Una candida cerva: Meanings and Functions of the White Hind in the Italian Renaissance

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

Abstract

This contribution explores the symbolic connotation of the stag in the Italian Renaissance, looking specifically at the image of the white hind. Starting with Petrarca, the white hind regularly recurs in vernacular literature of fourteenth through sixteenth-centuries, gathering a deep stratification of meanings. Particularly interesting is the case of Antonio Fregoso’s Cerva bianca (1510), a poem composed in Milan during the French occupation and deeply inspired by French art and literature, but also by Ficino’s neoplatonic works. By analyzing the allegorical layers of Fregoso’s poem we observe how a symbol’s dense meanings could be still further modified; I argue that this exercise illustrates key aspects of Renaissance syncretism based on iconographical and textual traditions.

Author

• Stefano Pezzè, Università Ca' Foscari di Venezia