Venus and Mars: love, sleep and drugs in a Neoplatonic interpretation.

I have the feeling is about time to move away from aspects of material culture and start considering the meaning of Venus and Mars in relation to the context in which this painting was conceived. Botticelli’s works have been variously interpreted according to the Neoplatonic ideas that flourished in fifteenth century Florence. Do these ideas apply to Venus and Mars too? What meaning is the painting trying to convey? I took into consideration elements I had not taken into account previously and focused on aspects relating to ideas of love, the role of sleep and the use of drugs in Renaissance Italy.

Neoplatonism and the concept of love

In the cultural life of fifteenth century Florence a leading role was played by Marsilio Ficino who tried to disseminate Platonism through his Academy, seen as one of the greatest achievements of Medici patronage.

Born in 1433, Ficino received his education in Florence, pursuing studies in the humanities, philosophy and medicine although he does not seem to have obtained an academic degree. Trained in the classical languages and literature, he knew Greek and Latin and had an extensive knowledge of ancient philosophy. Ficino cultivated several literary genres such as the treatise, the dialogue, the oration and the letter, and corresponded with many humanists of his time in Italy and beyond. He was a close friend of the Medici family: tutor of Lorenzo, in 1462 benefited from the house in Careggi that Cosimo de Medici gave him. Cosimo placed here several Greek manuscripts at Ficino’s disposal and this is regarded as the period when the Platonic Academy was founded.

The Academy was not an organized society with rules and a programme of study. It was instead a group of friends and disciples who gathered around Marsilio Ficino and who were bound together by a common interest in his teaching and by the friendship and patronage of the Medici. The activities of the Academy were closely linked with Ficino himself: conversations with friends, banquets and discussions. Ficino’s sources included writings of Plato but also those attributed to Hermes Trismegistus, Zoroaster, Orpheus and Pythagoras. He was also influenced by Epicureanism of Lucretius and attended course in Aristotelian philosophy at the University of Florence.

Ficino’s ideas uncovered several themes: universe, immortality of the soul, human love, conception of religion and its relationship to philosophy. His conception of contemplation in particular is the key to understand his ideas about Love through which Venus and Mars might be explained. Contemplation is a direct spiritual experience during which “the soul withdraws from the body and from all external things into its own self and there it discovers not only its divinity but the intelligible world, the transcendent ideas, and god himself” (Kristeller 1980).

It has been noticed that this separation of the soul from the body was not a mere metaphor. Ficino conceived it as a sort of ecstasy, a magical flight he believed people could really attain during their life. This mystical experience man could go through was achieved through what Ficino called “furors” such as poetry, prophecy and, among others, love. The latter was defined by the philosopher as the desire for beauty and was viewed as a force that could lead men towards god (Tomlinson 1993).  

                                                    

Marsilio Ficino (Florence)

Sleep and drugs

The representation of Mars in Venus and Mars recently caught my attention and has turned out to be a very interesting element. The god is lying on the opposite side of Venus; he is naked and asleep. The contrast between the awake goddess and the asleep god has been previously taken as the key element to uncover the meaning of the panel: Love is stronger than War and wins everything. The theme of love is certainly appropriate to interpret the panel according to the Neoplatonic ideas of fifteenth century Florence. But as Venus and Mars seems to have been enriched with Neoplatonic meanings – just like other Botticelli’s works - is it possible that Mars aims at conveying a stronger message than the one of the defeated god? In order to answer this question I’ve turned my attention to the idea of sleep in Renaissance culture and how this was viewed according to the Neoplatonism.

Sleep was valued in the Renaissance because of its divinatory powers and the prophetic nature of dreams: while dreaming men were closer to God. Sleep was moreover associated with love seen as a spiritual journey of ascension from physical desire to spiritual contemplation and ecstatic connection to heaven initiated by the sight of beauty. The possibility of communion was premised on the lover’s ability to overcome his physical desire and direct his attention toward the higher forms of love and beauty present in his beloved. This idea, as explained above, was also promoted by the Neoplatonism as Ficino viewed sleep as a state in which the soul is free from the constraints of the body and can therefore communicate with the divine (Ruvoldt 2004).

But there is more. A recent study on Venus and Mars was published by David Bellingham who noted that near Mars, on the right-hand corner of the panel, there is a small satyr who holds a peculiar fruit under his hand. Bellingham recognized in the fruit the Datura Stramonium, a plant also known as "poor man's acid" that can produce hallucinations with effects similar to LSD. Why would have Botticelli painted that? I wonder if this has some link to the idea of sleep and contemplation. Ancient Greek used to drink wine in order to reach a higher state that made them closer to God. Also, in fifteenth century Florence Savonarola employed metaphors of drunkenness to express the union of the soul with God. Were drugs used for the same purpose? Is it possible that drugs were employed to reach a higher contemplative state or to attain one of Ficino’s “magical flights”?

Satyr and the Datura Stramonium fruit under his hand

Ficino’s ideas emphasize a strict connection between sleep-contemplation-love-beauty. I wonder if such connection is visually expressed in Venus and Mars. Mars, the male ideal dreamer, is in a contemplative state that makes his soul ascending from the body to spiritual levels. What allows him to achieve this is the “furor” of love initiated by beauty (Venus): through contemplation the god can overcome his physical desire and move his attention towards higher forms of (divine) love. Contemplation and vacatio might be made easier through the use of datura stramonium – though I don’t want to stress this point too far due to scarce evidence and knowledge.

As stated in my previous posts, investigations in material culture seem to support the hypothesis of Venus and Mars as a wedding commission. Would a Neoplatonic message – evolving around ideas of love-contemplation-divine - be appropriate for a marriage piece? It is difficult to ascertain whether a specific iconographic/philosophical programme was drawn behind Venus and Mars due to a lack of original documents and for the complex, multi-layered interpretations offered by the panel. There is no doubt however of Botticelli being influenced by the Neoplatonic ideas developed by Ficino and the group of Florentine humanists the painter was connected to by ties of friendship and patronage.

Sources

• Ficino, M. 1987. El libro dell’amore (Firenze, Leo S. Olschki Editore)

• Hawkins, J. 1991. “The Myth of the Platonic Academy of Florence”, Renaissance Quarterly, 44: 429-475

• Kristeller, P.O. 1965. Eight philosophers of the Italian Renaissance (London, Chatto & Windus)

• Kristeller, P.O. 1980. Renaissance thought and the arts. Collected essays (Princeton, Princeton Uni Press)

• Nesca, R. 1935. Neoplatonism of the Italian Renaissance (London, George Allen \& Unwin LTD)

• Ruvoldt, M. 2004. The Italian Renaissance Imagery of Inspiration. Methapors of sex, sleep and dreams (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press)

• Tomlinson, G. 1993. Music in Renaissance Magic (Chicago and London, The University of Chicago Press)

• D.Bellingham’s article is available online: http://www.npr.org/documents/2010/june/botticelli