Titian's Allegory of Marriage: New Approaches (Visual and Material Culture, 1300-1700)

1. Titian's enigmatic artistic creation in the light of current scholarship. 2. The centrality of interdisciplinary methodology in approaching early modern artistic creation and its relativity. 3. One painting being interpreted by different scholars from different approaches. 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.

Daniel M. Unger teaches the History of Early Modern Art at Ben-Gurion University, Israel. His research focuses on seventeenth-century Bolognese and Roman painting. His recent book Redefining Eclecticism in Early Modern Bolognese Painting: Ideology, Practice, and Criticism was published by Amsterdam University Press in 2019.Valery Rees teaches in the School of Philosophy and Economic Science in London and has held guest lectureships in Cambridge, Warwick, Budapest, and Jerusalem. Her principal work over many years has been on The Letters of Marsilio Ficino (London: Shepheard Walwyn, 11 vols. in print, 1975–2020), Vol. 12 in preparation. Rees has co-edited and contributed to three essay collections: Platonism: Ficino to Foucault (Leiden: Brill, 2020), Laus Platonici Philosophi: Marsilio Ficino and His Influence (Leiden: Brill, 2011), and Marsilio Ficino: His Theology, His Philosophy, His Legacy (Leiden: Brill, 2002). She has also contributed several articles to Brill’s Encyclopaedia of the Neo-Latin World (2014). Her monograph From Gabriel to Lucifer: A Cultural History of Angels is available in English and German (London: I B Tauris, 2012, repr. 2015; Lambert Schneider, 2017). She has published numerous articles on philosophy, literature, and religion in the Renaissance. Her most recent articles include: ‘Philosophy on the Defensive: Marsilio Ficino’s Response in a Time of Religious Turmoil’, in Platonism: From Ficino to Foucault, eds. Valery Rees, Anna Corrias, Francesca Crasta, Laura Follesa, and Guido Giglioni (Leiden: Brill, 2021), pp. 16–31; ‘Seeing and the Unseen: Marsilio Ficino and the Visual Arts’, Proceedings of Conference Held at the University of Vienna, 15–17 September 2011, in Iconology: Neoplatonism and the Arts in the Renaissance, ed. by Berthold Hub and Sergius Kodera (Routledge, 2021), pp. 62–76; ‘Translation, Absorption, Creation of Something New: Marsilio Ficino Reads Proclus’, in Humanistica, Journal of Early Renaissance Studies, xiii (n. s. vii) 2, 2018; and Heredes et Scrutatores (Pisa: Fabrizio Serra editore, 2020), pp. 67–73.Mary Pardo is an Associate Professor in the Department of Art at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill. She specializes in Renaissance art criticism and theory written in the Italian vernacular. She has published essays on Alberti’s critical aim in Della pittura and on Renaissance concepts of pictorial illusion as they apply to the art of Giotto, Leonardo, Savoldo, and Titian.Karen Watts is a Visiting Research and Teaching Fellow, Postgraduate Institute for Medieval Studies, University of Leeds; Professeur de Patrimoines et Archéologie Militaires, Ecole du Louvre, Paris; Curator and Archivist, the Worshipful Company of Gold and Silver Wyre Drawers, London; and Curator Emeritus, Royal Armouries Museum, Leeds. Honorific titles include Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters (chevalier de l’ordre des Arts et des Lettres), France, and Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, London. In addition to teaching, writing and PhD supervision, she is currently the director and curator for a major exhibition in 2023 titled ‘Treasures of Gold and Silver Wire’ to be held at the Guildhall Art Gallery, London.Esthy Kravitz-Lurie teaches in the Department of Visual Design at the Sami Shamoon College of Engineering in Beer-Sheva. She received her PhD in 2018 from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel. Her research deals with expressions of Renaissance literature in the mythological and narrative paintings of the Baroque period, in particular Annibale Carracci and his followers, and she interprets their work through pastoral dramas, librettos, and the epic poems of the Cinquecento. She recently completed a Post-Doc at Ben-Gurion