Renaissance Porn and the Pope’s bathroom

Figure 1: Illustration by Lesley Thelander, recreation of the Stufetta del Bibbiena vatican palace, today, several of the fresco panels have been damaged and the bath removed

Porn and the Pope might seem an unlikely combination (or at best just bad alliteration), however within Rome’s Papal Palace lies a room full of frescoed sex scenes (Fig 1-2). Painted by Raphael in 1516, this Renaissance porn depicts Roman gods in ‘compromising’ positions. Commissioned for the private bathing chamber (Stufetta della Bibbiena or ‘small heated room’) of Cardinal Bibbiena, only a handful of people have viewed the work since its creation. Considering the content, it’s no wonder the frescoes have been kept firmly behind closed doors since their mid-19^th century re-discovery.

Figure 2: Stufetta del Bibbiena, public domain image

However, Tony Perrottett is an exception to this rule as he relayed his successful (albeit difficult to come by) visit in a Slade Magazine article. Together, with artistic reconstructions, the fresco can slowly be visualised. Perrottett describes the scenes of a ‘naked’ Venus ‘stepping daintily into her foam-fringed shell’; her ‘admiring herself in a mirror’ and swimming between Adonis’ legs in ‘sensual abandon’ .(1) He also acknowledges a now destroyed (and controversial) scene of Vulcan attempting to rape Minerva.(2) However, one of the most explicit and humorous scenes is Pan, the Satyr God, leaping out from the bushes with a ‘noticeable appendage’, now scratched away and replaced with eye-catching white paint.(3)

Many people know that the classical was a key aspect to the Renaissance, however you may be less aware that classical motifs were used in early forms of porn, Jacqui Palumbo describing how ‘the Greeks and Romans had imagined their gods as sexual beings, and it became in vogue to do so again in the Renaissance’.(4) Raphael was certainly aware of the sexual power of mythological images, for example, upon the completion of the Agostino Chigi Loggia (1511), he was asked by a lady as to why he didn’t paint ‘a nice rose or perhaps a fig leaf’ over Mercury’s ‘shame’(penis).(5) He replied, why had she not asked the same for ‘Polyphemus, for whom you praised me so much and whose shame is so much greater?’ (it seems size mattered from an early era).(6)

Figure 3: Artemisia Gentilesch, Venus and Cupid , c. 1625, 96.5 x 143.8 cm, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts

Figure 4: Titian, Venus of Urbino, 1534, oil on canvas, 119 x 165 cm, Uffizi, Florence

This sexual power of the classical gods most clearly manifested in the image of Venus. Where, as one of the only female figures to be painted nude, her body became a motif for sexual desire for both male and female artists (Fig.3-4 ). However, frescos, like Bibbiena’s and the Farnese ceiling, presented these sexual scenes a new format, beyond the scale of a single canvas. For example, the viewer of the Farnese ceiling could trace their eyes from the outstretched figure of Venus grasped by Triton, to Jupiter, reaching sensuously for his wife’s legs (with the erect phallic form of an eagle by his feet) (Fig. 5-6). One can imagine the impact upon the wealthy or noble male viewer as he roved his eye from scene to scene, confused by the lifelike sensuousness of the images.

Figure 5: Agostino Carracci. Venus and Triton. c1600. Fresco. 150 x 300 cm, Palazzo Farnese, Rome

Figure 6: Annibale Carracci, The Farnese ceiling, c 1597- 1608 , fresco, Palazzo Farnese, ‘Juno and Jupiter’

Therefore, it is no surprise that the Bibbiena frescoes are linked to the first mass publication of Renaissance porn. I Modi (The Ways, 1524), also known as ‘The Sixteen Pleasures’, was an illustrated sex guide by Marcantonio Raimondi (Fig. 7). As the first published porn to be banned by the Catholic Church, and its author imprisoned by the Pope, it had a short but infamous lifetime. However, what’s relevant to us is that the work was based upon some Vatican paintings by Raphael’s pupil, Guilio Romano. These paintings, said to be a reaction to Clement VII’s late payments, were made in the Sala di Constantino, a room from Raphael’s 1508-09 commission that he left to his apprentices to complete upon his death. As Raphael completed the Bibbiena frescoes as part of the same papal commission as the Sala di Constantino, Romano possibly even helping him paint them, it’s plausible that he took inspiration from them for the Sala. Hence, rather ironically, the Bibbiena frescos inadvertently inspired the first mass publication of Renaissance Porn.

