In Greek mythology, Andromeda is the daughter of Cepheus, the king of Aethiopia, 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. Queen Cassiopeia understands that chaining Andromeda to a rock as a human sacrifice is what will appease Poseidon. Perseus finds her as he is coming back from his quest to decapitate Medusa, and brings her back to Greece to marry her and let her reign as his queen. With the head of Medusa, Perseus petrifies Cetus to stop it from terrorizing the coast any longer.
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 Greek mythology, Perseus is the legendary founder 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.
Cosimo I de' Medici was the second and last duke of Florence from 1537 until 1569, when he became the first grand duke of Tuscany, a title he held until his death. Cosimo I succeeded his cousin to the duchy. He built the Uffizi (office) to organize his administration, and conquered Siena to consolidate Florence's rule in Tuscany. He expanded the Pitti Palace and most of the Boboli Gardens were also laid out during his reign.
Piero di Cosimo, also known as Piero di Lorenzo, was an Italian Renaissance painter, who continued to use an essentially Early Renaissance style into the 16th century.
In Greek mythology, Medusa, also called Gorgo or the Gorgon, was one of the three Gorgons. Medusa is generally described as a woman with living snakes in place of hair; her appearance was so hideous that anyone who looked upon her was turned to stone. Medusa and her Gorgon sisters Euryale and Stheno were usually described as daughters of Phorcys and Ceto; of the three, only Medusa was mortal.
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 ca. 1597. Both depict the moment from Greek mythology in which the Gorgon Medusa is killed by the demigod Perseus, but the Medusas are also self-portraits. Due to its bizarre and intricate design, the painting is said to display Caravaggio's unique fascination with violence and realism. The Medusa was commissioned by the Italian diplomat Francesco Maria del Monte, who planned to gift the commemorative shield to Ferdinando I de' Medici and have it placed in the Medici collection. It is now located in the Uffizi Museum in Florence without signature.
Medusa is either of two paintings described in Giorgio Vasari's Life of Leonardo da Vinci as being among Leonardo's earliest works. Neither painting survived.
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.
The Adoration of the Magi is a painting by the Italian Renaissance master Sandro Botticelli. Botticelli painted this piece for the altar in Gaspare di Zanobi del Lama's chapel in Santa Maria Novella around 1475. This painting depicts the Biblical story of the Three Magi following a star to find the newborn Jesus. The image of the altarpiece centers on the Virgin Mary and the newborn Jesus, with Saint Joseph behind them. Before them are the three kings who are described in the New Testament story of the Adoration of the Magi. The three kings worship the Christ Child and present him with gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. In addition, the Holy Family is surrounded by a group of people who came to see the child who was said to be the son of God.
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 cm × 24.5 cm 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, 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.
Hercules slaying Antaeus, c. 1460, is a painting by the Florentine artist Antonio del Pollaiuolo. It is small at 6 x 3 1/2 inches, painted in egg tempera on a panel of wood. It is now in the Uffizi gallery, Florence.
The Portrait of Bia de' Medici is an oil-tempera on wood painting by the Italian Mannerist painter Agnolo Bronzino, dating to around 1542 and now in the Uffizi in Florence. For a long time it was displayed in the Tribuna at the heart of the museum, but since 2012 it has been moved to the "sale rosse" of the Nuovi Uffizi. A second portrait, by Pontormo, has also been argued to show Bia de' Medici, but this identification is disputed.
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.
Hercules and the Hydra is a c. 1475 tempera grassa-on-panel painting by Antonio del Pollaiuolo, forming a pair with the same artist's Hercules slaying Antaeus. Both works are now in the Galleria degli Uffizi in Florence. It measures 17 cm by 12 cm, small like all his surviving mythological paintings. It is assumed that both these are miniature copies by the artist of two out of the three enormous paintings on canvas of the Labours of Hercules commissioned from Antonio and Piero del Pollaiuolo by Piero di Cosimo de' Medici for the Sala Grande of the Palazzo Medici in the 1460s, which have now been lost.
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 by the Italian Mannerist painter Bronzino offering front and back views on either side of the canvas of Nano Morgante the famed court 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 he is depicted 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, he is seen just about to turn towards the viewer with a weapon in his left hand and his quarry in his right, anxious to visually boast of his take.
