ABSTRACT
This chapter highlights geographical and printing exchanges, possible filiations and innovations to show how iconographical decisions were always made in different editorial contexts. The circulation of printed material was thus essential in shaping the perception of erotic mythology for European readers and audiences in the Renaissance. Erotic mythology, in the way it was disseminated by print or in its literary and artistic reworkings, broadens the imaginary space of early modern reception. Uncovering the underground workings of mythology lays bare the strong erotic potential of Renaissance culture. Leonard Barkan paved the way for studies of the Ovidian influence across genres and established Shakespeare's works within the general picture of the transmission of the Metamorphoses seen as a 'history of competitive relations between the visual and the verbal'. Brown goes along the same line to suggest that the mythological coded reference becomes a way of questioning the homoerotic fantasm of a male creator.
