The Key in the Hand: Features of Birth in the Renaissance Imagery of Lucina

• In Event: Reading the Symbols: Pathways in Renaissance Iconography

Abstract

During the Renaissance, the concept of linking iconography to visual or textual archetypes matured rapidly along with the development of humanism, providing new perspectives on the study of the past and introducing a new way to interpret literary and material sources. This study analyses two attributes of Lucina which appear not only to be closely connected in Renaissance iconography but also to have been influenced by a renewed awareness of the semantic field of the goddess: the key and the open hand. The works of artists such as Jacopo Zucchi, Lorenzo Lotto and Giovanni da Udine will be examined, together with the mythographic treatises of antiquarian scholars such as Lilio Gregorio Giraldi, Giovanni Pierio Valeriano, Vincenzo Cartari and Baccio Baldini for the purpose of retracing all the aspects that emerged as visible phenomena of this deeper cultural dynamic.

Author

• Damiano Acciarino, Università Ca' Foscari di Venezia