A5: Dionysus in Mantua

In Mantua, Alfonso's sister Isabella reigned in art (and contributed significantly to statecraft as well). The two siblings were in continual contact, even rivalry, and Alfonso sometimes sent his own painters to visit there. One painting done for her was Lorenzo Costa's Myth of Comus, 1510-1515, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comus). It shows drunk revelers and in the foreground a maiden who, probably under the influence of wine, has fallen sleep. According to Ciammitti (p. 87), Nonnus's poem about Nicea was also a source for this painting, the same incident in Nonnus's poem as in the case of Alfonso's Myth of Pan, but before Bacchus did the deed. Here is the relevant detail:

There are problems with this interpretation. Dionysus is not alone with the maiden here. Moreover, she appears to have fallen asleep lying against the male figure. Nor is there anything else to suggest that source. Stephen J. Campbell (Cabinet of Eros p. 208ff, in Google Books, http://books.google.com/books?id=z_GBq346SKIC&pg=PA206&lpg=PA206&dq=Lorenzo+Costa+Comus&source=bl&ots=2kX0ilINTz&sig=Bdk7ouStL8ZXgwy9_Q_Lsd3xVo0&hl=en&sa=X&ei=lc1yT9SgJ-aqiAK748mCCw&ved=0CGMQ6AEwCg#v=onepage&q=Lorenzo%20Costa%20Comus&f=false), says that she is merely the sleeping Ariadne. The ivy wreath he is making suggests the crown of stars that will be hers after death. The text being illustrated, he argues, is primarily Philostratus's Imagines, a translation of which was in the possession of Isabella. Either way, the painting is a Dionysian erotic scene. (Comus, from whom the title derives, is the god of revels and companion of Dionysus.)

Of interest here is what Campbell says about Isabella and Alfonso (p. 208 again):

Scholars are generally not disposed to thinking of Isabella as being interested in the myths of Bacchus with their connotations of ecstasy and excess; such imagery is typically seen as the preserve of her "libertine" brother Alfonso. Hence, with the exception of Erika Tietze-Conrat, most scholars have been slow to recognize that the Comus is a painting concerned with the myth of Bacchus and Ariadne.

Campbell argues that the gap in artistic taste between Isabella and her brother is not as wide as others have thought. The same humanist wrote programs for each, and both had artists commission paintings on sensuous Dionysian themes.

Another painting for Isabella is one by Corregio, c. 1530, that Campbell (p. 242) calls Silenus, or Allegory of the Passions; the title Allegory of Vice was given in the 18th century (a good image is at http://cdn2.all-art.org/early_renaissance/images/correggio37-9.jpg). Campbell (p. 235) sees the influence of the Mantuan poet Folengo's Baldus in this work. Folengo, as I mentioned earlier, is significant here because he was the author of five tarocchi poems in his 1527 work Caos del Triperuno (http://www.tarotpedia.com/wiki/Caos_Del_Triperuno). Here is Folengo in Baldus, as quoted by Campbell:

While Silenus and his consort sleep naked, snoring like pigs, a thousand naked little boys keep watch. And these little boys sing the "Evoe", leaping and performing the moresca, all plump and ripe enough to be cooked to a ragout. Each has a crown of grape leaves on his curly head, each holds a bunch of grapes in his hand, each has a little flask with a stopper that hangs by his side. They al have the wine flush upon them and they laugh and celebrate the bacchanal of their father, and they finally end up drunk themselves.

To be sure, in Corregio's painting Silenus is not likely sleeping! Silenus is another of Dionysus's companions, his aged teacher; moreover, the whole scene is Dionysian in character. Isabella collected small bronzes of satyrs and other Dionysian figures, according to Campbell.

