Of Founding Fathers and the Necessity of the Place: Giorgione's Tempesta

• Autores: Regina Stefaniak
• Localización: Artibus et historiae: an art anthology, ISSN 0391-9064, Nº. 58, 2008, págs. 121-155
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • This essay will identify the blond young woman (the "gypsy" mentioned in the Vendramin sources) and the well-dressed young man in Giorgione's Tempesta with Poverty and Wealth (Poenia and Poros) in Diotima's story of the generation of Eros (Symposium 203). In his treatise De Iside et Osiride Plutarch later linked the couple with Plato's female and male generative principles of creation (Timaeus 49—50). In the Christian Platonic tradition Saints Basil and Ambrose assimilated the Timaean principles to the Creator acting on created prime matter; Eusebius of Caesarea interpreted Diotima's story in terms of the first parents, Adam and Eve. As depicted by Giorgione, this complex cluster of philosophical myth provided an aition for the role of the Venetian patriciate in the founding of Venice ab aeterno: noble and wealthy forefathers confronting the necessity of the place where they chose to live. In the face of critical Italian views concerning Venice and the patriciate the Platonic myth provided an apology for their commercial occupations and energetic pursuit of wealth, and furthermore a mandate for patrician rule in Venice and perhaps even in the terraferma. As a member of the nobility the collector Gabriele Vendramin shared in the general benefits of this politic representation of his class. His possession of a fascinating painting on a very well known classical text whose representation was at the same time not immediately transparent to all visitors could have provided him with some additional measure of personal gratification.