16th century book by engraver Marcantonio Raimondi
"De omnibus Veneris Schematibus" redirects here. Not to be confused with De figuris Veneris.
This engraving is thought to be by Agostino Veneziano. It is thought to come from a replacement set of engravings created for the images that were in I modi. Paper. British Museum, London. Around 1530
I Modi (The Ways), also known as The Sixteen Pleasures or under the Latin title De omnibus Veneris Schematibus, is a famous erotic book of the Italian Renaissance that had engravings of sexual scenes.[1] The engravings were created in a collaboration between Giulio Romano and Marcantonio Raimondi.[3][4] They were thought to have been created around 1524 to 1527.[3]
There are now no known copies of the first two editions of I modi by Giulio Romano and Marcantonio Raimondi.[1]
In around 1530[2] Agostino Veneziano is thought to have created a replacement set of engravings for the engravings in I modi by Giulio and Marcantonio.[1]
Giulio Romano and Marcantonio Raimondi edition - Around 1524 - 1527
These nine fragments cut from seven engravings are thought to be by Agostino Veneziano. They are thought to come from a replacement set of engravings created for the images that were in I modi. Paper. British Museum, London. Around 1530
The first edition of I modi was created in a collaboration between Giulio Romano and Marcantonio Raimondi.[3][5]
One idea that is speculated is that Giulio drew the figures while Marcantonio designed the settings.[6]
Another idea is that this collaboration occurred when Giulio Romano was doing a series of erotic paintings as a commission for Federico II Gonzaga’s new Palazzo Te in Mantua and Marcantonio Raimondi based the engravings for I modi on these paintings.[7]
It has also been speculated that the images in I modi may have been inspired by Ancient Roman spintria tokens[5][8] as well as erotic Ancient Roman sculptures and releifs.[9] It is speculated that Giulio Romano may have seen spintria tokens.[8]
The engravings were published by Marcantonio in 1524, and led to his imprisonment by Pope Clement VII and the destruction of all copies of the engravings.
Giulio Romano did not become aware of the engravings by Marcantonio until the poet Pietro Aretino came to see his paintings. These are the paintings that Marcantonio is thought to have based his engravings on and Romano was still working on these paintings when Aretino came to visit. Romano was not prosecuted since—unlike Marcantonio—his images were not intended for public consumption, and he was not in the Papal States.
Aretino then composed sixteen explicit sonnets to accompany the engravings, and secured Marcantonio's release from prison.[10]
I modi was then published a second time in 1527, now with the sonnets that have given them the traditional English title Aretino's Postures. It is thought that this is the first time erotic text and images were combined, though the papacy once more seized all the copies it could find. It is thought Marcantonio escaped prison on this second occasion, but the suppression on both occasions was comprehensive.
There are presently no remaining copies of the first or second edition of I modi.[1]The images that were in these two editions of I modi are thought to have been copied several times.[1][11]
Agostino Veneziano copy - Around 1530
It is thought that Agostino Veneziano may have created a single replacement set of engravings for the images created by Giulio and Marcantonio in I modi.[1] There is one whole image and nine fragments cut from seven engravings that are in the British Museum and it is thought that all of these images come from this replacement set of engravings by Agostino.[1] These engravings by Agostino are dated to around 1530.[2]
There is an engraving of Leda and the Swan in the British Museum that is thought to be by Agostino Veneziano and it is thought to have been created in around 1524 to 1527.[11] It is speculated that this engraving has been based on an engraving from "I modi" by Giulio and Marcantonio.[11]The engraving is the same size and format as the "I modi" engravings[11] and it is speculated that it may be based on a design by Giulio Romano.[12][11]
It is thought that as well as Agostino Veneziano there were other people who contributed to the creation of this replacement set of engravings.[1]
Copies of the Agostino Veneziano copy of "I modi"
Woodcut booklet copy - Around 1555
A possibly infringing[13] copy of I modi with crude illustrations created using woodcut relief printing is thought to copy the images of I modi from the Agostino veneziano edition of I modi.[1][14][15]
It is speculated that this woodcut booklet was created in around 1555.[1]
This woodcut booklet was bound in with some contemporary texts[1] and was discovered in the 1920s. The artist who created the woodcut images in the booklet is unknown.[1]