Still, Alfonso's taste was probably more sensuous than Isabella's. Michelangelo did a "Leda and the Swan" for him, famous for the explicit contact between the two (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leda_and_the_Swan). Wikipedia says that the painting was "deliberately destroyed" in France later; but several copies survive. Leda seems to be asleep. Fiorenzo's book Dosso Dossi actually has a section entitled "Alfonso's Sleeping Beauties" He apparently liked the idea that Bacchus's gift could make a woman more vulnerable to sex, if not awake then asleep; in Nonnus, they were of both sorts. So for Alfonso, there is Bellini's Feast of the Gods and Dosso's Myth of Pan, already mentioned. Another is a curious piece with the same sleeping lady, watched over by a similar old woman, but instead of Pan we have a lady pointing upwards (https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaroCdtjUyIWGJgSiW53EY3y3rioVVfEh30jChtxkA4A5dF4XYMKuMmX11T8hrVxVmYygAR7kn34T7ncBbxS0Y_3WSf1-a76X4bSBH6EhdEj5fPbTP1zdIS7NxUdMvqYI0CVwJD8YDF1C_/s1600/dossi05.jpg). No one has found a satisfactory mythological antecedent for all the major elements. Perhaps Dosso drew on various myths to suggest on the one hand, the sleeper's dream of chastity, and on the other, her posture, however innocent, inviting the dangerous intrusive male gaze, in this case the viewer of the painting. However there may be a higher philosophical rationale, which I will discuss later.

In Mantua, the "Amymone" painted by Lorenzo Leonbruno and engraved by Girolamo Mocetto (Campbell p. 167) is similar to the Myth of Pan and the others, although the god is Neptune (the figure with the trident); both were taken from the Mantegna workshop's engraving on the same theme (http://www.engramma.it/engramma_revolution/53/053_saggi_abolympo.html).

Art historians find the influence in these works from a woodcut in the Hypnerotomachia, 1499 Venice, showing Pan looking down at a sleeping maiden (from Fiorenza, Dosso Dosso, p. 84)

The inscription says, "To the Mother of all". The sense is that Pan (meaning "All" in Greek) is the fecundating spirit that will bring all life-even of art and intellect out of passive Nature (Fiorenza p. 83).

But I think there may be another source for all these works, mostly not mentioned by the art historians. I suspect that all these works portraying an enamored man, or satyr, over a sleeping girl were ultimately inspired by the Roman reliefs and sarcophagi that depicted Dionysus being shown the sleeping Ariadne by Pan. Below are three examples, gleaned from a casual search on Google. You will notice that the face of Ariadne in the middle one is not filled in. Probably the likeness of the deceased, a female initiate into the Dionysian rites, was meant to be inserted there. These things were probably mass-produced.

(If at this point you are wondering why I am going into such detail, well, partly it is to show that even when something isn't on the surface Dionysian, it might prove to have a Dionysian source; and partly it is because I am going to apply the same kind of analysis to the tarot.) 

 The fourth image, on the bottom, is from a pen and ink drawing done, according to Wendy Sheard (Titian 500, p. 317f) by a "Mantuan artist" c. 1480. She is the one historian I have found who documents the role of the sarcophagi in the art of Mantua of the 15th century (although her point is cited with approval by Campbell). According to her, the sarcophagus itself, now at Blenheim Palace in England (probably identical to the top one in my series), was in Rome at the time. You will notice that the artist has taken some liberties in depicting the scene.

The central group, at left in the drawing and photo, showing Bacchus supported by two satyrs, was made into an engraving by the Bolognese artist Jacopo Francia, c. 1506.The style is noticeably different, showing the influence of Raphael.

In the classical works about Dionysus and his retinue, the theme of Dionysus discovering the sleeping Ariadne, uncovered by Pan, was recycled over and over again, with different maidens and helpers. One example is the the Costa's Comus, with which this section began. Sheard (p. 317) hypothesizes that Titian, for his versions of the sleeping maiden in Bacchanal of the Andreans and elsewhere, saw the drawing when he visited Mantua in 1519 with Dosso. Dosso's Myth of Pan (discussed in my previous section) would then have been similarly inspired. (To see Andreans again, see http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Titian_Bacchanal_1523_1524.jpg; for Pan, see http://www.getty.edu/art/collections/images/enlarge/00082601.JPG).

Mantegna and his workshop did other works which I think were inspired by Dionysian sarcophagi. The most obvious is a Bacchanal of the 1470s (http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/images/hb/hb_29.44.15.jpg).

