Venezia/Venusia nata dalle acque

In Renaissance Venice there is an obsessive focus on the origins, that also refers to the double figure of Venus and the Virgin, the pagan god and the Christian one, under whose sign the city’s birth takes place. In this complex and erudite imagery, what spontaneously blossoms is a symbology that, by means of these figures, comes to cover the entire span of the female representation: from Diana-Virgin, via Flora – nymphe, or young bride exhibiting flowers and promising fruits – up to Venus as Alma Mater (according to the first verse of Lucretius' De rerum natura) and, beyond all these representations, to the image of Astrea – the deity that promises the advent of a new saeculum, a new Golden Age.