Sacred and Profane Love

The prototype, on canvas, 118 x 279 cm, is in the Galleria Borghese, Rome (H.E. Wethey, The paintings of Titian, III, 1975, pp.175/9, no.33, fig.20). The picture was commissioned by the Venetian merchant Niccol Aurelio on the occasion of his marriage to Laura Bagarotto of Padua in 1514. Scolars are uncertain about its meaning. Whereas Erwin Panofsky suggested that depicted are Celestial Venus and Earthly Venus, reflecting the contemporary neoplatonic humanist theories, Walter Friedlnder proposed that the subject is the story of Polia, as related by Colonna in his Hypnerotomachia. For a full review of the matter see Wethey, op. cit., pp.178/9.