Figure 7: Marcantonio Raimondi, I Modi (The Ways), ‘The Sixteen Pleasures’, 1524, taken from Palumbo, 2019

But if Raimondi’s porn was banned, then why were similar images allowed to be commissioned for the rooms of a cardinal (a supposedly celibate individual)? Firstly, Renaissance celibacy and propriety were not as serious as one might expect. Many Popes, before and after their ascension, famously did not keep to their chastity vows and had many illegitimate children, for example the Pope at the time of this commission, Leo X, was known for his relationships with men. Boccaccio parodies this hypocrisy in the ‘Decameron’, detailing the tale of two priests who ‘sported’ with a young maid, one declaring ‘no-one’s ever going to know, and a sin that’s half-hidden is half forgiven’.(8) Therefore, it is likely that Bibbiena, known for his sexually risqué plays, saw nothing wrong with ‘half-hidden’ pornography.

However, he wasn’t alone in enjoying gazing at sexual images. Whilst paintings of Venus were popular with the male patron, the previously mentioned Farnese Ceiling is especially comparable to the Bibbiena frescoes as their patron, Oudardo Farnese, was also a cardinal. Campbell suggests that these sexual works were appealing as the ‘virtue of the viewer’ was demonstrated by the ‘ability to admire the skill behind the artwork rather than give in to bodily desire’.(9) Therefore, perhaps Cardinal Farnese enjoyed the power of looking at these ‘carnal pleasures’ (as later described by Salvator Rosa), without being aroused. (10) Or maybe it was the opposite: as Bibbiena sat in his tub and Farnese stared at his ceiling, it was possibly the excitement of the forbidden that appealed to them.

The animalistic, primal nature of the Roman gods, that was in such opposition to the teachings of the Catholic faith.The Cambridge dictionary defines porn as ‘books, magazines, films, etc. with no artistic value that describe or show sexual acts or naked people in a way that is intended to be sexually exciting’. What about renaissance artworks? The explicit sexual intentions of the Bibbiena frescoes arguably make them an early form of porn. As Pietro Aretino (1492-1556) in a sonnet of the second edition of  I Modi  wrote: ‘Come view this you who like to fuck without being disturbed in that sweet enterprise’.(11)

Footnotes

1. Perrottet, 2011
2. Ibid.
3. Dasal, 2020.
4. Palumbo, 2019.
5. Zucker, 2010.
6. Ibid.
7. Strike, 2017.
8. Boccaccio, 1982.
9. Palumbo, 2019.
10. Feigenbaum, 1999.
11. Strike, 2017.

Bibliography

• Boccaccio, Giovanni, Decameron (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982)
• Classen, Albrecht, ‘Sexual Desire and Pornography: Literary Imagination in a Satirical Context. Gender Conflict, Sexual Identity, and Misogyny in “Das Nonnenturnier”’, in Sexuality in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Times: New Approaches to a Fundamental Cultural-Historical and Literary-Anthropological Theme (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2008) <https://www.degruyter.com/view/title/32824&gt; [accessed 27 October 2020]
• Dasal, Jennifer, ‘The Pope’s Secret Sexy Bathroom’, ArtCurious
• Feigenbaum, Gail, ‘Annibale in the Farnese Palace: A Classical Education’, in The Drawings of Annibale Carracci, ed. by Frances P Smith and Susan Higman (Washington: National Gallery of Art Washington, 1999)
• Frantz, David O., ‘“Leud Priapians” and Renaissance Pornography’, Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900, 12.1 (1972), 157–72 <https://doi.org/10.2307/449980&gt;
• Palumbo, Jacqui, ‘How Renaissance Artists Brought Pornography to the Masses’, Artsy, 2019 <https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-renaissance-artists-brought-pornography-masses&gt; [accessed 27 October 2020]
• Perrottet, Tony, ‘The Pope’s Pornographic Bathroom: My Visit to the Vatican’s Most Secret Chamber’, Slate Magazine, 2011 <https://slate.com/human-interest/2011/12/vatican-inside-the-secret-city-vatican-guide-the-pope-s-pornographic-bathroom.html&gt; [accessed 17 October 2020]
• Simons, Patricia, ‘ANNIBALE CARRACCI’S VISUAL WIT’, Notes in the History of Art, 30.2 (2011) <www.jstor.org/stable/23208570>
• Strike, Karen, ‘The Sixteen Pleasures: The Vatican’s 16th Century Sex Guide’, Flashbak, 2017 <https://flashbak.com/the-sixteen-pleasures-the-vaticans-16th-century-sex-guide-376734/&gt; [accessed 27 October 2020]
• Zucker, Mark J, ‘ART, SEX, AND HUMOR IN ITALIAN RENAISSANCE LITERATURE’, Notes in the History of Art, 29.4 (2010) <www.jstor.org/stable/23208976>