It is thought that this woodcut booklet is "...several generations removed from the original engravings..."[1] of Marcantonio. It is thought that these generations of I modi copies have been based on the Agostino Veneziano edition of I modi.[1]
It has been speculated that this woodcut booklet from around 1555 may have been copied from a second woodcut copy of I modi that is speculated to have been created around 1540. [16]
It is thought the woodblocks that were used to print the woodcut booklet may have been reused multiple times.[16] The images have borders that were frequently broken indicating wear and breakage in the woodblocks.[16]
One of the leaves is missing from this woodcut booklet[2] and there were I modi related images on these leaf.[1]
This woodcut booklet shows that there were more images in Giulio and Marcantonio's edition of "I modi" than is shown by the nine remaining fragments and the one whole image that are thought to be by Agostino Veneziano.[1]
It has been described that for this woodcut booklet there are two images "...in the abbreviated final signature...[that] seem to come from different traditions."[1] For one of these two images it has been commented that "...both image and text differ markedly in style from those that precede them..." in the woodcut booklet.[17]
When the images in the woodcut booklet are compared to the engravings thought to be by Agostino it is thought they have been changed to suit the woodcut medium with the images being square and reduced in size.[2]
Engraving in the Albertina Museum - 16th century
There is one engraving in the Albertina museum[18][1] that is thought to have been copied from Agostino Veneziano's edition of "I modi".[1] It matches an oval fragment in the British museum[1] and the 11th image in the woodcut booklet.
It is thought that this single engraving comes from a set of engravings[1] and only this one engraving presently remains from this set.[1]
It is dated to the 16th century and the artist is unknown.[18] It is numbered in the bottom right corner with two.[1]
Francesco Xanto Avelli Maiolica dish
It is thought that between 1531 and 1535 Francesco Xanto Avelli saw Agostino Veneziano's copy of I modi.[1] Xanto painted a maiolica dish titled The Tiber in Flood and the figures on this dish have the same postures as those in four of the images in the woodcut booklet.[1]
Parmigianino drawing
Parmigianino drew a copy of one of the engravings in the "I modi" with sex occurring between two figures who are seated. This drawing is similar to the 10th image in the woodcut booklet.[11] It includes similar postures of the figures and details of drapery and furniture.[11]
Engraving in the National Library of Spain
An engraving in the National Library of Spain copies one scene from the "I modi".[19] The engraving shows two figures seated having sex with a wooden cradle lying on the ground next to them and the foot of one of the figures is rocking the cradle.[19]
This image of two people seated having sex is by an unknown artist and dated to after 1530.[19]
Henry Wellesley engravings
Henry Wellesley owned two engravings that they are now in the collection of the National Library of France[1] and both engravings are related to I modi images.[1] One engraving was similar to the whole single image in the British Museum and was numbered and the other engraving was similar to the image in the Albertina Museum and was numbered two.[1]
Delaborde and Bartsch descriptions
Henri Delaborde and Adam Bartsch gave descriptions of images as belonging to the "I modi".[1] The descriptions that they gave do not relate to any existing images and perhaps are examples of additional images that may have been in the original "I modi".[1]
Images with similarities to I modi
The image in the woodcut booklet numbered 16 has similarities to two drawings that are in the Fosombrone sketchbook.[20] The figures in these drawings have a similar position to the figures that are in the woodcut booklet.[20] Differences include differences between the figures and the furniture.[20]
17th century printing
In the 17th century Fellows of All Souls College, Oxford, engaged in the surreptitious printing at the University Press of Aretino's Postures, Aretino's De omnis Veneris schematibus and the indecent engravings after Giulio and Marcantonio. The Dean, Dr. John Fell, impounded the copper plates and threatened those involved with expulsion.[21] The text of Aretino's sonnets, however, survives.
Images from I modi copies
Image 1 woodcut booklet
The corresponding image by Agostino Veneziano.
Image 2 woodcut booklet
Corresponding fragment to image 2 thought to be by Agostino Veneziano
Image 3 woodcut booklet
Image 4 woodcut booklet
Corresponding fragment to image 4 thought to be by Agostino Veneziano . Two fragments cut from the one engraving.
