In Greek mythology, Andromeda is the daughter of the king of Aethiopia, Cepheus, and his wife, Cassiopeia. When Cassiopeia boasts that she is more beautiful than the Nereids, Poseidon sends the sea monster Cetus to ravage the coast of Aethiopia as divine punishment. Andromeda is chained to a rock as a sacrifice to sate the monster, but is saved from death by Perseus, who marries her and takes her to Greece to reign as his queen.
The Uffizi Gallery is a prominent art museum located adjacent to the Piazza della Signoria in the Historic Centre of Florence in the region of Tuscany, Italy. One of the most important Italian museums and the most visited, it is also one of the largest and best known in the world and holds a collection of priceless works, particularly from the period of the Italian Renaissance.
In Ancient Greek kētŏs, Latinized as cetus, is any huge sea creature or sea monster. According to the mythology, Perseus slew Cetus to save Andromeda from being sacrificed to it. The term cetacean derives from cetus. In Greek art, ceti were depicted as serpentine fish. The name of the mythological figure Ceto is derived from kētos. The name of the constellation Cetus also derives from this word.
A Gorgon is a creature in Greek mythology. Gorgons occur in the earliest examples of Greek literature. While descriptions of Gorgons vary, the term most commonly refers to three sisters who are described as having hair made of living, venomous snakes and horrifying visages that turned those who beheld them to stone. Traditionally, two of the Gorgons, Stheno and Euryale, were immortal, but their sister Medusa was not and was slain by the demigod and hero Perseus.
In Greek mythology, Perseus is the legendary founder of Mycenae and of the Perseid dynasty. He was, alongside Cadmus and Bellerophon, the greatest Greek hero and slayer of monsters before the days of Heracles. He beheaded the Gorgon Medusa for Polydectes and saved Andromeda from the sea monster Cetus. He was the son of Zeus and the mortal Danaë, as well as the half-brother and great-grandfather of Heracles.
Filippino Lippi was an Italian painter working in Florence, Italy during the later years of the Early Renaissance and first few years of the High Renaissance.
In Greek mythology, Medusa also called Gorgo, was one of the three monstrous Gorgons, generally described as winged human females with living venomous snakes in place of hair. Those who gazed into her eyes would turn to stone. Most sources describe her as the daughter of Phorcys and Ceto, although the author Hyginus makes her the daughter of Gorgon and Ceto.
Clash of the Titans is a 1981 fantasy adventure film directed by Desmond Davis and written by Beverley Cross which is loosely based on the Greek myth of Perseus. It stars Harry Hamlin, Judi Bowker, Burgess Meredith, Maggie Smith and Laurence Olivier. The film features the final work of stop-motion visual effects artist Ray Harryhausen. It was released on June 12, 1981 and grossed $41 million at the North American box office, which made it the 11th-highest-grossing film of the year. A novelization of the film by Alan Dean Foster was published in 1981.
The Loggia dei Lanzi, also called the Loggia della Signoria, is a building on a corner of the Piazza della Signoria in Florence, Italy, adjoining the Uffizi Gallery. It consists of wide arches open to the street. The arches rest on clustered pilasters with Corinthian capitals. The wide arches appealed so much to the Florentines that Michelangelo proposed that they should be continued all around the Piazza della Signoria.
Two versions of Medusa were created by Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio – one in 1596 and the other in 1597 – depicting the exact moment she was executed by Perseus. He plays with the concept by replacing Medusa's face with his own, as an indication of his immunity to her dreadful gaze. Due to its bizarre and intricate design, the painting is said to complement Caravaggio's unique fascination with violence and realism. It was commissioned by Italian diplomat Francesco Maria del Monte as a means of giving it to the Grand Duke of Tuscany, and is now located in the Uffizi Museum in Florence without signature.
In Greek mythology, Cepheus is the name of two rulers of Aethiopia, grandfather and grandson.
