DOI issue:
Nr. 1-2
DOI article:Boczkowska, Anna: Geminae Veneres: motywy neoplatońskie w dekoracji reliefowej Kaplicy Zygmuntowskiej
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.49519#0135
Geminae Veneres. Neo-Platonic Motifs in the Relief Decoration of the Sigismund Chapel 129
Pollaiuoli's tomb of Sixtus IV and Raphael's fresco
from the Stanza della Segnatura.
The sphinxes placed above the entrance to the
Sigismund Chapel may also be interpreted as at-
tributes of Philosophy guarding its secrets, as testi-
fied by the enigmatic scene depicting the naked
woman and man with their backs to each other,
bound to the branches of trees. Depicted in the mid-
dle area between the mythical Egyptian creatures
above the entrance, these bizarre figures appear as a
coded message of one of the basie concepts of neo-
Platonic philosophy, which we shall try to explain.
The motif of bonded figures appeared in a stoup de-
signed by Antonio Federighi for Siena Cathedral.
Around its trunk were depicted slaves in pairs tied
by cords, personifying the non-regenerated human
soul held captive by its natural desires, visualising
the state of nature and paganism. In these figures
were noted the modest portents of Michelangelo's
figures of slaves from the sarcophagus of Julius II,
whose figures, as Panofsky wrote, symbolise 'the
fight waged by the soul to escape from the bondage
of matter'.
As such, irrespective of whether the bound figures
between the sphinxes depict Adam and Eve or Amour
and Psyche, or simply a slave couple, one is at liberty
to acknowledge them as arising in the same sphere of
neo-Platonic psychology as Michelangelo's slaves; as
a personification of huinan souls in the grip of lower
desires, imprisoned in matter, portraying the lowest
sphere of the Platonie universe - il mondo sotteraneo,
known as Hades - the area of blind urges inseparably
linked to inert matter - known as the weak gully of the
senses in which the living were subject to passion
and were coerced into ceaseless confrontation.
It is worth noting that the arrangement of scenes
belonging to the particular spheres is not based on
a conventional division into areas placed at a lower
or higher plane, but rather on their equality. In neo-
Platonic discourses such specific spheres symbol-
ised various forms of human existence cohabiting
with each other in time and space.
The infernal domain of 'bestial urges' is depicted
in a scene portraying a two-tailed triton with Nereid
breaking away from his embrace and a Cupid stand-
ing above him holding a whip in his raised hand (ill.
19). This scene relates to the motif of Satire being
beaten by Amour, portrayed among others by
Correggio in a drawing preserved at Windsor Castle.
The triton, like Satire, personifies animal passion
devoid of virtu cognitive, and thus in the eyes of the
Platonists not deserving of the name 'love', and so
he must be punished by heavenly love as personified
by Anteros.
The scene placed in the outer most segment of the
wall arch above the altar also belongs to the watery
sphere of the Platonie il mondo sotteraneo of Hades,
depicting the struggle between the sea gods played
out in the water's currents (ill. 20). The figure of
Hercules in the invictus form personifying Fortitudo,
with a band of 'athletes of virtue' around his forehead,
indicates that this scene depicts his final, twelfth la-
bour, which was to descend into Hades.
In the figure of an undefeated Hercules in strug-
gle, regarded as a model for a perfect ruler, the pre-
figuration may be perceived of the military triumphs
of king Sigismund, whose numerous symbols, drawn
from Roman imperial iconography were depicted on
the Chapel's walls. The neo-Platonic contents were
thus inscribed into the structure of the universum as
symbols of the victory of virtue over vice.
In the sculptural decoration of the Sigismund
Chapel we thus note a division into four hierarchies
of successively diminishing perfection that is in ac-
cord with the structure of the universe as devised by
Ficino. In it the symbols of water, earth, fire and air
have not been separated from each other but mixed
in order to relate to the views of the neo-Platonists,
who believed that the elements never appeared in a
pure form, but in varying combinations they termed
elementata.
The highest sphere was depicted in the highest
point of the chapel, in the lantern's vaulting, where a
symbol of God was presented: the head of a six-
winged seraph surrounded by angels, which in the
neo-Platonic cosmos symbolised ideas and intelli-
gence as existing in the sphere of divine, or angelic,
intellect (intellectus divinus sive angelicus). In this
highest sphere, surrounding the Seraph's head,
Berrecci, the Chapel's creator, placed his signature.
In the climate of the court of the Polish-Lithuanian
Commonwealth, open to the values of humanist cul-
ture, the idea of the artist's self-admiration for his
own art found its expression which did not, never-
theless, extend beyond the bounds of the status in
life acknowledged such a person in neo-Platonic phi-
losophy whose intellect was on a par with Intellectus
Divinus. Creating works, and erecting buildings, the
species became comparable to God (Dei similis),
and even, as Ficino wrote, God on Earth (Deus in
terris). And so Berrecci as the Chapel's creator who
immortalised his donator and the Cracow partici-
pants of the Platonie mysteries, had every right to
look God right in the eye.
