This book offers nine new approaches toward a single work of art, Titian’s Allegory of Marriage or Allegory of Alfonso d’Avalos, dated to 1530/5. In earlier references, the painting was named simply Allegory, alluding to its enigmatic nature. The work follows in a tradition of such ambiguous Venetian paintings as Giovanni Bellini’s Sacred Allegory and Giorgione’s Tempest. Throughout the years, Titian’s Allegory has engendered a range of diverse interpretations. Art historians such as Hans Tietze, Erwin Panofsky, Walter Friedlaender, and Louis Hourticq, to mention only a few, promoted various explanations. This book offers novel approaches and suggests new meanings toward a further understanding of this somewhat abstruse painting.
- Cover
- Table of Contents
- 1. Introduction: Poetic License
- 2. Love, Beauty, and the Human Body as a Reflection of the Divine
- 3. Amorosa visione: Titian’s Allegory of Marriage and the Poetry of the Half-length Format
- 4. The Arms and Armour of Titian’s Allegory of Marriage
- 5. ‘Un disio sol d’eterna gloria e fama’: A Literary Approach to Titian’s Allegory
- 6. Psyche, Venus, Ceres and Their Friends: Titian’s Remixes
- 7. Art and the Double Meaning of Reflection in Titian’s Allegory of Marriage
- 8. Titian’s Allegory of Marriage as an ‘Allegory of Peace’
- 9. Vision and Touch in the Allegory of Marriage
- 10. Of Crystal Orbs and Divinatory Mirrors: The Vicissitudes of Pregnancy and Artistic Agency in Titian’s Allegory of Marriage
- Index
- Colour Plates
- List of Plates and Figures