Pagan-biblical motifs in a marital context : an allegorical interpretation of Titian's Sacred and profane love, 1514

Abstract

Two tendencies of interpretation of Titian’s Sacred and Profane Love have existed in the robust scholarly debates: one emphasizes allegorical and philosophical aspects, and one focuses on historical and social contexts. Erwin Panofsky, Edgar Wind, and Eugene Cantelupe correlate this painting with Neoplatonism, Stoicism, and classical and biblical mythologies, while Rona Goffen and Beverly Brown provide a nuptial interpretation based on its marital context. Scholars mostly debate the identities of the two female protagonists in this painting, as well as what idea and concept they respectively represent. However, I explore how mythological and classical elements in this painting are transformed into nuptial meanings and provide an allegorical interpretation that reconciles the two trends of interpretation. Based on previous art historical scholarship, social-historical study concerning contemporary marital rites and rituals, and various historical, literary, and philosophical texts about marriage, I argue that elements from classical antiquity and pagan mythologies in The Sacred and Profane Love, such as the sarcophagus-shaped fountain, are endowed with biblical understandings and that these pagan-biblical motifs reflect contemporary nuptial rituals and ideas about marriage; furthermore, these pagan-biblical elements have multiple layers of meanings, including pagan mythologies, religious backgrounds, and contemporary marital ideas. This research project contributes not only to decoding Titian’s Sacred and Profane Love but also to the study of Renaissance marriage pictures in general. It neither mainly discusses the didactic function of a marriage picture nor overinterprets it from a metaphorical and philosophical perspective, but provides a comprehensive interpretation, dealing with the historical, cultural, and philosophical ideas in a marital context.