DIVERSE ENGAGEMENT: DRAWING IN THE MARGINS,

Proceedings of the Interdisciplinary Graduate Conference, Cambridge University, UK (28-29, June 2010)
ISBN 978-0-9566139-1-2 © University of Cambridge, Graduate Development Programme.

APOLLO’S AMOURS: TILL DEATH DO US PART?

HOMOEROTIC MYTHOLOGY IN THE ITALIAN
RENAISSANCE:
A Cultural and Psychoanalytical Inquiry

Ann HAUGHTON

Post-Graduate Research Student, History of Art, University of Bristol, UK.

[email protected]

Such indeed is the importance of the subject that it still calls for fresh
investigation, and may be studied with advantage from most points of view.
Jacob Burckhardt: The Civilisation of the Renaissance in Italy (1860)

ABSTRACT
Recent decades have witnessed an abundance of scholarly and interpretive perspectives brought to bear upon
lesbian and gay history, culture and identity in the field of modern and contemporary visual representation.
However, homoerotic depiction of social and sexual activities between men also permeates the visual record of
the Italian Renaissance. This paper will explore the integral role of specific visual representations of homoerotic
myths which conflate erotic desire and philosophical allegory, namely Benvenuto Cellini’s marble Apollo and
Hyacinth (1545) and Giulio Romano’s drawing of Apollo and Cyparissus (1524) as records and proclamations of
contemporary power relations related to the constructs and dynamics of gender, identity and sexuality. Both
these images were executed at a time when erotic relationships between men found conscious expression in the
narrative and imagery of pagan mythology as an exclusive model sanctified by antique precedent. But although
both display an undeniable erotic component, these visual texts reveal far more than lascivious experiences
shared by males in Renaissance Italy. There are also pedagogical, initiatory and moral values encoded within
these works as a means of training and socialization of Renaissance adolescents. As images which embody
recognized cultural parameters and norms relating to gender roles and sexual desire that differ widely from our
own modern notions of social equality or reciprocity, they are a rich source for understanding the social, political,
institutional and cultural contexts that underpinned their production and reception.

This paper aims to elucidate new and rewarding opportunities for addressing the issue of homoeroticism in the
Italian Renaissance through dedicated historically informed enquiry. It will explore the ways which art of this
nature challenges notions that heterosexuality was normative and universal in the early-modern period with
consideration of the taxonomical or culturally specific values that underpinned its execution. The understanding
and contextualizing of the dynamics of same-sex eroticism and sociality, as represented in the artistic production
of the cinquecento is an important but so far relatively neglected area of study within the field of art historical
discourse and it is hoped that further research will help to edge this fascinating subject closer to the intellectual
mainstream.

INTRODUCTION
Personal sexual behaviour is shaped by and shapes the wider social and political milieu, but not all societies
permit expression of all varieties of erotic disposition. Men who characteristically prefer relations with youths are
considered in our culture deserving of sanction, if not outright condemnation, but in many other cultures,

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DIVERSE ENGAGEMENT: DRAWING IN THE MARGINS,
Proceedings of the Interdisciplinary Graduate Conference, Cambridge University, UK (28-29, June 2010)
ISBN 978-0-9566139-1-2 © University of Cambridge, Graduate Development Programme.

particularly classical antiquity and the Italian Renaissance, age-asymmetrical relations were considered to be a
transient and natural stage in the lives of both adults and youths. For these cultures adolescence was treated as a
subset of adulthood, not signalling full maturity but nevertheless sharply distinguishable from childhood. Judicial
records testify that at one time or another and with varying significance and degrees of involvement, pederastic
relations formed part of the life experience of many Italian males of the late medieval and early modern period.
Rediscovered artefacts and textual sources such as Ovid’s poem Metamorphoses (8AD),1 which provides the
mythic narrative for the images discussed in this paper, revealed to the Italian upper classes a culture which faced
directly and candidly a fundamental aspect of human experience - men sometimes love, whether spiritually or
sexually, adolescent males. However, this was also an age when civil morality and theological condemnation of
male sexual relations prompted social, moral and political divergences and invectives over such activity.2 As a
direct consequence of this condemnation, erotic relationships between men found conscious expression in the
narrative and imagery of pagan mythology as an exclusive model sanctified by antique precedent. This paper will
present new interpretations of homoerotic mythological representations of Apollo with his younger paramours
Hyacinth and Cyparissus as structured initiatory and pedagogical models connected to rites that mark the passage
from youth to adulthood. It will also address the instrumentality of these images in terms of understanding the
social articulation of Renaissance power differentials and constructs, as well as issues of sexuality, identity and
gender.

