excrements and well-aged human urine after that produced by birds, but before that of cattle (De re rustica II, 14, 1‒3), while Pliny sums up that all authors unanimously prefer human ordure over dung from any animal (Nat. hist. XVII, 6, 51). When I stated before that the absolute indecency of coprophagic practices virtually forbade drastic depictions of man’s reuse of excretion, there is one significant exception: the iconographic tradition of commenting metaphorically on the transmission 61 Engraved c. 1588/95 by Jan (Johannes) Sadeler the Elder after Christoph Schwartz; Hollstein’s Dutch and Flemish Etchings, Engravings Woodcuts XXI, p. 163, no. 492. 62 This comparison e.g. described in the descriptio in Alciato’s emblem Adversus naturam peccantes (‘Sinning against nature’), illustrated by a person defecating into a vessel intended for measuring food (choenix); see Heckscher, ‘Pearls’. Cf., however, the explanation of a spring of salty water as emerging from a urinating nymph by a German pilgrim in 1483 (Hunc fontem fabulantur esse alicujus Nymphae urinam); Fratis Felicis Fabri Evagatorium, III, p. 320. 63 Cf. Stewart, ‘Man’s Best Friend?’; for a German proverb related to dogs eating man’s vomit (pp. 29‒30), see Stewart, ‘Top and Bottom’, pp. 124‒125. 64 Dornau, Amphitheatrum, p. 349.

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Figure 8.10: Left: Les dix premiers livres de l’Iliade d’Homère prince des poetes, transl. by Hugues Salel (Paris: Jehan, 1545), title page, woodcut, Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, urn:nbn:de:bvb:12-bsb10195380-0; right: Guillaume de La Perriere, La Morosophie (Lyon: Macé Bonhomme, 1553), p. D2 recto, emblem no. 14, woodcut, Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, urn:nbn:de:bvb:12-bsb10189291-4.

and imitation of creative products. According to Aelian (Hist. var. XIII, 22), a painted allegory by the Alexandrian artist Galaton ‒ notably, one of the very few known cases of such complex visual rhetoric from antiquity, comparable to Apelles’ Calumny ‒ showed the poet Homer throwing up, while his successors drew up his vomit.65 In the early sixteenth century, following a reinterpretation introduced by Raffaele Maffei in 1506, a variant of the description circulated in which followers are shown drinking Homer’s urine (fig. 8.10).66 A second case from late antiquity, Martianus Capella’s Marriage of Philology and Mercury, describes a comparable transmission of knowledge in the form of a bodily excretion. In this encyclopedic work, first printed in 1499 but highly popular throughout the medieval and Early Modern period, volumes of books are vomited in a stream from Philology’s mouth, and subsequently swallowed by the personifications of the disciplines of the liberal arts. Even though this iconography remained fairly rare, its conceptual vocabulary became an important precedent for commenting on the pejorative aspects of 65 Cf. though Helm: Lucian und Menipp, p. 172‒173, for a hypothetical literary model of Galaton’s allegory. For the following, see most recently e.g. Pfisterer, ‘Im Fluss’; Koering, ‘To Drink Pictures’. 66 Maffei, Commentariorum rerum urbanorum, p. ccxlvi recto (lib. XVII). Cf. Tixier, Specimem Epithetorum, p. 170 recto; Vadian, De poetica, I, p. 33. The artist’s name misspelled as ‘Palaton’ in Ricchieri, Sicvti antiqvarvm lectionvm commentarios, p. 609 (lib. XI, cap. LXXVII); Giraldi, Historiæ poetarvm, p. 216.

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Figure 8.11: Taylors Physicke has purged the Divel. Or, The Divell has got a squirt… (London [?], 1641), detail of the frontispiece, woodcut and movable letter type, private collection.

imitation, and on the negative notion of ‘influencing’ someone through bodily effluences. A striking illustration of this idea is a woodcut from a 1641 pamphlet, published during a literary contest between pamphleteers Henry Walker and John Taylor, in which a devil is seen ‘having a squirt’ into the latter’s mouth and thus inserting into him his ‘beastly’ language (fig. 8.11). Later, explicit references to the physiological understanding of creativity and production become increasingly popular subjects of satire. An unauthorised French reissue of a publication by Gregorio Leti, who was a highly productive, yet equally controversial author, satirises his roughly ninety books as being inspired by demons spitting into his ear, written with the liquid pissed by a harpy into his inkwell, crapped out by the author, and eventually ruined by dogs defecating and urinating on them (fig. 8.12).67 67 See Haase, ʻGregorio Leti’.

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Figure 8.12: Gregorio Leti, Critica…sopra le sorti, siano lotterie, ed. by Pierre Mortier and Jean Louis De Lorme (Paris 1697, falsely labelled ‘A Amsterdam, Chez les Amis de L’Auteur’), detail of the title engraving (Bernard Picart?), 120 × 140 mm, Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, RP-P-OB-51.145.

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This caricature pursues a line of thought expressed in ubiquitous Early Modern metaphors of devouring books, or drinking and digesting literary contents ‒ frequent comparisons that resulted in statements such as Michel de Montaigne’s identification of his own writings as ‘excrements from of an old mind, sometimes hard, sometimes squittery, but always ill-digested.’68 Leti’s satirical portrait, however, is foremostly significant because it includes all three aspects foregrounded in this essay: the absorption and conversion of perceived information through the body, the actual use of excreta as a material for creative production, and the expression of harsh criticism via excretion. Yet the transmission through the human body was a popular concept of perception and of creativity still by the eighteenth century. William Hogarth caricatured Jonathan Richardson the Elder’s necessity of receiving ancient classical texts through his son’s translations, because of his own lack of knowledge of languages (f ig. 8.13).69 According to the accompanying text, the son’s body is transformed into a reading aid which enables his father to see the distant stars of culture (‘My Son is my Telescope’). The youth’s behind though ‒ traditionally interpreted metaphorically as a mirror for self-reflection and recognising truth, as discussed earlier ‒ serves as an outlet to help the elder make use of his son’s eye. Once again, Hogarth’s caricature draws on the humorous characterisation of the anus as a ‘dark eye’. What is striking, however, is the fact that the satirical print includes specif ic references to the visual arts throughout the work, such as a palette, sculptures and paintings. Hogarth’s primary intention was to ridicule Richardson’s indirect ‘readings’ of Greek and Latin texts.70 Yet in the end his visual satire confirms that the concept of accessing, digesting and creating the cultural past as a physiological ‒ and sometimes indecent ‒ experience is neither limited to the circle of artists, nor to scholars: individual talent, virtues and desires of men vary, but the satirical language of human digestion and excretion is universal, as ‒ to quote once again the polymath and physician Caspar Dornau ‒ all men and women are equal in being merely furno, et latrina. 68 Curtius, European Literature, pp. 134‒136. Some decades before Montaigne’s activity as a writer, the first close stools in the shape of piled books are documented in France, alluding to a different interpretation of authorial ‘outcome’ which eventually would hit its peak around 1700; Köster, ʻBücher’, pp. 199‒202. As it seems, Kurt Köster’s announced article on Büchernachtstühle (cf. Köster, ʻBücher’, p. 200, n. 71) was never published. For book-shaped objects served as drinking vessels, see Köster, ʻSchnapsbibeln’. The history of lavatories in art galleries seems to be linked to the collection of books, too: the first latrine connected to an art collection I am aware of, documented around 1700 in Gottorf castle, was installed in a niche of the attached library room; in a second case, though only in 1790, the modern water toilet for the art gallery in Carlsberg Castle was hidden in the pavilion for the special art library: Drees, ‘Gottorfische Kunst-Kammer’, p. 23; Schwan, Baugeschichte, p. 250. 69 Anecdotes of Painting in England, IV, p. 18; Stephens, Catalogue of Satires, III:1, pp. 4‒5, nos. 2018‒2020. 70 For the tradition of ridiculing scholars, see Košenina, Der gelehrte Narr.

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Figure 8.13: Richard Livesay (?) after William Hogarth, The complicated R___n, etching, 204 × 149 mm, 1794 (design dated c. 1734), New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, acc. no. 32.35(241), Harris Brisbane Dick Fund, 1932.

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Works Cited Amico, Léonard N., Bernard Palissy: In Search of Earthly Paradise (Paris et al.: Flammarion, 1996). Anecdotes of Painting in England…, ed. by Horace Walpole, 4 vols. (Strawberry-Hill: Thomas Kirkgate, 1762‒1771). Bakhtin, Mikhail, Rabelais and His World, transl. by Hélène Iswolsky (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1984). Baldinucci, Filippo, Notizie de’ professori del disegno da Cimabue in qva, 6 vols. (Florence: Santi Franchi, 1681‒1728). Baldinucci, Francesco Saverio, Vite di artisti dei secoli XVII-XVIII, ed. by Anna Matteoli (Rome: De Luca 1975). Barocchi, Paola (ed.), Scritti d’arte del Cinquecento, 3 vols. (Milan, Naples: Riccardo Ricciardi, 1971‒1977). Bartilla, Stefan, ‘Vykřičený motiv? Ti, kdo močí a kadí na flámských a holandských obrazech’, Dějiny a současnost, 25:2 (2003), pp. 6‒10. Bässler, Andreas, Sprichwortbild und Sprichwortschwank. Zum illustrativen und narrativen Potential von Metaphern in der deutschsprachigen Literatur um 1500 (Berlin, New York: De Gruyter, 2003). Bayer, Andrea, ‘A Note on Ribera’s Drawing of Niccolò Simonelli’, Metropolitan Museum Journal, 30 (1995), pp. 73‒80. Biow, Douglas, The Culture of Cleanliness in Renaissance Italy (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2006). Bloy, Colin H., A History of Printing Ink, Balls and Rollers 1440‒1850 (London: Evelyn Adams & Mackay Limited, 1967). Böhmer, Sylvia, ‘Imitation et invention picturale ‒ les gravures peintes dans les natures mortes de Sébastian Stoskopff’, in Sébastian Stoskopff 1597‒1657. Un maître de la nature morte, exh. cat., Paris et al. (Paris: Éditions de la Réunion des musées nationaux, 1997), pp. 94‒105. Büttner, Nils, ‘Cacatum non est pictum. Überlegungen zu einem übersehenen Thema der frühneuzeitlichen Kunst’, Niederdeutsche Beiträge zur Kunstgeschichte, N.F. 2 (2016), pp. 157‒174. Camille, Michael, Image on the Edge: The Margins of Medieval Art (London: Reaktion Books, 1992). Chantelou, Paul Fréart de, Journal du cavalier Bernin en France (Paris: Gazette des BeauxArts, 1885). Connell, William J. and Giles Constable, Sacrilege and Redemption in Renaissance Florence: The Case of Antonio Rinaldeschi (Toronto: Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies, 2005). Curtius, Ernst Robert, European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages, transl. by Willard R. Trask (Princeton, Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2013).

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Deutsches Sprichwörter-Lexikon, ed. by Karl Friedrich Wilhelm Wanders, 5 vols. (Leipzig: Brockhaus, 1866‒1880). Davitt Asmus, Ute, Corpus quasi vas: Beiträge zur Ikonographie der italienischen Renaissance (Berlin: Gebr. Mann, 1977). De Dominici, Bernardo, Vite de’ pittori, scultori ed architetti napoletani, ed. by Fiorella Sricchia Santoro and Andrea Zezza, 4 vols. (Naples: Paparo, 2003‒2014). Dienst, Barbara, Der Kosmos des Peter Flötner. Eine Bildwelt der Renaissance in Deutschland (Munich, Berlin: Deutscher Kunstverlag, 2002). Dornau, Caspar, Amphitheatrum sapientiæ socraticæ joco-seriæ… (Hanau: Aubry & Schleich, 1619). Drees, Jan, ‘Die “Gottorfische Kunst-Kammer”. Anmerkungen zu ihrer Geschichte nach historischen Textzeugnissen’, in Gottorf im Glanz des Barock. Kunst und Kultur am Schleswiger Hof 1544‒1713, exh. cat., Kiel, 4 vols. (Kiel: Schleswig-Holsteinisches Landesmuseum, 1997), II, pp. 11‒28. Forrester, John M., ed., The ‘De Subtilitate’ of Girolamo Cardano, 2 vols. (Tempe: ACMRS, 2013). Foster, Hal, ‘Obscene, Abject, Traumatic’, in October, 78 (1996), pp. 106‒124. Franck, Sebastian, Weltbůch: spiegel vnd bildtniß des gantzen erdbodens… (Tübingen: Morhart, 1534). Fratis Felicis Fabri Evagatorium in Terræ Sanctæ, Arabiæ et Egypti peregrinationem, ed. by Konrad Dietrich Haßler, 3 vols. (Stuttgart: Literarischer Verein, 1843‒1849). Giraldi, Giglio Gregorio, Historiæ poetarvm tam græcorvm qvam latinorvm dialogi… (Basel: Michael Isengrin, 1545). Goddard, Stephen H., ed., The World in Miniature: Engravings by the German Little Masters, 1500‒1550, exh. cat., University of Kansas et al. (Lawrence: Spencer Museum of Art, 1988). Grosshans, Rainald, Maerten van Heemskerck. Die Gemälde (Berlin: Horst Boettcher Verlag, 1980). Grössinger, Christa, Humour and Folly in Secular and Profane Prints of Northern Europe, 1430‒1540 (London, Turnhout: Harvey Miller Publishers, 2002). Guiffrey, Jules, ‘Inventaire des tapisseries du roi Charles VI vendues par les Anglais en 1422’, Bibliothèque de l’École des chartes, 48 (1887), pp. 59‒110, 396‒444. Haase, Erich, ‘Gregorio Leti und seine Critica delle lotterie’, Romanische Forschungen, 68 (1956), pp. 346‒376. Hahn-Woernle, Birgit, Sebastian Stoskopff. Mit einem kritischen Werkverzeichnis der Gemälde (Stuttgart: Gerd Hatje, 1996). Handwörterbuch des deutschen Aberglaubens, 10 vols. (Berlin, Leipzig: De Gruyter, 1927‒1942). Harrison, Jefferson C. Jr., The Paintings of Maerten van Heemskerck ‒ A Catalogue Raisonné, 2 vols. (Ph.D. thesis University of Virginia, 1987). Heckscher, William S., ‘Pearls from a Dungheap: Andrea Alciati’s “Offensive” Emblem, “Adversus naturam peccantes”’, in Art the Ape of Nature, ed. by Moshe Barasch and Lucy Freeman Sandler (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1981), pp. 291‒311.

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Helm, Rudolf, Lucian und Menipp (Leipzig, Berlin: Teubner, 1906). Helmont, Jean-Baptiste van, Ortus Medicinæ. Id est, initia physicæ inavdita… (Amsterdam: Lodewijk Elsevier, 1648). Hoffmann, Detlef, Altdeutsche Spielkarten 1500‒1650 (Nuremberg: Verlag des Germanischen Nationalmuseums, 1993). Horst, Daniel R., De Opstand in zwart-wit. Propagandaprenten uit de Nederlandse Opstand (1566‒1584) (Zutphen: Walburg Pers, 2003). Houbraken, Arnold, De Groote Schouburgh der Nederlantsche Konstschilders en Schilderessen, 3 vols. (Amsterdam: Houbraken, 1718‒1721). I Bamboccianti. Niederländische Malerrebellen im Rom des Barock, exh. cat., Cologne et al., ed. by David A. Levine and Ekkehard Mai (Milan: Electa, 1991). Kammel, Frank Matthias, ‘Lebensgenuss, Analmetaphorik und moralisierender Spott. Eine Schnupftabakdose des späten 18. Jahrhunderts im kulturgeschichtlichen Kontext’, Anzeiger des Germanischen Nationalmuseums (2007), pp. 137‒160. Koering, Jérémie, ‘To Drink Pictures: Fluids, Imagination and Image-making in the Renaissance’, in Einfluss, Strömung, Quelle: Aquatische Metaphern der Kunstgeschichte, ed. by Ulrich Pfisterer and Christine Tauber (Bielefeld: Transcript, 2018), pp. 49‒73. Košenina, Alexander, Der gelehrte Narr: Gelehrtensatire seit der Aufklärung (Göttingen: Wallstein, 2003). Köster, Kurt, ʻBücher, die keine sind. Über Buchverfremdungen, besonders im 16. und 17. Jahrhundert’, Buchhandelsgeschichte, 2/4 (1979) (Börsenblatt für den Deutschen Buchhandel ‒ Frankfurter Ausgabe, 98), pp. 177‒202. Köster, Kurt, ʻSchnapsbibeln und Teufelsgebetbücher. Trinkgefäße in Buchform vom 16. bis zum 19. Jahrhundert’, in: Festschrift für Peter Wilhelm Meister zum 65. Geburtstag am 16. Mai 1974 (Hamburg: Dr. Ernst Hauswedell & Co, 1975), pp. 136‒150. Lange, Konrad, Peter Flötner. Ein Bahnbrecher der deutschen Renaissance (Berlin: G. Grote’sche Buchhandlung, 1897). Lange, Konrad, ‘Peter Flötner als Bildschnitzer’, Jahrbuch der Königlich Preussischen Kunstsammlungen, 17 (1896), pp. 162–180, 221‒235. Lebensztejn, Jean-Claude, Figures pissantes 1280‒2014 (Paris: Éditions Macula, 2016). Leuchtmann, Horst, Orlando di Lasso, 2 vols. (Wiesbaden: Breitkopf & Härtel, 1976‒1977). Maffei, Raffaele, Commentariorum rerum urbanorum (Rome: Johannes Besicken, 1506). Malvasia, Carlo Cesare, Felsina Pittrice. Vite de pittori bolognesi, 2 vols. (Bologna: Erede di Domenico Barbieri, 1678). Mentzel, Jan-David, ‘Peter Flötners Menschliche Sonnenuhr. Überlegungen zu einer Ästhetik der Schwelle’, in Alltag als Exemplum: Religiöse und profane Deutungsmuster der frühen Genrekunst, ed. by Jürgen Müller and Sandra Braune (Berlin, Munich: Deutscher Kunstverlag, 2020), pp. 97‒113. Müller, Jürgen, Das Paradox als Bildform. Studien zur Ikonologie Pieter Bruegels d.Ä. (Munich: Wilhelm Fink, 1999).

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Müller-Jabusch, Maximilian, Götzens grober Gruss. Ein Büchlein fröhlicher Wissenschaft (Munich: Pohl & Co., 1956). Nelson, Jennifer, ‘Directed Leering: Social Perspective in Erhard Schön’s Anamorphic Woodcuts’, Source, 34:4 (2015), pp. 17‒22. O’Dell-Franke, Ilse, Kupferstiche und Radierungen aus der Werkstatt des Virgil Solis (Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1977). Persels, Jeff, ed., Fecal Matters in Early Modern Literature and Art: Studies in Scatology (Aldershot et al.: Ashgate, 2004). Pfisterer, Ulrich, ‘Erste Werke und Autopoiesis. Der Topos künstlerischer Frühbegabung im 16. Jahrhundert’, in Visuelle Topoi. Erfindung und tradiertes Wissen in den Künsten der italienischen Renaissance, ed. by Ulrich Pfisterer and Max Seidel (Berlin, Munich: Deutscher Kunstverlag, 2003), pp. 263‒304. Pfisterer, Ulrich, ‘Im Fluss…Die Renaissance aquatischer Bild-Metaphern in der Kunstgeschichte’, in Einfluss, Strömung, Quelle: Aquatische Metaphern der Kunstgeschichte, ed. by Ulrich Pfisterer and Christine Tauber (Bielefeld: Transcript, 2018), pp. 29‒48. Pfisterer, Ulrich, Kunst-Geburten: Kreativität, Erotik, Körper (Berlin: Wagenbach, 2014). Ramazzini, Bernardino, De morbis artificum diatriba (Utrecht: Willem van de Water, 1703). Raupp, Hans-Joachim, Bauernsatiren. Entstehung und Entwicklung des bäuerlichen Genres in der deutschen und niederländischen Kunst ca. 1470‒1570 (Niederzier: Lukassen Verlag, 1986). Red und wider red Salomonis vnd marcolfӱ (Augsburg: Johann Schobser, 1490). Ribouillault, Denis, ʻRegurgitating Nature: On a Celebrated Anecdote by Karel van Mander about Pieter Bruegel the Elder’, Journal of Historians of Netherlandish Art, 8:1 (2016). Richardson, Todd M., Pieter Bruegel the Elder: Art Discourse in the Sixteenth-Century Netherlands (Farnham, Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2011). Ricchieri (Rhodiginus), Ludovico, Sicvti antiqvarvm lectionvm commentarios… (Venice: Aldo Manuzio & Andrea Torresano, 1516). Richter, Jean Paul, ed., The Literary Works of Leonardo da Vinci, 2 vols. (London et al.: Oxford University Press, 1939). Saint-Amant, Marc Antoine de Gérard de, La Rome Ridicule (Paris [printer not indicated], 1661). Schadendorf, Wulf, ‘Peter Flötners Spielkarten für Francesco D’Este’, Anzeiger des Germanischen Nationalmuseums (1959), pp. 143‒169. Schwan, Jutta, Studien zur Baugeschichte von Schloss Carlsberg. “Bericht den dermaligen Zustand des sämtlichen Carlsberger Bauwesens betreffend” (Neustadt an der Weinstraße: Selbstverlag der Stiftung zur Förderung der Pfälzischen Geschichtsforschung, 2010). Simons, Patricia, ‘Manliness and the Visual Semiotics of Body Fluids in Early Modern Culture’, Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies, 39:2 (2009), pp. 331‒373. Smith, Jeffrey Chipps, ‘Peter Flötner and the Theater of the World’, in Von der Freiheit der Bilder. Spott, Kritik und Subversion in der Kunst der Dürerzeit, ed. by Thomas Schauerte, Jürgen Müller and Bertram Kaschek (Petersberg: Michael Imhof Verlag, 2013), pp. 175‒195.