University. Kravitz-Lurie’s latest articles are: ‘Hercules and Rinaldo: Annibale Carracci’s Invenzione of Tasso’s Epic Hero’, Athens Journal of Humanities and Arts; ‘Reevaluating Cupid and Pan: The Story of Eros and the Satyr in the Farnese Gallery’, which has been accepted for publication in the Journal of Baroque Studies.Paul Joannides is Emeritus Professor of the History of Art at the University of Cambridge. His main interests lie in the painting, sculpture, drawing and, to a lesser extent, architecture of the Italian Renaissance. He has published widely on such artists as Masaccio, Michelangelo, Raphael, and Titian and, to a lesser extent, on other figures such as Fra Angelico, Botticelli, and Leonardo. He has also written on French late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century painting. His principal publications are: The Drawings of Raphael (London 1983); Masaccio and Masolino (London 1993); Titian to 1518: The Assumption of Genius (New Haven 2001); Michel-Ange, Ecole, Copistes, Inventaire des Dessins Italiens (Paris 2003); Drawings by Michelangelo and His Followers in the Ashmolean Museum (Cambridge 2007.) His exhibition catalogues include: Michelangelo and His Influence, an exhibition of 68 drawings for the Royal Collection, shown in United States and the United Kingdom between 1996 and 1998; Raphael and His Age: Drawings from the Palais des Beaux-Arts, Lille, an exhibition of 57 drawings shown in the United States and France in 2002–2003, and Late Raphael, co-curated with Professor Tom Henry, which was shown at the Prado and the Louvre in 2012–2013.Sara Benninga is a lecturer in the Department of Art History at Tel Aviv University and in the Department of Visual and Material Culture at Bezalel Academy of Art and Design. Her research focuses on seventeenth-century Dutch and Flemish art, the representation of the body, and manifestation of pleasure in art and iconography. Benninga earned her PhD in art history at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (July 2017). She has an MA in art history from the Hebrew University (2009) and a BA in art history and comparative literature from Tel-Aviv University (2006), as well as a BFA from Bezalel Academy (2012). She has published a number of articles, among which the most recent are: ‘Issues in the Representation of the Meal in Western Art’, in: Thoughts on the Meal in Visual and Material Culture (Jerusalem: Bezalel Academy of Art and Design, 2020); ‘The Changing Perception of the Senses’, Ikonotheka 29 (2019): 105–124; and ‘Writing Intimacies: Rubens’ Licit Pleasures’, in: Epistolary Discourse: Letters and Letter Writing in Early Modern Art, edited by Lilian Zirpolo (Ramsey, NJ: Zephyrus Scholarly Publications, 2019), 99–118.Geoff Lehman did his doctoral work in art history at Columbia University, where he wrote a dissertation on the relationship between perspective and Renaissance landscape painting. Since 2006 he has been on the faculty of Bard College Berlin and has been teaching in its interdisciplinary liberal arts program. His research interests include the theory and history of perspective, landscape painting, the phenomenology of art, and the relationship between art and philosophy. Lehman’s book The Parthenon and Liberal Education, co-written with Michael Weinman, which focused on the Parthenon in relation to ancient Greek mathematics and to Plato’s dialogues, was published in 2018 by SUNY Press.Sergius Kodera received his PhD in 1994. Since then, he has been teaching Early Modern and Renaissance Philosophy in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Vienna. Habilitation in 2004. He has been awarded fellowships in London (Warburg Institute), Vienna (IFK), New York (Columbia), Berlin (Freie Universität). Kodera has published on and/or is a translator of the work of such authors as Marsilio Ficino, Machiavelli, Leone Ebreo, Girolamo Cardano, Giovan Battista della Porta, Giordano Bruno, Francis Bacon, and Kenelm Digby. His main fields of interest are the history of the body and sexuality, magic, media, and concepts of space in trans-disciplinary perspectives. He is currently working on a book-length study on Della Porta in English.

