Part 2: Marriage and Sex

1. “We build sumptuously in order to demonstrate our
greatness to posterity [and] to do honor to our fatherland
and family.”
-- Leon Battista Alberti, On the Art of Building, 1443-52
“Men do two important things in this life: the first is to
procreate; the second is to build.”
-- Giovanni Rucellai, Zibaldone, 1473

2. Map of Florence, 1471-1482

3. Palazzi on the Via de’ Benci

4. Palazzo Ginori,
Via de’ Ginori, Florence

5. Palazzo Ginori stemma

6. Palazzo Spinelli

8. Palazzo Rucellai
(designed by L. B.
Alberti), Florence,
1446-1452

11. Loggia Rucellai

12. Michelozzo, Medici Palace, 1444-1460

17. Botticelli, The Story of Nastagio degli Onesti
(fourth episode), ca. 1483

18. Palazzo Spinelli

20. Loggia Rucellai

21. Adimari Panel, ca. 1443-1450

22. Tuscan cassone (marriage chest)

23. Detail of a panel showing wedding gifts (including a
cassone) being carried through the streets

25. Desco da parto (birth tray), 1428

26. Birth bowl showing a mother nursing her newborn while
entertaining visitors, c. 1550-70

27. Giovanni Toscani,
La Festa di
San Giovanni,
early 15th
c. (cassone)

28. Festa di San Giovanni, Florence, 24 June

29. The palio in Siena, 18th
-century painting

30. Palio di Fucecchio, Tuscany

31. Sano di Pietro,
Saint Bernardino of Siena
Preaching in the Campo,
1445

32. Savonarola Preaching in the Duomo, Florence,
1495

37. Leon Battista Alberti,
Self-portrait medal

38. Titian, Portrait of
Pietro Aretino, 1545

39. Cosimo I de’ Medici Federico II Gonzaga

40. Vecellio, De Gli Habiti
Antichi…: Public prostitute

41. Ghirlandaio, Francesco
Sassetti and his Son
Teodoro (?), ca. 1485
(MMA)

42. Childbirth Tray with Youths
Playing Civettino, ca. 1450

43. Titian, Portrait of
Pietro Aretino, 1545

44. Titian, Venus, Mars and Amor, c. 1540

45. Courtesan and Blind Cupid (Flap print with liftable skirt),
ca. 1588

47. Marcantonio Raimondi,
I Modi, 1524 (after drawings
by Giulio Romano)

48. I Modi, ca. 1550-60

49. Attributed to
Desiderio da Firenze,
Satyr and Satyress,
after 1524

51. Triumph of the Phallus, 17th
century French engraving after
an Italian drawing of 1540s