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Smith, Pamela H., The Body of the Artisan: Art and Experience in the Scientific Revolution (Chicago, London: The University of Chicago Press, 2004). Stephens, Frederic George, Catalogue of Political and Personal Satires Preserved in the Department of Prints and Drawings in the British Museum, 11 vols. (London: British Museum Publications, 1870‒1954). Stewart, Alison G., ‘Expelling from Top and Bottom: The Changing Role of Scatology in Images of Peasant Festivals from Albrecht Dürer to Pieter Bruegel’, in Fecal Matters, ed. Persels, pp. 118‒137. Stewart, Alison G., ‘Man’s Best Friend? Dogs and Pigs in Early Modern German’, in Animals and Early Modern Identity, ed. by Pia F. Cuneo (Farnham, Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2014), pp. 19‒44. Tixier, Jean (Textor, Ravisius), Specimem Epithetorum… (Paris: Regnault Chaudiere & Henri Estienne, 1518). Vadian, Joachim, De poetica et carminis ratione, ed. by Peter Schäffer, 3 vols. (Munich: Fink, 1973‒1977). Van Hoogstraten, Samuel, Inleyding tot de Hooge Schoole der Schilderkonst: Anders de Zichtbaere Werelt (Rotterdam: François van Hoogstraten, 1678). Van Mander, Karel, Het Schilder-Boeck… (Haarlem: Paschier Van Wesbusch, 1604). Vasari, Giorgio, Le vite…, ed. by Rosanna Bettarini and Paola Barocchi, 11 vols. (Florence: Sansoni 1966‒1997). Veldman, Ilja M., De Wereld tussen Goed en Kwaad. Late prenten van Coornhert (’s-Gravenhage: SDU uitgeverij, 1990). Verrips, Jojada, ‘Excremental Art: Small Wonder in a World of Shit’, in Theses on Faeces: Encounters with the Abject, ed. by Tereza Kuldova and Lill-Ann Chepstow-Lusty, Special Issue of Journal of Extreme Anthropology 1:1 (2017), pp. 19‒46. Wallace, William E., ‘Michelangelo’s Wet Nurse’, Arion, 3rd series, 17 (2009), pp. 51‒55. Weber, Ingrid, ‘Bemerkungen zum Plakettenwerk von Peter Flötner’, Pantheon, 28:6 (1970), pp. 521‒525. Wecker, Johann Jacob, De secretis libri XVII (Basel [printer not indicated], 1582). Weemans, Michel, ‘Les rhyparographes’, Parade, 8 (2008), pp. 72‒91. Weisberg, Gabriel P., ed., Scatological Art, Special Issue of Art Journal 52:3 (1993).

About the Author Fabian Jonietz is a scholar at the Zentralinstitut für Kunstgeschichte in Munich, where he leads a research project on the pre-modern commemoration of animals. After receiving his Ph.D. in Art History (LMU Munich, 2012), he has been awarded various fellowships and held research and teaching positions in Germany, Italy, Switzerland, and the United States.

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9. ‘It All Turns to Shit’ – The Land of Cockaigne in Sixteenth-Century German Woodcuts Susanne Meurer

Abstract Cockaigne, the legendary land of plenty, formed a sub-theme of popular depictions of gluttony in sixteenth-century prints. These images combined carnivalesque exuberance and moralising caution, illustrating both excessive consumption and its ill effects, from inappropriately lascivious or slothful behaviour to the physical need to expel from top and bottom. Scatological motifs emphasised the grotesque nature of Cockaigne, providing laughter while also warning viewers of the consequences of gluttonous behaviour in the here and now: that spending on fleeting pleasure will reduce fortunes to shit. These themes are explored here chiefly through an exceptionally large mid-sixteenth-century German woodcut now in the New York Public Library, as well as two related woodcuts by Peter Flötner. Keywords: broadsides; gluttony; grotesque; Land of Cockaigne; scatology

In the thirteenth century, a new locus of yearning emerged in both written and oral culture across Europe.1 In this latest land of plenty, gingerbread houses had roofs tiled with pancakes, fences were made from sausages, cooked pigs carried their own carving knives, fried fish swam in rivers of milk, and fountains dispensed the finest Malvasia wine. Its very name reflected the land’s culinary character: Cucania in Latin, Cuccagna in Italian, Coquaigne in French, or Cockaigne in English shared their etymological origin in coquina, the Latin for kitchen. Or * I would like to thank Arvi Wattel, Miriam Hall Kirch and the editors of this volume for their helpful comments on previous drafts of this text. 1 See Pleij, Dreaming; Gilomen, ‘Schlaraffenland’, pp. 213‒214.

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alternatively, its appellation captured Cockaigne’s allure as a place exempt from toil and trouble in the German Schlaraffen- or Schlawraffenland and its English and Dutch equivalents ‘lubberland’ and luilekkerland.2 Cockaigne was quite literally a land of gluttonous layabouts, in which sleep was rewarded and work punished.3 Full of food and leisure and free from death or disease, this dreamland evoked an earthly paradise or the Golden Age of Greek mythology; and yet, Cockaigne was regarded with suspicion. 4 One of the earliest written sources, a thirteenth-century poem from the Carmina Burana, already adopted a satirical tone in reference to a Cucanesian abbot holding council with his fellow revellers, and by the sixteenth-century, such moralising was commonplace in accounts of the supposed delights of C ­ ockaigne.5 Key texts in the German literary tradition, from Sebastian Brant’s Ship of Fools (1494) or Hans Sachs’s Schlauraffen broadsides (fig. 9.5) to anonymous pamphlets, such as the Lustiges Lied vom Schlaraffenland (‘Merry Song on the Land of Cockaigne’, 1500) or Ein abentheürisch Lied (‘An Adventurous Song’, 1528), were clearly identified as tall tales and framed by admonitions not to succumb to the voracious gustatory and sexual appetites so avidly portrayed in them.6 Described in literary sources as three miles beyond Christmas or beyond the edges of the known world, Cockaigne was both nowhere and potentially everywhere, if gluttony and its associates sloth and lust were allowed to run rampant in the here and now.7 It was both a land of secret longing and a land of sin that permanently threatened to stain body and soul. Similar ambiguities featured in images of Cockaigne, as artists sought to balance carnivalesque exuberance and moralising caution in their depictions of excess, often by drawing on scatological motifs. Cockaigne could take on many forms, from panoramic landscapes, such as the exceptionally large woodcut now in the New York Public Library, which will be the main focus of this essay, to single-figure images that reduced the land of excess to a pile of excrement to issue moralising warnings that the inevitable consequence of prolonged over-consumption was destitution, as fortunes would ‘turn to shit’.8

2 Wunderlich, ‘Schlaraffenland’, p. 55. 3 Wunderlich, ‘Schlaraffenland’, pp. 55‒56. 4 Gilomen, ‘Schlaraffenland’, p. 221‒235; Søndergaard, ‘Far West’, pp. 195‒196; Frank, ‘Interpretation’, p. 301. 5 Gilomen, ‘Schlaraffenland’, pp. 213‒214. 6 Søndergaard, ‘Far West’, p. 201. Wunderlich, ‘Schlaraffenland’, pp. 59‒61 for a list of German sources. 7 Søndergaard, ‘Far West’, pp. 176‒177. 8 On excretion and consumption as allegories of artistic production and perception, see Fabian Jonietz’s essay in this volume.

‘It All Turns to Shit’ – The L and of Cock aigne in Six teenth- Century German Woodcuts 

Figure 9.1: Pieter van der Heyden after Pieter Bruegel the Elder, The Fat Kitchen, engraving, 1563, 210 × 293 mm (sheet), New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Harris Brisbane Dick Fund, 1526.

The Iconography of Gluttony Gluttony was a frequent subject of Northern Renaissance art (fig. 9.1). It appeared in series of the seven deadly sins alongside pride, greed, lust, envy, wrath and sloth as a rotund female personification in the company of a pig – the animal famed for its indiscriminate appetites. In satirical prints, the obese bodies of peasants, soldiers or clerics served as grotesque, physical expressions of what was perceived as their uncouth nature, recklessness, or greed. Gluttony prompted by social gatherings featured prominently in Sebald Beham’s kermis woodcuts of the 1520s and 30s, as well as Pieter Bruegel’s painted wedding feasts and dances of the 1560s.9 With their riotous displays of rowdy or amorous behaviour and the digestive effects of excess food and drink, these peasant festivals formed a contemporary visual counterpart to the mythical land of Cockaigne and a year-around reminder of the temporary indecency carnival or feast days permitted in the lives of otherwise decent sixteenth-century viewers.

9 Stewart, Before Bruegel; Onafuwa, ‘Exuberant Gluttony’; Petzold, ‘Leben’, pp. 186‒191.

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Figure 9.2: Pieter Bruegel the Elder, The Land of Cockaigne, oil on panel, 1567, 52 × 78 cm, Munich, Alte Pinakothek, inv. 8940.

Actual depictions of the Land of Cockaigne as a subsection of this broader iconography of gluttony were much rarer. Consider, once again, Bruegel’s oeuvre. Although gluttony features prominently in works such as the Fat and Lean Kitchens (1563),10 the Fight between Carnival and Lent11 or his Dutch Proverbs (1559),12 Bruegel depicted Cockaigne only once (figs. 9.1, 9.2). This comparative scarcity of Cockaigne imagery may been prompted by a defining characteristic of the literary myth: Cockaigne was essentially a tale without a plot whose success rested on copious compilations of the delicacies or bodies available for consumption.13 While literary accounts of Cockaigne could outdo earlier works by simply adding ever more outrageous detail or variations to established themes, a visual cornucopia worthy of the home of gluttony was much harder to achieve.14 Bruegel solved this problem by focusing on the aftermath of over-consumption, rather than its process, condensing his subject matter into a single scene of gluttony-induced lethargy. His three glutton-sloths have already filled their bellies and now lie splayed out, bloated, and unable to 10 For example, New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Department of Drawings and Prints, Harris Brisbane Dick Fund, 1928, acc. nos 28.4(11) and 28.4(12). 11 Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Gemäldegalerie 1016. 12 Berlin, Staatliche Gemäldesammlung, reg. no. 1720. 13 Applebaum, Aguecheek’s Beef, p. 127. 14 Pleij, Dreaming, pp. 28‒61.

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move on the grass.15 In Bruegel’s land of inertia, stock motifs, like the pig carrying a knife or the roof tiled with pancakes, are therefore an indicator of place, rather than illustrations of Cockaigne’s temptations. The anonymous designer of a German woodcut from the third quarter of the sixteenth century now kept in the New York Public Library instead opted for an unusually large image size to accommodate a panoramic display of excess (fig. 9.3).16 Printed from eight woodblocks, The Promised Land of Cockaigne measures an impressive 63 × 101 cm, making it larger than Bruegel’s roughly contemporary painting and around ten to twenty times bigger than earlier prints of Cockaigne, which would have appeared as illustrations on single-sheet broadsides or on titlepages to pamphlets containing the latest iteration of the popular myth.17 Whereas the small size of earlier prints had called for either an allegorical approach, like the Escutcheon of Cockaigne devised by the Nuremberg poet and shoemaker Hans Sachs (fig. 9.5), or a reduction to single vignettes, such as the small Fountain of Youth for the ‘Adventurous Song’ (1528), a raucous pamphlet on Cockaigne printed by Kunigunde Hergotin, the grand scale of the Promised Land of Cockaigne allowed for a veritable feast for the eyes.18 Once the individual sheets were assembled and – most likely – pasted on a wall, viewers could explore a vista of Cockaigne filled with discrete scenes of excessive consumption that were in part, of course, inspired by earlier prints. The embracing couple in the gingerbread house in the upper right corner, for example, had first featured in the doorway of a tavern in Sebald Beham’s Large Kermis of 1535, while the revellers gathered around a table in the lower left corner echoed the well-to-do drinkers that were toasting, imbibing and vomiting on broadsides or title pages of pamphlets warning of the dangers of intoxication.19 These stock motifs were complemented in the New York woodcut by new details from recent literature. For instance, the cross-cheese (a specialty cheese from the foothills of the Alps) that here grows on trees on the far left, were first mentioned in a broadside on Schlawraffenland by the Nuremberg master singer poet Hans Sachs of 1528 (fig. 9.3a).20 A donkey laying figs in the bottom left 15 Clark, Heaven on Earth, pp. 74‒80. 16 Lebeer, Catalogue raisonné, p. 152; Frank, ‘Interpretation’, pp. 303‒304; Clark, Heaven on Earth, pp. 83‒85. The previous attribution to Jacob Clauser was made by Ludwig Grote and Fritz Zink for L’Art Ancien, Zurich, who sold the print in 1960. I would like to thank Margaret Clover, NYPL, for sharing this information in an email of 23 February 2020. The monogram ‘J’ on the fountain remains unresolved. The elaborate flourish of the type at the top of the print may provide further clues about its maker. Unfortunately, this exceeds the scope of this paper. 17 See Grand Scale and Stewart, Before Bruegel, p. 252. 18 Ein abentheürisch Lied, Berlin, Staatsbibliothek, 18 in: Yd 7821. 19 Stewart, Before Bruegel, pp. 73‒77, 79. 20 Erhard Schön and Hans Sachs, The Land of Cockaigne, 1528, broadside, woodcut and letterpress, 372 × 281 mm, Vienna, Albertina, D/I/15/87, l. 28: ‘Creutz-Käβ wachsen wie die Stein’.

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Figure 9.3: Anonymous, The Promised Land of Cockaigne, woodcut printed from eight blocks, 1560–1580, 63.4 × 101 cm, New York, New York Public Library, The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Print Collection, inv. 94885.

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Figure 9.3a: Detail of fig. 9.3 with cross cheese and male and female fruit growing on trees.

corner of the Promised Land featured in ‘A Description of the Slothful and Delicious Land’, a Dutch pamphlet published in 1546.21 Finally, the New York woodcut’s explicit sexual and scatological tones, which will be discussed at greater length below, were characteristic for Kunigunde Hergotin’s ‘Adventurous Song’, where a sliding-scale reward scheme for sexual acts with women of greater or lesser allure appeared alongside detailed payments for bowel movements.22

Bountiful Lands The Promised Land is particularly effective in showing how Cockaigne’s landscape incites gluttony. Eating primarily happens outdoors, in part because of the accommodating climate, in part because Cockaigne’s benevolent nature quite literally offers dishes for consumption. In the river, carp, trout and eel swim alongside pastries, pretzels and soft buns that have fallen into the stream from surrounding trees, as described in Sachs’s broadside (figs. 9.3a, 9.3c). Cheese is already curdled; roast pork wanders the land already cooked and leg ham tops the sausage wattle fence next to 21 Franck, ‘Interpretation’, pp. 303‒304. 22 Abentheürisch Lied, pp. 4‒5.

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a richly decorated gingerbread house. New arrivals in this plentiful landscape are particularly ravenous: they stretch arms, necks and even tongues towards flying roasts while still semi-submerged in the gigantic buckwheat mountain that separates Cockaigne from sixteenth-century Germany on the far right (figs. 9.3c, 9.3d). This new Garden of Delights was a grotesque inversion of man’s eviction from the Garden of Eden for Adam’s original act of gluttony because it was open to anyone willing to commit their initial act of gluttony by scoffing their way through the buckwheat.23 After all, overeating constituted gluttony even if the food on offer was as unappealing as bland porridge.

Social Dimensions of Gluttony Christian moral philosophy devoted great attention to the appropriate consumption of food. Wary of the flesh’s capacity for diverting attention away from the spirit, the Apostle Paul had warned of belly worship (Philippians 3:19) and admonished that ‘[t]hose who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh’ (Romans 8:5).24 St Augustine, the fourth-century church father, addressed the fine line between the body’s physical need for nourishment and its desire to sate cravings, ‘For the process [of eating] itself is a pleasure and there is no other means of satisfying hunger except the one, which we are obliged to take…’.25 Definitions of gluttony extended beyond eating too much or too greedily to eating too early, spending too much time thinking about or preparing food, and the consumption of expensive delicacies.26 Beyond addressing fears that food and drink would distract from spiritual pursuits, this expanded definition also accounted for potential social dimensions of gluttony.27 For, not only did excessive consumption by some reduce the amount of food available to others, but money spent on exotic fare, or time devoted to preparing elaborate meals also precluded charitable deeds – unless food was shared. Events calling for occasional gluttonous indecency, such as wedding feasts or other celebrations, were therefore tolerated in part because their conviviality provided an opportunity for mitigated almsgiving when abundant food was served to guests or dependants.28 In Cockaigne, such social dimensions of gluttony did not apply, because food supplies were inexhaustible. Here, ingestion is usually portrayed as a solitary activity, since the constant availability of food has lifted the need for set mealtimes 23 Pleij, Dreaming, pp. 4‒12. 24 Carden-Coyne and Forth, ‘Belly’, p. 4; Hill, ‘Ooze’, p. 66; Benninga, ‘Faces’, pp. 24‒25. 25 Quoted from Gilman, Fat Boys, p. 51. 26 Hill, ‘Ooze’, pp. 63‒64. 27 Hill, ‘Ooze’, p. 59 28 Miller, ‘Gluttony’, pp. 98‒99.