Sofonisba Anguissola (1532-1625): An ‘illustrious woman’ defying Renaissance gender barriers

Figure 1: Sofonisba Anguissola, ‘Portrait Group with the Artist’s Father Amilcare Anguissola and her siblings Minerva and Astrubale’- also known as ‘family portrait’, c. 1559, oil on canvas, 157 x 122 cm.

Amnesia, not the lack of history, is the most serious problem for feminism today. Let us therefore refresh our memories. —Karen Offen, European Feminisms (1)

Sofonisba Anguissola (1532-1625) is the first known female artist to become an international celebrity. Yet, like many other women who were famous in their eras, including Artemisia Gentileschi and Angelica Kauffmann, her name was erased by male written history textbooks, and is now relatively unknown to the public mind (and, as I type, apparently the dictionary of Microsoft word). Born to a noble family in Cremona, Italy, I argue that her work ‘family portrait’ (Fig. 1), is a testament to the oppositions that she faced as a young female artist in her patriarchal renaissance society, as well as a solution to these barriers, in the form of a family based public image.

One cannot understate Sofonisba Anguissola’s accomplishments. In a period where most female artists worked unrecognised in family artistic workshops, Sofonisba was renowned in Italy and abroad. She was a court painter in King Philip II’s Spanish court, her letter of recommendation by the Duke of Sessa noted that ‘Sofonisba’s great talents speak for themselves far better than any words I could use’(2). She was the first wave in an ensuing ripple of female artist, influencing the likes of Lavinia Fontana (1552-1614) and Barbara Longhi (1562-1638).(3) Irene di Spilimbergo (1538-1559) even wrote that she was inspired by her ‘fired with a warm desire to equal that noble and talented damsel’ . (4) The ripple continued as hundreds of years later the artist Ella Sophonisba Hergesheimer (1873-1943), honoured Sofonisba’s name in her own artistic career. 

Sadly, success in art history is often defined in male terms, however by this grading system Sofonisba also triumphed. She was a student of Michelangelo, and when painted in her 90s by Van Dyck (Fig. 2), it’s rumoured that he declared that she taught him more about the ‘true principles’ of painting than anything else in his life (for a renaissance male to admit to female superiority, in any form, is a miracle on its own).(5) Whilst, Vasari, the famous biographer of Renaissance artists, described that she ‘has created rare and very beautiful paintings’, in 1589 the poet Angelo Grillo wrote ranked her as the best known cinquecento artist ‘after Michelangelo and Titian’.(6) Sofonisba Anguissola: one ‘noble and talented damsel’.

Figure 2: Anthony Van Dyck, ‘Portrait of Sofonisba Anguissola’, 1624, National Trust

‘Family portrait’ (1559) marks the end of this ‘talented damsel’s’ career in her family home, it being half-finished as she left for the Spanish court. The eldest of six girls and a boy, she depicted her younger sister and brother accompanied by her father. In it we have explicit male favouritism: whilst Sofonisba’s sister Minerva looks on, her father, gaze fixed ahead, offers his long-awaited son Astrubale to the viewer. Whilst behind Astrubale is a landscape calling to him of mountains and open roads, Minerva remains inside a dark interior. 

The use of different interiors could reflect the freedom that her brother was afforded in renaissance society, compared to the ‘interior’, domestic realm that Sofonisba and her sisters were restricted to. If Asdrubale chose to be a painter, he would not only have access to nude models, but he could paint whatever subject and have as promiscuous a reputation as he liked (Vasari claimed that an excessive amount of sex is what led to a fever which killed Raphael!). However, Sofonisba couldn’t emerge from the domestic interior without great repercussions. Take the story of Onorata Rodiani (1403-1452). Conrado Flameno wrote in 1590 that when commissioned by the Cremonese tyrant, Marquis Gabrino Fondolo to decorate his palace with frescoes, a courtier advanced upon her. Unable to defend herself, she used a knife to kill him and fled during the night, saying that ‘it is better to live honoured outside my homeland than dishonoured within it’. (8) Though she was eventually pardoned, she was never found. 