Star lore or starlore is the creating and cherishing of mythical stories about the stars and star patterns ; that is, folklore based upon the stars and star patterns. Using the stars to explain religious doctrines or actual events in history is also defined as star lore. Star lore has a very long history; it has been practiced by nearly every culture recorded in history, dating as far back as 5,500 years ago. It was practiced by prehistoric cultures of the Paleolithic and Neolithic periods as well.
Andromeda is a lost tragedy written by Euripides, based on the myth of Andromeda and first produced in 412 BC, in a trilogy that also included Euripides' Helen. Andromeda may have been the first depiction on stage of a young man falling in love with a woman. The play has been lost; however, a number of fragments are extant. In addition, a number of ancient sources refer to the play, including several references in plays by Aristophanes.
Andromeda Chained to the Rocks (1630) is a 34 x 25 oil on panel painting by the Dutch Golden Age painter Rembrandt. It is now in the Mauritshuis, The Hague, Netherlands. Andromeda represents Rembrandt's first full length mythological female nude history painting and is taken from a story in Ovid's Metamorphoses.
Perseus with the Head of Medusa is a bronze sculpture made by Benvenuto Cellini in the period 1545–1554. The sculpture stands on a square base which has bronze relief panels depicting the story of Perseus and Andromeda, similar to a predella on an altarpiece. It is located in the Loggia dei Lanzi in the Piazza della Signoria in Florence, Italy. The second Florentine duke, Duke Cosimo I de' Medici, commissioned the work with specific political connections to the other sculptural works in the piazza. When the piece was revealed to the public on 27 April 1554, Michelangelo's David, Bandinelli's Hercules and Cacus, and Donatello's Judith and Holofernes were already installed in the piazza.
Andromède (Andromeda) is a French verse play in a prologue and five acts by Pierre Corneille, first performed on 1 February 1650 by the Troupe Royale de l'Hôtel de Bourgogne at the Théâtre Royal de Bourbon in Paris. The story is taken from Books IV and V of Ovid's Metamorphoses and concerns the transformation of Perseus and Andromeda. The play has rarely been revived and is mostly remembered today for the set of six engravings by François Chauveau depicting the elaborate Baroque set designs of Giacomo Torelli.
Perseus and Andromeda is an oil painting by Lord Frederic Leighton. Completed in 1891, the year it was displayed at the Royal Academy of Arts, it depicts the Greek mythological story of Andromeda. In contrast to the basis of a classical tale, Leighton used a Gothic style for the artwork. The painting is in the collection of National Museums Liverpool at the Walker Art Gallery.
Perseus and Andromeda is a painting by the Italian Renaissance artist Titian, now in the Wallace Collection in London. It was painted in 1554–1556 as part of a series of mythological paintings called "poesie" ("poetry") intended for King Philip II of Spain. The paintings took subjects from the Roman poet Ovid's Metamorphoses, in this case Book IV, lines 663–752, and all featured female nudes.
Nano Morgante was an Italian dwarf who was a famed buffoon and court jester in the court of Cosimo I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany. Morgante was ironically nicknamed after the giant from the poem of the same name by Luigi Pulci. He was the most celebrated of the five dwarves of the Medici court at the Palazzo Pitti.
Portrait of the Dwarf Nano Morgante is a 1552 double-sided painting offering front and back views on either side of the canvas by Bronzino of Nano Morgante the famed buffoon dwarf of Cosimo I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany who is also immortalized in Valerio Cioli's Fontana del Bacchino at the Boboli Gardens in Florence. The work was commissioned from Bronzino by Cosimo. It portrays Morgante on both sides as a bird-catcher, as he was not permitted to hunt bigger game, this being a pursuit reserved for persons of greater echelon. Morgante is depicted respectively from the front and back at two subsequent moments of the action: at the front we see him before the hunt, holding an owl in a snare to be used as a bait to capture a jay that is flying in the air. A duo of rare swallowtail butterflies cover his genitals; these were discovered recently, when the painting was last restored. From behind, we see him just about to turn towards the viewer, anxious to visually boast of his take.