DISCUSSION
The demarcation should be clearly and accurately drawn between the pederasty that existed in the Renaissance
and that of the paedophilia that pervades our modern world. At the time these images were executed pederastic
relations were confined to pubescent boys, preferably between the ages of twelve and eighteen. There is no
evidence to suggest that pre-pubescent boys attracted desire at all. In both antiquity and Renaissance Italy such
behaviour would have been roundly condemned as reprehensible in that it served no pedagogical or formative
purpose. Therefore, it can be assumed that age differentials were often idealised in homoerotic imagery since in
reality when it came to pederastic bonds there was less disparity in age than in marriages of the period when the
girl was of an average age of thirteen and the suitor around thirty.

Apollo is prominently placed in Ovid’s Metamorphoses as one of the most important Olympian gods, who as
the eternal beardless divinity had the most prominent and prolific male relationships of all, but the two romances
which feature most commonly in Renaissance artistic production are with Hyacinthus and Cyparissus, both of
whom died at his hands. Cellini’s marble sculpture Apollo and Hyacinth3 features the divinity with his beloved
mortal youth Hyacinth who in Ovid’s text when being taught how to throw the discus by his mentor and lover
was struck as it fell to the ground and died. Apollo refused to allow Hades to claim the young man; rather, he
made a flower, the hyacinth, from his spilled blood. In his pen and ink drawing of Apollo and Cyparissus,4
Romano places the deity with his other beloved young mortal Cyparissus. The drawing was engraved by
Marcantonio Raimondi and distributed in printed form, but these are no longer extant. Apollo adored Cyparissus
dearly also and bequeathed to his juvenile beloved a beautiful tame stag. When Cyparissus accidentally killed his
stag whilst being educated in the manly art of hunting he was distraught by his loss. All of Apollo’s consolations
were in vain and Cyparissus was so distressed that he begged to be allowed to mourn forever. Eventually Apollo
obliged by turning him into a cypress tree which is said to be a sad tree because of the droplets of sap that form
on its trunk.

There were different iconic ambits in the cinquecento - one private the other public, and homoerotically charged
imagery assumed different faces for private and public consumption. Cellini’s statue was sculptured in
anticipation of its acceptance by Cosimo de Medici who donated the marble but ultimately refused it after the
artist was imprisoned for his own sexual transgressions. Romano executed his drawing when planning frescoes
for Baldassarre Turini but the commission was unfulfilled and the drawing was subsequently issued as prints - all
of which have been destroyed. Although these images were executed in very different media and for diverse
viewing conditions, they are superb exemplars of how Renaissance mythological representations with
unmistakably homoerotic sentiments contained a complex set of encoded messages that capture the physical,
emotional and social elements of intergenerational same-sex male experience. The interconnecting and over
arching theme present in both images is their strong pedagogical and initiatory function correlating rites that
mark the passage from youth to adulthood. There has been a paucity of scholarly discourse on these two images
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DIVERSE ENGAGEMENT: DRAWING IN THE MARGINS,
Proceedings of the Interdisciplinary Graduate Conference, Cambridge University, UK (28-29, June 2010)
ISBN 978-0-9566139-1-2 © University of Cambridge, Graduate Development Programme.

to date, and the little that does exist barely acknowledges the homoerotic narrative which inspired these works.
In the case of Cellini’s sculpture, Michael Cole dismisses the subject as an ‘infelicitous, ad hoc, and even nonsensical idea
adopted in the face of the difficulties the marble presented’ with ‘no narrative or thematic rationale to Hyacinth’s presence’.5 And in
her seminal work on Romano’s erotic prints Bette Talvacchia does not make adequate distinction between his
homoerotic subject matter and his rendering of heterosexual couplings.6 Any attempt to coyly ‘straighten-out’
these works with heterocentric exclusion of their prevailing homoerotic characteristics fails to do justice to the
spirit of their execution and to the mythological narrative from which they are sourced. Therefore, an alternative
interpretation to the more conventional heteronormative scholarship currently published will be offered; one
which has particular focus upon the rigid behavioural expectations encoded within these Renaissance depictions
of male love, but which adopts a more appropriate perspective drawing upon queer theoretical analysis - to date
the almost exclusive domain of literary and art historical discourse concerned with work produced in recent
decades.

