Facets of love in renaissance culture

Abstract

Starting from a qualitative methodology with a documental base, the concept of love is revisited in a cut that intends to highlight its various representations in Renaissance culture: inherited from classical culture, the reception of the concept of love goes from its mythology to its expression in Platonic philosophy. The theme of love finds a fertile narrative in the Renaissance, present in the poetry of Dante, Petrarch, and Colonna, which will greatly influence the visual arts. This trend finds significant echoes in Portugal; authors such as Leão Hebreu and Camões demonstrate this. It is a theme that will manifest itself at the level of the broader culture of the time, such as, for example, the Renaissance court culture, evident in Castiglione's aspirations for a perfecto cortesano, reaching increasingly erudite and mystical expressions with the philosophical visions of Ficino and Leão Hebreu, where the Cosmogony is seen as a gesture of divine love. Thus, through a key concept of the Renaissance and guided by a comparative perspective, this paper aims to bring to the fore some of the Italian sources and influences on classicist artistic culture in Portugal.