“Be her sense but as a monument”

The aim of the present work is to investigate the contrasting images of Imogen presented in Cymbeline’s “bedroom scene.” In my analysis, the fragile juxtaposition of figures composing the chamber is linked to the debate surrounding the holy icons that raged in Europe between the sixteen and seventeenth centuries. Of the various consequences of this controversy, I will focus on how the amnesia of the cult of the Virgin imposed by the Reformed Church was matched by a reclaiming of the Diana cult, which, at Shakespeare’s time, became tinged with alchemic elements.

My study will be supported by a comparison between the description of Imogen’s room and Correggio’s Camera di San Paolo in Parma and Parmigianino’s Stufetta di Diana e Atteone in Fontanellato. More specifically, an examination of the complex iconographical design of these chambers suggests that the room’s decoration can be read in light of the meanings conveyed by the image of the “alchemic Diana.”