At least two tarot cards are inspired by these engravings, the Two of Batons and the Two of Swords in the Sola-Busca deck, done in either Ferrara or Venice, but more likely the former, in around 1491: the rather gross belly, thigh, and testicles of the 2 of Batons, and the left figure of the 2 of Swords. The forelock represented the saying "grab opportunity by the forelock" and is probably meant as advice to the hesitant youngster; but it also suggests a horn, while his covered legs might hide those of a satyr.
 
What is the source of the Mantegna engraving? The online Metropolitan Museum commentary (http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/29.44.15) says:

 In representing Silenus, any artist living in Mantua, the city of Virgil's birth, would have had in mind the poet's sixth Eclogue, in which Silenus is roused from drunken sleep by two satyrs and a nymph, bound with his own garlands, and forced to sing.

But I see no garlands binding anyone, no nymphs, and these drunks are not singing. Here is a corresponding sarcophagus scene, now in Naples (I take this from Daimonax at http://www.bacchos.org/tarothtm/15diable2.html). (Notice also the similarity of the young men to the young man on the Sola-Busca 2 of Swords.)

I doubt if anything like this was in Mantua then, but below is an engraving--which I divide into right and left sides, above and below--by Marcantonio Raimondo, who lived c. 1470-1543, originally an engraver in Bologna who moved to Rome in 1510 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcantonio_Raimondi). Raimondo was imprisoned by Pope Clement VIII in 1524 for some erotic engravings based on drawings by Giulio Romano, who was working in Rome just before. The engraving below is not one of those, although at least some of them, too, may have been inspired in part by sarcophagi (for which see Richard Asti: p. 47 of "Giulio Romano as Designer of Erotica", in Janet Cox Rearick, ed., Giulio Romano Master Designer).

Most likely the sarcophagus I am now focusing on was in Rome, and Mantegna either saw it there, or a version on paper there or in Mantua. The engraving (from the British Museum's site at http://warburg.sas.ac.uk/vpc/VPC_search/subcats.php?cat_1=5&cat_2=89&cat_3=1408&cat_4=1704&cat_5=1350&cat_6=1030&cat_7=733&cat_8=224) is so long that I divide it into two sections here.

The other part of the engraving is based on another sarcophagus scene, or perhaps a relief, also now in Naples. I don't know if it is the same sarcophagus as the other, but it might be, based on the similar marble surface and quality of preservation; I get the image, like the other one, from http://www.bacchos.org/tarothtm/15diable2.html:

You will have noticed the same pose on the sleeping woman as in many of the paintings (It is this sarcophagus that Asti (referenced above, this section) thought Romano's erotic drawing was based on.) The scene next to it, of anal penetration, might have to do with an episode in the myth of Dionysus as told by Clement of Alexandria (Exhortation to the Greeks 2:30, http://www.theoi.com/Olympios/DionysosMyths2.html). A man showed Dionysus the entrance to Tartarus, on condition that Dionysus have sex with him upon returning. By then the man was dead; so Dionysus carved a phallus out of fig-wood and fulfilled his promise with it. "As a mystic memorial of this passion", Clement says, "phalloi are set up to Dionysos in cities".

 On the sarcophagus and engraving, however, a female satyr is being penetrated by such a wooden statue; in this case the wooden phallus symbolizes the god himself; it is the soul's penetration by the god. Augustine says in City of God 7:21 that just such an act was part of the festival of Liber in the Italian town of Lativum (http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/120107.htm). After the phallus was dragged to the forum, and then the temple, and wreathed by "the most honorable matron, he says:

Thus, forsooth, was the god Liber to be appeased in order to the growth of seeds. Thus was enchantment to be driven away from fields, even by a matron's being compelled to do in public what not even a harlot ought to be permitted to do in a theatre, if there were matrons among the spectators.

 Augustine cannot bring himself to be more specific, but we know what he means.

In the paintings for the Estensi there is an emphasis on Dionysus's reputation as a reveler, boon companion (of Comus), conqueror, and lover. These roles would not be foreign to the atmosphere of card-playing in the taverns and at private parties, but somewhat removed from the high seriousness of the "divine folly" of union with God. That is where a certain group of 15th century philosophers comes in.