Love, Sex, and the Renaissance

Casa Italiana Zerilli-Marimò

New York University

February 4, 2016

---

Visualizing Love in the Renaissance A lecture by Dr. Sonia Evers (Save Venice Board Member and Project Committee Member) Many of the most famous Renaissance works of art were made to celebrate marriage and family. However, what we think of when we think of marriage is very different from the Renaissance reality. Love very rarely played any part in the equation, and the higher the stakes the more fraught the contract. Family relations were a rough game in the Renaissance, and yet the art was so often sublime. Art was both the disguise and the magic formula to ensure a successful and fruitful marriage – the physical demonstration of legitimacy. This lecture examines some of the most iconic Renaissance paintings, including works by Botticelli, Bellini, Titian and Veronese, in the context of love, marriage and sex.