Seven Renaissance Paintings That Reimagined Classical Mythology

Key facts

• Sandro Botticelli's The Birth of Venus, c. 1484–1486, is held at the Uffizi Galleries in Florence.
• Andrea Mantegna's Minerva Expelling the Vices from the Garden of Virtue, c. 1502, was commissioned by Isabella d'Este for her studiolo and is in the Louvre, Paris.
• Raphael's The Triumph of Galatea, c. 1512, is a fresco at the Villa Farnesina in Rome, originally owned by Agostino Chigi.
• Antonio da Correggio's Jupiter and Io, c. 1530–1533, was commissioned by Federico II Gonzaga, Duke of Mantua, possibly as a gift for Charles V, and is at the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna.
• Titian's Diana and Actaeon, ca. 1556–1559, is part of his Poesie series and is at the National Gallery, London.
• Bronzino's An Allegory with Venus and Cupid, c. 1545, was tailored to King Francis I of France and is at the National Gallery, London.
• Pieter Brueghel the Elder's Landscape with the Fall of Icarus, c. 1555–1558, is at the Museum of Fine Arts of Belgium, Brussels.
• The article is published by TheCollector.com and discusses how Renaissance artists reinterpreted classical myths, sometimes with religious meaning.