Review: Cupid and the Silent Goddess by Alan Fisk

Blurb

Who were the models of Agnolo Bronzino’s An Allegory with Venus and Cupid?

Florence, 1544. Duke Cosimo de’ Medici has commissioned Agnolo Bronzino to paint An Allegory with Venus and Cupid. Intended as a diplomatic gift for King François of France, the Duke demands the seemingly impossible: Bronzino’s painting is to be an even greater masterpiece than Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus. It will be the artist’s defining work: his reputation and, ultimately, his life will depend on its timely completion.

He finds the perfect model for Venus in Angelina, a mute and vulnerable Florentine woman whose beauty is ethereal; a silent goddess oblivious to the dangerous new world that surrounds her. As the painting develops, so too does the relationship between the central models. Can Giuseppe, ordered to pose as the adult Cupid, save Angelina from the cruel fate planned for her by the Duke?

My Review

This is one ambitious book! It’s all about the creation of Bronzino’s “Allegory with Venus and Cupid”, which hangs in the National Gallery. I admit I was not a fan of this painting, nor did I ever give it more than a cursory look. So I was surprised to discover that it is full of allusions (according to the author, Bronzino did not give it a name). Each one of these allegories has a story behind it, depicted in this fascinating novel, and the story surrounding Cupid and Venus is even more interesting. Cosimo I de’Medici commanded that Bronzino paint a Venus and Cupid, which would be a gift for Francis I of France. The duke did not specify a subject, but he did take a fancy to Bronzino’s apprentice—and our narrator, Giuseppe—and insisted the boy model as Cupid. The next challenge was to find the perfect Venus. Bronzino, his old master Pontormo, and Giuseppe took to the streets of Florence, and suddenly they struck gold:

A young woman with loose hair, and bare arms and shoulders was looking down at us from a window on the top floor. It was not the beauty of her face that rocked me. I have seen beautiful women nearly every day of my life, although few of them have noticed me. The woman of my vision was gazing down with the smallest, the mildest of smiles, the kind of smile that you might fancy you were imagining. But the smile was not for me, nor for Bronzino, nor or Pontormo. It was not even for the otherwise empty street. Who knew for whom or for what she was smiling?

Giuseppe was smitten with her from the very first. Bronzino agreed that she was the one. Imagine their surprise to discover that the woman was a mute, and at the same time, her attention was undirected, impersonal, and in fact, vacant. She was unable to take care of herself. That was all right with Bronzino, though ultimately they needed to take the woman, Angelina, into their households until the painting was finished—with Bronzino during the day, and at Pontormo’s house overnight. It was very complicated! Giuseppe became her unofficial caregiver, and although she didn’t acknowledge him any more than anybody else, he didn’t care. Bronzino treated her like a pet, though Pontormo had a gentling effect on the woman when she occasionally got upset—which made Giuseppe jealous. Many of the people associated with the situation found themselves invited to model for the allegorical figures, which were then explained to us, the readers. While perusing the book, I consulted the artwork many times along the way, and by the time I finished I had a much better appreciation of this masterpiece.