Sarcophagus
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| - | :''[[sacred-profane dichotomy]]'' | ||
| - | '''''Sacred and Profane Love''''' (also called '''''Venus and the Bride''''') is an [[oil painting]] by [[Titian]], painted around 1513-1514. | ||
| - | The painting was commissioned by Niccolò Aurelio, a secretary to the Venetian [[Council of Ten]] (so identified because his [[coat of arms]] appears on the [[sarcophagus]] or fountain in the centre of the image) to celebrate his marriage to a young widow, Laura Bagarotto. It depicts the bride dressed in white sitting beside [[Cupid]] and being assisted by [[Venus (mythology)|Venus]] in person. The figure with the vase of jewels symbolizes "fleeting happiness on earth"; and the one bearing the burning flame of God's love symbolizes "eternal happiness in heaven". | ||
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| - | The first record of the work under its popular title is in an inventory of 1693, although scholars now discredit the theory that the two female figures are personifications of the [[Neoplatonic]] concepts of [[sacred and profane]] love. The art historian [[Walter Friedländer]] outlined similarities between the painting and [[Francesco Colonna]]'s ''[[Hypnerotomachia Poliphili]]'' and proposed that the two figures represented Polia and Venere, the two female characters in the 1499 romance. It has been suggested that the scholar [[Pietro Bembo]] devised the allegorical scheme. | ||
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| - | The work was bought in 1608 by the art patron [[Scipione Borghese]] and is currently housed with other works from the [[Borghese collection]] in the [[Galleria Borghese]] in Rome. In 1899, the [[Rothschild family|Rothschild]]s' offer to buy the work from the gallery for 4 million [[Lira]] (greater than the whole Galleria Borghese building and collections, then valued at 3,600,000 Lira) was refused. | ||
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| + | A '''sarcophagus''' is a [[funeral]] receptacle for a [[corpse]], most commonly carved or cut from stone. The word "sarcophagus" comes from the [[Greek language|Greek]] σαρξ ''sarx'' meaning "flesh", and φαγειν ''phagein'' meaning "to eat", hence ''sarkophagus'' means "flesh-eating"; from the phrase ''lithos sarkophagos'' (λιθος σαρκοφάγος) the word came to refer to the [[limestone]] that was thought to decompose the flesh of corpses interred within it. | ||
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A sarcophagus is a funeral receptacle for a corpse, most commonly carved or cut from stone. The word "sarcophagus" comes from the Greek σαρξ sarx meaning "flesh", and φαγειν phagein meaning "to eat", hence sarkophagus means "flesh-eating"; from the phrase lithos sarkophagos (λιθος σαρκοφάγος) the word came to refer to the limestone that was thought to decompose the flesh of corpses interred within it.
Unless indicated otherwise, the text in this article is either based on Wikipedia article "Sarcophagus" or another language Wikipedia page thereof used under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License; or on research by Jahsonic and friends. See Art and Popular Culture's copyright notice.