Closer reading of Apollo and Hyacinth reveals that Cellini captures the moment when Hyacinth is accidentally
slain by the lethal discus that Apollo still holds in his left hand, preserving in sculptured form the precise
moment when the juvenile Hyacinth is fatally injured but yet to transform into his new adult life form. Executed
at a time when lived eroticism conformed to rules of social hierarchy with sexual roles tied to age as well as class,
Cellini’s Apollo and Hyacinth provided a visual allegory with which Renaissance men could have identified,
presenting a precedent for sexualised relationships between males with the inference that such experiences were
consistent with similar rigid codes of behaviour that dominated male societies in classical antiquity. Cellini
reinforces this claim to classical tradition by seemingly taking as his point of reference the stance, hairstyle and
physique of Apollo Belvedere, (c.130-140A.D)7 as an established model of virtue triumphant in monumental
figural form. His all antica Apollo captures the finest qualities of an honourable and powerful Renaissance
patriarchal polity where strength, courage, vitality, nobility, energy and intelligence were expected behavioural
codes. Sexual norms were, however, dependant on social status, gender, wealth and age in both classical antiquity
and Renaissance Italy, thus Cellini’s Apollo and Hyacinth presents a strategy of vertical hierarchy that reinforces
Apollo’s domination of the acquiescent Hyacinth by positioning the juvenile behind rather than in front or even
at the side of his master and mentor. However, he does so in a manner that eschews corporeal strength in favour
of a more intimate and implicit sense of subjugation which demarcates appropriate gender and power constructs
but also encapsulates the poignancy of their parting. In virile hegemonic Florence the imposition of one’s will
would have been considered a defining characteristic. Sexual ethics and behaviour were governed not by the
hetero/homosexual context but by the question of active / passive roles that were enmeshed with important
comportmental codes. In contrast to the developed physique of the contrapposto Apollo staring straight ahead
whilst proudly displaying the attributes of manhood, Cellini presents a kneeling pubescent Hyacinth, almost
rooted to the ground whilst gazing adoringly up as if awaiting favour to be granted rather than expecting sexual
delectation. For contemporary viewers, this would have transmitted far more than a suggestive representation of
titillation and scurrilous erotic innuendo – it would have visually validated the edifying importance of patriarchal
order and prescriptive ideals.

In terms of masculinity, as long as the adult protagonist took the sexually dominant role in his relations with
boys, his sexuality would have done nothing to distract from his perceived maleness. To be identified as the
older, active penetrator of an adolescent boy did not tarnish masculine identities; on the contrary it affirmed
manliness, virility and honour. As a visual model which closely followed the dynamics and constructs of idealised
male relationships in antiquity, Apollo like all deities in ancient mythology is depicted as the active partner who
takes the initiative and obtains sexual gratification. And for Cellini himself, this personally significant work
validated to his critics that a love directed at members of one’s own sex is true of the gods as well. In short,
dominant contemporary definitions of masculinity remain preserved in Cellini’s Apollo and Hyacinth despite its
homoerotic sentiment. It convenes with phallic confirmation of the sociopolitical supremacy of adult citizen
males, with each partner taking, expected to take, and wishing to be perceived as taking a prescribed role.

James Saslow sees Cellini’s arrangement of his figures as ‘not overtly sexual with Apollo playing with the boy’s hair’.8
However, in order to achieve a comprehensive reading of this work and the context of its execution, it would be
erroneous to ignore the import of its powerful visual reference to carnal intent. There is little point in
deconstructing this image without recognition of Cellini’s allusion to the act of fellatio when he positions the
younger protagonist’s head on the same plane as Apollo’s genitalia and guided firmly by the master’s hand as he

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DIVERSE ENGAGEMENT: DRAWING IN THE MARGINS,
Proceedings of the Interdisciplinary Graduate Conference, Cambridge University, UK (28-29, June 2010)
ISBN 978-0-9566139-1-2 © University of Cambridge, Graduate Development Programme.

