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Article
Lavinia Fontana’s Cleopatra the Alchemist
Author(s)
Liana de Girolami Cheney
Full-Text PDF
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DOI:10.17265/2159-5836/2018.08.004
Affiliation(s)
SIELE, Universidad de Coruña, Spain
ABSTRACT
The purpose of this essay is to identify and analyze one of Lavinia Fontana’s mysterious paintings, traditionally entitled Cleopatra but here considered to be an inventive portrayal of an ancient scientist, Cleopatra the Alchemist (ca. third century BCE). There are four parts to this study. The first is an iconographical analysis of the painting by Lavinia Fontana’s Cleopatra the Alchemist (1605) at the Galleria Spada in Rome. The second section deals with the origin of the Egyptian Cleopatra the Alchemist as an Egyptian scientist and of her inventions, which include the alembic and the ouroboros motif. The third section consists of an emblematic comparison between the imagery in the painting and alchemical references. The last brief section considers problematic copies of the painting.
KEYWORDS
alchemy, art, symbolism, serpent, ouroboros, famous women, alembic, Lavinia Fontana, Egyptian mythology, Plato’s Timaeus, artistic forgery
Cite this paper
References
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Jex-Blake, K. (trans.), & Sellers, E. (Eds.). (1896). The Elder Pliny’s chapters on the history of art. London: MacMillan.
Joost-Gaugier, C. (1980). Giotto’s hero cycle in Naples: A prototype of Donne illustri and a possible literary connection. Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte, 43, 311-318.
Joost-Gaugier, C. (1982). The early beginnings of the notion of Uomini famosi and the Deviris illustribus in Greco-Roman literary tradition. Artibus et Historiae, 6, 97-115.
Joost-Gaugier, C. (1985). Poggio and the Visual Tradition: Uomini famosi in classical literary description. Artibus et Historiae, 12, 57-74.
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Murphy, C. P. (2003). Lavinia Fontana. A painter and her patrons in sixteenth-century Bologna. London: Yale University Press.
Nozedar, A. (2008). The illustrated signs & symbols sourcebook. New York: Metro.
Offereins, M., Strohmeier, R., Apotheker, J., and Sarkadi, L. S. (Eds.). (2011). European women in chemistry. Wiley-VCH GmbH & Co. KGaA.
Parke, H. W. (1988). Sibyls and Sibylline Prophecy in classical antiquity. London: Routledge.
Raiswell, R. (2004). Sir Robert Shirley in the papal nobility (c.1581-1628). Entry in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Redford, D. B. (2002). Ancient Gods Speak. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Reems, D. M. (2015). The Egyptian Ouroboros: An iconological and theological study. Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press.
Roberts, G. (1994). The mirror of alchemy: Alchemical ideas and images in manuscripts and books from antiquity to the seventeenth century. London: British Library.
Roob, A. (1997). Alchemy & mysticism. London: Taschen.
Roversi, G. (1988). The Archiginnasio. The palace, the university, the library. Bologna: Grafis.
Salaman, C., Van Oyen, D., Wharton, W. D., & Mahé, J.-P. (2000). The way of Hermes: New translations of The Corpus Hermeticum and the definitions of Hermes Trismegistus to Asclepius. Rochester, VT: Inner Traditions.
Schaff, P., & Wace, H. (Eds.) (1890). Nicene and post-Nicene fathers (2 vols.). Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Company.
Scott, W. (Ed. & Trans.). (1993). Hermetica: The writings attributed to Hermes Trismegistus. Brighton Clifford, UK: Solo Press.
Shearer, R. G. (1996). Famous men of the renaissance and reformation. Austin: TX: Greenleaf Press.
Taylor, S. F. (1930). A survey of Greek Alchemy. The Journal of Hellenic Studies, 50, 109-139.
Thomas, D., & Chesworth, J. (Eds.). (2017). Christian and western relations. A bibliographical history: Western and southern Europe (1600-1700) (9 vols.). Leiden: Brill.
Urbainczyk, T. (1997). Socrates of Constantinople: Historian of church and state. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.
Urbini, S. (1998). Entry on Lavinia Fontana’s Cleopatra. In V. Fortunati (Ed.), Lavinia Fontana of Bologna: 1552-1614 (pp. 202-203). Milan: Electa.
Vaccaro, M. (2006). Parmigianino: The paintings. Milan: Umberto Allemand.
Vesalius, A. (1543). On the fabric of the human body in seven books. Basileæ: ex officina Joannis Oporini.
Vilhauer Rosser, S. (2008). Women, science, and myth: Gender beliefs from antiquity to the present. Oxford: ABC-CLIO.
von Stuckrad, K. (2005). Western Esotericism: A brief history of secret knowledge. London: Equinox.