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or norms for orderly, communal ingestion. In the Promised Land, for instance, only a group of drinkers gathered around the table in the lower left are sociable gluttons, presumably because company is required to illustrate improper physical relations between bodies disinhibited by drink (fig. 9.3b). Such indecent eating and drinking in Cockaigne provided a satirical counterpoint to contemporary publications instructing the young (or uncouth) in proper table manners, such as Hans Sachs’s 1534 broadside on the subject, which offers insights into what would have been considered decorous dining by the educated, middle-class viewership of the New York woodcut.29 According to Sachs, good table manners began with hygiene: hands had to be washed before and after a meal and fingernails needed to be kept short and neat (but were not to be trimmed in public).30 Social hierarchies needed to be observed in seating and serving orders. The head of the household would sit at the head of the table and the oldest diner was to be served first. Serving sizes were guided by temperance: bowls and spoons were not filled to the brim and seconds could only be procured once the f inal bite had been swallowed. In general, the process of ingestion was to be kept as discrete as possible. Sachs advised diners to grant table fellows ample personal space, to avoid staring at other plates, and to chew with one’s mouth closed so as to avoid smacking.31 Above all, bodily functions, such as the emission of farts or nose-blowing, had to be suppressed at table, since they might be deemed offensive.32

Gluttony and the Humours In addition to being a potential social evil that could range from mere offence to polite company to the existential threat of famine, overeating was also perceived as a threat to the glutton’s body. Informed by Galenic humoral theory, sixteenth-century physicians and popular dietary treatises understood the body as a vessel for four fluids, namely blood, yellow bile, black bile, and phlegm, which needed to be kept in balance to preserve mental and physical health, cure illness, or mitigate the impact of ageing.33 An individual’s dominant humour determined their complexion and 29 Georg Pencz and Hans Sachs, Table Manners, 1534, broadside, letterpress and woodcut, Gotha, Stiftung Friedenstein, inv. no. 37,6. Henkel, ‘Tischzucht’, pp. 155‒157; Stewart, Before Bruegel, pp. 202‒205. 30 Sachs, Table Manners, lines 2‒4: ‘Dein hend soltu gewaschen han / Lang negel zymmen auch nit wol / Die man heymlich abschneyden soll’. 31 Sachs, Table Manners, lines 11 and 29: ‘Nit schnaude oder sewisch schmatz’; ‘Vnnd kewe mit verschlossen mundt’. 32 Sachs, Table Manners, lines 55 and 46: ‘Unnd thu dich auch am Tisch nit schneützen’; ‘Das du nit machest ein gestenck’. 33 Albala, ‘Weight Loss’, p. 171.

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Figure 9.3b: Detail of fig. 9.3 with the revellers’ table.

accounted for both physical characteristics and their corresponding temperament, which could be sanguine, choleric, melancholic, or phlegmatic. Imbalances were common, but could be corrected through diet. Phlegmatics, for example, were by nature cold and moist and hence pale and listless. They therefore needed to avoid foods that were cold and moist, such as fish or pork, and were instead encouraged to consume hot and dry fare, like cloves, onions, goat, or rabbit.34 An indiscriminate diet posed two health risks to gluttons: they were likely to ingest foods that further destabilised rather than balanced their humours and the ensuing disarray in their bellies could extinguish heat required for digestion.35 Galenic humours equally governed the characteristics of alcoholic beverages and therefore the type and quantities recommended for individual drinkers. The cold and dry temperament of a melancholic, for instance, could benefit from being warmed by small amounts of heavy wine rather than beer, which was deemed cold 34 Dietary treatises translated these principles for daily use and were religiously followed by some and mercilessly lampooned by others. Peter Flötner’s Human Sundial of 1540, for example, juxtaposes satirical verse on the timing and selection of foods with an explicit illustration of the product of optimised digestion. Cf. Mentzel, ‘Flötners Sonnenuhr’. 35 Albala, ‘Weight Loss’, p. 170.

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and wet.36 White wines were considered warmer than reds; watering down wine rendered it colder, and the colder the liquor the quicker it would lead to inebriation.37 In addition, each humour responded differently to eventual inebriation: Sanguines were thought to become docile and good-natured like lambs, cholerics aggressive and potentially violent like a lion, melancholics mad like apes, and phlegmatics sleepy, swinish and without control over their bodily functions.38 At the drinkers’ table in the Promised Land, a male phlegmatic has passed out, while a prodigious stream of vomit streams from the mouth of a well-dressed female (fig. 9.3b). These bodies are what Ann Tlusty has described as ‘unstable vessels’ whose humoral fluids are in such disarray that they can no longer be contained and instead contaminate their environment.39 The leaking body was thought to be prone to a lack of social inhibition, allowing bodily waste to be excreted in the company of others. Rather than leaving the table, a third reveller has merely turned away from the company to spew into a vat where his emissions mix with those of a man crawling on all fours. A crouching figure performs the private act of defecation in full view of the drinking company, while other revellers empty their bowels at the table. Seated on commodes, rather than stools, figures like the defecating man lifting a tankard illustrate the cyclical nature of consumption and expulsion that sustains the human body.

Gluttony’s Bedfellows In itself, drinking alcohol was not considered indecent in sixteenth-century Germany. 40 Used appropriately, alcohol formed part of everyday diet and played an important role in creating and establishing social bonds, for example, when business partners met in taverns. Even occasional overindulgence was tolerated, if it were either unintentional or served medical purposes when intoxication-induced vomiting purged the body of phlegm. Only the daily over-indulgence of a habitual drinker was considered with deep concern, as it impeded the primary functions of the married partnership by supposedly rendering women infertile and men unable to provide for their kin.41 What occasional drinkers needed to be mindful of, however, was alcohol’s propensity to encourage other sinful behaviour, because the 36 Tlusty, Bacchus, p. 134. 37 Tlusty, Bacchus, pp. 48‒53. 38 Tlusty, Bacchus, p. 54; Stewart, ‘Expelling’, p. 121; Stewart, Before Bruegel, pp. 74‒76. 39 Tlusty, Bacchus, p. 49 and 64. Vincent-Cassy, ‘Sin’, pp. 400‒401. On excretion, see also Fabian Jonietz’s essay in this volume. 40 Vincent-Cassy, ‘Sin’, p. 404. 41 Tlusty, Bacchus, p. 55.

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Figure 9.4: Anonymous, Hans Little Pretty, handcoloured woodcut, 1520s, 390 × 276 mm, Gotha, Stiftung Friedrichstein, inv. 40,19, © Stiftung Schloss Friedenstein Gotha – aus den Sammlungen der Herzog von Sachsen Coburg und Gotha’schen Stiftung für Kunst und Wissenschaft.

heat it generated in the stomach was thought to radiate to the adjoining genitals.42 In addition to medical theory, the Old Testament stories of Noah or Lot, as well as the literary classics of Ovid and Tertullian provided written accounts of the libidinous effects of gluttonous drinking. 43 It comes as no surprise therefore that 42 Tlusty, Bacchus, p. 71, pp. 417‒418. 43 Onafuwa, ‘Exuberant Gluttony’, p. 144, n. 48.

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Figure 9.3c: Detail of fig. 9.3 with the queen of Cockaigne and recent arrivals.

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both texts and images of Cockaigne should have eagerly drawn on the grotesque potential of lascivious drunkards. In a satirical woodcut of the 1520s, a single male figure embodies Cockaigne as a land of sexual, rather than culinary plenty (fig. 9.4). Quite literally a ‘hardly pretty’ resident of Cockaigne, Hans Lützel Hübsch is characterised as libidinous through his grotesquely shaped or enlarged features, from an ear in the shape of a vulva to a phallus-shaped nose big enough to accommodate a miniature bathhouse and nude female attendant and therefore mightily impressive to contemporary viewers who believed that the size of a man’s nose corresponded to that of his genitals.44 Lützel Hübsch’s disproportionate limbs and unkempt appearance may have been inspired by the classification system for sexual encounters outlined in the Adventurous Song, where rewards for intercourse and the attractiveness of partners were judged in inverse proportion.45 Beyond laughter at grotesque physical appearance, the print probably carried darker, anti-Semitic undertones. Given that Jews were commonly portrayed with large noses and long beards and hair, the bells on Lützel’s hat may have been read not as the humorous markers of a fool, but as the bells Jews were at times required to wear on their clothing.46 Similarly, the two owls may have been included as comic inversion of Lützel’s wisdom, or they may stand in a long tradition of late-medieval associations of owls as birds that ‘refuse to see the light’ with what was described as the ‘Jewish evil’.47 In either interpretation, the viewer would have considered Cockaigne a distinctly undesirable destination based on the appearance of its lewd envoy. In the Promised Land woodcut, in turn, lust is primarily expressed by women under the influence of alcohol. Sixteenth-century commentators frequently voiced their concern or outright disdain for female drinkers: the humanist Sebastian Franck (1499‒c.1543) bluntly claimed that alcohol turned women into whores, while the Bamberg reformer Johann von Schwarzenberg (1463‒1528) warned in subtler tones that drunkenness shamed women more than men, because their naturally cold complexion was ill suited to the warming characteristics of liquor. 48 Since heavy drinking was thought to purge cool phlegm from the female body and thereby create an excess of the hotter, male, sanguine humour, women risked unleashing their lust. In the Promised Land, the prostrate woman below the revellers’ table has clearly fallen victim to this imbalance, as she lifts her skirts to expose her buttocks to the vomiting men (fig. 9.3b). 49 The women harvesting men from a tree in the upper left corner exhibit similar, indecorously male patterns of behaviour, 44 Fliegende Blätter, I, pp. 311‒312; Stewart, Before Bruegel, p. 170. 45 Abentheürisch Lied, p. 5. 46 Stjerna, ‘Jew in Luther’s World’, p. 31. 47 Orgad, ‘Prey of Pray’, pp. 7‒8. 48 Tlusty, Bacchus, p. 145; Tlusty, ‘Drinking’, p. 266. 49 Tlusty, ‘Drinking’, pp. 263‒266.

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because they are as eager and proactive in procuring a potential sexual partner as the males gathered underneath a neighbouring tree bearing female fruit (fig. 9.3a). Similarly, a freshly rejuvenated female nude leans over the rim of the Fountain of Youth basin to grab a male partner from the stream below, while a couple embraces in the gingerbread house.50 Beyond these openly sexual acts, smaller gestures, like the toast between unmarried drinkers across the head of the woman’s vomiting husband at the revellers’ table, would have been perceived by sixteenth-century viewers as potentially adulterous and therefore a grave breach of decorum.51 The third vice of Cockaigne, besides lust and gluttony, was sloth. True to the land’s topsy-turvy nature, idleness was richly rewarded, for example, by the nobleman paying a sleeping peasant under the cross-cheese tree, while any attempt at earning a living was punished.52 In the Promised Land, the laziest resident and its only labourer thus form a pair in a realm that is otherwise egalitarian in its access to goods and freedom from labour (fig. 9.3c). The Queen of Cockaigne, a glutton so paralysed with inertia that she requires a servant to feed her, is enthroned on yet another commode, while her maid feeds her in an almost aggressive manner, hair fluttering and mouth agape in an imitation of ingestion.53

Reading the Promised Land There was a sense of playfulness in discovering indecent details in panoramic prints like the Promised Land of Cockaigne. Viewers could let their eye wander, discover and point out ever more outrageous behaviour, as these pictures invited discursive inspection, often in the company of others.54 When sixteenth-century images of interiors feature prints, these are usually shown pasted onto walls, along cornices or above mantelpieces, with their subject matter often complimenting or commenting on the setting, for instance, when a frieze of brash lansquenets decorates an inn doubling as a brothel in Jan van Hemessen’s Inn Scene (c. 1540).55 Written sources confirm such display practices, indicating for instance that Beham’s Fountain of Youth, a panoramic bathing scene, could be found in bathhouses, while Bruegel’s Peasant Wedding Feast, an image of occasional gluttony, originally hung

50 The latter appears also in Sebald Beham’s Large Kermis of 1535. 51 Tlusty, ‘Drinking’, p. 266. 52 See Sachs’s 1528 broadside and Abentheürisch Lied, pp. 3‒4. 53 The figure is mentioned in Sachs’s 1528 poem. Cf. Nicolò Nelli, Venerable Idleness. Queen of Cockaigne, 1565, engraving, https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/393347 (1 October 2021). 54 Müller, ‘Italienverehrung’, p. 312. 55 Stewart, Before Bruegel, pp. 254‒256.

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Figure 9.3d: Detail of fig. 9.3 with craftsmen, peasants, burghers and beggars approaching the buckwheat mountain.

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in a small dining room in 1560s Antwerp.56 Images of Cockaigne would have been suited either to places of public merriment, such as inns, or private rooms used for feasting. Depending on its viewing context, the print’s tenor could then vary from a greater emphasis on amusement in a tavern to exhortation in a home. This semantic flexibility was an advantage particularly for larger woodcuts, like the New York Promised Land, that were costly to produce and therefore needed to be attractive to wide segments of the market to be profitable. The Promised Land of Cockaigne was likely intended to be accompanied by text, to which the only surviving impression in New York can unfortunately only bear partial testimony. There is no trace of letterpress verse that would probably have run along the lower edge of the assembled woodcut. In addition, the text boxes in the second sheet from the right on the bottom row have remained blank, but may suggest that the image was to be seen through the eyes of recent arrivals and their verbalisation of first impressions of the alleged ‘promised land’.57 The wording of the title itself may have been significant to sixteenth-century viewers, because the phrase gelobtes rather than verheissenes Land to describe the land promised to the Israelites in the Old Testament had gained wider currency only in the writings of Martin Luther.58 Hearing descriptions of arid landscapes and dilapidated cities from travellers, Luther had joined other early modern commentators in concluding that the Holy Land was no longer a purported earthly paradise.59 Since a Protestant priest in a black cassock at the revellers’ table bears a remarkable resemblance to Luther, and since the reformer was well-known for his rotund figure and enjoyment of beer, the print may thus have suggested that Luther had found a replacement Promised Land in Cockaigne (fig. 9.3b).60 As early as 1528 Sebastian Franck had accused the reformer of being ruled by his belly in a pamphlet On the Horrible Vice of Drunkenness.61 Franck’s polemic was somewhat unmerited, as Luther’s attitude towards drinking conformed to sixteenth-century norms: he sanctioned moderate alcohol consumption, but condemned habitual drinking on spiritual grounds.62 Luther himself was, in fact, alarmed by rising levels of intoxication among his 56 Stewart, ‘Fountain’, p. 79; Goldstein, ‘Artefacts’, p. 175. 57 This seems more likely than a purely technical quirk whereby the seventh sheet was the only impression from a later print-run that was assembled with earlier impressions printed prior to the insertion of these ‘speech bubbles’. 58 Grimm, Wörterbuch, 5, col. 3049, ‘geloben’. 59 Reichert, Asien und Europa, pp. 137‒138. The two figures in orientalised dress at the table may also be a reference to this subtheme. 60 Beham’s Large Kermis of 1535 features a similar Luther look-alike cleric; see Stewart, Before Bruegel, pp. 116‒118. 61 Stewart, Before Bruegel, pp. 67, 116‒120; cf. Stewart, ‘Taverns’, p. 16. 62 Blanke, ‘Reformation’, pp. 81, 87.

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contemporaries and feared that his concept of evangelical freedom might have been mistaken as an excuse for intemperate behaviour by some of his followers.63 Nevertheless, the Praised Land of Cockaigne is hardly a unilateral condemnation of Lutheran excess, as Catholic monks and a nun are just as eagerly hurrying towards the buckwheat mountain in the upper right corner. Indeed, this land of plenty is attractive to all confessions and rungs of society, from the two scholars emerging from the mountain, to the orientalised figures at the revellers’ table or the turban-wearer emerging from the buckwheat mountain (figs. 9.3b, 9.3c). Craftsmen rush to enter Cockaigne alongside well-dressed burghers and soldiers in the narrow strip of land representing the here and now on the far left of the woodcut. Even children are led to physical and moral corruption by their parents in what is perhaps the most inherently wicked scene in the print and certainly an exception from standard Cockaigne iconography (fig. 9.3d).64 Aside from Cockaigne’s appeal to people from all walks of life, it is remarkable that the Promised Land thematises the spatial relation to sixteenth-century Germany and the transition from one world to the other. Both literary and pictorial treatments of Cockaigne more commonly emphasised the remoteness or inaccessibility of the land of plenty. Literary descriptions give nonsensical directions to a place three miles past Christmas, Hans Lützel Hüpsch nebulously described Cockaigne as so far-flung that most would fail to make their way, while the woodcut illustrating Sachs’s broadside of 1530 shows no entry point to Schlaraffenland. By contrast, the Promised Land gives over almost a third of the picture space on the right to the real world. Here, Cockaigne is within eyeshot of a town indicated by the church spire in the upper right and its buckwheat mountain barrier is highly permeable, judging from the influx of new inhabitants. This proximity makes the Promised Land a potentially more dangerous Cockaigne. It carries an implied moral warning that anyone could easily slip into an indecent, schlaraffian life of gluttony and lust and accordingly, the New York woodcut is not inhabited by grotesque figures like Lützel, but by ordinary-looking men and women in contemporary dress, the kind of people sixteenth-century viewers would encounter in the street or see when they looked in the mirror.

It All Turns to Shit Hans Sachs used similar strategies of blurring boundaries between the real world and the land of plenty in his satirical broadside on the Escutcheon of Cockaigne 63 Blanke, ‘Reformation’, p. 80; Stewart, Before Bruegel, pp. 118‒120. 64 It may have been prompted here by contemporary Lutheran proposals to describe the afterlife to youngsters in terms of an age-appropriate Schlaraffenland filled with toys and sugared almonds. Pleij, Dreaming, p. 237; Gilomen, ‘Schlaraffenland’, p. 219.

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Figure 9.5: Peter Flötner, Escutcheon of Cockaigne, hand-coloured woodcut, 1536, 285 × 395 mm, Gotha, Stiftung Friedrichstein, inv. 39,69, © Stiftung Schloss Friedenstein Gotha – aus den Sammlungen der Herzog von Sachsen Coburg und Gotha’schen Stiftung für Kunst und Wissenschaft.

(1536) (fig. 9.5). His verse offers an explanation of armorial bearings designed for a wastrel who ‘revels, drinks, womanises and gambles’ and therefore leads the life of a Schlauraffe in the here and now.65 The text explains that alongside the typical insignia of gula, from the roast chicken and flask brandished by the two supporters, to the pancake and sausages on the shield, the arms also bear portents of gluttony’s ill effects. These illustrate that whatever may pass with impunity in Cockaigne will not go unpunished in the world the squanderer and the broadside’s readers inhabit. According to Sachs, the helm made of straw indicates how readily the spendthrift’s assets will disperse, while the feces on the mantle and the particularly large ‘nugget’ (Kleinod) of excrement resting on a pillow in the crest denote66 that [the wastrel] should of old Have earned through work 65 Fliegende Blätter, I, pp. 310‒311: ‘feyert trinckt bult vnd spilt’. 66 Fliegende Blätter, I, p. 311: ‘Seyn gut nympt zu wie Haber stro’,

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Cash, treasure and gold. Yet, his savings are so sparse, It just as well goes out his arse.67

Sachs’s verse sums up the corollary of gluttony outside Cockaigne: money required to purchase copious amounts or exotic types of food and drink is wasted ‘on the arse’, because these investments literally turn to shit. By this logic, the pursuit of gluttony may be acceptable as an occasional act of indecency, but prolonged periods of overindulgence will inevitably lead to destitution. What made the phrase ‘on the arse’ such a popular motif in images of Cockaigne or related popular festival iconography was its ability to capture the futility of gluttony in a tone that was both humorous and potentially moralising.68 Sachs combined it here with the placement of a pile of excrement on a pillow, a scatological theme that south German viewers would have recognised from carnival festivities. In 1534, Sebastian Franck recorded in his Weltbuch, a cosmography with extensive comments on social customs, that during carnival revellers would parade ‘fresh human excrement on cushions, flick away flies, and God willing would cut and serve it.’69 The transfer of humorous scatological imagery from carnival to Cockaigne is unsurprising, as both were topsy-turvy worlds marked by excess and increased expulsion was a known physiological consequence of excessive food and alcohol intake, particularly among phlegmatics. To what extent Cockaigne iconography could be abbreviated and focus on the digestive products of gluttony is illustrated in two woodcuts by Peter Flötner, the likely designer of Sachs’s Escutcheon.70 Both repeat the motif of the letter ‘S’ for Schlaraffen surmounting a pile of excrement that has been carefully placed on a pillow. Gone are the culinary delights of Cockaigne in a Fool Carrying Excrement (fig. 9.6), as the buffoon, accompanied by a goose as a symbol of folly, presents his stool while working on the next instalment in the chamber pot stuck to his buttocks. Flötner’s print instead epitomises Mikhail Bakhtin’s principle of the carnivalesque, an invitation to laugh at grotesque bodies engaging in transgressive behaviours, 67 Fliegende Blätter, I, p. 311: ‘Bedewt / das er durch seyn arbeyt Gar lengst erobert haben solt Parschafft / kleynat / silver vnd goldt Weyl er aber thet nichssen sparen Ist es als durch den Ars gefaren’ With thanks to Miriam Hall Kirch for greatly improving my translation. 68 Onafuwe, ‘Exuberant Gluttony’, pp. 108‒109. Stewart, ‘Expelling’, p. 125. 69 ‘ettlich tragen ein frischen menschen kaht auff einem küssin hervmb vnd weren im der fliegen / wolte Gott sy müßten ihm auch schneitzen vnd credentzen.’ Franck, Weltbůch, p. cxxxi recto. 70 On the attribution to Flötner, see Fabian Jonietz’s essay in this volume.