acquiescently kneels in supplication with sensually parted lips. However, true to his notoriously rebellious nature
Cellini has subverted contemporary practices specific to this act, because the judicial records testify that a pattern
existed as the norm for fellatio where it was the juvenile’s penis that was inserted in the older agent’s mouth.
Unlike anal penetration which was deemed effeminizing, an adult partner who allowed a juvenile protégé to
penetrate his mouth would not have been perceived as violating the gender order or as subverting prescribed
phallic-centered conceptions of behavioural erotics because it is he who is taking charge of the act and its
outcome. The recipient of semen in anal intercourse is passive but in fellatio he is active. Thus the act was not
deemed one of supplication because the deed of taking the youth in his mouth would make the dominant older
man the active agent in control and the one who can choose to give pleasure and take it away at will. The
inclusion of fellatio in this work further underscores its reproductive allegory because from the experiences
passed down from the active agent to his protégé - a new life of adulthood is born. In effect their union is a
reproductive one of two males creating one being; one which has propagated spiritual offspring such as virtue,
experience and knowledge - products with greater longevity than biological offspring. With his transgressive
variation on the act of fellatio, the question of whether Cellini is articulating his own erotic predilections or
blurring the active/passive division that existed in the case of fellatio in order to render it more congruent with
heterosexual practice to avoid censure is open to conjecture. In his personal life Cellini was imprisoned because
he had a longstanding, co-habiting relationship with another adult male. So perhaps Cellini wished to
demonstrate that as the dominant male, Apollo, like himself, can exercise his prerogative concerning erotic
practices and dictate whatever form the act of fellatio might take.9 Nevertheless, there is little ambiguity about
how the artist has didactically encapsulated social articulation of Renaissance power dynamics and constructs, as
well as the important issues of sexuality, identity and gender that prevailed at this time in this work.

By contrast, the physical nature of Apollo’s relationship with Cyparissus is unequivocal in Romano’s drawing.
However, this paper will consider a reading that looks beyond what might be perceived as inappropriate
licentiousness by our modern tastes. Romano draws our attention to the youth’s penis with Apollo’s hand-to-
genital gesture which might be perceived as erotic phallic pleasuring. But as already discussed these works can be
read as allegories for the ending of adolescence and entry into the lived experience of procreative manhood
where the imminent death of Apollo’s young lovers are understood as mystical, symbolic and initiatory. In which
case, Romano’s pedagogic and formative Apollo could in fact be gesturing to his initiate’s developing penis in a
manner that indicates how Cyparissus as a young male is himself budding and maturing into an active agent with
sexual capabilities of his own.

The touching, protection or presentation of male genitalia is far from the exclusive province of representations
of pagan subject matter. Leo Steinberg convincingly asserts in his seminal work The Sexuality of Christ in
Renaissance Art and in Modern Oblivion that Renaissance artists made Christ’s genitalia the focal point of their
religious depictions because it emphasized his sexuality which in turn symbolized his humanity.10 Steinberg
interprets this gesturing in the context of devotion to the Holy foreskin and the Feast of Circumcision which
were important tenets of Christian faith fundamental to understanding the mystery of the Incarnation and its
identification with humankind’s redemption. Therefore, it could perhaps be argued that Romano’s profane image
of Apollo gesturing to his beloved’s penis is less lewd in intent than might first appear. Apollo’s gesture finds
correlation in Mary’s similarly demonstrative emphasis of the Christchild’s genitals as depicted in Cariani’s
Madonna and Child with Donor, 1520, and Domenico Ghirlandaio’s Adoration of the Magi, 1497.11 Ultimately,
whether the subject matter is sacred or profane the gesture of presenting the younger agent’s penis can be read as
signifying the creation of a sexually defined man. Mary presents Christ’s genitalia as evidence of his manhood
and Apollo could similarly be indicating the juvenile’s own impending manhood in the same manner.

