The Italian Renaissance imagery of inspiration : metaphors of sex, sleep, and dreams

Bibliographic Information

The Italian Renaissance imagery of inspiration : metaphors of sex, sleep, and dreams

Maria Ruvoldt

Cambridge University Press, 2004

  • : hbk

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Note

Bibliography: p. 219-239

Includes index

Description and Table of Contents

Description

In this book, Maria Ruvoldt traces the development of the pictorial vocabulary of divine inspiration, examining how themes of spiritual, intellectual, and artistic transcendence were given visual form. She argues that the imagery of sleep, a passive experience equated with the loss of reason, offered a powerful visual sign for a Platonic model of divine inspiration. Drawing on primary sources, including handbooks of dream interpretation, the recorded dreams of artists and poets, and philosophical texts, Ruvoldt also considers a wide range of objects, from portrait medals to gift drawings where sleep is visualized. Her study recovers the Renaissance perception, production and reception of sleep and dreams and their relation to divine inspiration.

Table of Contents

  • 1. The sleep of reason
  • 2. Sleep and waking/rapture and reason
  • 3. Pregnant poets
  • 4. Sleeping beauties
  • 5. The Dream of Raphael
  • 6. The dream of Michelangelo.

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