Material limitations

It is opportune to first draw attention to the nature of the studied material. As is often the case with Roman art and particularly Pompeian painting, many of the images we analyze as ancient are in fact modern reproductions of ancient images that have since disappeared. It is a very different task to study an original wall painting, no matter how badly deteriorated, than to study a black-and-white ink or pencil drawing made of an original fresco by a 19^th-century copyist. The latter often betrays the hand and style of the drawer for which the different medium and scale are certainly partly to blame.⁴² This notion concerns mostly the images studied in article A, but even my reconstruction of the painting of Ganymede in article C is largely based on a 19^th-century drawing. Some alleviation comes from the relatively repetitive nature of Pompeian mythological wall paintings. One can almost always find a preserved parallel for a painting only preserved in a modern

42 Compare, for instance, the hands of Giulio Abbate and Nicola La Volpe, who copied the paintings of Ganymede and Endymion of Casa di Ganimede. PPM 7, 624-625; PPM Disegnatori, 251, 686.

copy. In the case of the Ganymede of house IX 5, 11.13, studied in article A, it is even possible to compare the 19^th-century drawing to traces of the original fresco painting. The painting of Casa di Ganimede, in turn, has been copied twice and the faithfulness of the drawings can thus be estimated by comparing one to the other.⁴³ Moreover, the contours of the painting’s figure of Ganymede are visible in a photo of the wall from the 1990’s and they conform with the copies.⁴⁴

The value of modern drawings of destroyed ancient paintings lies to a large degree in the attributes that make it possible to identify a particular myth and connect it to a wider class of images sharing the same pose and composition, some of which have hopefully been preserved for us to study in the original. Yet, sometimes the modern copy seems to be in conflict with the established iconography of the myth the attributes of which it carries. These cases lead to shaky ground if there is no way to confirm whether the modern drawer has correctly understood the details of the original painting, which might not have been in the best possible condition during their copying. This concern applies to a couple of 19^th-century drawings of Campanian wall paintings possibly representing Ganymede.⁴⁵ These paintings, even if to be identified as Ganymedes, were of secondary importance for my argument and were therefore left out of the discussion in the articles.

The older the copy of an ancient work of art, the more complicated it gets to assess its fidelity to the original. And yet, if the copy claims to represent a very important work of art, the temptation to take it at face value can grow irresistible.

This is the case with an aquarelle of the so-called Volta Dorata of the Domus Aurea in Rome, made in 1538 by Francisco De Hollanda (plate 5).⁴⁶ In the aquarelle, the central medallion of the vault is filled with a scene highly atypical for Roman art. A cloud and an eagle are seen against a deep blue sky. The eagle is carrying Jupiter, who holds in his arms a naked figure often identified as Ganymede. The cloud carries a fully armed Athena and what looks like a nude Hermes raising a

43 PPM 7, 624-625; PPM Disegnatori, 251, 686.

44 PPM 7, 623.

45 Two 19^th-century drawings of a Pompeian painting from Casa della Fontana d’amore (IX 2, 6.7) represent a reclining feminine figure seen from behind with an exposed armpit (see PPM 8, 1079; PPM Disegnatori 727; see also Hodske 2007, pl. 139, fig. 6). The backside view of this pose is best attested for Ariadne and the hermaphrodite (or nymph/maenad) approached by, respectively, Dionysus and Pan. (For Ariadne, see Hodske 2007, pl. 30, figs. 1, 2, pl. 32, fig. 1, pl. 33, fig. 1; for the hermaphrodite or nymph/maenad, see article A.) But instead of a Dionysus or a Pan, the drawings show an eagle. The excavation report of the house identified the figure as Danae, but Ganymede soon became the favorite candidate despite the figure’s lack of a Phrygian cap and other attributes (PPM 8, 1077). Colpo (2005, 68, n. 4) considers this identification highly dubious. Yet, another drawing of a painting, recorded in the Real Museo Borbonico of Naples in 1834 with a provenance of Stabiae, presents a feminine figure in a similar a tergo pose, but with a Phrygian cap and a spear (Real Museo Borbonico 1834, vol. 10, pl. LV). In this drawing, however, there is no eagle, just a cupid caressing a lamb – a strange detail considering the spear lying next to the youth. The original painting, which is described as monochrome yellow, is probably to be associated with the “Ganymede” originally found in room 10 of villa Arianna (see Bonifacio and Sodo 2001, 140; Pesando and Guidobaldi 2006, 419).

