Titian, Colonna and the Renaissance Science of Procreation

Two major monuments of Italian Renaissance culture-Bellini's and Titian's famous series of mytho-poetical "bacchanal" paintings, and Francesco Colonna's Hypnerotomachia Poliphili -are here shown to have been conceived as mnemonic or pedagogical devices aimed at educating the reader/beholder in the medical science of reproductive physiology and the maintenance of sexual health. This study clarifies the historical relationship between the pictorial and literary works and explains their larger cultural significance.