Corresponding fragment to image 4 thought to be by Agostino Veneziano
Image 7 woodcut booklet
Corresponding fragment to image 7 thought to be by Agostino Veneziano
Image 8 woodcut booklet
Image 9 woodcut booklet
Corresponding fragment to image 9 thought to be by Agostino Veneziano
This image is made from two images. One is the image from the woodcut booklet. The second is the engraving thought to be by Agostino Veneziano.[11]
Image 10 woodcut booklet
Corresponding fragment to image 10 thought to be by Agostino Veneziano
A drawing that copies image 10 by Parmigianino.[11] Pen and brown ink on Paper, trimmed. 1524 - 1527[11]
A second drawing by Parmigianino with similarities to image 10.[11] Pen, ink on paper. 1524 - 1527[11]
Image 11 woodcut booklet
Corresponding fragment to image 11 thought to be by Agostino Veneziano
Anonymous engraving, Albertina Museum, 16th century
This image has been made from two engravings. The first engraving is from the Albertina museum and the second is thought to be by Agostino Veneziano.[11]
Image 12 woodcut booklet
Image 13 woodcut booklet
Image 14 woodcut booklet
Image 15 woodcut booklet. It has been described that for this woodcut booklet there are two images "...in the abbreviated final signature...[that] seem to come from different traditions."[1] For the image with the standing figure it has been commented that "...both image and text differ markedly in style from those that precede them" in the woodcut booklet.[17]
Image 16 woodcut booklet. In the Fossombrone sketchbook there are drawings of two scenes that have a similar position to this image from the woodcut booklet.[20]
Two fragments cut from the one engraving. These fragments not present in the woodcut booklet. Both fragments are thought to be by Agostino Veneziano.
This engraving of Leda and the swan is not present in the woodcut booklet. It is thought to be by Agostino Veneziano.[11] It is speculated that this image is based on an image that was in the Giulio and Marcantonio edition of "I modi".1524 - 1527?[11]
Annibale Carracci also completed the elaborate fresco the Loves of the Gods for the Palazzo Farnese in Rome (where the Farnese Hercules which influenced both him and Agostino Carraci was housed). These images were drawn from Ovid's Metamorphoses and include nudes, but (in contrast to the sexual engravings) are not explicit, intimating rather than directly depicting the act of lovemaking.
Augustine Carracci's The Aretin or Collection of Erotic Postures - Jacques Joseph Coiny
In 1798 in Paris a collection of engravings of sexual scenes were published under the title "Augustine Carracci's The Aretin or Collection of Erotic Postures".[22][23][24][25] The engravings were created by Jacques Joseph Coiny.
One theory is that these images were basd on the erotic poses in 'The Loves of the Gods' which was created at the start of the 17th century in Antwerp by Pieter de Jode I with the use of burin. [26] It presently remains uncertain what images these engravings were based on. It is thought that Coiny had a set of six anonymous prints and it is difficult to say which prints these were.[27]
A second idea[28] is that these engravings were created by Camillo Procaccini, though based on Carracci drawings, which in turn are very alike the engravings in the edition of I modi by Giulio and Marcantonio.[28] A third idea is that they were created by Agostino Carracci for a later reprint of Aretino's poems.[29]
Classical guise in Augustine Carracci's The Aretin or Collection of Erotic Postures
Several factors were used to cloak these engravings from Augustine Carracci's The Aretin or Collection of Erotic Postures in classical scholarly respectability:
The images nominally depicted famous pairings of lovers (e.g. Antony and Cleopatra) or husband-and-wife deities (e.g. Jupiter and Juno) from classical history and mythology engaged in sexual activity, and were entitled as such. Related to this were:
Portraying them with their usual attributes, such as:
Augustine Carracci's The Aretin or Collection of Erotic Postures has various points of deviation from classical literature, erotica, mythology and art which suggest its classical learning is lightly worn, and make clear its actual modern setting:
The male sexual partners' large penises (though not Priapus's) are the artist's invention rather than a classical borrowing – the idealised penis in classical art was small, not large (large penises were seen as comic or fertility symbols, as for example on Priapus, as discussed above).
All the women and goddesses in this work (but most clearly its Venus Genetrix) have a hairless groin (like classical statuary of nude females) but also a clearly apparent vulva (unlike classical statuary).[39]
The modern furniture, e.g.
The various stools and cushions used to support the participants or otherwise raise them into the right positions (e.g. here)
The boy with the candle may be a classical reference.[43]
Cultural References
The Restoration closet drama Farce of Sodom is set in "an antechamber hung with Aretine's postures". In the 1989 novel, The Sixteen Pleasures by Robert Hellenga, a copy of the book is discovered in a convent following the 1966 flood of the Arno.