46 See Iacopi 1999, 46, fig. 44; Meyboom and Moormann 2013, 199-205, fig. 80.10; LIMC, “Ganymedes” 257.

toast towards Jupiter.⁴⁷ A cupid hovers above. The vault decorations of the Domus Aurea are usually credited for inspiring Renaissance artists, and De Hollanda’s aquarelle has been used as evidence in favor.⁴⁸ However, I suggest that in this case the direction of influence must be the opposite - that De Hollanda used scenes and figures from works of his contemporaries to fill in destroyed figurative panels of the vault.⁴⁹

De Hollanda himself documented his deep admiration for and knowledge of the work of Raphael and Michelangelo, the artists whose subjects are featured in the aquarelle. The second book of his Da pintura antigua, finished in 1548, consists of dialogues purportedly conducted with Michelangelo in 1538-1540.⁵⁰ De Hollanda’s Michelangelo declares in the dialogues, “poets and painters have the power to dare, I mean dare to do what is true for them,”⁵¹ suggesting that the Portuguese artist might have practiced similar artistic license when copying the vault of the Volta Dorata. As tempting as it would be to study De Hollanda’s aquarelle as providing a faithful copy of a remarkably romantic scene of Jupiter and Ganymede crowning one of the most important rooms of the preserved part of Nero’s Domus Aurea, the image, alas, fits better the context of works of art

47 For a thorough analysis of the scene, see Meyboom and Moormann 2013, 204. I cannot think of any other Roman work of art where a group of gods would be placed among clouds in the manner very popular during the Renaissance and later. For instance, the painting from the House of Jupiter and Ganymede in Ostia (see below) represents Ganymede in front of Jupiter’s throne, but the location is a rocky landscape with some architectural elements. This is typical of Roman paintings featuring two or more members of the pantheon (see, e.g., Hodske 2007, color plate 1, figs, 1-2, color plate 7, fig. 1, pls. 1-6, pl. 145, pl. 181, fig. 1).

48 See Marongiu 2002, 26; Dacos 1969.

49 Parts of the Volta Dorata were copied both before De Hollanda and around his time (see Egger 1906, 67-68, pls. 6, 10; Weege 1913, 166, figs. 12, 13, 20). A reliable copy of the whole vault was printed in 1776 (see Iacopi 1999, fig. 45; Meyboom and Moormann 2013, fig. 80.12). These copies consistently represent the same figurative scenes of the vault and leave the central medallion empty (in the 1776 print the medallion is filled with a scene explicitly taken from the wall of the room). See Meyboom and Moormann 2013, 196-202. If the medallion contained an important mythological image, as suggested by De Hollanda’s aquarelle, it would be strange not to find it in earlier and contemporary copies. The same applies to one of the side panels of the vault, where De Hollanda’s aquarelle shows a scene better known from Michelangelo’s drawing from c. 1530 of archers shooting at a herm (Windsor collection, RCIN 912778). This scene, too, is otherwise unattested in antiquity. De Hollanda’s version shows it reversed from Michelangelo’s, as if made after an engraving of the original drawing. Panofsky (1973 (1939) 225-226) and Von Salis (1947, 47-53), followed by, e.g., Dacos (1969, 25), think that Michelangelo would have been inspired by the Volta Dorata; Meyboom and Moormann (2013, 202) are inclined to consider De Hollanda’s scene a pastiche after Michelangelo.

Bambach (2017, 146-148) never mentions the Volta Dorata in her discussion of the drawing that according to her shows many signs of “the artist’s active elaboration of the design on the paper” and was repeatedly copied in engraving from early on.

