Myth in Renaissance Painting: Raphael, Botticelli and Titian

Renaissance painters filled palaces with Greek gods, Muses and heroes. They rarely worked straight from Greek poems, though. They drew on Latin poets, on the advice of scholars, and on ancient sculpture dug up in Italian soil. The results are some of the best-known pictures in the world, and they are easier to enjoy when you know what each one shows and where its story came from.

This guide looks at four works, using the descriptions published by the museums that own them: Raphael's Parnassus in the Vatican, Botticelli's Birth of Venus and Primavera in the Uffizi, and Titian's Bacchus and Ariadne in the National Gallery, London. For each, it compares the painting with an ancient text, because the painters and the poets do not always agree.

Raphael's Parnassus: Apollo and the nine Muses

The Parnassus is a fresco in the Room of the Segnatura in the Vatican. The Vatican Museums explain that the room was originally used by Pope Julius II (pontiff from 1503 to 1513) as a library and private office, and that its frescoes were painted between 1508 and 1511. They were the first work Raphael executed in the Vatican. The room's scheme represents Truth, Good and Beauty, and Beauty is represented in the Parnassus with Apollo and the Muses.

In the museum's description, Apollo sits at the center playing the lyre, surrounded by the nine Muses and by ancient and modern poets. Homer, shown blind, Virgil and Dante stand behind him. At the bottom left sits the poet Sappho, with her name written on the scroll in her left hand.

Here is a difference worth noticing. Raphael puts the Muses on Mount Parnassus. Hesiod's Theogony, in Hugh G. Evelyn-White's 1914 translation, begins with the Muses "who hold the great and holy mount of Helicon," and says their dancing-places and homes lie near "the topmost peak of snowy Olympus." Parnassus, the mountain above Delphi, belongs to later tradition: the Homeric Hymn to Apollo, in the same translation, sets Apollo's temple "beneath snowy Parnassus," and Bulfinch's index calls Parnassus a mountain "sacred to Apollo and the Muses." What Raphael and Hesiod share is the pairing at the heart of the fresco. Hesiod writes that "it is through the Muses and far-shooting Apollo that there are singers and harpers upon the earth."

When you look at it, count the Muses, find Homer by his blindness, and look for Sappho's named scroll. A single written name can anchor a whole crowd.

Botticelli's Birth of Venus

The Uffizi dates the Birth of Venus to about 1485 and describes it as tempera on canvas. The museum points out that the title is a little misleading: the composition actually shows the goddess arriving on land, on the island of Cyprus, born of the sea spray and blown there by the winds, Zephyr and perhaps Aura. She stands on a giant scallop shell. A young woman, sometimes identified as one of the Graces or as the Hora of spring, holds out a cloak covered in flowers.

The Uffizi adds that the subject was perhaps suggested by the poet Agnolo Poliziano. The work was probably commissioned by a member of the Medici family, though nothing was written about it before 1550, when Giorgio Vasari described it. Botticelli took Venus's modest pose from classical statues. The pair of embracing Winds is based on a Hellenistic gem owned by Lorenzo the Magnificent.

The arrival on Cyprus fits Hesiod. In Evelyn-White's translation, a white foam spreads around the severed parts of Heaven, the sky, and a maiden grows in it, and "first she drew near holy Cythera, and from there, afterwards, she came to sea-girt Cyprus." But ancient authors disagree about her birth. In Homer's Iliad, Book V, in Samuel Butler's translation, the wounded goddess flees to Olympus and flings herself "on to the lap of her mother Dione." Butler calls her "Jove's daughter Venus," using the Roman names. That is a quite different origin from Hesiod's sea foam, and Botticelli chose Hesiod's version.

Botticelli's Primavera

The Uffizi dates the Primavera, or Spring, to about 1480 and notes that it is painted on wood, unlike the Birth of Venus. The museum describes nine figures from classical mythology moving across a flowery lawn in a grove of orange and laurel trees.

Reading from right to left, Zephyrus embraces a nymph named Chloris, who appears again after her transformation into Flora, the spring goddess. Venus stands at the center, modestly dressed and set slightly back, with a blindfolded Cupid firing his arrow of love. On the left, the three Graces dance in a circle. Mercury closes the scene, recognizable from his helmet and winged sandals, touching a cloud with his staff.

Note the number nine. These are not the nine Muses, and the Uffizi is frank that "the complex meaning of the composition remains a mystery." Botanists will enjoy this one. The Uffizi reports at least 42 identifiable plant species, 14 green plants and 28 flowering plants.

Titian's Bacchus and Ariadne

The National Gallery dates Titian's Bacchus and Ariadne to 1520–3. It was made for the Camerino d'Alabastro, the Alabaster Room, in the Ducal Palace at Ferrara, for Alfonso I d'Este, Duke of Ferrara. The gallery says the painting illustrates a story told by the classical authors Ovid and Catullus. The Cretan princess Ariadne has been abandoned on the island of Naxos by Theseus, whose ship sails away in the distance. Bacchus, god of wine, falls in love at first sight and leaps from his cheetah-drawn chariot toward her.

The gallery notes that Titian combined two poets. From Catullus he took Ariadne deserted on the shore and the wild procession of Bacchus. From Ovid he took the meeting between the desperate heroine and the young god. The stars above Ariadne's head refer to the constellation Corona Borealis. In one version of the story, the gallery explains, Bacchus later throws her wedding crown into the air. That phrase, "in one version," is a reminder that ancient retellings differ.

Two more details make good viewing. The man tangled in snakes is based on the ancient Laocoön sculpture, excavated in Rome in 1506 and now in the Vatican Museums. And the painting replaced one the Duke had commissioned from Raphael, who died in 1520. Paintings travel and rotate, though: when this guide was checked, the gallery's page listed Bacchus and Ariadne as not on display, so check before a visit.

How to look at a myth painting

These four works suggest a routine you can use in any gallery.

• Find the text behind the picture. Museum pages often name it, as the National Gallery names Ovid and Catullus.
• Identify figures by their attributes: Apollo's lyre, Mercury's winged sandals, Venus's shell.
• Look for written clues, such as Sappho's scroll.
• Notice the hedges. Words like "perhaps," "sometimes identified as" and "remains a mystery" mark where experts are unsure.
• Compare with an ancient source. Where the painting and the poem differ, ask why the painter made that choice.

Key takeaways

• Raphael's Parnassus (1508–1511) shows Apollo, the nine Muses and poets including Homer, Virgil, Dante and a named Sappho.
• Hesiod places the Muses on Helicon and near Olympus; Raphael's Parnassus setting follows later tradition, not the Theogony.
• Botticelli's Venus arrives on Cyprus as in Hesiod, but Homer's Iliad makes her the daughter of Dione, an entirely different birth.
• The nine figures of the Primavera are not the Muses, and the Uffizi says its full meaning remains a mystery.
• Titian blended Catullus and Ovid in Bacchus and Ariadne, and borrowed a pose from the Laocoön sculpture.

Sources

• Vatican Museums, Parnassus (Room of the Segnatura)
• Vatican Museums, Room of the Segnatura
• Uffizi Galleries, Birth of Venus, Sandro Botticelli (text by Daniela Parenti)
• Uffizi Galleries, Spring, Sandro Botticelli
• National Gallery, London, Titian, Bacchus and Ariadne (1520–3)
• Hesiod, Theogony, in Hesiod, the Homeric Hymns, and Homerica, translated by Hugh G. Evelyn-White (1914), Project Gutenberg
• Homer, The Iliad, translated by Samuel Butler, Project Gutenberg
• Thomas Bulfinch, Bulfinch's Mythology (index of proper names), Project Gutenberg