4. In the iconography of the Renaissance art “his-
tory” was shifted to the fore at the expense of symbol-
ism. It does not mean that symbols ceased to exist.
Pictorial allegory and symbolism played a very impor-
tant part in the conception of humanistic art. But what
was placed in the center of the new art theory was
the concept of istoria. The first and the most important
task of the work of art, according to L. B. Alberti (De
pictura, 1435; Della pittura, 1436), is to present a story.
This story had to be selected from authoritative literary
sources, either sacred or profane; it should represent,
in a possibly convincing and expressive way, an episode
from the Holy Scriptures, from sacred or classical
history, from mythology or legend. This new concept
of istoria, which was to dominate iconographic consid-
erations for more than three hundred years (the mean-
ing of the term istoria or storia changed of course in
that period) was one of the consequences of the Ren-
aissance idea of the priority of literature over the visual
arts. There were several reasons for that priority, one
being a complete lack of known classical theory of art.
In its stead the theories of poetry and rhetoric were
adopted as guiding principles for the visual arts. Hence
the dominating Horatian principle Ut pictura poesis,
which subordinated the visual arts to the rules of liter-
ary theory. This identification of literature and art
lasted until G. E. Lessing in 1766 revolted against it
in his Laokoön (R. W. Lee, 1940). In the humanistic
theory of visual arts the concept of istoria took the
central place. Istoria had to be chosen for its moral
value (Alberti chose as his examples the subjects show-
ing stoic moral firmness, as the “Death of Meleager,”
the “Immolation of Iphigenia,” or the “Calumny” of
Apelles), it had to be represented according to the
principle of decorum and costume, i.e., with regard to
its dignity, and most truthfully to the literary proto-
type. Everything should be suitable in “size, function,
kind, color, and other similar things”: Alberti stressed
the necessity of varied and convincing expressions of
emotions by suitable gestures.
The dependence of post-medieval iconography on
literature increased with time, and in the seventeenth
century the truthfulness of the pictorial formulation
of literary subjects became one of the most valued
qualities of a work of visual arts. “Read the story and
the picture at the same time,” Nicolas Poussin wrote
to M. de Chantelou, one of his customers. In the French
Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture lengthy
discussions were going on concerning the relation of
pictures to literary sources. To be able to represent
well subjects taken from poetry, the artist had to be
a doctus artifex, well-informed in various fields. G. P.
Bellori (1695) stressed, however, the fact that not
everything good in writing comes out well in painting.
Therefore, the painter, to be able to transform the
story, had to acquire “an universal knowledge of things
and he should contemplate precisely nature and reali-
ties.” Some freedom was given to the artist from the
beginning: Alberti was far from limiting the painter
too much by this dependence on literature. He stressed
the specific requirements of the visual arts, as for ex-
ample, the necessity to limit the number of represented
figures in order to keep a balance between “copious-
ness” and “solitude in painting.” This made it, of
course, necessary to reduce crowded scenes to an easily
graspable number of figures in order to avoid “dissolute
confusion” (Spencer [1956], pp. 23-28).
The interest of early Renaissance art theorists in
iconography was not great. They concentrated their
attention chiefly on the discussion of the means needed
to achieve a convincing and beautiful representation
of the istoria, and on the specific problems of repre-
sentation—correct (by adoption of the rules of per-
spective), and beautiful (by adoption of the rules of
proportion). Leonardo da Vinci does not show a spe-
cific interest in iconography, but in some passages of
his incompleted
Treatise on Painting he gives literary
programs of pictures; remarkably, however, the pic-
tures are not of stories, but of representations of pow-
erful natural or human happenings, such as storms and
battles. Here the naturalistic interests of the Renais-
sance come to the fore.
An important achievement of the Renaissance, partly
affecting iconography, was the reunion—as noticed and
described by E. Panofsky and F. Saxl (1932) and Panof-
sky (1960)—of the literary and visual traditions of
classical antiquity during the fifteenth century. During
the Middle Ages the literary tradition of classical sub-
ject matter was separated from the visual tradition of
classical artistic motifs, so that there was no awareness
of their belonging together. The classical subjects, for
example those taken from Ovid, used to be represented
in contemporary medieval stylistic forms; classical
artistic motifs, on the other hand, for example the forms
of garment folds, human types, gestures, compositional
patterns, and so on were used to represent Christian
subject matter, as in the western portals of the Reims
cathedral or in the pulpits of Nicola or Giovanni
Pisano. It was only in the High Renaissance, e.g., in
the works of Raphael, Titian, Michelangelo, and Cor-
reggio, that forms and iconography, themes and motifs
became reintegrated. In this way the classical vision
of classical subjects became sometimes so perfect that
some works created around 1500 could have been
taken for classical originals (for example, Bacchus by
Michelangelo). The growing understanding of classical
ideas and forms led to another specific Renaissance
phenomenon, called by Panofsky “pseudomorphosis”:
Certain Renaissance figures became invested with a mean-
ing which, for all their classicizing appearance, had not been
present in their classical prototypes, though it had fre-
quently been foreshadowed in classical literature. Owing
to its medieval antecedents, Renaissance art was often able
to translate into images what classical art had deemed
inexpressible
(Panofsky [1939], pp. 70f.).
In the north of Italy, beside the concept of istoria,
poesia appears, a fact which also points to a depend-
ence on poetry; this was understood mainly as referring
to lyrical poetry, and not to epic or heroic. Mythologi-
cal pictures by Titian were described in such a way
(Keller [1969], pp. 24f.). The stress was on the poetical
mood more than on an important human action; a
lyrical tonality was preferred to a heroic one. The
archaeological interests then current in Padua and
Venice, visible, for instance, in the works by Andrea
Mantegna, were moderated by an elegiac poetic mood
in reconstructing the classical world. Pictures by Gior-
gione, who worked for exclusive circles of humanists,
were so hermetic in meaning that several of them, like
the Three Philosophers (Vienna), or the Storm (Venice)
are iconographic riddles up to our own day. The same
is true of the enigmatic and poetic iconography of some
pictures by Titian (Sacred and Profane Love, in the
Borghese Gallery in Rome) by Lorenzo Lotto, or by
the Ferrarese Dosso Dossi.
The most important document of this romantic ar-
chaeological vision, which strongly influenced icono-
graphical invention in Italy and outside of Italy, was
a fantastic romance Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, attrib-
uted in the most plausible way to a Franciscan monk
Francesco Colonna, and published, with beautiful
woodcuts, by Aldus Manutius in Venice in 1499. Poetic
visions of a dreamy classical landscape, full of ruins,
in which the lovers Poliphilo and Polia wander, influ-
enced the imagination of artists not less than the excel-
lent woodcuts; their impact can be found as far and
as late as in the gardens at Versailles. The illustrations
to Hypnerotomachia also popularized hieroglyphic
signs which make their appearance in iconography as
a specific phenomenon of the Renaissance.
