Paganism in the Renaissance

In Our Time

BBC

History

4.6 • 9.2K Ratings

🗓️ 16 June 2005

⏱️ 42 minutes

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Summary

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss paganism in the Renaissance. For hundreds of years in the Middle Ages, the only way to read Ovid was through the prism of a Christian moralising text. Ovid's sensual tales of metamorphosis and pagan gods were presented as veiled allegories, and the famous story of Zeus descending to Danae in a shower of gold was explained as the soul receiving divine illumination. But in 1478 Botticelli finished Primavera, the first major project on a mythological theme for a thousand years, and by 1554 Titian completed a very different version of Danae - commissioned by a Cardinal, no less - where she expectantly awaits her union with Zeus in what is a nakedly sexual pose. What happened to bring the myths and eroticism of antiquity back into the culture of Europe? And how was it possible for a Church that was prosecuting for heresy, to exalt in pagan imagery, even in the Vatican itself?With Tom Healy, Professor of Renaissance Studies, Birkbeck College, University of London; Charles Hope, Director of the Warburg Institute and Professor of the History of the Classical Tradition, University of London; Evelyn Welch, Professor of Renaissance Studies at Queen Mary, University of London.

Transcript

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0:47.2	Hello for hundreds of years in the Middle Ages the only way to read of it was
0:51.4	through the prism of a Christian moralizing text.
0:55.0	Ovid's sensual tales of metamorphoses and pagan gods were presented as veiled allegories,
0:59.9	and the famous story of Zeus descending to Dana in a shower of gold was explained as the soul receiving
1:05.3	divine illumination. But in 1478, Bodicelli finished Prima Verra, the first major project on a mythological theme for a thousand years.
1:14.8	And by 1554, Titian completed a very different version of Dana, commissioned by a cardinal
1:20.0	Nellis, where she expectantly awaits her union with use in what is a nakedly sexual pose.
1:26.5	What happened to bring the myths and eroticism of antiquity back into the culture of Europe, and
1:31.4	how was it possible for a church that was prosecuting for
1:34.1	heresy to exalt in pagan imagery even in the Vatican itself? With me to discuss the
1:39.5	return of the ancient gods in the Renaissance is evening Welsh, Professor of Renaissance Studies at Queen Mary, University of London, and author of Art in Renaissance Italy.
1:48.0	Charles Hope, Director of the Warburg Institute and Professor of the History of Classical Tradition at the University of London,
1:54.6	and Tom Healy, Professor of Renaissance Studies at Birkbeck College, University of London.
	...

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