50 See Vilela 1982, 30-45, 118-119. Bambach 2017, 190.

51 Da pintura antigua 2.3 according to Bambach 2017, 190. Meyboom and Moormann (2013, 200) conclude that a considerable part of the figurative scenes in De Hollanda’s aquarelle of the Volta Dorata were invented by the artist, who wanted to represent the vault complete.

inspired by the Loggia di Psiche of Villa Farnesina by Raphael and his pupils.⁵² I consider its value as evidence for ancient representations of Ganymede virtually nil.

A further peculiar aspect of the scholarship of ancient art is that the most important images of reference have usually disappeared. We know of the existence of famous works of art because of concise accounts in ancient literature. This knowledge has resulted in a long art historical tradition known as “Kopienkritik,”

the study of the preserved ancient works of art (mainly from the Roman period) primarily as vehicles to gain knowledge of lost original artworks (usually from the Greek period).⁵³ This tradition has received much-deserved criticism, but sometimes information about a famous lost masterpiece can be useful. Pliny (nat.

34.79) tells us that Leochares, an Athenian sculptor of the 4th century BCE, made an eagle that carefully carries off Ganymede in its claws (see article B). This would be the first recorded occurrence of the eagle in the whole tradition of the myth and could be taken to suggest that the eagle was introduced into the myth by Leochares’s sculpture.⁵⁴ As demonstrated by the many ekphraseis of Ganymede in Roman literature, visual art was not mere illustration of literary myths but an active source of inspiration for writers. Leochares’s long lost sculpture might also be credited for the change of emphasis in ancient literature from Ganymede’s heavenly destiny to the moment of his abduction. Still, as we will see, visual representations of the myth focused on the erotic fascination of the youth, which seems to have persisted as the main motivation for reproducing the subject.

52 De Hollanda includes the Villa Farnesina and its “story of Psyche” in his list of the most important works of art in Italy (Da pintura antigua 2.2.203 according to Vilela 1982, 119). The main frescoes of the vault of the Loggia di Psiche of Villa Farnesina by Raphael and his pupils were completed by 1519. They include an image of Jupiter kissing Cupid that inspired versions by Polidoro da Caravaggio and Raffaelle da Montelupo (see Saslow 1986, 132-137, figs. 3.26-28). De Hollanda’s Jupiter and Ganymede is already similar to the Jupiter kissing Cupid of the Loggia but it is almost identical to Polidoro’s and Raffaelle’s versions of the scene (De Hollanda praises Polidoro on several occasions in Da pintura antigua). One of the two main scenes of the Loggia di Psiche shows the divine banquet on top of clouds including a cup-bearing Ganymede (see Marongiu 2002, fig. 11). The pose of Hermes in De Hollanda’s medallion is almost the same as Ganymede’s in the Loggia. Moreover, a group of drawings by Parmigianino from between 1532 and 1540, inspired by the Apollo Belvedere and therefore quite certainly independent of the Volta Dorata, show Ganymede in a remarkably similar pose (see Saslow 1986, 106-113, figs. 3.8-12) and also the Ganymede of the Villa Farnesina finds its likely source of inspiration in the backside of the Apollo Belvedere – rather than the alleged medallion of the Volta Dorata. Finally, Athena’s pose in De Hollanda’s medallion is a close sibling of her pose in Villa Farnesina’s Council of the Gods, as also noted by Meyboom and Moormann (2013, 247, n. 198). The Council of the Gods even includes a prominent nude Hermes who receives a cup from Hebe. Everything takes place on top of clouds in the typically Renaissance manner, strange to antiquity.

All this considered, it seems clear to me that the direction of influence regarding the central medallion of the copy of the Volta Dorata must be from Raphael (and his followers) to De Hollanda, who seems to have picked and mixed subjects to make a Volta Dorata of his dreams – creating an iconographic mess in the process.

53 See Gazda 2002, 4-8, with further references.

54 See also Sichtermann 1953, 37-39.