Daniel M. Unger teaches the History of Early Modern Art at Ben-Gurion University, Israel. His research focuses on seventeenth-century Bolognese and Roman painting. His recent book Redefining Eclecticism in Early Modern Bolognese Painting: Ideology, Practice, and Criticism was published by Amsterdam University Press in 2019. Valery Rees teaches in the School of Philosophy and Economic Science in London and has held guest lectureships in Cambridge, Warwick, Budapest, and Jerusalem. Her principal work over many years has been on The Letters of Marsilio Ficino (London: Shepheard Walwyn, 11 vols. in print, 1975–2020), Vol. 12 in preparation. Rees has co-edited and contributed to three essay collections: Platonism: Ficino to Foucault (Leiden: Brill, 2020), Laus Platonici Philosophi: Marsilio Ficino and His Influence (Leiden: Brill, 2011), and Marsilio Ficino: His Theology, His Philosophy, His Legacy (Leiden: Brill, 2002). She has also contributed several articles to Brill’s Encyclopaedia of the Neo-Latin World (2014). Her monograph From Gabriel to Lucifer: A Cultural History of Angels is available in English and German (London: I B Tauris, 2012, repr. 2015; Lambert Schneider, 2017). She has published numerous articles on philosophy, literature, and religion in the Renaissance. Her most recent articles include: ‘Philosophy on the Defensive: Marsilio Ficino’s Response in a Time of Religious Turmoil’, in Platonism: From Ficino to Foucault, eds. Valery Rees, Anna Corrias, Francesca Crasta, Laura Follesa, and Guido Giglioni (Leiden: Brill, 2021), pp. 16–31; ‘Seeing and the Unseen: Marsilio Ficino and the Visual Arts’, Proceedings of Conference Held at the University of Vienna, 15–17 September 2011, in Iconology: Neoplatonism and the Arts in the Renaissance, ed. by Berthold Hub and Sergius Kodera (Routledge, 2021), pp. 62–76; ‘Translation, Absorption, Creation of Something New: Marsilio Ficino Reads Proclus’, in Humanistica, Journal of Early Renaissance Studies, xiii (n. s. vii) 2, 2018; and Heredes et Scrutatores (Pisa: Fabrizio Serra editore, 2020), pp. 67–73. Mary Pardo is an Associate Professor in the Department of Art at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill. She specializes in Renaissance art criticism and theory written in the Italian vernacular. She has published essays on Alberti’s critical aim in Della pittura and on Renaissance concepts of pictorial illusion as they apply to the art of Giotto, Leonardo, Savoldo, and Titian. Karen Watts is a Visiting Research and Teaching Fellow, Postgraduate Institute for Medieval Studies, University of Leeds; Professeur de Patrimoines et Archéologie Militaires, Ecole du Louvre, Paris; Curator and Archivist, the Worshipful Company of Gold and Silver Wyre Drawers, London; and Curator Emeritus, Royal Armouries Museum, Leeds. Honorific titles include Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters (chevalier de l’ordre des Arts et des Lettres), France, and Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, London. In addition to teaching, writing and PhD supervision, she is currently the director and curator for a major exhibition in 2023 titled ‘Treasures of Gold and Silver Wire’ to be held at the Guildhall Art Gallery, London. Esthy Kravitz-Lurie teaches in the Department of Visual Design at the Sami Shamoon College of Engineering in Beer-Sheva. She received her PhD in 2018 from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel. Her research deals with expressions of Renaissance literature in the mythological and narrative paintings of the Baroque period, in particular Annibale Carracci and his followers, and she interprets their work through pastoral dramas, librettos, and the epic poems of the Cinquecento. She recently completed a Post-Doc at Ben-Gurion University. Kravitz-Lurie’s latest articles are: ‘Hercules and Rinaldo: Annibale Carracci’s Invenzione of Tasso’s Epic Hero’, Athens Journal of Humanities and Arts; ‘Reevaluating Cupid and Pan: The Story of