The neo-Platonic symbolism of spheres contained
a very important eschatological motif pertaining to
man as a divine creation that had been given the gift of
freedom of choice. Due to noble acts and great works,
he would be able to rise like Hercules through the
hierarchy of the neo-Platonic universum from the low-
est to the highest sphere to achieve thereby eternity,
happiness and salvation, even during his own
Pollaiuoli's tomb of Sixtus IV and Raphael's fresco
from the Stanza della Segnatura.
The sphinxes placed above the entrance to the
Sigismund Chapel may also be interpreted as at-
tributes of Philosophy guarding its secrets, as testi-
fied by the enigmatic scene depicting the naked
woman and man with their backs to each other,
bound to the branches of trees. Depicted in the mid-
dle area between the mythical Egyptian creatures
above the entrance, these bizarre figures appear as a
coded message of one of the basie concepts of neo-
Platonic philosophy, which we shall try to explain.
The motif of bonded figures appeared in a stoup de-
signed by Antonio Federighi for Siena Cathedral.
Around its trunk were depicted slaves in pairs tied
by cords, personifying the non-regenerated human
soul held captive by its natural desires, visualising
the state of nature and paganism. In these figures
were noted the modest portents of Michelangelo's
figures of slaves from the sarcophagus of Julius II,
whose figures, as Panofsky wrote, symbolise 'the
fight waged by the soul to escape from the bondage
of matter'.
As such, irrespective of whether the bound figures
between the sphinxes depict Adam and Eve or Amour
and Psyche, or simply a slave couple, one is at liberty
to acknowledge them as arising in the same sphere of
neo-Platonic psychology as Michelangelo's slaves; as
a personification of huinan souls in the grip of lower
desires, imprisoned in matter, portraying the lowest
sphere of the Platonie universe - il mondo sotteraneo,
known as Hades - the area of blind urges inseparably
linked to inert matter - known as the weak gully of the
senses in which the living were subject to passion
and were coerced into ceaseless confrontation.
It is worth noting that the arrangement of scenes
belonging to the particular spheres is not based on
a conventional division into areas placed at a lower
or higher plane, but rather on their equality. In neo-
Platonic discourses such specific spheres symbol-
ised various forms of human existence cohabiting
with each other in time and space.
The infernal domain of 'bestial urges' is depicted
in a scene portraying a two-tailed triton with Nereid
breaking away from his embrace and a Cupid stand-
ing above him holding a whip in his raised hand (ill.
19). This scene relates to the motif of Satire being
beaten by Amour, portrayed among others by
Correggio in a drawing preserved at Windsor Castle.
The triton, like Satire, personifies animal passion
devoid of virtu cognitive, and thus in the eyes of the
Platonists not deserving of the name 'love', and so
he must be punished by heavenly love as personified
by Anteros.
The scene placed in the outer most segment of the
wall arch above the altar also belongs to the watery
sphere of the Platonie il mondo sotteraneo of Hades,
depicting the struggle between the sea gods played
out in the water's currents (ill. 20). The figure of
Hercules in the invictus form personifying Fortitudo,
with a band of 'athletes of virtue' around his forehead,
indicates that this scene depicts his final, twelfth la-
bour, which was to descend into Hades.
In the figure of an undefeated Hercules in strug-
gle, regarded as a model for a perfect ruler, the pre-
figuration may be perceived of the military triumphs
of king Sigismund, whose numerous symbols, drawn
from Roman imperial iconography were depicted on
the Chapel's walls. The neo-Platonic contents were
thus inscribed into the structure of the universum as
symbols of the victory of virtue over vice.
In the sculptural decoration of the Sigismund
Chapel we thus note a division into four hierarchies
of successively diminishing perfection that is in ac-
cord with the structure of the universe as devised by
Ficino. In it the symbols of water, earth, fire and air
have not been separated from each other but mixed
in order to relate to the views of the neo-Platonists,
who believed that the elements never appeared in a
pure form, but in varying combinations they termed
elementata.
The highest sphere was depicted in the highest
point of the chapel, in the lantern's vaulting, where a
symbol of God was presented: the head of a six-
winged seraph surrounded by angels, which in the
neo-Platonic cosmos symbolised ideas and intelli-
gence as existing in the sphere of divine, or angelic,
intellect (intellectus divinus sive angelicus). In this
highest sphere, surrounding the Seraph's head,
Berrecci, the Chapel's creator, placed his signature.
In the climate of the court of the Polish-Lithuanian
Commonwealth, open to the values of humanist cul-
ture, the idea of the artist's self-admiration for his
own art found its expression which did not, never-
theless, extend beyond the bounds of the status in
life acknowledged such a person in neo-Platonic phi-
losophy whose intellect was on a par with Intellectus
Divinus. Creating works, and erecting buildings, the
species became comparable to God (Dei similis),
and even, as Ficino wrote, God on Earth (Deus in
terris). And so Berrecci as the Chapel's creator who
immortalised his donator and the Cracow partici-
pants of the Platonie mysteries, had every right to
look God right in the eye.
The neo-Platonic symbolism of spheres contained
a very important eschatological motif pertaining to
man as a divine creation that had been given the gift of
freedom of choice. Due to noble acts and great works,
he would be able to rise like Hercules through the
hierarchy of the neo-Platonic universum from the low-
est to the highest sphere to achieve thereby eternity,
happiness and salvation, even during his own