Renaissance women were slaves to the concept of virtue. For Sofonisba, her virgin status made her vulnerable to unwanted advances (as with the rape of Artemisia Gentileschi), whilst a lack of it would ensure expulsion from her family home. Even the way she portrayed herself was censored, a common saying being that ‘the woman of fluent speech is never chaste’.(9) Thus, Sofonisba presented herself as what Mary Gerrard describes as ‘a dignified, serious, and self-possessed woman’.(10) Often sexualised, Renaissance depictions of female beauty, revolved around the ‘blonde curling hair’ of Petrarch’s Laura combined with a long pale neck (see  Botticelli’s ‘Birth of Venus’- Fig. 3). (11) However, Sofonisba in figure 4 styles herself in black, with dark hair drawn back and neck hidden. Directly staring at the viewer, she asks for them to take her seriously, to see her as a male artist rather than a woman. Signing her early portraits as ‘virgo’ (virgin), like Queen Elizabeth she exhibited herself as a virtuous individual. Also, similarly to the Queen, she retained her artistic freedom through remaining unmarried (at least until her 40s), thus un-affected by the childbirth and children which waylaid female artists such as Judith Leyster. Therefore, like her sister in figure one, she remained in the interior, holding onto the floral posy of virtue so that she could artistically flourish whilst her brother ran free.  

Figure 3: Sandro Botticelli ‘The Birth of Venus’, c.1485-6, Uffizi Gallery Florence

Figure 4: Sofonisba Anguissola, ‘self-portrait’, 1556, Lancut Museum Poland

However, rather than criticising it , Sofonisba seems to celebrate her father’s patriarchal power. As Amilcare’s children crowd around him, and his aged composure speaks of wisdom, Maston argues that the work is a reference to the future, where Amilcare passes the responsibility for caring for Sofonisba and his other daughters onto his son Astrubale. (12) Though Sofonisba enabled her outstanding artistic achievements through her skill and virtuous self-image, without a father that furthered her career at every opportunity, she may never have even picked up a brush.

Amilcare Anguessola, a governmental nobleman of Cremona, resolved to educate all of his daughters. Perhaps inspired by his humanist friends like Marco Gerola, he paid for years of tutelage for Sofonisba and her sister Lucia by the painter Bernardino di Campi (Fig. 5), so that they were treated not only as apprentices, but as ‘paying house guests’.(13) Amilcare then ensured Sofonisba continued her artistic education by writing to Michelangelo on her behalf multiple times, asking in 1557 that ‘you once again in the future share your divining thoughts with her’.(14) He also ensured Sofonisba remain unmarried in a time where he had the right to marry her off as soon as she was able to bear offspring. Furthermore, he seems to have genuinely cared for his daughter, writing to Phillip II upon her appointment at the Spanish court of the ‘great sorrow’ he would experience in her appointment away from him.(15) Sofonisba certainly recognised the importance of her father in her works, painting herself bearing the family emblem in figure 6. Thus, as Matson argues, the portrait could be an ode to Amilcare, where, as Minerva and her brother exchange glances, Astrubale’s shoulders inherit the responsibility of the Anguissola family.

Figure 5: Sofonisba Anguissola, ‘Bernardino Campi Painting Sofonisba Anguissola’, c.1555-59

Figure 6: Sofonisba Anguissola, ‘miniature self-portrait’, 1556, Boston Museum of Fine Arts

However, I believe that most of all this painting is about self-advertisement.  Rather than the family portrait of ‘las meninas’, Sofonisba is not painting on commission, instead she is likely painting to further her clientele. With no access to the nude models of history painting, Sofonisba specialised in portraiture. To advertise her skill to potential clientele she painted figures which were available to her: her family. This explains the balanced composition, with a child of each gender and a dog  as well as a central male figure (popular in family portraits such as Fosili’s- Fig. 7) pictured to demonstrate her skill in rendering different ages and genders. Through applying Constance Jordan’s theory of the ‘intellectual family’, I also argue that Sofonisbapurposefully advertised herself in familial terms.(16) Jordan argues that female authors in the 15^th and 16^thcenturies, like Moderata Fonte (1555–1592) and Lucrezia Marinella (1571–1653), ‘capitalized upon the cultural legitimacy of patriarchal sanction’ through emphasizing the importance of their family, especially their fathers, and by publishing their works within the safety of family networks.(17) For example, Christine de Pizan (ca. 1365–1431), the first woman known to have made her living by writing, once penned, “YOUR father … took great pleasure from seeing your inclination to learning’.(18) I believe that Jordan’s theory also extends to artists, and Sofonisba intended to enter into the realm of multi-figural family portraits, and depicted her family to assure her potential commissioners that she, as her father’s daughter, could be trusted with this masculine task. Overall, I view this portrait as reflective of Sofonisba’s social realities: the challenges that she faced as a female artist, the celebration of her father’s support, and the security that she found in advertising herself within the ‘intellectual family’.