Jean-Frédéric Maximilien de Waldeck was a French antiquarian, cartographer, artist and explorer. He was a man of talent and accomplishment, but his love of self-promotion and refusal to let the truth get in the way of a good story leave some aspects of his life in mystery.
Giulio Pippi, known as Giulio Romano, was an Italian painter and architect. He was a pupil of Raphael, and his stylistic deviations from High Renaissance classicism help define the sixteenth-century style known as Mannerism. Giulio's drawings have long been treasured by collectors; contemporary prints of them engraved by Marcantonio Raimondi were a significant contribution to the spread of sixteenth-century Italian style throughout Europe.
Pietro Aretino was an Italian author, playwright, poet, satirist and blackmailer, who wielded influence on contemporary art and politics. He was one of the most influential writers of his time and an outspoken critic of the powerful. Owing to his communications and sympathies with religious reformers, he is considered to have been a Nicodemite Protestant.
Marcantonio Raimondi, often called simply Marcantonio, was an Italian engraver, known for being the first important printmaker whose body of work consists largely of prints copying paintings. He is therefore a key figure in the rise of the reproductive print. He also systematized a technique of engraving that became dominant in Italy and elsewhere. His collaboration with Raphael greatly helped his career, and he continued to exploit Raphael's works after the painter's death in 1520, playing a large part in spreading High Renaissance styles across Europe. Much of the biographical information we have comes from his life, the only one of a printmaker, in Vasari's Lives of the Artists.
The Villa Farnesina is a Renaissance suburban villa in the Via della Lungara, in the district of Trastevere in Rome, central Italy. Built between 1506 and 1510 for Agostino Chigi, the Pope's wealthy Sienese banker, it was a novel type of suburban villa, subsidiary to his main Palazzo Chigi in the city. It is especially famous for the rich frescos by Raphael and other High Renaissance artists that remain in situ.
Jacopo Caraglio, Giovanni Jacopo Caraglio or Gian Giacomo Caraglio known also as Jacobus Parmensis and Jacobus Veronensis was an Italian engraver, goldsmith and medallist, born at Verona or Parma. His career falls easily into two rather different halves: he worked in Rome from 1526 or earlier as an engraver in collaboration with leading artists, and then in Venice, before moving to spend the rest of his life as a court goldsmith in Poland, where he died.
Speculum al foder is a 15th-century Catalan anonim text discovered in the 1970s. This text is significant as it is a rare example of known Medieval treatise describing the art of sexual positions.
The Loves of the Gods is a monumental fresco cycle, completed by the Bolognese artist Annibale Carracci and his studio, in the Farnese Gallery which is located in the west wing of the Palazzo Farnese, now the French Embassy, in Rome. The frescoes were greatly admired at the time, and were later considered to reflect a significant change in painting style away from sixteenth century Mannerism in anticipation of the development of Baroque and Classicism in Rome during the seventeenth century.
The history of erotic depictions includes paintings, sculpture, photographs, dramatic arts, music and writings that show scenes of a sexual nature throughout time. They have been created by nearly every civilization, ancient and modern. Early cultures often associated the sexual act with supernatural forces and thus their religion is intertwined with such depictions. In Asian countries such as India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Japan and China, representations of sex and erotic art have specific spiritual meanings within native religions. The ancient Greeks and Romans produced much art and decoration of an erotic nature, much of it integrated with their religious beliefs and cultural practices.
An old master print is a work of art produced by a printing process within the Western tradition. The term remains current in the art trade, and there is no easy alternative in English to distinguish the works of "fine art" produced in printmaking from the vast range of decorative, utilitarian and popular prints that grew rapidly alongside the artistic print from the 15th century onwards. Fifteenth-century prints are sufficiently rare that they are classed as old master prints even if they are of crude or merely workmanlike artistic quality. A date of about 1830 is usually taken as marking the end of the period whose prints are covered by this term.
Glycera was a popular name often used for Hellenistic hetaerae, held by:
The daughter of Thalassis and the mistress of Harpalus and Menander.
The mistress of Pausias, born in Sicyon.
A favourite of Horace(?).
Nominally, Alcibiades's sexual partner in Caracci's engravings for I Modi.
Domenico Campagnola was an Italian painter and printmaker in engraving and woodcut of the Venetian Renaissance, but whose most influential works were his drawings of landscapes.
Events from the year 1524 in art.
