Mythological Art in Florence

Today I am writing from Florence, Italy! I have been here for about a week and seen more art and sculptures than ever before. Most interestingly I have been seeing a lot of art that is very prominent to some of the things we have talked about in class. A couple of days ago we visited the Galleria degli Uffizi in which I got to see with my own eyes Botticelli's "The Birth of Venus", which is one of the most famous paintings of all time and for righteous reasons it truly was a thing of beauty, perfect down to the last brush stroke. While I was at the Gallery I bought a book called "Myths: Classical Mythology in the Visual Arts" which gives a quick description of a few of the myths and their origins along with most of the art work that has been associated with those myths. (I will bring this book to class on Wed. when I return) The Birth of Venus sparked a little curiousity in me and when I started to read the book I was very interested in what it had to say and maybe you will be too,

"The mother of Aeneas, the Trojan hero who founded Rome, Aphrodite was known to the Romans as Venus. The Roman emperor Julius Caesar built a temple dedicated to her, as she was considered the mother of the city, the Venus Genetrix. In this way, Rome claimed a remote divine origin for itself.

...according to the narrative of Hesoid, Aphrodite rose from the foam fertilized by the genitals of Uranus that were cut off by his son Cronus. This is the version best known by artists and The Birth of Venus by Sandro Botticelli is one of the greatest examples. Another version of the birth of Aphrodite, going back to Homer, tells that she was a daughter of Zeus and Dione. The two traditions remained current throughout antiquity up until Plato, in his Symposium, imagined that there were actually two distinct Aphrodites: Aphrodite Ourania, or the "heavenly" Aphrodite, of whom Hesoid speaks in his Theogony, and Aphrodite Pandemos, or the "popular" Aphrodite, who dates back to the narrative of Homer."

There are many myths linked to Aphrodite or Venus that we haven't talked about in class, and personally I find her to be one of the most interesting of the gods that we have talked about, and now I have seen what an impact she has had on the art culture of both past and present.

One myth that I found particularly interesting was the myth of Aphrodite and Ares. According to Homer, in the Odyssey, Aphrodite was married to Hephaestus, the god of fire and metallurgy, but also had an interest in Ares. She was having an affair with him one day when the god of the sun, Helius saw them and told Hephaestus what he had seen. In a fit of jealousy and anger Hephaestus laid a trap that only he knew how to use. One night when the lovers were laying together he covered them with a net and invited all the gods to come see them and laugh at them. Ashamed Aphrodite took refuge in Cypros for a very long time and Ares took refuge in Thrace. There is a lot of work that has been associated with this story as well, for example Costantino Cedini's "Mars and Venus Caught in Vulcan's Net"

I will be sure to keep updating on what I learn about the gods, but for now I'm off to wander the city of Florence!