Comparison of Romano’s classicised homoeroticism with his notoriously explicit I Modi reveals a greater level of
decorum for even the implication of libidinous acts between men than those which portray actual penetrative sex
between a man and a woman.12 Romano is far more circumspect in Apollo and Cyparissus and couches their
relationship with greater mythological allusion - even though the action is not nearly so lewdly explicit. This is
particularly surprising in light of how printed matter offered a forum for explicit erotica to be discretely
disseminated to an expanded audience defined by income, erudition and the privileges of status – the same
spectatorship that was, according to legislative statistics, the most likely to be active practitioners of pederastic
relationships. Apollo as the older partner is the insertive agent but Romano has no need to expose the actual act
of phallic penetration because the implication of its presence alone is sufficient to reiterate its function as an

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DIVERSE ENGAGEMENT: DRAWING IN THE MARGINS,
Proceedings of the Interdisciplinary Graduate Conference, Cambridge University, UK (28-29, June 2010)
ISBN 978-0-9566139-1-2 © University of Cambridge, Graduate Development Programme.

index of hierarchical sociopolitical empowerment. In order to imply, rather than lewdly depict sexual congress,
drapery separates the two protagonists as if to spare Cyparissus the effeminising humiliation of actual
penetration. Thus his future status as a mature citizen ready to take his place in society remains preserved from
compromise. Whereas he displays no such reticence in his almost perfunctory handling of heterosexual
penetrative couplings, Romano instead cautiously deploys a ‘slung-leg’ motif to symbolise rather than depict
sexual congress.

The erotic tenor of the slung leg as a potent esoteric sexual metaphor became increasingly recognised in Italy
during the sixteenth century as a token for marital union, male appropriation and sexual possessiveness or
compliance. However, this rhetoric of carnal gesture was not the exclusive province of mythological
representations. As Romano’s own Madonna and Child (1522-3)13 demonstrates the period witnessed the
emergence in popularity of this metaphoric slung leg idiom in association with devotional art. The Christchild
bestriding the Virgin’s thigh, in this instance, has no perverse connotation since it can be read as the
consummation of Christ the bridegroom to Mary as the Church in accordance with the writings of St. Gregory
the Great.

As discussed, we should view any possible congruence between Romano’s Apollo and Cyparissus and the lewd
libertinism of his I Modi as tenuously held together by an erotic thread. The ‘slung-leg’ was used by Raphael in a
biblical context in 1519 for his fresco on the ceiling vault of the Palazzi Pontifici, and there is greater consonance
between Romano’s drawing and his Old Testament scene of Isaac and Rebecca sharing an intimate embrace.14
Raphael employs this symbolic device to portray conjugal union and also includes a third party voyeur. When we
consider that Romano is recorded as having worked on these frescoes while apprenticed to Raphael, it is quite
plausible that he may have ‘queered’ his master’s heteronormative and biblically themed composition executed
on the ceiling vault of the papal apartments for his own homoerotically charged mythological design at his
socially ambitious friend’s villa. Just as Raphael ‘protects’ his eroticism with the biblical account of Isaac in
intimate congress with his much younger wife Rebecca, his protégé ensconces his own homoerotic scene of an
older Apollo and his young amour in mythological narrative. Michelangelo spent eight years executing his
Florentine Pietà (1547-53)15 for his own tomb. The growing popularity of this sexual idiom, as Steinberg and I
concur, may well have been the catalyst for him taking a hammer to Christ’s left leg.16 This hypothesis gains
considerable currency when it is found to be used in a homoerotic context. Michelangelo’s repression of his own
sexual ambivalence has already been the subject of exhaustive scholarly psychoanalysis. But the plausibility that a
nuptial portent originally conceived to symbolise Christ’s mystic espousal of Mary provoking destructive rage in
its tormented creator because it was perhaps too invoking of his own battle to suppress sinful pederastic
temptation invites further discourse.

Further indications that Romano intended Apollo and Cyparissus to be understood as a metaphoric analogy for
rites of initiation and passage into manhood are revealed in the phallic symbolism of the two bows. The one
Hyacinth holds is the weapon which killed, albeit accidentally, his stag. It stands proud and upright because, in
accordance with recorded rites of passage associated with many cultures, a juvenile becomes a man when he is
deemed mature enough to join his peers on hunting exploits. Now he has successfully passed this initiation rite
Cyparissus is deemed worthy and permitted to pass onto the rank of adult male citizen. Hence, rather than seeing
their kiss as erotic passion alone, perhaps it is also one of farewell. Romano juxtaposes the proud display of this
manly bow with the redundant discarded one in the central foreground. The cello positioned precariously leaning
as if abandoned against the rock, rather than that of the female figure, replicates the graceful curves of idealised
womanly form. Together with the discrete serpent head engraved on its neck referencing female temptation, this
forsaken instrument with its strongly suggestive feminine characteristics lies neglected by the presently
preoccupied juvenile Cyparissus. As if to emphasise that passivity was only acceptable at a certain stage in a
man’s life, the phallic symbolism of the temporarily forsaken bow evokes a certain reassurance that once
transformation into adulthood as an active procreative being is complete Cyparissus will return his attention to
these more ‘natural’ pursuits in order to fulfil his own patriarchal and pedagogical duty. The pivotal role played
by the cypress in the Ovidian narrative is recalled by the tree Romano places as the central axis of the
composition; thus balancing norm against transgression. To the right of the scene the intimate embrace of the
two male paramours signify his adolescent passive exploits, but soon he will step into the manly sphere of active
adulthood that awaits him on the other side. With his astute compositional strategy Romano cogently