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Figure 9.6: Peter Flötner, Fool carrying Excrement, woodcut, c. 1536–1540, 233 × 305 mm, London, British Museum, inv. E,8.160, © British Museum, London.

often involving the ‘lower bodily stratum’.71 The fool’s features are misshapen and his contorted posture emphasised by his baggy, ill-fitting costume, as his body expands to express more feces while he proudly displays the previous efforts of his nether regions. In Flötner’s The Swine’s Supper (fig. 9.7), the tone veers from such benign ridicule to what borders on Julia Kristeva’s notion of the abject, as the grotesque becomes a potential source of revulsion at bodily excretions.72 Here, the dumb fool inviting laughter has been replaced by a family of anthropomorphic swine-residents of Cockaigne whose behaviour incites disgust as much as mirth. A sow asks her young and the broadside’s readers to feast on the shit of Cockaigne served on a pillow at the centre of the image. As mother-swine swats flies (presumably in reference to Franck’s description of German carnival customs), she escalates her multi-sensory assault on good taste by praising her dish as free from gristle or bone and still fresh and warm.73 Revulsion plays out on multiple levels: from the abject anxiety of the filthy waste product re-entering the body to early modern ideas of direct transference expressed in fears that those eating pork would become swinish or the 71 Bakhtin, Rabelais, pp. 29‒20. 72 Kristeva, Powers of Horror, pp. 2‒4, 148. 73 ‘Die kost hat weder gred noch bein / … es ist gantz Frisch vnd warm sein / Wer nicht gelaubt der peiß darein.’ Cf. Franck, Weltbůch, p. cxxxi recto.

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Figure 9.7: Peter Flötner, The Swines’ Supper, hand-coloured woodcut, 1536–1540, 264 × 380 mm, Gotha, Stiftung Friedrichstein, inv. 40,58, © Stiftung Schloss Friedenstein Gotha – aus den Sammlungen der Herzog von Sachsen Coburg und Gotha’schen Stiftung für Kunst und Wissenschaft.

more immediate worry that the faecal essence of a pig that had ingested excrement might be transmitted to anyone eating its meat.74 Similar themes are explored in other mid-sixteenth-century prints, such as Virgil Solis’s merry procession of putti with a swine that eats excrement and excretes sausages (fig. 9.8). What makes these works more light-hearted, is that they present a discreet world of swinish behaviour. In Flötner’s Swine’s Supper, the direct address has in a rather alarming manner lifted the very boundaries between human and animal, between food and waste, and between the oral and the anal. Similar ambiguities surface in milder form in the Promised Land of Cockaigne. Here, the portions of buckwheat forming the mountain are indistinguishable from piles of excrement, particularly where steam rises from fresh deposits near the night watchman carrying a lantern, or below the horse’s tail in the lower right corner (figs. 9.3b, 9.3c). As in the Swine’s Supper, there is no clear distinction between edible and foul matter as bodies propel their way through the mass by eating and excreting. German viewers would have expected such scatological elements in depictions of Cockaigne, not least because inordinate consumption was bound to result in 74 Albala, Eating Right, p. 168.

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Figure 9.8: Virgil Solis, Procession of Putti with Sausages and a Pig, engraving and etching, 1550s, 38 × 202 mm, Dresden, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, Kupferstich-Kabinett, inv. A 3855, photo by Andreas Diesend.

excessive expulsion. Scatology also featured prominently in contemporary literary incarnations of Cockaigne, where Schlauraffen were rewarded for shitting in their beds in the Audacious Song, or renumerated for farting in Sachs’s 1528 broadside.75 One of the most starkly indecent figures in the Promised Land of Cockaigne, a stumbling man collecting payment for simultaneously vomiting and farting as he exits from the mountain of buckwheat, may be a reference to Sach’s broadside (f ig. 9.3c). The Promised Land, or indeed Flötner’s prints, are unlikely to have appealed to anyone as sternly moralistic as Walter Rivius, the humanist translator of the first German edition of Vitruvius’s Geometry of 1548, who had condemned as improper ‘Whoever finds joy in a picture of a truly drunk peasant…who shits and vomits behind a fence’.76 Most viewers, however, would have appreciated the mixture of carnivalesque merriment and implied warning. They could choose to look for humorous, grotesque details, such as the porridge-turd hat on the woman with exposed breasts seated at the edge of the mountain, or they could be repulsed by the private deed of defecation colliding with the social acts of dining or drinking at the revellers’ table. (figs. 9.3b, 9.3c) Rather than stern lecturing, prints like the Promised Land of Cockaigne wrapped their admonition in a much more palatable coat of glee. Both laughter and disgust could appeal to a sense of superiority in the viewer, of being less foolish or swinish than the gluttons who inhabit a place much more dangerous than fictional Cockaigne itself. The true fools were gluttons of the real world in which no one gets paid for farting about, but where excess damages body, soul and fortune and ‘idle dreams of indolence / Can only end in foul offence.’77

75 Søndergaard, ‘Far West’, p. 195; Abentheürisch Lied, p. 4: ‘vnd wer sich dann thut fleyssen / zwey pfund ich im den verheyß / von eynem scheyß / thut er ins beth gar scheyssen / man lont im zwey darfür ich weyß.’ 76 Though Flötner still contributed illustrations to Rivius’s Geometry. Rivius quoted here from Stewart, Before Bruegel, p. 137. 77 Sachs quoted from Appelbaum, Aguecheek’s Beef, p. 132.

‘It All Turns to Shit’ – The L and of Cock aigne in Six teenth- Century German Woodcuts 

Works Cited Albala, Ken, Eating Right in the Renaissance (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002). Albala, Ken, ‘Weight Loss in the Age of Reason’, in Cultures of the Abdomen: Diet, Digestion, and Fat in the Modern World, ed. by Christopher E. Forth and Ana Carden-Coyne (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), pp. 169‒183. Appelbaum, Robert, Aguecheek’s Beef, Belch’s Hiccup, and Other Gastronomic Interjections: Literature, Culture and Food Among the Early Moderns (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006). Bakhtin, Mikhail, Rabelais and His World, transl. by Hélène Iswolsky (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1984). Benninga, Sara, ‘The Faces of Fatness in Early Modern Europe’, FKW: Zeitschrift für Geschlechterforschung und visuelle Kultur, 62 (2017), pp. 24‒35. Blanke, Fritz, ‘Reformation und Alkoholismus’, Zwingliana, 9 (1953), pp. 75‒89. Carden-Coyne, Ana, and Forth, Christopher E., ‘The Belly and Beyond: Body, Self, and Culture in Ancient and Modern Times’, in Cultures of the Abdomen: Diet, Digestion and Fat in the Modern World, ed. by Ana Carden-Coyne and Christopher E. Forth (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), pp. 1‒11. Clark, T.J., Heaven on Earth: Painting and the Life to Come (London: Thames and Hudson, 2018). Ein abentheürisch Lied / in dem Roten Zwinger thon / von dem Schlawraffen lande / seltzam schwenck / lustig zu hoeren (Nuremberg: Kunigund Hergotin, 1528). Fliegende Blätter. Die Sammlung der Einblattholzschnitte des 15. und 16. Jahrhunderts der Stiftung Schloss Friedenstein Gotha, ed. by Bernd Schäfer et al., 2 vols. (Stuttgart: Arnoldsche Art Publishers, 2016). Franck, Sebastian, Weltbůch. Spiegel vn[d] bildtniß des gantzen erdbodens (Tübingen: Ulrich Morhart, 1534). Frank, Ross H., ‘An Interpretation of the Land of Cockaigne (1567) by Pieter Breugel the Elder’, The Sixteenth Century Journal, 22 (1991), pp. 299‒329. Gilman, Sander L., Fat Boys: A Slim Book (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2004). Gilomen, Hans-Jörg, ‘Das Schlaraffenland und andere Utopien im Mittelalter’, Basler Zeitschrift für Geschichte und Altertumskunde, 104 (2004), pp. 213‒248. Goldstein, Claudia, ‘Artefacts of Domestic Life: Bruegel’s Paintings in the Flemish Home’, Nederlands Kunsthistorisch Jaarboek, 51 (2000), pp. 172‒193. Grand Scale: Monumental Prints in the Age of Dürer and Titian, ed. Larry Silver and Elizabeth Wyckoff (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008). Grimm, Jacob and Wilhelm, Deutsches Wörterbuch (over 30 vols., 1854‒1960), http://dwb.uni-trier.de/de/das-woerterbuch/das-dwb/. Henkel, Nikolaus, ‘Tischzucht und Kinderlehre um 1500’, in Zivilisationsprozess: zu Erziehungsschriften in der Vormoderne, ed. by Rüdiger Schnell (Cologne: Böhlau, 2004), pp. 153‒158.

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Hill, Susan E., ‘“The Ooze of Gluttony”: Attitudes towards Food, Eating, and Excess in the Middle Ages’, in The Seven Deadly Sins: From Communities to Individuals, ed. by Richard Newhauser (Leiden: Brill, 2007), pp. 57‒70. Kristeva, Julia, Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection (New York: Columbia University Press: 1982). Lebeer, Louis, Catalogue raisonné des estampes de Bruegel l’Ancien (Brussels: Bibliothèque Royale Albert Ier, 1969). Mentzel, Jan-David, ‘Peter Flötners Menschliche Sonnenuhr. Überlegungen zu einer Ästhetik der Schwelle’, in Alltag als Exemplum. Religiöse und profane Deutungsmuster der frühen Genrekunst, ed. by Jürgen Müller and Sandra Braune (Berlin, Munich: Deutscher Kunstverlag, 2020), pp. 97‒113. Miller, William Ian, ‘Gluttony’, Representations, 60 (1997), pp. 92‒112. Müller, Jürgen, ‘Italienverehrung als Italienverachtung. Hans Sebald Behams Jungbrunnen von 1536 und die italienische Kunst der Renaissance’, in Bild-Geschichte: Festschrift für Horst Bredekamp, ed. by Philine Helas et al. (Berlin: De Gruyter 2007), pp. 309‒318. Onafuwa, Yemi, ‘Exuberant Gluttony: Bruegel’s Overeaters’, in Parody and Festivity in Early Modern Art: Essays on Comedy as Social Vision, ed. by David R. Smith (Farnham, Burlington: Ashgate, 2012), pp. 99‒114. Orgad, Zvi., ‘Prey of Pray: Allegorizing the Liturgical Practice’, Arts, 9:1 (2020), doi:10.3390/ arts9010003. Petzold, Leander, ‘Das Leben – ein Fest. Essen und Trinken in der Frühen Neuzeit’, in Die Erfindung des Menschen. Schöpfungsträume und Körperbilder 1500‒2000, ed. by Richard van Dülmen (Vienna: Böhlau, 1998), pp. 175‒195. Pleij, Hans, Dreaming of Cockaigne: Medieval Fantasies of the Perfect Life (New York: Columbia University Press, 2003). Reichert, Folker, Asien und Europa im Mittelalter. Studien zur Geschichte des Reisens (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2014). Søndergaard, Leif, ‘Far West of Spain – The Land of Cockaigne’, in Monsters, Marvels and Miracles: Imaginary Journeys and Landscapes in the Middle Ages, ed. by Leif Søndergaard and Rasmus Thorning Hansen (Odense: University Press of Southern Denmark, 2005), pp. 173‒208. Stewart, Alison G., Before Bruegel: Sebald Beham and the Origins of Peasant Festival Imagery (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2008). Stewart, Alison G., ‘Expelling from Top and Bottom: The Changing Role of Scatology in Images of Peasant Festivals from Albrecht Dürer to Pieter Bruegel’, in Fecal Matters in Early Modern Literature and Art: Studies in Scatology, ed. by Jeff Persels and Russel Ganim (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004), pp. 118‒137. Stewart, Alison G., ‘Sebald Beham’s Fountain of Youth-Bathhouse Woodcut: Popular Entertainment and Large Prints by the Little Masters’, Register of the Spencer Art Museum, 6:6 (1989), pp. 64‒88.

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Stewart, Alison G., ‘Taverns in Nuremberg Prints at the Time of the German Reformation’, in The World of the Tavern: Public Houses in Early Modern Europe, ed. by Beat Kümin and B. Ann Tlusty (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2002), pp. 95‒115. Stjerna, Kirsi, ‘The Jew in Luther’s World’, in Martin Luther, the Bible, and the Jewish People: A Reader, ed. by Brooks Schramm and Kirsi I. Stjerna (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2012), pp. 17‒36. Tlusty, B. Ann, Bacchus and Civic Order: The Culture of Drink in Early Modern Germany (Charlottesville, Virginia: University of Virginia Press, 2001). Tlusty, B. Ann, ‘Drinking, Family Relations, and Authority in Early Modern Germany’, Journal of Family History, 29:3 (July 2004), pp. 253‒273. Vincent-Cassy, Mireille, ‘Between Sin and Pleasure: Drunkenness in France in the Late Middle Ages’, in In the Garden of Evil: The Vices and Culture in the Middle Ages, ed. by Richard Newhauser (Turnhout: Brepols, 2005), pp. 393‒430. Wunderlich, Werner, ‘Das Schlaraffenland in der deutschen Sprache und Literatur. Bibliographischer Überblick und Forschungsstand’, Fabula, 27:1 (1986), pp. 54‒75.

About the Author Susanne Meurer (Ph.D. University of London) is an Associate Professor of Art History at the University of Western Australia, Perth. Her research focuses on technical aspects of printmaking and the cultural history of prints. She also specialises in early German art historiography and is completing a monograph on the Nuremberg calligrapher Johann Neudörffer the Elder.

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10. Noëls and Bodily Fluids: The Business of Low-Country Ceremonial Fountains Catherine Emerson

Abstract The use of fountains displaying bodily fluids in both human and animal form was common in the Renaissance and the Middle Ages. The practice has a special function within the festive culture of Low Country ceremonies. Far from being regarded as indecent, fountains depicting urinating, lactating and vomiting set the spectacle in an atemporal festive time which could be read in accordance with numerous interpretative traditions, including that of Christianity. Different thinkers regarded animals as more or less moral than humans, but there was a strain of thought that saw animals and fountains as having a comparable inner life. Fountains existed in a fantasy world. Unacceptable conduct was read symbolically when depicted by a fountain. Keywords: animals; princely entries; statues; urination

Brussels, Respect and the Puer Mingens Amongst other people there were some jesters, students as well as others, who said to the foreigners: When you people go back home and if you talk about Manneken Pis, they’ll ask you if you too greeted him, and if you do not do it and you say no, they won’t believe you and they’ll say that you haven’t seen it: for it is common usage that you honour it in person. Hearing this, many followed their advice, and saluted the gentle Manneken. The girls, the maidens, even the spiritual virgins (that is, those vowed to chastity) say it was a pleasure to see. And there are also a lot of people from this country, and even from the City of Brussels, who never pass Manneken Pis without greeting and saluting it.

Jonietz, F., M. Richter, A.G. Stewart (eds.), Indecent Bodies in Early Modern Visual Culture. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2023 doi 10.5117/9789463725835_ch10

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Figure 10.1: Replica after Jérome Duquesnoy the Elder, Manneken Pis, bronze, 1965 (original completed in 1619), 61 cm, Brussels, photo by Catherine Emerson (2006).

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Onder andere waren daer eenige Spot-vogels soo Studenten als andere, die tot de Vremdelingen seyden; Als gy-lieden in uw’ Landt komt en van dit Mantje-pis sult spreken, sal-men u vragen, of gy het oock gesalueert hebt, en soo gy het niet en doet, en hun neen antwoordt, sal-men u niet gelooven, en seggen dat gy het niet gesien hebt: want het is een gemeyn gebruyck dat men het selve eer bewyse. Hier op warender vele die hunnen raedt volghden, en het aerdigh Mantje salueerden. De Meyssjes, Jouffertjes, jae selfs de Clopjes (dat zyn de Quesels) negen dat het een lust om te sien was. Oock zynder al veel van dit Landt en van de Stadt Brussel selfs, die dit Manneken-pis in ’t voor-by-gaen noyt en sullen na-laten te salueren en begroeten.1

In this account of a Brussels civic ceremony, Petrus de Cafmeyer describes the way that visitors to the city, and indeed its residents, were expected to interact with one of the town’s landmarks. De Cafmeyer (1685–1741) was well placed to make this observation, if the title page of the devotional guidebook from which this quotation is taken is any indication. It names him as a priest and cannon of the Collegiate Church of Saints Michael and Gudula, which has since become the Cathedral of Brussels. De Cafmeyer’s text describes and commemorates the 1720 festivities marking the Blessed Sacrament and is accompanied by engravings. The description of the fountain, also illustrated (fig. 10.2), shows the fountain in its street setting, with peddlers and children in the foreground. However, the background has been modified to reflect the festive nature of the occasion with classical figures and garlands. None of the figures in the foreground seems to be performing the respectful gesture that Cafmeyer describes. Indeed, the monument in question might seem an unlikely recipient of such respect: a c. 60 cm high bronze fountain, it depicts a small naked boy urinating with the stream of water from the drinking fountain replicating the bodily fluids of the character portrayed. The use of fountains incorporating bodily fluids in both human and animal form is common in the Renaissance and these fountains still survive today. At first sight the urinating body might be regarded as indecent, but we should not presume that the physicality of such forms means that they were regarded in the Renaissance as offensive. Texts such as Cafmeyer’s are informative in this regard because they give us an indication not only of how these fountains looked in the past but also how they were used. It initially appears that the students are making fun of the visitors by suggesting that they adopt a behaviour which will make them a source of amusement for young women of the city. However, Cafmeyer continues by saying that there are people from Brussels who also salute the statue, indicating that the gesture is indeed authentic as the mockers have suggested, even if it does attract ridicule. The object of the urinating statue is perceived as comical but not as shameful. It is incorporated into the civic 1 Cafmeyer, Hooghweerdighe historie, I, Appendix, p. 26. All translations my own unless stated otherwise.

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Figure 10.2: Anonymous, Manneken Pis, engraving, c. 1720, illustration from Petrus de Cafmeyer, Histoire du Tres-Saint Sacrement de Miracle, transl. by George de Backer (Brussels: George de Backer, 1720).

and religious ceremonies of the city and is accorded a certain amount of respect. Cafmeyer does not describe the precise nature of the gesture performed but it is clear that is a gesture of greeting and that it is publicly visible, perhaps a bow, a nod of the head or a wave of a hand. What is clear is that interaction between the public and the fountain was common and indeed encouraged. Although the text cited is from the first quarter of the eighteenth-century, Manneken Pis, the fountain described, dates from much earlier. The current fountain (fig. 10.1), that described by Cafmeyer, is a version of a bronze erected in 1619, and city records refer to a urinating statue in the same location since at least the mid-fifteenth

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century and possibly earlier.2 It fits into a tradition of urinating statues, that can be traced back to antiquity, often referred to using the Latin tag puer mingens or puer mictans.3 Victor Coonin has argued that this terminology is an attempt by art historians to describe the motif which is anachronistic in its approach because it focuses on the act of micturition, rather than on the symbolism of the statues. 4 Coonin also argues that there are in fact two separate traditions, since the ‘Italian tradition…is distinct from the northern’ and it is clear that there are differences between the motif in an Italian context and the ways that it appears in France and the Low Countries, most notably in the frequency with which urinating figures are winged cherubs in Italy.5 That said, the Italianate influence on late medieval and Renaissance ceremonial was so prevalent that it is difficult to regard the two traditions as entirely distinct, since much public spectacle drew on Classical visual imagery and in particular the way that it had been interpreted by the Italian Renaissance. What may have initially been a separate tradition in the Netherlands and France was certainly influenced by Italian artistic trends, and vice versa, as Italy attracted artists from the Low Countries, including François Duquesnoy, son of the sculptor of the 1619 Manneken Pis, whose work in Rome has earned him the nickname of ‘king of the putti’.6 Whilst the importance of the Italian tradition, including the images in the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, and Lorenzo Lotto’s cupid, cannot be ignored, the focus of this chapter will be on the French and Dutch speaking territories of the Netherlands and France where a rich document culture allows us to place these objects in a particular context, more especially in their festival context.7

Low Countries Spectacle Culture The fact that the statue in Brussels has survived in the same place since at least the 1450s means that we can envisage that it was a part of any one of the numerous civic ceremonies organised in the Renaissance and the Middle Ages celebrating religious holidays and political events such as princely entries into a town, marriages, or funerals. Indeed, Cafmeyer’s 1720 text describes an event which is very similar to 2 For a discussion of this, see Emerson, Regarding Manneken Pis, especially pp. 41‒42; Laurent, ‘L’Acte de 1453’. 3 Lebensztejn, Pissing Figures, p. 13. 4 Coonin, ‘The Spirit of Water’. 5 Coonin, ‘The Spirit of Water’, p. 83, n. 10. For an overview of the motif and that of the lactating woman, see Deonna, ‘La femme aux seins jaillissants’. 6 Eekhoud, ‘A Distinguished 17th Century Uranian’, p. 48, n. 2. 7 Colonna, Hypnerotomachia Poliphili and in particular the illustrations, pp. 85, 90, and 175; Lavin, ‘Art of the Misbegotten’.