Agostino Veneziano, whose real name was Agostino de' Musi, was an important and prolific Italian engraver of the Renaissance.
Giulio Bonasone was an Italian painter and engraver born in Bologna. He possibly studied painting under Lorenzo Sabbatini, and painted a Purgatory for the church of San Stefano, but all his paintings have been lost. He is better known as an engraver and is believed to have trained with Marcantonio Raimondi. He worked mainly in Mantua, Rome and Venice and with great success, producing etchings and engravings after the old masters and his own designs. He signed his plates B., I.B., Julio Bonaso, Julio Bonasone, Juli Bonasonis, Julio Bolognese Bonahso.
Marco Dente da Ravenna (1493–1527), usually just called Marco Dente, was an Italian engraver born in Ravenna in the latter part of the 15th Century. He was a prominent figure within the circle of printmakers around Marcantonio Raimondi in Rome, and is known for the imitative nature of the reproductive prints or close copies of other prints that were most of his output. His prints in specific cases are also of certain interest in that we can see the impact and design of sculptural restorations. Marco Dente was killed in the tumult of the Sack of Rome in 1527. He used the accompanying monogram, D-B; albeit sparingly.
Achilles and Briseis is an Ancient Roman painting from the 1st-century AD, depicting tableaux from the Iliad relating to the gifting of Briseis to Achilles found in the House of the Tragic Poet Pompeii, Italy. The image is painted in distemper, similar to coloured white-washing and intermediary between fresco and paint. It was at one time moved to the Naples National Archaeological Museum.
Lynne Lawner is an American independent scholar, an author of art history and poetry, a translator and a photographer, based in New York City. Sister to Mark and Robert lawner.
Jacques-Joseph, Jacques Joseph or Joseph Coiny was a French engraver.
Giovanni Battista Palumba, also known as the Master I.B. with a Bird, was an Italian printmaker active in the early 16th century, making both engravings and woodcuts; he is generally attributed with respectively 14 and 11 of these. He appears to have come from northern Italy, but later worked in Rome. He specialized in subjects from classical mythology, as well as the inevitable religious subjects. Despite his relatively small output, he was a sophisticated artist, whose style shows a number of influences and changes, reflecting awareness of the currents in artistic style at the start of the High Renaissance. The signed prints are usually dated to around 1500–1511.
↑ Lawner, Lynne (1988). I Modi: the sixteen pleasures. An erotic album of the Italian renaissance / Giulio Romano … [et al.]. Northwestern University Press. ISBN0-7206-0724-8.
↑ Formerly owned by the son of Toscanini, now in a private collection. See the article "Marcantonio's Lost Modi and their Copies" by James Grantham Turner, Print Quarterly. December 2004
↑ Theseus's departing ship is visible on the horizon, top right.
↑ This trope did not fully exist in classical art - in frescoes and polychromatic sculptures, Venus was always fair-skinned, but her hair colour could vary from brown through to blond – but became fixed due to medieval and Renaissance art (e.g. Botticelli's Venus and Mars).
↑ An attested epithet of the love/lust goddess Venus, although under that name she was more a mother goddess than a love/lust goddess.
↑ Also, in one or two cases, the women's, though this has far less, if any, precedent in classical sculpture.
↑ See also the modern phenomenon of the beefcake in erotic art.
↑ Though their thighs are often larger than in the examples from classical statuary.
↑ On the other hand, the posture in the engraving is not to be found in any known examples and is probably Caracci's own invention. Certainly archaeological examples usually (though not always) tend to show Priapus's erect and oversized penis hanging down, not standing up parallel with his chest as here, and give less importance to large or oversized testicles than in this engraving.
↑ Male satyrs having sex with nymphs, on the other hand, did appear in Greek myth – as has been taken up in Renaissance art – , though this was more frequently rape in the myths rather than the apparent consensual sex in the engraving.
↑ The men's pubic hair in the engravings does not pose a problem, since pubic hair was depicted on ancient nudes.
↑ "Paul Avril". arterotisme.com. Retrieved 6 December 2010.
↑ Though lying not sitting, and with left foot supported by stool
↑ Or, more precisely, woman partly lying, partly supported by bed, and partly supported on left arm.
↑ To the classical "'Puer sufflans ignes" in Pliny. Also, the satyr who has attempted to join the lovemakers (but been kicked in the groin by the male) has an erection as a result of his voyeurism.
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