Cardinal Bibbiena’s Erotica
Slate has an entertaining article (but no photos) by the man who wheedled access from the Vatican to see the 1516 bathroom decorated by Rapheal in the pagan Roman erotic style:
In 1516, the Renaissance master Raphael decorated a bathroom within the Papal Apartments with erotic frescos. Today, the wicked gallery is called the Stufetta della Bibbiena, the “small heated room of Cardinal Bibbiena,” after the worldly official who commissioned the work.
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We passed through Bibbiena’s original bedroom, now a sanitized meeting room, and stopped in front of a small wooden door. Poised with the key, the monsignor was momentarily perplexed. “We open up the Stufetta very rarely. Almost never.”But then we were inside. That tight, vaulted room–twice as high as its 8-foot width–was covered with cavorting naked deities. Raphael had designed his frescoed panels like a graphic novel, recounting the adventures of Venus, the goddess of love, and Cupid, the god of erotic desire, for Cardinal Bibbiena to admire as he lounged in his hot tub. At knee level, the original silver faucet was crafted into the face of a leering satyr. One panel showed the naked goddess stepping daintily stepped into her foam-fringed shell. In others, she admires herself in a mirror, lounges between Adonis’ legs and swims in sensual abandon. A couple of the frames, even more risqué, have been destroyed. One, recorded by an early visitor, showed Vulcan attempting to rape Minerva.
Embarrassingly, I had to ask the monsignor to stand aside, so I could get a proper view of the most notorious image, of the randy goat-god Pan leaping from the bushes with a monstrous erection. I was shocked to see that the image had been vandalized. Someone had etched out Pan’s manhood and filled in the gap with white paint. This, of course, made the object even larger and more noticeable–another parable about the futility of censorship.
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PLEASE tell me the name of the painting and the artist that did the satyr with the naked maidens that you have at the lower left of your blogroll. Thanks so much!
Jean Marie
A search on “William Bouguereau nymphs” should get you there fairly fast…
The Italian version of Wikipedia has some images of the bathroom. Sadly, none of them are detailed.
Upon further research, it seems that the Cardinal was entranced by ribald pagan imagery, and was himself the author of risqué plays.
The creation of these erotic scenes were specifically requested by Cardinal Bibbiena.
In this ( http://www.lib-....html ) enlarged (clicked), photo (which looks to me like a snapshot of an ancient Roman brothel interior http://en.wikip..._Rome & http://it.wikip...steri ), one can barely make out that above the apex of the alcove or niche, in approximately the “keystone” position, there appears to me to be a figure of a naked man, with another naked form just before him in a crouched position, so that the crouched figure’s head is lined up at genital level. The resolution is too poor to tell if it is meant to depict actual oral/genital copulation.
It would appear that this drawing ( http://www.cent...4.jpg ), is related somehow.
It was found here:
http://translat...x3Q#4
An artist has depicted what his bath supposedly looked like in it’s heyday here: http://ionut-pu...a.jpg
Thank you so much! And I love your blog!
Hilarious, especially the comment about the futility of censorship! I wish we could get some photos of this, especially if Raphael himself designed this room.