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these ceremonies and was part of a celebration that had been held in Brussels since the fourteenth century.8 Fountains were an important part of these spectacles. Indeed, their role went beyond that of pure visual spectacle as they were one of the few parts of these ceremonies where interaction was expected. Most of the entertainments in medieval entries were static tableaux without spoken words.9 However, fountains often provided a point of interaction with the public and with the prince entering a town, allowing the procession to pause and take refreshment, often directly supplied from the fountain itself, though sometimes supplied separately from tables set up next to the fountain. This custom persists to this day, with Manneken Pis continuing to be used as a site of civic celebration, decorated for the occasion, and connected to a beer barrel, as we see in figure 10.3. Moreover, some aspects of fountains that we would now consider as part of their spectacle were not regarded as important for medieval and Early Modern viewers, which meant that their potential for interaction was more important relative to their other contributions to the event. For instance, after the eighteenth century the sound of the fountain was considered as music and was taken into account when designing the sensory effect produced by a fountain. This was not the case before the eighteenth century affording one fewer possibility for designers who wanted to use fountains for spectacular effects in the earlier period.10 This is not to say that fountains could not be spectacular. In 1431, the Duke of Burgundy, Philippe le Bon, paid a substantial sum for the construction of a series of elaborate hydraulic automata to be built at his castle in Hesdin in Artois.11 Amongst the fountains described, we find three characters who would spray water on people, a device to shoot water up women’s skirts, alongside other machines that sprayed soot and flour on visitors who came too close, which are not exactly fountains but clearly operated in a similar way. The Hesdin entertainments are like the fountains in late medieval and Renaissance civic spectacles insofar as the spectator was invited to engage physically with the fountain – sometimes very physically, since some of the Hesdin automata were designed to rain blows down on visitors to the castle. In civic spectacle, however, physical engagement was of a gentler kind. Participants were often encouraged to drink the liquid provided by the fountain, which would be modified for the occasion to serve something other than water, often wine but sometimes scented water. In the context of a civic ceremony such as a princely entry into a city, the transformation of fountains into distributors of festive drinks had a very precise iconographical meaning. To understand this 8 Pierret, ‘La Profanation des hosties’. 9 Blanchard, ‘La Conception des échafauds’. 10 Gilks, ‘The Fountain of the Innocents’, pp. 68‒69. 11 Danvin, Vicissitudes heur et malheur du vieil-Hesdin.

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Figure 10.3: Manneken Pis dressed, decorated and serving beer at a public ceremony, photo by Catherine Emerson (2010).

meaning, it is necessary to understand the contractual nature of the princely entry in the late medieval and Renaissance period. The entry was a ceremony held at the beginning of the reign of prince, or sometimes on the marriage of the prince, in which the new king, queen, duke or duchess entered his or her town in pomp.12 Whilst ‘prince’ in this context meant any ruler, similar ceremonies took place when a queen or duchess consort entered a city for the first time, and Anne de Bretagne made two ceremonial entries into Paris, once as the consort of Charles VIII and once as that of Louis XII. Part of the ceremony was a reciprocal exchange whereby the town promised loyalty to the ruler and he or she confirmed civic privileges. In this context, using elements of the cityscape to serve refreshment went beyond the practical requirements of accommodating a group of thirsty members of the ruler’s party as they processed through the town. Offering a drink takes on a symbolic meaning, and the symbolism of fountains in princely entries operated in both directions and on several metaphorical levels. At once the symbol of the generosity of the town and the liberality of the prince confirming the town in its freedoms, the fountain was also used to represent the fertility of the territory that produced 12 Kipling, Enter the King.

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goods that enriched the country and of the prince who, it was hoped, would produce an heir to maintain the relationship. This link to fertility is seen very clearly in Laurence Bryant’s observation of the various decorations that were given to the Ponceau fountain in Paris in the course of royal entries between 1360 and 1491.13 This landmark, which was a halting point in the procession, was habitually decorated with symbols of royal power, such as the fleur de lis and the salamander, often in combination with elements symbolising the king’s consort. Examples include lilies entwined with roses commemorating England, celebrating Louis XI’s marriage to Mary of England in 1415, and the salamander and the ermine of 1517 celebrating the royal couple of François Ier and Claude de France.14 The explicit celebration of the married couple in these instances demonstrates the extent to which the drinking fountain was used as a symbol of fertility, both that of the couple themselves and that of the nation welcoming them. As Fabian Jonietz has noted above, excremental representation could carry the meaning of fertilising manure, and the water of the urinating fountain here has the same symbolic weight, recalling the fact that water is essential to life.15 Again and again we find references to fountains distributing drinks in civic festivities of the later Middle Ages and the Renaissance. The transformation of fountains from mundane distributors of water to drinking fountains serving wine, hippocras (a spiced wine), or other festive drinks marks the occasion out as exceptional in the life of the city. Susanne Meurer has described the way in which the imaginary idler’s paradise of the Land of Cockaigne incorporated such fountains, in a display of what Meurer calls ‘carnivalesque exuberance’, demonstrating how such installations formed a festive exception in the Early Modern cityscape.16 Another indication of this in the case of princely entries, in the Habsburg Netherlands at least, the people of the city were obliged to suspend work on that day in order to attend the ceremony, which again singled the event out as exceptional.17 These entries were often accompanied by shouts of ‘Noël’, even when the event in question did not take place during the Christmas season. Two songs sung at the entries of Charles VIII into Paris in July 1484 and into Troyes in 1486 both contain the anaphora ‘Noël, Noël’.18 Gordon Kipling explains this frequent feature of entry ceremonies in the period as arising from a theological understanding of 13 Bryant, The King and the City in the Parisian Royal Entry Ceremony, especially pp. 141‒152. 14 Gringore, Les Entrées royales à Paris, p. 48. 15 Jonietz, ‘Indecent Creativity and the Tropes of Human Excreta’, in this volume. 16 Meurer, ‘“It All Turns to Shit” – The Land of Cockaigne in Sixteenth-Century German Woodcuts’, in this volume. 17 Soly, ‘Plechtighe intochten in de steden van de Zuidelijke Nederlanden’ p. 349. 18 Guenée and Lehoux, Les Entrées royales françaises, pp. 112, 276.

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the nature of Christ’s incarnation, which is at once a historical event and a personal encounter between the individual and Christ, who at any point can enter into an individual and transform them.19 In this context, any arrival can be interpreted as an advent, and the coming of a prince into a city is greeted as a manifestation of the coming of Christ, that is, as a Christmas. In a similar way, princely entries were sometimes celebrated by declaiming the proclamations shouted at Palm Sunday, again drawing a comparison between the arrival of the ruler and the arrival of Jesus. Such practices marked the ceremony out as taking place in a different sort of time: a festive time where fountains and other elements of the cityscape were transformed, and the population encouraged to drink and celebrate as if it were indeed Christmas. The accumulation of festive markers such as decoration, acclamations of Noël, and unusual drinks emanating from fountains might make the physicality of some of the statues seem out of place. In Cafmeyer’s account, the water served by Manneken Pis is not transformed in this way, but many urinating statues were repurposed to this end. In 1562, a gathering of chambers of rhetoric in Thielt in West Flanders was enlivened by a figure of an angel above the market square, urinating beer, to the delight of onlookers.20 Over a century before, in 1440, two Dutch accounts – one anonymous and one by Nicolaes Despars – of the entry of the Duke of Burgundy into Bruges both report shouts of ‘Noël’ using the French word is used in otherwise Dutch-language texts.21 These accounts both report at least one – and possibly two – festive urinating fountains, one in the form of a boy and the other that of a fool. The use of French in these accounts suggests that the acclamations of ‘Noël’ were ritualised in the sense that the shout had become conventional and pointed to the celebratory nature of the event rather than to a particular theological understanding on the part of organisers or crowd. At the same time, the use of urinating fountains to deliver festive beverages might seem grotesque, particularly in case of the zotkin, the fool, who in Despars’s account of the event, urinated good Rhine wine. The diminutive zotkin, used here instead of the standard zot, suggests a physically small character, perhaps a dwarf. Little people often performed the role of fools in entertainment and this fact, combined with the fact that the figure incarnated in the fountain was likely naked and certainly urinating, presents a strange contrast with the luxury product delivered by the mechanism. Still stranger does it seem when the high-status drink is incorporated into a fountain whose corporality presents a dynamic illustration of an act of defilement. 19 Kipling, Enter the King, pp. 25‒28, 99. 20 Vlaminck, Jaerboeken der aloude kamer van rhetorika, pp. 118‒119. 21 Kronyk van Vlaenderen; Despars, Chronijcke van den lande ende graefscepe van Vlaenderen.

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For instance, in 1511, a snow sculpture in Brussels is reported to have depicted a child peeing rosewater into the mouth of another character, whose belly swelled as the fountain played.22 As Herman Pleij points out, this cannot represent an entirely accurate portrayal of what spectators in 1511 could actually have seen since the nature of snow sculptures does not allow for continual swelling of an element, but it does point to a narrativised understanding of the spectacle where static sculptures interacted with each other and were changed by the interaction. The urinating statue is not simply a conduit through which liquid passes, but is imagined to have an impact on the character who drinks his urine and is filled by it to bursting point.

Troublesome Physicality The way that the physicality of fountains appears in such instances confirms what Mikhail Bakhtin tells us about festive culture in the later Middle Ages and into the Renaissance. Bakhtin comments on the place of the grotesque in the celebratory culture of the period, and Luke Morgan, who analyses garden architecture in Bakhtinian terms, points out that fountains are a particular site where this appears, presenting forms which are familiar from Bakhtin’s analysis, such as breasts, phalluses, potbellies and, in one instance, a child urinating on laundry.23 Morgan, following Bakhtin, suggests that gardens were in part situated outside civilised space, meaning that the fountains that inhabited them could represent a carnival counterculture that contrasted with the seriousness of official ritual. However, in the case of fountains that accompanied civic spectacles, the corporality of the urinating (or lactating, spitting, or vomiting) figures is not separate from official ceremonial culture, but is part of it. The king and the duke were participants in the ceremonies described, and these ceremonies were intended not to undermine the authority of the hierarchy on which they depended but to confirm it. This is not carnival as Bakhtin describes it, but then again Bakhtin himself recognises that the Middle Ages had a very different attitude to the body from that which we would expect. The idea of the body, and therefore the individual, as separate from the physical world surrounding that body is an idea that Bahktin argues only gains currency during the Renaissance.24 Prior to that, the body in all its physicality is a part of anything that humans participate in, and this might go some way to 22 Pleij, De sneeuwpoppen van 1511, pp. 117‒118, 357ff. 23 Morgan, ‘The Monster in the Garden’, p. 168. For a similar depiction, though in a different context, see Jonietz, ‘Indecent Creativity’, in this volume, fig. 8.11. 24 Bakhtin, Rabelais and His World, p. 29.

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explain the presence of grotesque corporal manifestations in what appear to be serious civic occasions. Even if we accept that this is the case, and acknowledge that it continued to be true even after the medieval period, the physicality of some of the elements of these occasions can seem troubling. In 1582, the Duke of Anjou entered towns in the Low Countries accompanied by entertainments including a firework display where a group of cats were burned alive to provide realistic sound accompaniment to the event.25 Anne-Laure van Bruaene, who analyses this entry, interprets the use of cats in accordance with established animal symbolism based on puns that associated cats with Catholics and calves with Calvinists, but even in this context there is no escaping the fact that this was a special effect achieved by animal torture. Elsewhere, animal physicality is represented more figuratively alongside that of humans in fountains and urinating dogs are not uncommon, as in the Fontaine de Diane at the French royal palace of Fontainebleau (1603; fig. 10.4). This fountain depicts four oversized male hunting dogs at the feet of the hunter goddess, each urinating into a basin, whilst below them four mounted deer heads also spout water into the same basin. The virility and dominance of the dogs is accentuated by their size, by the fact that they are whole, while the deer are presented as hunting trophies, and by the power of the act of urination, which can be viewed as a marker of territorial dominance. In contrast, it is unclear how the stream of water issuing from the mouths of the deer is to be understood. Is it the blood of the dying animal which is depicted or are the deer spitting? Certainly spitting animals were common in the period and there are examples of a variety of contemporary spitting animals, such as fish, serpents and lions, all in fountain form. Instances of animal physicality are not separate from or opposed to human fountains but form part of the same symbolic vocabulary, as is demonstrated by instances where they appear alongside each other or where one sort of fountain is replaced by another, indicating that the two are regarded as symbolically equivalent. This is what happened in the Ardennes town of Geraardsbergen in 1459, which had possessed a fountain depicting a lion with a stream of water issuing from its mouth that was on the market square.26 When this statue was carried off by invading troops and then melted down, the civic authorities looked for a fitting replacement, and decided to install a naked urinating child. The fact that the child could replace the lion suggests that they were symbolic equivalents. A similar fountain of a lion can be found in Brussels at the rear of the city hall, where it forms part of the same network of drinking fountains that includes Manneken Pis, and a fountain depicting the head and torso of a man leaning over to vomit, and which once included a trio 25 Bruaene, ‘Spectacle and Spin for a Spurned Prince’, p. 277. 26 Cock and Van Damme, Het Manneken-Pis te Geraardsbergen.

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Figure 10.4: Thomas and Alexandre Francine, Fontaine de Diane, 1603, bronze, Palace of Fontainebleau, photo © Wikimedia Commons (public domain).

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of lactating female fountains called the three graces. Similar fountains depicting fish with streams of water coming out of their mouths are frequently found in Renaissance cities, especially where there is a fish market. Such fountains are frequently associated with the naked human form in assemblages where they are ridden by naked children or, as in Aachen, where a naked child holds two writhing fish that spit water (fig. 10.5). The symmetrical arcs formed by the water emerging from the mouths of the fish, together with the impassive expression of the child as he balances on an orb, gripping it with his toes, give the composition a sense of harmony, despite the fact that the fish are in their death throes. In this way, the fountain celebrates the prosperity of the fish market in which it stands, whilst recognising the physical reality of that market for the fish.

Urination and Lactation Naked humans, then, are associated with and in some cases equivalent to fountains in the form of animals in the late medieval period and the Renaissance and both can appear in official spectacle without compromising the seriousness of the event. Because descriptions of these events rarely if ever explain the symbolism of the elements involved, interpreting how contemporaries would have understood them is difficult. However, as with the examination of the symbols used at the Ponceau fountain, a longitudinal study can sometimes reveal the symbol’s context, and an examination of the surrounding iconography can also illuminate its meaning. It is easy to see how lactating fountains in particular can be interpreted in line with the theme of fertility and generosity, which characterised many of the uses of fountains in civic ceremonies. Lactation was an image frequently depicted in medieval religious art: it was as one variant of images of the Madonna and child. A specific manifestation of this was a legend associated with Bernard of Clairvaux, who experienced a vision of the Virgin nursing and was sprayed in the face with her milk.27 The nursing relationship is a symbol of parental care, and of physical and spiritual nourishment. In the Renaissance period, the religious iconography of breastfeeding was supplemented by another tradition taken from Classical literature, the Caritas Romana, the daughter who nurses her own imprisoned parent. As Jutta Gisele Sperling points out, the use of this title is a conscious echo of the Christian virtue of charity and a counterpoint to images of the breastfeeding Mary.28 Both religious and secular images can be easily interpreted in line with the way fountains celebrate 27 Dewez and van Iterson, ‘La Lactation de Saint Bernard’. 28 Sperling, Roman Charity, p. 9.

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Figure 10.5: Heinrich-Clemens Dick after Hugo Lederer, Aachener Fischpüddelchen, bronze, 1954 (1911 original destroyed in World War II), Aachen, Fischmarkt, photo © Wikimedia Commons (public domain).

fertility, but at first sight it is difficult to see how images of urination can be read straightforwardly in this light. However, there is no doubt that they could be, given that lactating fountains often appeared alongside urinating ones, either as part of the same fountain or in adjacent fountains. Indeed, one of the earliest attested appearances of the Belgian urinating child occurs in a table decoration serving rose water at a lavish banquet in 1454 held by Philippe le Bon to promote a military campaign in Constantinople.29 Another fountain at the same event depicted woman with hippocras flowing from her breasts. Around the same time in Italy, Jacopo Bellini’s designs for fountains included one for a Presentation at the Temple, which included both lactating and urinating figures, whereas another of his designs, the Judgement of Solomon includes urinating figures alongside expectorating ones.30 These two examples demonstrate that images of urination were not seen as inimical to sacred subject matter and show once more the close link between urination and lactation in fountains used in spectacle during the period. Similar connections between urinating and lactating fountains are revealed by studying the motifs that succeeded one another at the Ponceau fountain in Paris. In 1504 Anne de Bretagne’s coronation was celebrated with a urinating boy 29 La Marche, Mémoires, II, pp. 340‒394. 30 Bass, ‘The Hydraulics of Imagination’, pp. 150‒152.

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on display at this spot, traditionally decorated with royal motifs and symbols of fertility. At the same point in 1484 Charles VIII had been greeted with a lactating fountain emerging from the royal lily, with different festive drinks issuing from each breast.31 This shows that the urinating boy and the lactating woman were considered by the organisers of these festivities as having equivalent meanings, so that one could substitute for another, in the same place in different celebrations. In this case, however, there was an important difference between the way that the fountains were used because the 1484 lactating woman was a drinking fountain, but the 1504 urinating child was not. Moreover, fountains at this spot after this date were not used to provide refreshment to the sovereign entering Paris, and the liquid from this date forward would only be water.32 It would be wrong, however, to conclude that this change was made because the physical form of the urinating statue in 1504 repelled would-be drinkers. The Ponceau fountain manifested in different ways over time and the subject was not always the human body. Indeed, flowers were a popular decoration for this fountain both before and after the urinating child was used. Yet after 1504 the Ponceau fountain served only water and participants in the parade were not invited to drink at this fountain, even when the fountain no longer showed a human figure. There is, therefore, no reason to assume that it was the nature of the act of urination which caused this change for Anne de Bretagne’s entry. Indeed, in 1549, the registers recording the ceremony commented that water was traditionally the liquid used at this point because it was natural and inherent in creation. This interpretation of water as a natural liquid does not suggest that the urinating figure, which was the first to provide water, was considered disgusting in any way. The change in imagery at the Ponceau fountain, therefore, reflects a change in ideology related to kingship. After 1504, the significance of the monarch as part of a divinely created natural order gained importance, and this outweighed the imagery of festive exception which had led to the fountain’s use as a distributer of drinks. The water in the later fountains became a sign of this sacred kingship, in the way that holy water was and was not for drinking. However, the tradition of fountains as sources of refreshment did continue in princely entries of the period away from the Ponceau fountain and the message of the Ponceau fountain itself remained relatively stable as it related to fertility and monarchy. Both lactation and urination could be considered as illustrations of these messages of royal fertility and plenty in the prince’s lands. Indeed, the possibility of substituting images of lactation for images of urination is in accordance with interpretative traditions which regard one liquid as substitutable 31 Bryant, The King and the City, pp. 142‒143. 32 Bryant, The King and the City, p. 143.

