Jocus : a personification of folly and play and an attribute of carnal love in Renaissance art
Jocus is a virtually forgotten and unrecognised figure in Renaissance iconography today; yet this personification has a substantial history in both art and literature. This study recovers the iconographic tradition of Jocus, identifying its classical literary origins, and tracing its survival, development and transformation in early-Christian, medieval, and Renaissance literature. Thereafter, it analyses representations of Jocus within art, focussing on medieval manuscript illustrations and a selection of Renaissance paintings. The most prestigious literary source is a couplet in Horace's <u>Ode to Augustus</u> describing Jocus comprising a triad with Venus and Cupid. Thus, Jocus was associated with carnal love, which this study has found to be based on commonplace euphemistic language in which <i>iocus</i> implied coitus. Furthermore, it identifies a related iconographic theme, ~<i>Le giuochi di putti</i>~ which also conveyed covert sexual messages based on contemporary euphemistic language. It discusses in detail a selection of paintings in which Jocus is most readily identifiable; significantly, all produced in mid-sixteenth-century Tuscany in the circle of the Florentine painter Giorgio Va sari. Each painting
Westmoreland, Maureen Lilian
Iconography
Jocus : a personification of folly and play and an attribute of carnal love in Renaissance art. Jocus is a virtually forgotten and unrecognised figure in Renaissance iconography today; yet this personification has a substantial history in both art and literature. This study recovers the iconographic tradition of Jocus, identifying its classical literary origins, and tracing its survival, development and transformation in early-Christian, medieval, and Renaissance literature. Thereafter, it analyses representations of Jocus within art, focussing on medieval manuscript illustrations and a selection of Renaissance paintings. The most prestigious literary source is a couplet in Horace's <u>Ode to Augustus</u> describing Jocus comprising a triad with Venus and Cupid. Thus, Jocus was associated with carnal love, which this study has found to be based on commonplace euphemistic language in which <i>iocus</i> implied coitus. Furthermore, it identifies a related iconographic theme, ~<i>Le giuochi di putti</i>~ which also conveyed covert sexual messages based on contemporary euphemistic language. It discusses in detail a selection of paintings in which Jocus is most readily identifiable; significantly, all produced in mid-sixteenth-century Tuscany in the circle of the Florentine painter Giorgio Va sari. Each painting
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