Wilkinson, R. H. (1999). Symbolism and magic in Egyptian art. London: Thames and Hudson.
Zeri, F. (1954). Galleria Spada in Roma, Catalogo dei Dipinti (Spada Gallery in Rome. Catalogue of paintings). Florence: Sansoni.
Baring, A., & Cashford, J. (1993). The myth of the goddess. Baltimore, MD: Arkana, Penguin Books.
Battistini, M. (2004). Astrology, magic, and alchemy in art. Los Angeles, CA: J. Paul Getty Museum.
Berthelot, M. (1887). Collection of ancient Greek alchemist (3 vols.). Paris: G. Teinheil.
Brown, V. (Trans.). (2003). Giovanni Boccaccio, on famous women. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Caley, E. R. (1927). The Stockholm Papyrus: An English translation with brief notes. Journal of Chemical Education, IV(8), 979-1002.
Cantaro, M. T. (1989). Lavinia Fontana, bolognese, “pittora singolare”: 1552-1614. (Lavinia Fontana, Bolognese “unique painter”: 1552-1614). Milan: Jandi Sapi.
Chevalier, J., & Gheerbrant, A. (1994). A dictionary of symbols. Oxford: Blackwell.
Cirlot, J. E. (1962). A dictionary of symbols. New York: Philosophical Library.
Collins, J. J. (2001). Seers, sibyls and sages in Hellenistic-Rome Judaism. Boston, MA: Brill.
Copenhaver, B. P., & Schmitt, C. B. (1992). Renaissance philosophy. New York: Oxford University Press.
Cowdrey, H. E. J. (1998). Pope Gregory VII, 1073-1085. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
De Marchi, A. G. (2000). Lo strano caso del pittore, poeta (e falsario?) Giuseppe Rivelli (The strange case of the painter, poet [and forger?] Giuseppe Rivelli). Bollettino d’arte, s. 6, LXXXV(114), 73-78.
Di Gennaro Splendore, B. (2017). Crafts, money and mercy: An apothecary’s self-portrait in sixteenth-century Bologna. Annals of Science, 74(2), 91-107.
Eamon, V. (1994). Science and the secrets of nature: Books of secrets in medieval and early modern culture. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Eamon, W. (2010). Mystery, medicine, and alchemy in renaissance, Italy. Washington, DC: The National Geographic Society.
Edwards, C. (Trans.). (2009). Seutonius, lives of the Caesars. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Fabricius, F. (1994). Alchemy: The Medieval Alchemists and their Royal Art. London: Diamond Books.
Findlen, P. (1994). Possessing nature: Museums, collecting and scientific culture in early modern Italy. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Fioravanti Baraldi, A. M. (1998). Entry on Lavinia Fontana’s Cleopatra. In V. Fortunati (Ed.), Lavinia Fontana of Bologna: 1552-1614 (p. 78). Milan: Electa.
Forbes, R. J. (1950). Metallurgy in antiquity. Leiden: Brill.
Forbes, R. J. (1953). On the Origin of Alchemy. Chymia, 4, 1-11.
Forrest M. I. (2013). Isis magic. Portland, OR: Abiegnus House.
Fortunati Pietrantonio, V. (1986). Pittura bolognese del Cinquecento (Bolognese Painting of the Sixteenth Century) (2 vols.). Bologna: Grafis.
Fortunati, V. (1998). Lavinia Fontana of Bologna: 1552-1614. Milan: Electa.
Franklin, M. (2006). Boccaccio’s heroines: Power and virtue in renaissance society. Burlington, VT: Ashgate.
Fujikawa, M. (2014). Pope Paul V’s global design: The fresco cycle in the Quirinale Palace. Renaissance Studies, (November), 192-217.
Gahlin, L. (2002). Egypt: Gods, Myths and Religion: A Guide to Egyptian Religion. London: Lorenz Books.
George, W. and E. Waters. (1963). Eds., trans. The Vespasiano Memoirs: Lives of Illustrious Men of the XVth Century. New York: Harper and Row.
Geronimus, D. (2006). Piero di Cosimo: Visions beautiful and strange. London: Yale University Press.
Ghirardi, A. (1984). Una pittrice Bolognese nella Roma del primo Seicento: Lavinia Fontana (A Bolognese Painter in Rome during the early seventeenth century: Lavinia Fontana). Carrobbio, X, 148-161.
Golinelli, P. (2004). I mille volti di Matilde: immagini di un mito nei secoli (The thousand faces of Matilde: Images of a myth through the centuries). Milan: Federico Motta.
Grendler, P. F. (2004). The universities of the renaissance and reformation. Renaissance Quarterly, 57(Spring), 1-42.