Figure 7: Giovanni Antonio Fasoli ‘Portrait of a Family Group’  (1530-1572)

Whatever her painting was in pursuit of, it is certainly indicative of the blatant sexism which existed Sofonisba’ssociety, a sexism that would obscure her name in the ensuing centuries, and one that still permeates critical discussions of her and her works today. She should not just be equated with the male artists which her works were wrongly attributed to (including Titian), but she should be celebrated in her own right, with recognition afforded to the immense obstacles that she overcame. I echo the words that her second husband Orazio Lomellini wrote on her tomb in saying that in this article, I too hoped to offer ‘a little tribute to such a great woman’ and a great artist.

To Sofonisba, my wife, who is recorded among the illustrious women of the world, outstanding in portraying the images of man. Orazio Lomellino, in sorrow for the loss of his great love, in 1632, dedicated this little tribute to such a great woman.(19)

GALLERY

Sofonisba Anguissola, ‘the chess game’, c. 1555, national museum in Poznan. Also depicts her family members but in an all-female environment. Heralded as a proto-feminist piece of art, some art historians argue that the depictions of chess, which rules had recently changed to be more difficult, shows Sofonisba alluding to the intelligence of her all-female sitters.

Sofonisba Anguissola, ‘boy being pinched by a crayfish’, c. 1557, museo nazionale di Capodimonte
Image made following instruction by Michelangelo to attempt a more difficult image following her submission to him of a smiling girl.

NOTES

(1)             Jordan, 1990.

(2)             Matson, 2013.

(3)             Matson, 2013.

(4)             Ibid.

(5)             Hoakley, 2017.

(6)             Vasari, 1960; Matson, 2013.

(7)             Matson, 2013.

(8)             Gerrard, 1994.

(9)             Ibid.

(10)          Petrarch, 2019.

(11)          Matson, 2013.

(12)          Perlingieri Matson, 1988.

(13)          Matson, 2013.

(14)          Jordan, 1990.

(15)          Ibid.

(16)          Ibid.

(17)          Gerrard, 1994.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

·      Adler, Laura, and Camille Viéville. The Trouble with Women Artists: Reframing the History of Art. Paris: Flammarion, 2019.

·      Garrard, Mary D. ‘Here’s Looking at Me: Sofonisba Anguissola and the Problem of the Woman Artist’. Renaissance Quarterly 47, no. 3 (1994): 556–622. https://doi.org/10.2307/2863021.

·      Hoakley. ‘Sophonisba Anguissola: My Family and Others’. The Eclectic Light Company (blog), 11 February 2017. https://eclecticlight.co/2017/02/11/sophonisba-anguissola-my-family-and-others/.

·      Jordan, Constance. Renaissance Feminism Literary Texts and Political Models / Constance Jordan.Ithaca: Ithaca, NY : Cornell University Press, 1990., 1990.

·      Marr, Alexander. ‘Sofonisba’s Success’. Apollo Magazine, 23 June 2020. https://www.apollo-magazine.com/sofonisba-anguissola-michael-cole-book-review/.

·      Matson, Irene. ‘Un Sotto Voce: Listening to the Paintings of Sofonisba Anguissola’. M.A., Prescott College, 2013. http://search.proquest.com/docview/1431184215/abstract/63FBB236E8DA48C1PQ/1.

·      Perlingieri, Ilya Sandra. ‘Sofonisba Anguissola’s Early Sketches’. Woman’s Art Journal 9, no. 2 (1988): 10–14. https://doi.org/10.2307/1358314.

·      Petrarch, Francesco. ‘The Word Den: Sonnet 227 by Petrarch.’ The Word Den (blog), 20 July 2019. http://thewordden.blogspot.com/2019/07/saturday-rave-sonnet-227-by-petrarch.html.·      Vasari, Georgio. Vasari’s Lives of the Artists: Biographies of the Most Eminent Architects, Painters, and Sculptors of Italy / Abridged and Edited by Betty Burroughs. London: Allen & Unwin, 1960.