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for another. Breast milk was considered to be a product of the mother’s blood and in some religious art breast milk and blood were combined, as in a thirteenth-century fountain in the Alpine town of Brixen, where water representing the blood flowing from Jesus’s side mixed in the basin with water depicting the milk issuing from his mother’s breast.33 A more frequently occurring image which played on the same confusion was that of the pelican, reputed to pierce her own chest to feed her chicks, the blood of the bird sustaining her offspring as if it were breastmilk.34 This became an image for Christ’s sacrifice and in turn of the Eucharist, reminding us that this particular substitution of one fluid for another – of blood for wine – is central to the practice of Christianity. The idea that urinating fountains might have the same message as lactating ones was one that Renaissance observers would have recognised as belonging to the same interpretative tradition. It is important to recognise that urinating fountains can be read in this way within the interpretative framework of Christianity, but that their message was not usually straightforwardly Christian. Urinating fountains are not normally accompanied by Christian imagery, although this can be the case in some instances. When they appear in civic ceremonies they generally appear in isolation, without any accompanying figures to explain them, such as we see in the 1511 snow sculptures. Nevertheless, there are some motifs that recur in association with urinating fountains. Lactating fountains provide one such motif, and others include figures of John the Baptist and St Peter’s liberation from prison. These biblical motifs are often described and glossed in accounts of the ceremonies, whereas the urinating fountains are not. In the 1440 entry into Bruges, where both these biblical motifs appear, Despars tells his readers that John the Baptist’s announcing of the coming of Jesus is analogous to the way Bruges prepared for the entry of the two dukes, while the image of Peter’s miraculous liberation from prison reminded viewers of Duke Charles’ recent emergence from English captivity. In the first case, the symbolism is generally applicable to the occasion of a princely entry, whereas the second is more specific to the particular circumstances of 1440 Bruges. John the Baptist, as a prophet of a coming lord, was often used in entries in the same way that shouts of Noël were, to announce civic joy at the arrival of the ruler. Peter’s liberation from prison, on the other hand, was specifically relevant to Charles d’Orléans’s situation and also to the topography of the city, where the sculpture was placed outside the fortress that served as the city gaol. The urinating figure, which Despars does not explain, stood immediately before this image, and following from one in which the parents of the Virgin, Joachim and Anna, were shown celebrating a prophesy of their child’s conception. Far from being seen 33 Deonna, ‘La Femme aux seins jaillissants’, p. 249. 34 Bynum, Jesus as Mother, p. 132.

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as indecent, therefore, the urinating statue was situated in a context of a series of images that represented the joyous entry of the dukes into their inheritance. These images were accompanied by biblical and liturgical text, emphasising ideas of celebration. Whilst no text accompanies the image of the urinating man, its placement between these two other images suggests that it should be understood in the same way.

Animals and Animality Urinating fountains are not, therefore, regarded as indecent or repellent when they appear in late medieval and Renaissance civic spectacles, and the same can be said of fountains that incorporate the stream of water into an animal biological form. Spitting, vomiting or urinating animals might seem repellent to us, but there is evidence that this was not always the case to the Renaissance viewer. Moreover, the fact of animality was not always given negative connotations in Renaissance thought. As in the Middle Ages, many animals had moral values (positive or negative) ascribed to them, but there was also a discussion around the symbolism and moral connotations of the fact of animal existence in itself. One aspect of this was the way in which animal fables continued to be used to teach lessons to humans, with animals representing both stereotyped attributes based on their species and human moral qualities that people could emulate. A notable example of this was the Royal Labyrinth constructed 1668‒1674 for Louis XIV in Versailles.35 This contained 39 tableaux made up of fountains cast in lead in the form of animals in poses inspired by Æsop’s Fables. This source itself illustrates the cultural significance of the beast fable, which has the authority of antiquity. This tradition continued into the present day, as can be seen by the fact that the official guidebook to the Royal Labyrinth was written by Charles Perrault, who later wrote the classic collection of fairy stories, Les Contes de ma mère l’Oye (Tales of Mother Goose). In the guidebook, Perrault explained that the streams of water issuing from the mouths of the animals in the Labyrinth symbolised the words that Æsop had attributed to his characters. While this symbolism seems straightforward enough (water emerging from the mouth can be compared to speech), the comparison seems less obvious for some of the fountains. In the case of the porcupine water issued from the spikes of the creature (referred to as a hedgehog in some parts of the text), without any implication that this was how the animal spoke (fig. 10.6). The guidebook’s illustration shows the porcupine on a raised platform, flanked by wolves spitting water. The jets emerging 35 Sahlins, ‘Where the Sun Don’t Shine’.

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Figure 10.6: Anonymous, The Wolf and the Porcupine [Le Loup et le Porc Epic], plate 30 from Labyrinte de Versailles (Paris: Imprimerie Royale, 1679), Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, département Arsenal, EST-541, photo by https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k1518714k.

from the porcupine’s spikes are less prominent in the illustration, although the guidebook describes them. The scenes, their accompanying texts displayed next to the fountains, and the guidebook itself were intended, as were Æsop’s animals, to provide a moral lesson to the human viewer. The precise nature of this lesson is disputed by scholars, some of whom point to the predominance of brutal conflict in the Labyrinth’s scenes and argue that the sculptures form a deliberate contrast with the ordered exercise of power depicted in the other parts of Versailles’ gardens. Against this interpretation, Peter Sahlins argues that the Labyrinth was intended as the preliminary to contemplation of the live animals in the king’s menagerie, with the fountains illustrating the negative qualities associated with animal existence and the menagerie showing how they could be tamed and civilised by the king’s guiding influence. Whether the animals of the Royal Labyrinth were intended to contest or to conf irm the authority of the Sun King, it is clear that their physical form was similar to that of fountains that we have already seen. Although Perrault’s text says the stream of water issuing from the beasts’ mouths represented words, the verb

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he most frequently uses to describe this stream is ‘vomir’, ‘to vomit’. This firmly situates these fountains within the same tradition of corporal physicality seen with earlier statues, although here the subjects are all animals, with the exception of a figure representing Æsop giving Cupid directions through the maze, and even then neither fabulist nor god appear to have taken fountain form. In this context, then, it was only the animals who were made into fountains, but the way in which this was done was reminiscent of similar treatments of human figures in what could be considered by a modern viewer to be degrading postures. There is, though, as we have seen, nothing necessarily degrading either about the corporality of the statues, nor about the animal figures. There was a long history of using animals as moral exempla and, by the time the Versailles labyrinth was constructed, this tradition could also be read in the light of Renaissance discourse around the nobility of animals in which Montaigne and Descartes had participated.36 At the heart of this debate was the idea that animals were closer than humans to a state of nature, and therefore morally superior. Against this argument, René Descartes contended that animals lacked rationality and were indistinguishable from automata that could produce sound but could not communicate with a human. As George Boas points out in his discussion of this passage, Descartes’ vision of the capabilities of automata was based on his familiarity with ‘the water-machines which were erected in the royal gardens’.37 One can only imagine that these machines were comparable to those which we have seen in the Duke of Burgundy’s Hesdin residence and in Louis XIV’s labyrinth. Descartes’ familiarity with such automata, which could move and vocalise without having consciousness, allowed him to imagine an animal as a similar sort of being. For Descartes, then, an automaton depicting an animal would have been considered to be like the animal depicted, while one depicting a human would be different in nature from its subject. However, as we have seen, fountains depicted animals and people in the same ways, deploying the same physicality without any apparent obscene intent.

Conclusion That is not to say that the act of urination would not have been considered obscene if carried out in real life. Indeed, there is evidence to suggest that it was the imaginary and therefore anonymous nature of such fountains that meant that they could be interpreted as depictions of abstractions. By contrast, depictions of Hercules mingens showed the hero in an undignified state of inebriation, and reports of 36 Boas, The Happy Beast. 37 Boas, p. 85.

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statues of Homer urinating or vomiting suggest that they were intended to be – and were interpreted as – critical of the poet.38 It seems, therefore, that presenting an identifiable person urinating or vomiting was potentially viewed as indecent, a conclusion which is confirmed when we recall that, unlike the animals in the Royal Labyrinth, Cupid and Æsop were not animated with water. Fountains, like the Royal Labyrinth, belonged to the realm of the imaginary, where moral lessons could be taught through allegory including acts that might not be acceptable when performed by identif iable people or living creatures. The automata at Hesdin certainly exemplify conduct that would not be acceptable in individuals, but which is portrayed as highly amusing when performed by a machine. As Marisa Anne Bass points out, Bellini’s fountains incorporated design which outstripped what was technically possible at the time, meaning that many of his designs were fantasy on one level, and drove innovation on another. The same element of fantasy can be observed in narrative accounts such as that describing the 1511 snow sculptures, which present scenarios that could not possibly be constructed out of snow. Fountains were used in festivities that played out in an atemporal world where the arrival of the prince also brought Christmas. This world also facilitated exploration of fantasies about human and animal bodies. The bodies portrayed were not considered to be indecent, but this was because they were unambiguously fountains, and fountains had the status of belonging to a fantasy world of celebration.

Works Cited Aronberg Lavin, Marilyn, ‘Art of the Misbegotten: Physicality and the Divine in Renaissance Images’, Artibus et Historiæ, 30:60 (2009), pp. 191‒243. Bakhtin, Mikhail, Rabelais and His World, transl. by Hélène Iswolsky (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1984). Bass, Marisa Anne, ‘The Hydraulics of Imagination: Fantastical Fountains in the Drawing Books of Jacopo Bellini’, in Imagination und Repräsentation. Zwei Bildsphären der Frühen Neuzeit, ed. by Horst Bredekamp, Christiane Kruse and Pablo Schneider (Munich: Wilhelm Fink, 2010), pp. 149‒60. Blanchard, Joël, ‘La Conception des échafauds dans les entrées royales (1484‒1517)’, Le Moyen Français, 19 (1986), pp. 58‒78. Boas, George, The Happy Beast in French Thought of the Seventeenth Century (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1933). 38 Campbell and Boyington, ‘Problems of Meaning and Use of the Puer mingens Motif’, p. 112. See also a discussion of this in Jonietz, ‘Indecent Creativity’, in this volume, and in particular, fig. 8.10.

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Bruaene, Anne-Laure van, ‘Spectacle and Spin for a Spurned Prince: Civic Strategies in the Entry Ceremonies of the Duke of Anjou in Antwerp, Bruges and Ghent (1582)’, Journal of Early Modern History, 11:4/5 (2007), pp. 263‒284. Bryant, Laurence M., The King and the City in the Parisian Royal Entry Ceremony: Politics, Ritual, and Art in the Renaissance (Geneva: Droz, 1986). Bynum, Caroline Walker, Jesus as Mother: Studies in the Spirituality of the High Middle Ages (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982). Cafmeyer, Petrus de, Hooghweerdighe historie van het alder-heylighste sacrament van mirakel, 2 vols. (Brussels: Nicolaus Stryckwant, Ægidius Stryckwant, Carolus de Vos, Joannes de Vos, 1735) [1720], edition in French, Venerable histoire du tres-saint sacrement de miracle, transl. by George de Backer (Brussels: George de Backer, 1720). Campbell, James W.P. and Amy Boyington, ‘The Problems of Meaning and Use of the Puer Mingens Motif in Fountain Design 1400‒1700’, Studies in the History of Gardens and Designed Landscapes, 40:2 (2019), pp. 110‒127. Cock, Marcel and Rik van Damme, Het Manneken-Pis te Geraardsbergen. Een kritischhistorische studie over zijn ontstaan, 2nd ed. (Geraardsbergen: Vlaamse Vereniging voor Familienkunde, afdeling Geraardsbergen, 1986). Colonna, Francesco. Hypnerotomachia Poliphili: The Strife of Love in a Dream, transl. by Joscelyn Godwin (London: Thames and Hudson, 1999) [1499]. Coonin, A. Victor, ‘The Spirit of Water: Reconsidering the Putto Mictans Sculpture in Renaissance Florence’, in A Scarlett Renaissance: Essays in Honor of Sarah McHam, ed. by A. Victor Coonin (New York: Italica Press, 2013), pp. 81‒101. Danvin, B., Vicissitudes heur et malheur du vieil-Hesdin (Saint-Pol: Bécard-Renard, 1866). Deonna, Waldemar, ‘La Femme aux seins jaillissants et l’enfant “mingens”’, Genava: Revue d’histoire de l’art et d’archéologie, 6:4 (1958), pp. 239‒296. Despars, Nicolaes, Chronijcke van den lande ende graefscepe van Vlaenderen, van de jaeren 405 tot 1492, ed. by J. de Jonghe, 4 vols. (Bruges: De Jonghe, 1839), II, pp. 429‒442. Dewez, Léon, and Albert van Iterson, ‘La Lactation de Saint Bernard: Légende et Iconographie’, Citeaux in de Nederlanden, 7 (1956), pp. 165‒189. Eekhoud, Georges, ‘A Distinguished 17th Century Uranian: Jérôme Duquesnoy: Flemish Sculptor’, Paidika, 2:1 (1989), pp. 44‒49. Emerson, Catherine, Regarding Manneken Pis: Culture, Celebration and Conflict in Brussels (Oxford: Legenda, 2017). Gilks, David, ‘The Fountain of the Innocents and Its Place in the Paris Cityscape, 1549‒1788’, Urban History, 45:1 (2018), 49‒73. Gringore, Pierre, Les Entrées royales à Paris de Marie d’Angleterre (1514) et Claude de France (1517) ed. by Cynthia J. Brown (Geneva: Droz, 2005). Guenée, Bernard, and Françoise Lehoux, Les Entrées royales françaises de 1328 à 1515 (Paris: Éditions du CNRS, 1968).

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Kipling, Gordon, Enter the King: Theatre, Liturgy, and Ritual in the Medieval Civic Triumph (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998). Kronyk van Vlaenderen, van 580 tot 1467, ed. by C.P. Serrure et al., 2 vols. (Ghent: Maetschappy der Vlaemsche Bibliophilen, 1839‒1840), II, pp. 107‒111. Lebensztejn, Jean-Claude, Pissing Figures 1280‒2014, transl. by Jeff Nagy (New York: Ekphrasis, 2017). La Marche, Olivier de, Mémoires, ed. by Henri Beaune and Jean d’Arbaumont, 4 vols. (Paris: Société de l’histoire de France, 1883‒1888). Laurent, René, ‘L’Acte de 1453 concernant les limites des quartiers à Bruxelles’, in Hommage au Professeur Paul Bonenfant, ed. by G. Despy, M, A. Arnould and M. Martens (Brussels: Universa, 1965), pp. 467‒478. Morgan, Luke, ‘The Monster in the Garden: The Grotesque, the Gigantic and the Monstrous in Renaissance Landscape Design’, Studies in the History of Gardens and Designated Landscapes, 31:3 (2011), pp. 167‒180. [Perrault, Charles], Labyrinte de Versailles (Paris: Imprimerie Royale, 1679). Pierret, Philippe, ‘La Profanation des hosties de Bruxelles de 1370, présence, récurrence et persistance d’un mythe’, in 800 ans de la Paroisse Notre-Dame de la Chapelle, (Brussels: Les Amis de la Chapelle, 2010), pp. 3‒39. Pleij, Herman, De sneeuwpoppen van 1511: Stadscultuur in de late middeleeuwen (Amsterdam: Meulenhoff; Louvain: Kritak, 1988). Sahlins, Peter, ‘Where the Sun Don’t Shine: Animals and Animality in Louis XIV’s Royal Labyrinth of Versailles (1668‒1674)’, in Animals and Early Modern Identity, ed. by Pia F. Cuneo (Farnham: Ashgate, 2014), pp. 67‒88. Soly, Hugo, ‘Plechtighe intochten in de steden van de Zuidelijke Nederlanden tijdens de overgang van Middeleeuwen naar Nieuwe Tijd: communicatie, propaganda, spektakel’, Tijdschrift voor Geschiedenis, 97 (1984), pp. 341‒361. Sperling, Jutta Gisela, Roman Charity: Queer Lactations in Early Modern Visual Culture (Bielefeld: transcript, 2016). Vlaminck, Alfons L. de, Jaerboeken der aloude kamer van rhetorika, het roosjen, onder kenspreuk: ghebloeyt int wilde te Thielt (Ghent: Hoste, 1862).

About the Author Catherine Emerson is a graduate of Oxford and Hull Universities and lectures in French at the National University of Ireland Galway. She is the author of two books, Olivier de La Marche and the Rhetoric of Fifteenth-Century Historiography and Regarding Manneken Pis: Culture, Celebration and Conflict in Brussels.

Index References to illustrations are in italics. Accetto, Torquato, Della dissimilazione onesta 145 Acqua Acetosa, laxative effect 210 adultery 66, 244 Æsop 273‒6 age, old 23, 25 agency, and gender 157, 171 Alberti, Leon Battista 110fn6 on decorum 23 on indecenter 19, 21 alchemy 113, 123 Alciato, Andrea 217fn62 alcohol consumption and the humours 239–40 and lasciviousness 240–1, 243 and social bonds 240 and whores 243 see also beer; drinking; drunkenness; wine Aldegrever, Heinrich, A Couple of Lovers Seated 78, 78 Aldovini, Laura 91 allegory 26, 133, 145‒7, 149‒51, 156‒72, 199, 206, 212, 218, 233, 276 anal intercourse 29 anamorphosis 208 anger, sin of 178 animal killed by urine 213fn51 physicality 267, 269 torture 267 animal fables tableaux, Royal Labyrinth, Versailles 273–5, 274 imaginary realm 276 animals as automata 275 as moral exemplars 273, 275 vomiting, acceptability of 273–5 Anonymous Hans Little Pretty, antisemitism 241, 243 Mores italiae ‘A Bride’ 142 ‘Veronica Franco’ 138 Red und wider red Salomo[n]is un[d] marcolfy 208 Taylors Physicke has purged the Divel. Or, The Divell has got a squirt… 219 The Promised Land of Cockaigne 233, 234–6, 239, 242, 245 indecency in 244 ordinary people in 247 public displays of 244, 246 text accompaniment 246 universal appeal 247 The Wolf and the Porcupine 274

antiquity beast fable in 273 and body hair 88 and indecency 18, 23 and nudity 44, 95 antisemitism, Hans Little Pretty 241, 243 anus 27, 207, 209, 214, 221 candle in 210 penetrated by penis 29 see also arse; backside aptum see decorum Arcadia 161, 163 architecture, decorum of 23 Aretino, Pietro 42, 48, 203 Aristotle on decorum 23 on laughter 190 Arletti, Natascia 103 arse 206 and art, linguistic connection 209 Dance of Death 207 in Early Modern German 209 male and hairy 209 see also anus; backside art and arse, linguistic connection 209 and nature 116, 123, 203, 205 automata 262, 275–6 backside 208, 208 also meaning ‘mirror’ in German 206 in Eulenspiegel literature 206–7 exposing 206, 209 as mirror for self-reflection 206‒7, 221 see also anus; arse Baier, Michael 202fn20 Bakhtin, Mikhail on the grotesque 266 on laughter 190 Rabelais and His World 15, 199 Baldinucci, Filippo 209 Baldung, Hans 43 Adam and Eve 54, 58 Lascivious Couple (Beham), comparison 58–9 horses contact with 191–2 as vehicle for commentary 191, 192–3 Horses in a Forest: Horses Fighting 180 Horses in a Forest: Stallion Approaching a Mare 179 sexual arousal 184–7 Horses in a Forest: Stallion Ejaculating 179

