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| Anonymous Italian printmaker Venus and three Cupids ca. 1450-75 niello print British Museum |
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| Anonymous Italian printmaker Venus and Cupid in a forest ca. 1500-1530 engraving British Museum |
from Flowers and Love, a ballad within the Decameron
Through the green meadows do I go to see the yellow flowers and white and red, the roses on their thorns and the white flowers-de-luce; and I go likening them to the face of him who loving me hath captured me, even as she that doth desire naught else save her delight.
When among these I find a flower that seems like him, I pluck and kiss it and speak to it, and open all my soul to it and what the heart desires, and then I plait it up with other flowers to make a garland for my fine gold hair.
And as by nature every flower doth give delight unto our eyes, so this one gives delight as if indeed I saw him who hath snared me with his gentle love; the greater joy its perfume gives me speech may not express, but these my sighs true witness bear thereof.
– Giovanni Boccaccio (1313-1375), translated by Richard Aldington (1892-1962)
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| Jacopo de' Barbari Mars and Venus ca. 1510 engraving British Museum |
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| Marco da Ravenna after Raphael Venus Anadyomene (Saturn in clouds about to emasculate his father Uranus) ca. 1515-20 engraving British Museum |
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| Raphael Venus before 1520 drawing British Museum |
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| Master of the Die after Antonio Salamanca Venus removing thorn from her foot 1532 engraving British Museum |
Madrigal
While life is running out in me through time
Love still is doing harm,
And will not leave me an hour
As I after so many years had thought.
My soul shakes and screams
Like a man falsely murdered,
Complaining to me of the eternal cheat.
Between fear and deceit
I feel such doubts then over love and death
That I seek in one breath
The better of them, and then take the worse,
Good counsel thus beaten by evil use.
– Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475-1564), translated by Creighton Gilbert (1924-2011)
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| Giovanni Battista Scultori Mars and Venus 1539 engraving British Museum |
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| Giovanni Battista Scultori Venus embracing Mars ca. 1540 engraving British Museum |
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| Domenico del Barbiere Mars and Venus ca. 1540-50 engraving British Museum |
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| Cornelis Bos after Maarten van Heemskerck Venus at the Forge of Vulcan 1546 engraving British Museum |
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| Enea Vico after Raphael Toilet of Venus, with Cupid holding towel 1546 engraving British Museum |
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| Giorgio Ghisi after Perino del Vaga Venus at the Forge of Vulcan ca. 1550-60 engraving British Museum |
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| Friedrich Sustris after Lambert Sustris Venus and Cupid ca. 1560-80 etching, engraving British Museum |
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| attributed to Francesco Primaticcio Venus in Chariot - design for spandrel before 1570 drawing British Museum |