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DIVERSE ENGAGEMENT: DRAWING IN THE MARGINS,
Proceedings of the Interdisciplinary Graduate Conference, Cambridge University, UK (28-29, June 2010)
ISBN 978-0-9566139-1-2 © University of Cambridge, Graduate Development Programme.

underscores how sexual experiences between males in the Renaissance were only tolerated if they were
successive and cyclical and not seen as an alternative to marriage and producing a family.

CONCLUSION
Both these works conform to the contemporary culturally defined sexual and social roles relating to sexuality,
gender and identity that operated in Renaissance Italy despite their homoerotic subject matter. Not only do they
challenge notions that heterosexuality was normative and universal in this period, but as mythological
representations of the superordinate Apollo and his subordinate beloveds they capture the gradations in social
status and power differentials that dominated their age. The understanding and contextualizing of the dynamics
of same-sex eroticism and sociality, as represented in the artistic production of the late medieval and early
modern period, is an important but so far relatively neglected area of study within the field of art historical
discourse. This paper has aimed to demonstrate the ways in which the prevalence and variety of social and sexual
behaviours and experiences between men in the Renaissance, as well as the psychological meanings, patterns and
identities assigned to those acts, found expression in the visual art of the period. It is hoped that by offering new
interpretations of these remarkable mythological exemplars of Renaissance homoerotic imagery a small
contribution has been made in edging this fascinating subject closer to the intellectual mainstream.

REFERENCES

1 Ovid, Metamorphoses, trans. A.D. Melville, Oxford World Classics, (1987) Oxford: Oxford University Press. Pp 249-272.
2 Rocke, M., Forbidden Friendships: Homosexuality and Male Culture in Renaissance Florence. (1999), Oxford: Oxford
University Press, pp. 78-109.
3 Benvenuto Cellini, Apollo and Hyacinth, 1545-48, Marble, Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Florence.
4 Giulio Romano, Apollo and Cyparissus, c.1523, Pen and ink with wash, National Museum, Stockholm.
5 Cole, M. Cellini and the Principles of Sculpture. (2005) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 83-85.
6 Talvacchia, B. Taking Positions: On the Erotic in Renaissance Culture. (1999) Princeton: Princeton University Press, p.134.
7 Apollo Belvedere, c.130-140 A.D., Rome, Vatican Museums.
8 Saslow, J., Ganymede in the Renaissance: Homosexuality in Art and Society, Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 1986,

p. 152.
9 Cellini, B. Life. trans. Bull, (1956) London: Penguin Books, p.338.
10 Steinberg, L. The Sexuality of Christ in Renaissance Art and in Modern Oblivion. (1983) Chicago: The University of Chicago

Press
11 Giovanni Cariani, Madonna and Child with Donor, 1520, Bergamo, Accademia Carrara; Domenico Ghirlandaio, Adoration of

the Magi, 1497, Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence.

12 Giulio Romano, I Modi: Position 7, 1524, engraving by Marcantonio Raimondi, 1527. Private Collection, Geneva.
13 Giulio Romano, Madonna and Child, 1522-23, Oil on Panel, Galleria Nazionale, Palazzo Barberini, Rome.
14 Rafaello Sanzio, Isaac and Rebecca spied upon by Abimelech, 1518-19, Fresco, Palazzi Pontifici, Vatican.
15 Michelangelo Buonarroti, Pietà, 1547-53, Museo dell’Opera del Duomo, Florence.
16 Steinberg, L., Michelangelo's Florentine Pietà: The Missing Leg, The Art Bulletin, Vol. 50, No. 4 (Dec., 1968), pp. 343-353,

http://www.jstor.org/stable/3048570

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