280 

Index

male incompetence 189–90 uncooperative female 188–9 Horses in a Forest assumed audience 176–7 comical elements 182–4 horse’s penis, depiction 182 and human sexual activity 184–90 interpretations 175fn1 obscene humour 176, 180, 186, 190 Bamboccianti 210 Bartsch, Adam von 159 Bass, Marisa Anne 276 baths public, and sexual activity 69 Three Women in the Bath House 68–9 Battisti, Eugenio, L’Antirinascimento 15 Baxandall, Michael, period eye concept 19 beard 88 beast fable, in antiquity 273 beauty abstract 130 and childbirth 205 conventions 131–2 female 94–5, 132 hairless body 88 ideal 19, 25, 95, 97, 114, 132 lyrical 131 natural, of the body 116, 122 physical 117 and physical health 117 Bebel, Heinrich Facetien 181–2 obscene images 182 beer 213, 239 Luther’s enjoyment of 246 urination of 262, 263, 265 Behaim, Paul 56 Beham, Barthel 58, 211 Beham, Sebald 42, 211 audience for prints 59 Death and the Lascivious Couple 26, 44, 56, 56, 57, 58, 68 Adam and Eve (Baldung), comparison 58–9 censorship of 57–8, 58 description 53 extant copies 55 Latin inscription 54–5 memento mori reference 54 Death and the Sleeping Woman 68–9 Die Nacht 26, 67 audience appeal 71, 74, 78 censorship of 79 description 69 Latin inscription 66 Michelangelo’s influence 70 engravings, output 68 expulsion from Nuremberg 55–6 Expulsion from Paradise 70, 74

Joseph and Potiphar’s Wife 26, 44, 45, 68 description 45–6 extant copies 46, 52–3 Latin inscription 48–9 Pauli on 46, 47, 49, 55 reverse copies 46–7, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52 Large Kermis 233 Leda and the Swan 69 Moxey on 80 Nude Girl with a Dog 69, 70 The Little Buffoon 214, 214 Three Women in the Bath House 68–9 Treatise on the Proportions of the Horse 55 Bellini, Jacopo, fountain designs 270, 276 Bentvueghels 210 Bernard of Clairvaux, lactation legend 269 Berrettini, Pietro see da Cortona, Pietro Betussi, Giuseppe, Il Raverta 165fn36, 171fn47 biblical motifs 272 personnel 31, 45 subjects 44 bile black 110, 238 yellow 110, 238 birds 217, 243 see also owls; peacocks birth and defecation 198 of Venus 93 blood 110, 117, 238 and breast milk 272 food turned into 111 and pelican legend 272 shitting 198, 214 for wine 272 Bloy, Colin H. 212 Boas, George 275 Boccaccio, Giovanni, Famous Women 147‒8 body purging by vomiting 240 as vessel 99, 203, 205, 238 see also equine body; human body body fluids 110, 118, 198 and body hair 119 see also humouralism; sweat body hair absence of 99 and antiquity 88 as bodily stain 88 and body fluids 119 on the chest 97 imitation of 97 and physical differences 88 on the male behind 209 removal 93, 118 representations of 88, 95 unwanted 25 see also female public hair; male pubic hair

281

Index 

body language 172 see also gestures Bonifacio, Giovanni on the exposed breast 143–4 L’arte de’ cenni 143 Bonnet, Anne-Marie 95 Bordone, Paris Flora 147 Portrait of a Young Woman 149 Bos, Cornelis, Leda and the Swan (after Michelangelo) 70, 73 Bosch, Hieronymus 217 Botticelli, Sandro 148 Brant, Sebastian Freidanck 206 Ship of Fools 230 breast feeding, in religious iconography 269 breast milk and blood 272 see also lactation breast/s, exposed ‘A Bride’ 142, 143 Agnese Licinio’s portrait 144 Bonifacio on 143–4 and fashion 137 femaleness signifier 151 goddess Flora 148 Lady Revealing her Breast (Tintoretto) 134–5, 134 Lely portraits 150 as loving gesture 144 portrait of Queen Henrietta Maria (van Dyck) 150 as sign of wifely virtue 148 bride, portrait 142 brothel 71, 244 Brouwer, Adriaen 214–15 Bruegel, Pieter 211 Dutch Proverbs 232 Fight between Carnival and Lent 232 The Fat Kitchen 231 The Land of Cockaigne 232 vomiting 198‒9 Bryant, Laurence 264 buckwheat mountain 237, 242, 245, 247, 251, 252 Buonarroti, Michelangelo 71fn32, 198, 214 Burckhardt, Jacob, Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy 15 Callot, Jacques 209 Capricci di varie figure 203fn22, 205, 206fn26 Squatting Peasant 203, 205, 206, 217 Camille, Michael 199 Campagnola, Giulio, Nude Seen from Behind 93 candle, in anus 210 Capella, Martianus, Marriage of Philology and Mercury 218 Caraglio, Gian Giacomo (Jacopo) Jupiter and Antiope 44, 70, 168, 169

Loves of the Gods 70 Mercury, Aglauros, and Herse 70, 72 card game 202, 217 Cardano, Girolamo, De Subtilitate 213 caricature 23, 29, 210fn39, 220, 221 see also satire carnival and Cockaigne 231, 249 counterculture 266 display of excrement 206, 249 display of obscene humour 180 Geiler von Kaysersberg’s denunciation of 180 giant penis at 180 horses’ presence 180, 183, 190–1 northern tradition 29 peasants during 183 plays 183, 186, 189 Carracci, Agostino 155, 156fn3, 159, 210fn40 Carracci, Annibale 210fn40 Cartari, Vincenzo 158fn9, 159‒61, 163, 164fn34, 168 Castiglione, Baldassare, The Book of the Courtier 16, 29fn39 Cavallo, Sandra 88 Cavallo, Sandra & Storey, Tessa 111, 113 Cellini, Benvenuto 16, 213 Cennini, Cennino on cosmetics 121 on painterly technique 213 censorship 27, 31, 46, 157 of prints 103, 200fn16 private 47 see also fig leaf chaste nudity 26, 151 chest hair 97 Chauveau, François, Triumph of Bacchus (attrib.) 201 cheese 233, 236, 236, 244 childbirth, and beauty 205 Chloris 148 Cirillo, Bernardino 23 cleanliness see hygiene close stools, in shape of books 221fn68 clothes see dress coat of arms 79, 211 Cockaigne (Schlaraffenland) and carnival 231, 249 and consumption 232, 236 drinking in 238 eating in 236 etymological origin 229–30 excess 230, 231, 234, 239, 243, 249, 252 and excrement 199, 230 food, excessive 230, 231, 237, 249 idler’s Paradise 264 indicated by the letter ‘S’ 211 location 230 scatology 199, 252 sloth 244

282 

Index

The Land of Cockaigne (Bruegel) 232 The Promised Land of Cockaigne (Anon) 233, 234–6, 244, 245, 246–7 codpiece, for storage 57 collecting 53, 200, 203, 213 prints 52 see also Kunstkammer colour recipes based on urine 213 of skin 25, 113, 118 Columella, De re rustica 217 comb 113fn17 ivory, 15/16 century 112 complexion 110–11, 113, 118–19 and gender 111 ideal 118 meaning in Early Modern period 110 consumption of alcohol 246 appropriate 237 and Cockaigne 232, 236 cyclical nature of 240 excessive 230, 232, 233, 237, 251 of feces 216–17 of urine 216 Coonin, Victor 261 Coornhert, Dirck Volkertsz., Hypocrisy 206, 207 coprophagy 215–17, 251 Cortesi, Paolo 23 da Cortona, Pietro, Trattato della pittura, e scultura, uso, et abuso loro 21 cosmetics Cennini on 121 drawbacks of 119–20 Early Modern 113–16 and gender 121–2 misogynistic view of 113–14 misuse of 122 Natural Magick (della Porta) 118–19, 120 Snook on 121–2 Courtesan Portrait, supposed genre 133, 134, 135, 136, 139 courtesan/s dress, Vecellio on 139 Flora as 147 portraits 136, 138, 140–1, 140 see also prostitute/s Cranach, Lucas 43 cross-dressing Francis I 20, 21 and indecency 19, 20, 21 crotch 69, 78 Cruikshank, Isaac, Indecency 16, 17 de Bry, Johann Theodor, Triumph of Bacchus (detail) 201 de Cafmeyer, Petrus, on Manneken Pis (Brussels) 257, 259–61 de Piles, Roger 123

Death 43 Death and the Lascivious Couple 26, 44, 56, 56, 57, 68 showing his backside 206‒7 erection 53, 55 and lust 53–4 decency 23, 198 bodily 24–5, 171 Coronation of Roxana (Raphael) 89 Italian terms 22 see also decorum; indecency decenter, meaning 21 decorum 18, 27, 89 Alberti on 23 artistic theory of 23–4 and Raimondi 104 use of term 23, 27 see also decency defecation of blood 214 into boots 210fn40 by burglars 211 and giving birth 198 Squatting Peasant (Callot) 204, 205 see also shit della Porta, Giambattista, Natural Magick 118–19, 120, 122–3 Delvoye, Wim, Cloaca 197 Dente, Marco, Nymph and Satyr 59 depilation see body hair, removal dermatology 110, 114 see also skin Der Ritter vom Turn 206 Descartes, René 275 Despars, Nicolaes 265, 272 devil backside, in art works 206‒7, 219 defecating into mouth 219 inventor of carnival 180 Dick, Heinrich-Clemens, Aachener Fischpüddelchen 270 dietetics, classical tradition, non-natural aspects 111, 117 digestion human 221, 239 of artistic matter 199, 221 dining etiquette 238 diphtheria 66 disability studies 23 Dixon, Laurinda 43 dog/s courtesan’s accessory 141 defecating 219, 220 eating feces 217 Nude Girl with a Dog 70 urinating 216, 217, 219, 220, 268 Dolce, Lodovico, Aretino 89, 157fn6 Dornau, Caspar, De furno, et latrina 217, 221 drawing, with urine 199

283

Index 

Dreckapotheke 213, 216 dress courtesan’s 139 and status 139 drinking alcohol 240 in Cockaigne 238 gluttonous 241 Luther on 246–7 purgative effects 243 see also urine, drinking drunkenness 243 On the Horrible Vice of Drunkenness (Franck) 246 Duquesnoy the Elder, Jérome, Manneken Pis 258 Dürer, Albrecht 55, 59, 68, 75, 79, 88, 94–9 Adam and Eve 94, 95 Venus Wringing her Hair (Raimondi), comparison 91, 93 Four Books on Human Proportion 55 influence on Raimondi 97, 99 Portrait of Willibald Pirckheimer 29, 30 Small Passion cycle 97 dwarf 25 dysentery 66 ear wax 213 eating in Cockaigne 236, 238 excessive 212, 237, 238 feces 215‒16 pork 250–1 Eco, Umberto 19 Egenolff, Christian, printing output 67–8 ekphrasis 218fn65 elements, four see humouralism Elias, Norbert 18fn8, 27 emblems 217fn62, 218 emiction see urination equine body, sexual organs 178 Erasmus of Rotterdam (Desiderius) 26‒7 on Christian virtue 177 on obscenity 177–8 On Marriage 177, 188–9 The Institution of Christian Matrimony 18, 189 on wifely duties 188 erection 29, 44 Death’s 53, 55 stallion’s 178, 179, 183, 185 see also sexual arousal erotic mould collections 71 erotic prints 59 eroticism 42, 148 Allegories of Love paintings 156 and excretion 200 Plato on 171fn47 sonorous 156 Este, Francesco d’ 202 Este, Leonora d’ 16

etchings 48, 203, 205, 222, 252 coloured 17 illusionistic 205‒6, 212 Eulenspiegel literature 206 excess, Cockaigne 230, 231, 234, 239, 243, 249, 252 excrement artistic use 200, 213–15, 221 and Cockaigne 230 display of, during carnivals 206, 249 eating see coprophagy as extreme criticism 200, 219, 220 Fool Carrying Excrement 249, 250 of the head 111, 113, 221 Hypocrisy 207 as manure 199, 217, 264 piles of, ‘Germanness’ of 212 Ruined Artisan 212 in the shape of sausages 211 The Little Buffoon 214 The Swines’ Supper 250–1, 251 throwing at artworks 200 see also defecation; scatology; shit; turd/s excretion, and eroticism 200 the eye 200 connection to anus and excrement 207–8, 221, 222 see also period eye concept Faber von Kreuznach, Conrad, Portrait of Justinian von Holzhausen and Anna Fürstenberg 76–8, 77 fables Æsop’s 273‒6 animal tableaux, Royal Labyrinth, Versailles 273–5, 274 beast, in antiquity 273 moralistic use 171 Fabri, Felix 217fn62 face deformation 24 indecencies 122 face-paint see cosmetics Faietti, Marzia 99 farting 27, 29, 201–2, 252 suppression of 238 Fasciculus medicinae 213fn50 fashion and breast exposure 137 for Italian art 59 Venice 143 see also taste Fastnacht see carnival feces see excrement Federico da Montefeltro 21 face deformation 24 female portraits (Venetian) anonymity 131–2 as courtesans 132–3 as idealisations of beauty 132 similarities in appearance 132

284 

Index

female pubic hair 31, 47, 89, 93, 99 close-ups 104 fertility symbol 25 Mars, Venus and Cupid 102, 103 non-representation in art works 89 Raimondi’s depictions 88 unbecoming connotations 87–8 see also male pubic hair fertility and fountains 264 and lactating fountains 269 and urine 198fn6 Fiammingo, Paolo see Franck, Pauwels Fichard, Johann von 75–6, 79 fig leaf 95, 97 see also censorship Fischart, Johann 206, 213 Ficino, Marsilio on hygiene 112–13 Three Books about Life (De vita libri tres) 112–3 Firenzuola, Agnolo, ‘Celso, or Dialogue on the Beauty of Women’ 117–9 flesh 110 exposed 146 horses’ 193 vs. the spirit 237 see also skin Flora (mythical goddess) with bared breast 148 Bordone’s depiction of 147 as courtesan 147, 151 Florence associations 148 flowers association 150 goddess of fertility 148, 151 goddess of marriage 148 legend, in Boccaccio’s Famous Women 147 Medici associations 148 as nymph 147–8 opera, La Flora 148 portrait of Queen Henrietta Maria (van Dyck) as 150 portrait of Vittoria della Rovere de’ Medici as 148 Rembrandt’s wife depicted as 149 representations of 146–7 Tintoretto’s depiction of 147 Titian’s depiction of 146 Flötner, Peter Card game 202, 217 coat of arms 211 Escutcheon of Cockaigne 248 description 248–9 Fool Carrying Excrement 249, 250 Holzschuher-Pokal 202‒3, 202 Human Sundial 208, 211, 212fn44 Ruined Artisan 212 surname variants 211 The Swines’ Supper 217, 250–1, 251 flower/s Flora association 150

harbinger of springtime 146–7 and name of Florence 148 Ponceau fountain decoration 271 white 136, 139 fly 211, 249‒50 Fontana, Lavinia A Lady of the Ruini Family 145 Hieronymus Mercurialis with an edition of Vesalius’ ‘On the Fabric of the Human Body’ 115 Venus and Cupid 145 food excessive, Cockaigne 230, 231, 237, 249 and gluttony 237 prices 66 turned to blood 111 vessel for measuring, misused for defecation 217fn62 and waste products 217, 251 see also coprography; gluttony fool/s backside 208 and bathing women 71 Fool carrying Excrement 250 Ship of Fools 230 The Little Buffoon 214 see also Eulenspiegel literature; Marcolf Foster, Hal 198 Foucault, Michel, History of Sexuality 43 Fountain of Youth 236, 244 fountains Bellini’s designs 270, 276 critique against 200 and fertility 264 and the grotesque 266 lactating, and fertility 269 and Manneken Pis figures 259, 260, 262 Ponceau fountain (Paris) 264 as refreshment sources 271 role in ceremonial entrances 263–5 spitting 200, 266 vomiting figures 218, 266–7 with wine 264 Francine, Thomas & Alexandre, Fontaine de Diane 268 Francis I 20, 21 Francisco de Holanda, Da pintura antiga 22 Franck, Pauwels (Paolo Fiammingo) 26 Allegories of Love (Love) 158 Celestial and Earthly Venus 160 description 158–9 Eros and Anteros fight 159 indecency, avoidance of 161 love in ‘Golden Age’ designation 159 procreation hypothesis 160 putti, significance 160–1 Sight and Touch 158 Allegories of Love (Lust) 162 male agency 162, 164

285

Index 

Silver Age designation 162 sodomy suggestion 162–3 Allegories of Love (Oblivion) 163 description 164–5 female agency 163–5 Lethean Love 164, 166 Allegories of Love paintings 155 dating 156 eroticism 156 features 157 and the gaze 171 Honest Lust paradigm 171 purpose 172 summary 164–6 Allegories of Love (Punishment) 166 description 167 Expulsion from Paradise iconography 167 Miletus and Timagoras reference 168 suicidal woman 169 visual composition 167 Franck, Sebastian On the Horrible Vice of Drunkenness 246 Weltbůch 249 Franco, Giacomo ‘A Famous Courtesan’ 140–1, 140 ‘A Noblewoman’ 140 Clothes of Venetian Men and Women 139–40 Franco, Veronica, nude portrait 137, 138 Frank, Anton 25 Frankfurt am Main bookselling 74–5 brothels 71 demand for sexual imagery 66–7 fairs 66, 73 prints sales 75 suffering 65–6 syndics 75 French painter, Venus with a Mirror (detail) 114 Fugger, Hans 156fn3 Fürstenberg, Anna 76, 77 Gabbiani, Antonio Domenico 210fn37 Galaton 215, 218 garden rooftop 147 urinating in 210 Garden of Delights 237 Garden of Eden 237 gardens Palazzo Pamphilj 210 Versailles 274 Gargiuolo, Domenico 210fn40 Gastaldi, Girolamo 24 Geiler von Kaysersberg, Johannes denunciation of carnival 180 on viewing sexual imagery 178 Genath, Johann Rudolf 211fn44 gender and agency 157, 171

and the complexion 111 and cosmetics 121–2 distinctions 171 divide 163, 163 and indecency 18 and portraiture 130, 131, 132, 144 representations 172 studies 23 genitalia 27 animal 178, 179 Apollo’s 46 female 168, 169 dissection 169, 170 and pubic hair 31 see also crotch; labia; penis; pudendum; scrotum; vagina; vulva genre painting 29, 199 German painter, The Giant Anton Frank with the Dwarf Thomele 25 gestures bared breast 144 facial 215 greeting 260 indecent 19 pinching 76 sexual 26, 43, 158 treatise on 143 Ghirlandaio, Domenico, Old Man and his Grandson 25 giant 25 Giorgione, portrait of Laura 144–5 Giotto di Bondone 215fn58 Giovanni da San Giovanni 209‒10 Giovanni della Casa, Galateo: The Rules of Polite Behavior 16 gluttony in art works 231 caused by demons 216 and food 237 grotesque representation of 231 and the humours 238–40 iconography of 231–6 social dimensions of 237–8 The Fat Kitchen (Bruegel the Elder) 231 Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, Torquato Tasso 16 Golden Age 16, 159, 16–2, 230 see also Arcadia goldsmithery 59, 71, 191, 201, 212 Gottifredi, Bartolomeo, Specchio d’amore 165fn37 grace 160 classical ideal 15 Graces, three 269 Greenblatt, Stephen, Renaissance Self-Fashioning 15 grimace 209 grotesque Bakhtin on 266 bodies 249, 250, 251 and decorum 23

