ABSTRACT
The difference between Ficino and Pico and Bembo and Castiglione is indicative of the difference between Florence and Venice. Where Florentine art is based on design, plastic firmness and tectonic structure, Venetian art is based on colour and atmosphere, pictorial succulence and musical harmony. The Florentine ideal of beauty has found its exemplary expression in statues of proudly erect Davids, the Venetian in paintings of recumbent Venuses. This contrast is significantly illustrated by two compositions, one Florentine, and one Venetian, both of which translate into images the Neoplatonic theory of love; and their mutual relationship is comparable to that between an orthodox Florentine treatise on love and Pietro Bembo's Asolani. 'Sacred and Profane Love' seems to be the only composition in which Titian paid a conscious tribute to the Neoplatonic philosophy.