Hankins, J. (1999). The study of the Timaeus in early renaissance Italy. In A. Grafton and N. G. Siraisi (Eds.), Natural particulars: Nature and the disciplines in renaissance Europe. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Hankins, J., & Palmer, A. (2008). The recovery of ancient philosophy in the renaissance. Florence: Leo S. Olschki.
Hanrahan, M. (1962). Paganism and Christianity at Alexandria. University Review, 2(9), 38-66.
Heller, E. (2009). Psychologie de la couleur. New York: PYRAMID.
Hornung, E. (1982). Conceptions of god in Egypt: The one and the many. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
Jex-Blake, K. (trans.), & Sellers, E. (Eds.). (1896). The Elder Pliny’s chapters on the history of art. London: MacMillan.
Joost-Gaugier, C. (1980). Giotto’s hero cycle in Naples: A prototype of Donne illustri and a possible literary connection. Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte, 43, 311-318.
Joost-Gaugier, C. (1982). The early beginnings of the notion of Uomini famosi and the Deviris illustribus in Greco-Roman literary tradition. Artibus et Historiae, 6, 97-115.
Joost-Gaugier, C. (1985). Poggio and the Visual Tradition: Uomini famosi in classical literary description. Artibus et Historiae, 12, 57-74.
Kemp, B. J. (2006). Ancient Egypt: Anatomy of a civilization. London: Routledge.
Lazari, V. (1850). Notizie delle opere d’arte e d’antichità della raccolta Correr di Venezia (News of the artworks and antiquities in the Correr Colletion in Venice).Venice: Tipografia del Commercio.
Lee, C. H. (Ed.). (2012). Western visions of the Far East in a Transpacific Age, 1522-1657. London: Routledge.
Murphy, C. P. (2003). Lavinia Fontana. A painter and her patrons in sixteenth-century Bologna. London: Yale University Press.
Nozedar, A. (2008). The illustrated signs & symbols sourcebook. New York: Metro.
Offereins, M., Strohmeier, R., Apotheker, J., and Sarkadi, L. S. (Eds.). (2011). European women in chemistry. Wiley-VCH GmbH & Co. KGaA.
Parke, H. W. (1988). Sibyls and Sibylline Prophecy in classical antiquity. London: Routledge.
Raiswell, R. (2004). Sir Robert Shirley in the papal nobility (c.1581-1628). Entry in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Redford, D. B. (2002). Ancient Gods Speak. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Reems, D. M. (2015). The Egyptian Ouroboros: An iconological and theological study. Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press.
Roberts, G. (1994). The mirror of alchemy: Alchemical ideas and images in manuscripts and books from antiquity to the seventeenth century. London: British Library.
Roob, A. (1997). Alchemy & mysticism. London: Taschen.
Roversi, G. (1988). The Archiginnasio. The palace, the university, the library. Bologna: Grafis.
Salaman, C., Van Oyen, D., Wharton, W. D., & Mahé, J.-P. (2000). The way of Hermes: New translations of The Corpus Hermeticum and the definitions of Hermes Trismegistus to Asclepius. Rochester, VT: Inner Traditions.
Schaff, P., & Wace, H. (Eds.) (1890). Nicene and post-Nicene fathers (2 vols.). Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Company.
Scott, W. (Ed. & Trans.). (1993). Hermetica: The writings attributed to Hermes Trismegistus. Brighton Clifford, UK: Solo Press.
Shearer, R. G. (1996). Famous men of the renaissance and reformation. Austin: TX: Greenleaf Press.
Taylor, S. F. (1930). A survey of Greek Alchemy. The Journal of Hellenic Studies, 50, 109-139.
Thomas, D., & Chesworth, J. (Eds.). (2017). Christian and western relations. A bibliographical history: Western and southern Europe (1600-1700) (9 vols.). Leiden: Brill.
Urbainczyk, T. (1997). Socrates of Constantinople: Historian of church and state. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.
Urbini, S. (1998). Entry on Lavinia Fontana’s Cleopatra. In V. Fortunati (Ed.), Lavinia Fontana of Bologna: 1552-1614 (pp. 202-203). Milan: Electa.
Vaccaro, M. (2006). Parmigianino: The paintings. Milan: Umberto Allemand.
Vesalius, A. (1543). On the fabric of the human body in seven books. Basileæ: ex officina Joannis Oporini.
Vilhauer Rosser, S. (2008). Women, science, and myth: Gender beliefs from antiquity to the present. Oxford: ABC-CLIO.
von Stuckrad, K. (2005). Western Esotericism: A brief history of secret knowledge. London: Equinox.
Wilkinson, R. H. (1999). Symbolism and magic in Egyptian art. London: Thames and Hudson.
Zeri, F. (1954). Galleria Spada in Roma, Catalogo dei Dipinti (Spada Gallery in Rome. Catalogue of paintings). Florence: Sansoni.