HESIOD'S THEOGONY AS SOURCE OF THE ICONOLOGICAL PROGRAM OF GIORGIONE'S 'TEMPESTA'. The Poet, Amalthea, The Infant Zeus and The Muses.

This book explains how Giorgione’s famous picture shows the shepherd Hesiod undergoing his famous vision in which the Muses told him of his poetic mission; on the right the infant Zeus held by his nurse Amalthea one year after being rescued from being devoured by his father Cronus; and the altar of two columns erected by Zeus to commemorate his victory over Cronus, corresponding to his own altar with two columns in his birthplace Lyktos. The lightening is, of course, the attribute of Zeus. The muses are not seen, since Hesiod says they are ‘invisible’, but he often mentions their nine houses, shown in the painting.

Ursula Kirkendale received her PhD in historical musicology in Bonn and taught at four important American universities, until, in 1971, after only one semester at Columbia University, a speech impairment (ictus) terminated her teaching, but not her research, highly acclaimed internationally, on Caldara, Handel and Bach. Her husband, with a PhD from Vienna, is Professor Emeritus Ordinarius of music history, University of Regensburg, Accademico Filarmonico h.c. Bologna, and Honorary Professor of the University of Pavia. He has published books dealing inter alia with sixteenth-century art in Florence and Rome. The interdisciplinary work of both authors, residents of Rome, has centered on the ‘afterlife of Antiquity’.