286 

Index

exaggeration of caricature 23 and fountains 266 Hans Little Pretty 241, 243 heads 24 representation of gluttony 231 Grumus merdae 211 Guillaume de La Perriere, La Morosophie 218 Guldenmund, Hans 73 Habermas, Jürgen 18fn8 hair red 213 removal of 93, 118 see also body hair; female pubic hair; male pubic hair Hinloopen, Michiel 56–7 Hogarth, William 221 The complicated R__n 222 Holzhausen, Justinian von 76, 77 Homer 23, 276 Les dix premiers livres de l’Iliade d’Homère prince des poetes 218 Honest Lust (Onesta Lussuria) paradigm Allegories of Love paintings (Franck) 171 purpose 26, 157 Horace 54, 66, 160 horses Baldung’s use of in prints 192–3 presence at carnivals 180, 183 see also under Baldung, Hans human body and indecency 24–5, 27–9, 28 stippling technique 91, 93 humour in Baldung’s prints 180–4, 186, 190 and excretion 199, 217 and incongruity 181 obscene 176, 180–2 Three Women in the Bath House 69 see also laughter; scatology humouralism 110, 118 and alcohol consumption 239–40 and bodily waste 111 and colours 118 and gluttony 238–40 see also body fluids hygiene Early Modern idea of 111–2 Ficino on 112–3 and good table manners 238 idleness, Cockaigne 244 incest 217 indecency/ies and antiquity 18, 23 and architecture 23 in art works 201–3 attempts to control, Nuremberg council 18–9 avoidance of, in Allegories of Love (Love) 161 concept 15, 21

conflicting responses to 15 construction of 24–5 and cross-dressing 19, 20, 21 definition 16 face 122 and gender 18 German terms 21–2 and the human body 24–5, 27–9, 28 and individualism 15 media representations 31 as performance 16 in The Promised Land of Cockaigne (Anon) 244 and Saint-Victor’s imaginary library 16, 18 skin 116–9, 121–3 symbolism 26 terms of 21–3 in vernacular language 209 see also indecenter; obscenity indecenter Alberti on 19, 21 see also decenter; indecency individualism, and indecency 15 initials 54, 203, 214 see also signature initiation ceremonies 210 insanity 216‒17 intercourse see anal intercourse; sexual intercourse irony 183, 199, 208‒9 Iser, Wolfgang 19 Jauss, Hans Robert 19 Jews representations of 243 wearing bells 243 see also antisemitism Jollat, Jean, Dissection of Female Genitalia 169, 170 Jonietz, Fabian 264 Joubert, Laurent on laughter 190 Treatise on Laughter 182 Kammel, Frank Matthias 199fn9 Kellner, Heinrich Art Book (Kunstbuch) 53 print connoisseur 75, 79 Kemp, Wolfgang 19 Kipling, Gordon 264 Kirch, Miriam Hall 55 Kirke, Diana, portrait by Lely 150 Kistener, Hartmann 71, 79 Kristeva, Julia 250 Krohn, Rüdiger 178 Kunstkammer 203 and lavatories 221fn68 Kurz, Otto 156–7, 161–2, 167 labia 89 Triumph of Bacchus 200, 201 see also pudendum

287

Index 

labyrinth, Versailles 273–4, 274, 275–6 lactation and Bernard of Clairvaux legend 269 in medieval religious art 269 and urination fountains, together 270–2 see also breastfeeding landscape painting 23, 198, 199fn7, 211 lasciviousness, and alcohol consumption 240–1, 243 laughter 29, 176, 182–3, 186, 190, 193, 243, 250 Aristotle on 190 Bakhtin on 190 Joubert on 182, 190 lead poisoning 121‒2 Lehmann, Anne-Sophie 89, 93, 104 Lely, Peter portrait of Diana Kirke 150 portraits using Flora persona 150 Lemnius, Levinus, Della complessione 111 Leo the Hebrew, Dialogues of Love 171–2 Leo XII, Pope 103 Leonardo da Vinci see da Vinci, Leonardo leprosy 117–18 Leti, Gregorio 219 Critica… sopra le sorti, siano lotterie 220, 221 Levy, Allison 42 Levy, Janet 68–9 Licinio, Bernardino portrait of Agnese Licinio 144 Portrait of a Woman Wearing a Balzo 146, 146fn35 Liefrinck, Hans, Two Grotesque Heads (after Leonardo) 24 Ligorio, Pirro 200fn18 Lindtmayer, Daniel 213fn54 Livesay, Richard (after Hogarth), The complicated R__n 222 Lomazzo, Giovanni Paolo, Trattato dell’arte della pittura 21, 23, 89 Longhi, Martino 210fn40 Lucretius 203 lust and Death 53–4 sin of 178, 190 Luther, Martin anti-papal pamphlets 209fn35 on drinking 246–7 enjoyment of beer 246 on nature 182 On Marriage 188 on sexual arousal 187 on sexual intercourse 185 Maffei, Raffaele 218 Magnus, Albertus 185 majolica 42, 131fn4 male pubic hair 88, 97 see also female pubic hair Manneken Pis figure 258, 260, 263 de Cafmeyer on 259–60

Low Countries tradition 261–6 serving beer at public ceremony 263 traditions 261 see also fountains Mannerism 15 manure, excrement as 199, 217, 264 Manzoni, Piero, Merda d’artista 197 Marcolf 207, 208, 208fn31 Marinello, Giovanni, Gli Ornamenti delle donne (Women’s Embellishments) 109, 116, 118 marriage Christian, Erasmus’ treatise on 177, 188–9 Flora, goddess of 148 loose hair after 141fn21 Luther’s sermon on 188 and male predominance 189 Reformation teachings on 77 as sacrament 184 sexual practice within 184 tribunal, Strasbourg 184 virtuous 133 Mason Rinaldi, Stefania 157 Master of the Crucifixion of Kempten, Crucifixion (detail) 28, 28 Master of the Hours of Henri II, Francis I as Minerva 20, 21 masturbation, sin of 187 Matthews-Grieco, Sara 42, 59 McCarthy, Paul, Shit Face Painting 197 medical theories on the consumption of excrement 216‒7 on liver as seat of desire 77 on the skin 25 melancholy 112, 239–40 Melanchthon, Philipp 68fn11, 74, 76 Melzi, Francesco 147, 147fn38 member (male) see penis menstrual period 216fn60 Mercurialis, Hieronymus ‘On Adornment’ (De decoratione) 113–14, 116 ‘On Diseases of the Skin’ 117 portrait 115 Meurer, Susanne 264 milk 229, 269 see also breast milk; lactation; whey mirror also meaning ‘backside’ in German 206 putto holding 214 and self-reflection 206‒7, 221 The Complicated R__n 222 Triumph of Bacchus 215 Venus with a Mirror 114 Mirror of Women (Frauenspiegel) 188 misogyny 113, 147, 165 Allegories of Love (Punishment) 166–7, 166 Mitchell, W.J.T., What Do Pictures Want? 57 Mola, Pier Francesco 210 Molke, Brint 198 Monogrammist AC, Joseph and Potiphar’s Wife 48 Monogrammist WI, Joseph and Potiphar’s Wife 49

288 

Index

Montagna, Bartolomeo 213fn50 de Montaigne, Michel 221, 275 moon, pissing against the 209‒10 moralising allegories 199, 230 animal examples 275 assumptions 130, 134fn8, 141, 151, 168 messages Death and the Lascivious Couple 54, 56 Die Nacht 66 Morgan, Luke 266 Moxey, Keith 80 music 158, 160, 262 mythological creatures 26 fables 171 images 161 subjects 23, 59, 146 Flora 146 nature animal 186, 187 and art 116, 123, 203, 205 cyclical 217 Luther on 187 as painter (natura pictrix) 203 Netherlands, as synonym for the body’s lower parts 212 nipples Joseph and Potiphar’s Wife 45, 46, 48, 48 see also sexual arousal Nirvana 209 nose 111, 243 blowing of 238 phallus-shaped 241, 243 nudity and antiquity 44, 95 chaste 26, 151 draped 43, 59, 79, 143, 145–6 symbolic reading of 145 examples 145–6 Nuremberg council attempts to control indecency 18–19 Rugamt office 27 nymph clothing 146 Flora as 147–8 Nymph and Satyr 59 urinating 217 obesity, symbol of greed 231 see also gluttony obscene humour during carnival celebrations 180 equine references 181 Horses in a Forest 176, 180, 186, 190 street plays 181 obscenity definition 178 Erasmus of Rotterdam on 177–8

Italian term for 22 urination as 275–6 see also indecency; indecenter odour 25, 110, 118, 158fn8, 185, 187, 191 Orlando di Lasso 212fn46 Ottonelli, Giovanni Domenico, Trattato della pittura, e scultura, uso, et abuso loro 21 Ovid, Ars Amatoria 116 owls 241, 243 pain and body functions 27 physical 209 and violence 27–8 Paleotti, Gabriele, Discorso intorno alle imagini sacre et profane 21 Palissy, Bernard 213fn51 Palumba, Giovanni Battista, erotic prints 59 Pamphilj, family 210 Paradise earthly 246 Expulsion from Paradise 74, 167 idler’s, Cockaigne 264 Patinir, Joachim 211 Pauli, Gustav 71, 79–80 on Beham’s Joseph and Potiphar’s Wife 46‒7, 49, 55 peacock 203, 205 peasant/s defecating 203, 205, 206, 208, 217 drunk 252 during carnival 183 Peasant Wedding Feast 244 slothful 244 peeping tom see voyeurism penis Death and the Lascivious Couple 56 giant, at carnival 180 Joseph’s, Joseph and Potiphar’s Wife 46, 48, 49 nose-shaped, Hans Little Pretty 241 Priapus engraving 59 stallion’s 179, 182 see also erection period eye concept, Baxandall 19 Perrault, Charles, Les Contes de ma mère l’Oye (Tales of Mother Goose) 273 Petri, Grischka 96 phallus see penis Philippe le Bon 270 phlegm/atics 110, 238, 239, 240, 243, 249 physical health, and beauty 117 physicians 109, 111, 119, 122, 191, 215‒16, 238 Picart, Bernard 220 Piero della Francesca 21, 24 pigs 202, 217, 229 as roast pork 236 Pirckheimer, Willibald 29 portrait of 30 Pleij, Herman 266 Pliny, Naturalis historia 200, 216fn60, 217

289

Index 

Pon, Lisa 96, 103 Ponceau fountain (Paris) 264, 269–71 decorative flowers 271 pornography, origins of term 42fn12 portraits sexual imagery in 78 see also female portraits (Venetian) portraiture and gender 130–2, 144 and presenting virtue 145 Praxiteles 19 pregnancy, insanity caused by 216‒17 Presbyter, Theophilus 213 privacy, concept 18 prostitute/s 16, 17, 130, 130fn3, 133, 137, 147 see also courtesan/s proverbs 68, 209‒10, 217fn63, 232 pubic area, concealing 89 pubic hair see female public hair; male pubic hair pudendum 46 see also labia; vagina Puttfarken, Thomas 159, 162 putto/i 214, 215, 251, 252, 261 Allegories of Love (Love) 157‒8, 160–2, 165 defecating 211fn44, 213fn54 see also Manneken Pis figure queerness 23 Quinn, Marc Shit Head 197 Shit Paintings 197 Rabelais, François, Pantagruel 16 Raimondi, Marcantonio 25 Adam 97, 98 and decorum 104 Dream of Raphael 104 Dürer’s influence 97, 99 I Modi (The Positions) prints 40, 44 extant copies 40fn3 Life of the Virgin (after Dürer) 95–7 Mars, Venus, and Cupid 99, 102, 103 Massacre of the Innocents 97 Small Woodcut Passion 9 Venus Wringing her Hair 90 Adam and Eve (Dürer), comparison 91, 93 description 93 detail 104 impressions 90, 92, 93 source models 93 Woman with a Dildo 44 Young Man Protected by Fortune 100 censorship marks 99, 101, 103 see also Veneziano, Agostino Ramazzini, Bernardino 216fn60 Raphael 97fn41 Coronation of Roxana 89 Donna Velata 143fn24 Fornarina 143fn24 Realism, concept of 199

reception theory 19 Renaissance concept of 15 and sexual imagery 26 Richardson, Jonathan 221, 222 Ridolfi, Carlo 133–4 ‘Noël’ ritualised shouts of 264–5, 272 Romano, Giulio 40 Jupiter Seducing Olympias 44, 59 Rubens, Peter Paul 123 Sachs, Hans 22 Escutcheon of Cockaigne 233, 247–9, 248 Schlauraffen broadsides 230 Schlauraffenland 233, 247 Sadeler, Johannes, the Elder Warning Against Venereal Disease (detail) 216, 217 Sahlins, Peter 274 Saint-Amant, Marc Antoine de Gérard de 200 Salel, Hugues (translator), Les dix premiers livres de l’Iliade d’Homère prince des poetes title page 218 saliva 213 Sandri dal Jesus, Niccolò and Domenico 96‒7 Sanzio, Raphael see Raphael satire 54, 199, 206, 212, 219 satirical books 16 Human Sundial 208, 211 The complicated R__n 221, 222 see also caricature satyr 68 defecating 214, 215 female, urinating 200, 201 lustful 149 Nymph and Satyr 59 sausages excretion of 252 feces-like 211 fences made of 229, 236 on shield 248 scars 24 scatology 31, 209 Cockaigne 252 scatological pranks 210fn40 Schildersbent 210 Schlaraffenland see Cockaigne Schmalkaldic War 65, 73, 80 Schön, Erhard 211 Family of Pigs at the Dungheap 211 Jonah and the Whale 208 The Land of Cockaigne 233 Schwartz, Christoph 216, 217 Schwarzenberg, Johann von 243 scrotum 209 Adam’s 59 Joseph’s 47 sculptor’s tools 213 sculpture/s 221 fecal 197‒8 of Laocöon 48 of Marsyas 75

290 

Index

snow 266, 272, 276 Versailles 274 secrets, books of 109, 118, 122, 213 self-fashioning 15, 209‒11 semen 198fn6 Serrano, Andres 197 sexual activity human, and Horses in a Forest 184–90 and public baths 69 sexual arousal and control of lust 185 Horses in a Forest: Stallion Approaching a Mare 184–7 Luther on 187 see also erection sexual imagery demand for 25–6, 41–4, 59–60 in Frankfurt 66–7, 76 lost works 43 in portraits 78 and the Renaissance 26 taste for 41–4, 59–60 von Kaysersberg on 178 sexual intercourse 43, 44, 163, 184, 186, 188 Luther on 185 shit indicated by the letter ‘S’ 211 in Escutcheon of Cockaigne 248 investments turn to 249 left by burglars 211 Shit Face Painting 197 Shit Head 197 Shit Paintings 197 The Swines’ Supper 251 see also defecation; excrement; turd/s shit movement 198 shitter 212 shitting see defecation; excrement; shit Shoemaker, Innis H. 91 sight, and bodily absorption 198–9 Sight and Touch Allegories of Love (Love) (Pauwels) 158 signature individual 211 visual 211 see also initials Simonelli, Niccolò 210 Simons, Patricia, Sex of Men in Premodern Europe 43 sin of anger 178 iconography 54 of lust 178, 190 and marital sex 186 of masturbation 187 mortal 187 original 58, 95 of sexual promiscuity 184 skin blemishes, as physical imbalances 117–18

colour of 25, 113, 118 impurities 118 indecencies 116–19, 121–3 medical theories on 25 premodern concept of 110 as receptacle for waste materials 117 vernacular terms 110, 118 see also flesh; scars sloth, Cockaigne 244 smell see odour Smith, Jeffrey Chipps 212 Smith, Pamela H., The Body of the Artisan 213 Snook, Edith 110 on cosmetics 121–2 social bonds, and alcohol consumption 240 sodomy 29, 217 in Allegories of Love (Lust) 162–3 Solis, Virgil Procession of Putti with Sausages and a Pig 252 Triumph of Bacchus (details) 202 Solomon 207, 208 Sonnenschein, family 212fn44 Sperling, Jutta Gisele 57, 269 spitting deer 267, 268 demons 219 depiction of 215fn58 fountain 200, 218, 266 wolves 273, 274 Stalburg, Claus 71 stallions see horses status, and dress 139 Stewart, Alison G. 79 stippling technique, human body 91, 93 Stoskopff, Sebastian 206, 209 Still-life 204, 205, 212, 217 description 203 Summers, David 22fn22 Sustermans, Justus, portrait of Vittoria della Rovere de’ Medici 148 sweat 111, 118 syphilis 53, 54, 117, 217 Warning Against Venereal Disease 216 Tacitus 212 Talvacchia, Bette 42 taste for sexual imagery 41–4, 59–60 for sexually explicit art works 40, 52 see also fashion Taylor, John 219 Taylors Physicke has purged the Divel. Or, The Divell has got a squirt 219 teeth 119, 121‒2, 183 Tintoretto, Domenico Flora 147 Lady Covering her Breast 134–5, 134 Lady Revealing her Breast 134–5, 134 Portrait of a Courtesan 135, 136, 139 Tlusty, B. Ann 240

291

Index 

touch 54, 57 Death and the Lascivious Couple 58 see also Sight and Touch turd/s from satyr’s anus 215 on pillows 206, 251 like a barbecue 217 pigs consuming 202 see also defecation; excrement; shit Turner, James Grantham 42 urination in art works 200–1 of beer 262, 263, 265 dogs 216, 220, 268 Fontaine de Diane 268 and lactation fountains, together 270, 271–2 against the moon 209‒10 as obscenity 275–6 as origin of a salty spring 217fn62 of painters 209‒10 on paintings 209 statues in antiquity 261 in fountains 27, 218 Triumph of Bacchus 201 see also Manneken Pis urine drawing with 199 drinking 211fn40, 216, 216fn60, 217‒18, 218 use by artists 213 use in Early Modern print 212 use to kill animals 213fn51 use by Leonardo da Vinci 213 writing with 219, 220 vagina dissection 170 ejaculation outside of 187 stories about 181 see also pudendum Valla, Lorenzo 21 van Bruaene, Anne-Laure 267 van der Heyden, Pieter (after Pieter Bruegel), The Fat Kitchen 231 van Dyck, Anthony, portrait of Queen Henrietta Maria, exposed breast 150 van Eyck, Jan, Arnolfini Portrait 78 van Heemskerck, Maerten, Triumph of Bacchus (detail) 214, 215 van Helmont, Jean-Baptiste 215‒16 van Hemessen, Jan van, Inn Scene 244 van Hoogstraten, Samuel 199 van Mander, Karel 198, 211 van Waes, Aert 213fn54 Vasari, Giorgio 75, 96, 116, 157fn6, 215fn58 Vecchio, Palma 147 Vecellio, Cesare 147 on the dress of courtesans 139 The Clothing, Ancient and Modern 138–9

Veneto, Bartolomeo 147 Veneziano, Agostino 48 copies of Raimondi’s I Modi 40 Venus with a Mirror (Anon) 114 vernacular German examples 21–2 Italian examples 22 language, indecency in 209 terms for skin 110, 118 translations of Ficino’s De vita 113 Veronese, Paolo, La Belle Nani 136–7 Versailles, Royal Labyrinth, animal fables tableaux 273–5, 274 imaginary realm 276 da Vinci, Leonardo (after) Two grotesque Heads 24 use of urine 213 violence, and pain 27–8 virtue and breast exposure 148 Christian of charity 269 Erasmus on 177 presentation, role of portraiture 145 symbol of 136, 139 of temperance 185 Vitruvius 22fn23, 23 Viviani, Viviano, Trattato di custodire la Sanità 111 vomit consumption by animals 217 consumption by men 218 streams 239, 240 vomiting 27, 198, 201, 210 animals, acceptability of 273–5 of books 218 fountain figures 200, 218, 266, 267 men 239, 243 purging the body 240 on temperance broadsides and pamphlets 233 voyeurism 16, 69‒70, 166fn38, 168, 171, 182‒4 vulva ear-shaped 241, 243 hidden 47, 49, 69, 79 revealed 66, 67, 68, 69, 178, 179, 188 see also pudendum Walker, Henry 219 Walker-Meikle, Kathleen 123 Wallace, David Foster, The Suffering Channel 197‒8 Warhol, Andy, Oxidation Paintings 197 waste products, and food 217, 251 see also coprophagy Wecker, Johann Jacob, De secretis 213 wedding finery 141, 142 imagery 143 of Margherita de’ Medici 148 Peasant Wedding Feast 244 of Vittoria della Rovere de’ Medici 148 de Weert, Adrian 207

292 

Index

Weinberg, Jonathan 43 wetnurse 198 whey 198 whores, and alcohol consumption 243 see also prostitute/s

wine, blood for 272 witches 43 Zephyr 148