Eros and the Satyr in the Farnese Gallery’, which has been accepted for publication in the Journal of Baroque Studies. Paul Joannides is Emeritus Professor of the History of Art at the University of Cambridge. His main interests lie in the painting, sculpture, drawing and, to a lesser extent, architecture of the Italian Renaissance. He has published widely on such artists as Masaccio, Michelangelo, Raphael, and Titian and, to a lesser extent, on other figures such as Fra Angelico, Botticelli, and Leonardo. He has also written on French late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century painting. His principal publications are: The Drawings of Raphael (London 1983); Masaccio and Masolino (London 1993); Titian to 1518: The Assumption of Genius (New Haven 2001); Michel-Ange, Ecole, Copistes, Inventaire des Dessins Italiens (Paris 2003); Drawings by Michelangelo and His Followers in the Ashmolean Museum (Cambridge 2007.) His exhibition catalogues include: Michelangelo and His Influence, an exhibition of 68 drawings for the Royal Collection, shown in United States and the United Kingdom between 1996 and 1998; Raphael and His Age: Drawings from the Palais des Beaux-Arts, Lille, an exhibition of 57 drawings shown in the United States and France in 2002–2003, and Late Raphael, co-curated with Professor Tom Henry, which was shown at the Prado and the Louvre in 2012–2013. Sara Benninga is a lecturer in the Department of Art History at Tel Aviv University and in the Department of Visual and Material Culture at Bezalel Academy of Art and Design. Her research focuses on seventeenth-century Dutch and Flemish art, the representation of the body, and manifestation of pleasure in art and iconography. Benninga earned her PhD in art history at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (July 2017). She has an MA in art history from the Hebrew University (2009) and a BA in art history and comparative literature from Tel-Aviv University (2006), as well as a BFA from Bezalel Academy (2012). She has published a number of articles, among which the most recent are: ‘Issues in the Representation of the Meal in Western Art’, in: Thoughts on the Meal in Visual and Material Culture (Jerusalem: Bezalel Academy of Art and Design, 2020); ‘The Changing Perception of the Senses’, Ikonotheka 29 (2019): 105–124; and ‘Writing Intimacies: Rubens’ Licit Pleasures’, in: Epistolary Discourse: Letters and Letter Writing in Early Modern Art, edited by Lilian Zirpolo (Ramsey, NJ: Zephyrus Scholarly Publications, 2019), 99–118. Geoff Lehman did his doctoral work in art history at Columbia University, where he wrote a dissertation on the relationship between perspective and Renaissance landscape painting. Since 2006 he has been on the faculty of Bard College Berlin and has been teaching in its interdisciplinary liberal arts program. His research interests include the theory and history of perspective, landscape painting, the phenomenology of art, and the relationship between art and philosophy. Lehman’s book The Parthenon and Liberal Education, co-written with Michael Weinman, which focused on the Parthenon in relation to ancient Greek mathematics and to Plato’s dialogues, was published in 2018 by SUNY Press. Sergius Kodera received his PhD in 1994. Since then, he has been teaching Early Modern and Renaissance Philosophy in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Vienna. Habilitation in 2004. He has been awarded fellowships in London (Warburg Institute), Vienna (IFK), New York (Columbia), Berlin (Freie Universität). Kodera has published on and/or is a translator of the work of such authors as Marsilio Ficino, Machiavelli, Leone Ebreo, Girolamo Cardano, Giovan Battista della Porta, Giordano Bruno, Francis Bacon, and Kenelm Digby. His main fields of interest are the history of the body and sexuality, magic, media, and concepts of space in trans-disciplinary perspectives. He is currently working on a book-length study on Della Porta in English.