Ross G. R. Caldwell wrote: 23 Jul 2020, 18:01
Bueno de Mesquita does not note any other examples of the generalization. Aeneas, just above Venus in the genealogy, is shown with red hair. Is this trying to show that the Visconti inherited their "reddish hair" from Venus and Aeneas?
But more striking in the genealogy is Venus' dark complexion, and vibrant blond hair.
Does anyone know of medieval precedent for a black Venus?
Red hair first. I'm guessing red is the result of hair lightening techniques.
Of relevance from an old post of mine:
Blonde hair as fashionable goes back to the Trecento Italian aping of French courtly tradition (why most court figures are inevitably blonde). See Charles Dempsey's first chapter - "Courtly Lyric: Simone Martini, French Courtly Lyric, and the Vernacular" - in his
The Early Renaissance and Vernacular Culture (Harvard: 2012).
viewtopic.php?t=964&start=20
Equally valuable in this context, this article put out by the Walters Museum - "Becoming a Blond in Renaissance Italy",
https://journal.thewalters.org/volume/7 ... -at-w-748/
By 1256 the Latin language barrier started to fall. Beatrice of Savoy [a sure connection to Milan], wife of Raymond Berengarius, count of Provence, commissioned their court physician, Aldobrandino of Siena, to write, in French, the Régime du Corps—an expanded compilation of passages lifted from Tacuinum Sanitatis [definitely Milan] and a variety of other medical sources, including Isaac Judaeus, Avicenna, Rhazes, Constantinus Africanus, and Ali Abbas. The Régime du Corps covers a wide array of topics including Galen’s precepts, information on the properties of seventy-three different foods, advice on pregnancy and the care of newborns, and a discussion of physiognomy and body care; a section devoted to hair includes a passage on hair lightening.[14]
[a bit later but obviously drawing on earlier texts]
Within this brief discussion, the Walters’ Treatise on Cosmetics can be usefully compared with other contemporaneous cosmetic manuscripts: the Experimenti compiled by Caterina Sforza (1463?–1509), Countess of Forli and Lady of Imola,[19]and the anonymous Ricettario Galante compiled between 1500 and 1520.[20]
The Experimenti is a wide-ranging compilation of more than four hundred recipes for “curing headache, fever, syphilis, and epilepsy; lightening the hair or improving the skin; treating infertility, making poisons and panaceas; and producing alchemical gems and gold.”[21] Many recipes require distillation, including two for blonding.[22] Sforza collected recipes from numerous correspondents over many years, which might account for the compilation’s haphazard organization. Recipes are composed in both Latin and Italian; Sforza ensured the secrecy of some recipes by writing them in code (it is therefore likely that only she could quickly locate specific items).[23] Ingredient quantities are often vague or even missing altogether, perhaps due to oversights by her correspondents.
[finally the recipe "outcomes" from the latter Ricettario source]
Recipe A shifted both samples one-half level lighter, and Recipe B, one level lighter (fig. 9). The results are most evident on the tips of the hair, where it was least compacted. While the change is barely noticeable on a gray scale, it is important tonally. When hair lightens, warm tones (i.e., red, orange, and yellow) automatically appear, making the hair seem more “golden,” the medieval and Renaissance ideal.
Naturally Venus as
the exemplar of beauty is blonde, but why dark-skinned? Pure guess here, but given the highly symbolic nature of the genealogy, is it possible the painter was instructed to make sure the higher Venus Urania, versus the base/terrestrial Venus, was indicated? Perhaps the dark (blue?) color was to indicate the color of the heavens, as in the celestial background of Venus depicted for Pizan c. 1410:
The classical roots of Venus Urania/Caelestis:
According to Plato, there are two Aphrodites, "the elder, having no mother, who is called the heavenly Aphrodite—she is the daughter of Uranus; the younger, who is the daughter of Zeus and Dione—her we call common." The same distinction is found in Xenophon's Symposium, although the author is doubtful whether there are two goddesses, or whether Urania and Pandemos are two names for the same goddess, just as Zeus, although one and the same, has many titles; but in any case, he says, the ritual of Urania is purer, more serious, than that of Pandemos.
....
From the middle Imperial period, the title Caelestis, "Heavenly" or "Celestial" is attached to several goddesses embodying aspects of a single, supreme Heavenly Goddess. The Dea Caelestis was identified with the constellation Virgo ("The Virgin"), who holds the divine balance of justice [and of course Mary is blonde under French influence]. In the Metamorphoses of Apuleius,[3] the protagonist Lucius prays to the Hellenistic Egyptian goddess Isis as Regina Caeli, "Queen of Heaven", who is said to manifest also as Ceres, "the original nurturing parent"; Heavenly Venus (Venus Caelestis); the "sister of Phoebus", that is, Diana or Artemis as she is worshipped at Ephesus; or Proserpina as the triple goddess of the underworld. Juno Caelestis was the Romanised form of the Carthaginian Tanit.[4]
Grammatically, the form Caelestis can also be a masculine word, but the equivalent function for a male deity is usually expressed through syncretization with Caelus, as in Caelus Aeternus Iuppiter, "Jupiter the Eternal Sky." (Wiki)
The only depiction of mythical subjects in blue/dark skin I can think of are Aeolus' wind gods, often thought of as intermediary between the heavens and earth, and indeed, the upper left one is set amongst the stars here in this Apollonio di Giovanni cassone (and let's not forget Venus fell to the sea through the realm of the wind gods):
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/ ... 282%29.jpg
I would tend to think of Venus's dark blue coloring in this context as "celestial grace" with which the entire genealogy is blessed (the holy ghost/radiant dove impresa paralleling that thought).
Phaeded