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Thesis Info
- LABS ID
- 00804
- Thesis Title
- Masculinity and spirituality in Renaissance Milan: the role of the beautiful body in the art of Leonardo da Vinci and the Leonardeschi
- Author
- Maya Corry
- E-mail
- mayacorry AT hotmail.com
- 2nd Author
- 3rd Author
- Degree
- DPhil
- Year
- 2014
- Number of Pages
- University
- University of Oxford
- Thesis Supervisor
- Gervase Rosser
- Supervisor e-mail
- Other Supervisor(s)
- Martin Kemp
- Language(s) of Thesis
- English
- Department / Discipline
- Copyright Ownership
- Languages Familiar to Author
- URL where full thesis can be found
- Keywords
- Abstract: 200-500 words
- This thesis examines the numerous artworks depicting ideally beautiful, youthful figures which were produced by Leonardo da Vinci and artists working in his ambit in late fifteenth-century Milan. The strikingly androgynous beauty of the figures in these portraits and devotional works has often been perceived as troubling and displeasing, and a convincing analysis of their original meaning is lacking. This thesis explores why this iconography became so popular in Renaissance Lombardy, and examines the impact of these images on original beholders, questioning how this would have shaped religious experience. In doing so, it encompasses social and cultural history, art history, and the history of science.
It explores contemporary discourses that are key to understanding this iconography: on beauty, gender, age and the relationship between the body and soul. Chapter One outlines the fortuna critica of this iconography, and introduces the visual material that is the focus of the thesis. Chapter Two considers the social and cultural environment in which they were created: the Sforza court of Renaissance Milan, which was characterised by notable celebration of youthful male beauty, both in literature and social practice. Chapters Three, Four and Five examine the intersection of beliefs about the gendering of the body drawn from medical thought, with theological concepts of divine beauty. These suggested that the idealised beauty of the youthful, epicene male body was closest to that of the divine, and that this could therefore take on particular significance as a communicator of religious truth.
These works would also have shaped attitudes, and chapter Six examines interactions between viewer and image, and the role played by the work itself in eliciting a particular type of response from an educated, elite beholder. It is argued that the particularly androgynous nature of the ‘Leonardesque’ ideal played a central role in this. Chapter Seven considers how this interaction could have a transformative effect on the viewer, particularly when they were themselves a beautiful youth.