Procne e Tereo nei testi tragici e nelle opere pittoriche tra XVI e XVII secolo. Alterne vicende di un mito tra fortuna e damnatio memoriae

Anna Maria Cavanna

Abstract:

This essay examines the critical fortune of the myth of Procne, Philomela and Tereus through some sixteenth-century dramatic rewritings mainly based on the poetic version by Ovid (Met. 6.412-674): the tragedies written by Parabosco (1548), Correr (1427/28) and Domenichi (1561) as well as the Italian translations by Dolce, Simeoni, and Anguillara.
These tragedies return to the darkest plots of ancient mythology and represent the descent of the soul into hell, victim of the barbarism of the darker passions. The illustrated translations of Ovid’s Metamorphoses published in Italy, France and Germany during the sixteenth century came out accompanied by a rich corpus of xilographies, which describes the most dramatic scenes of the myth.
Following the recommendation of Horace's Ars poetica, the tragic poet must avoid representing on stage the metamorphosis of Procne and Philomela into birds. Indeed, the last scene, in which the curse is uttered by the father, butcher of all his family, strikes audience minds with horror.
Hence, the playwrights in Renaissance Venice did not usually really stage their tragedies about Procne’s character. In much the same way, artists focused their attention on this cruel history, but they did not reveal the most repugnant details of it — with the exception of Pieter Paul Rubens (Madrid, Prado) who chose to depict the exact moment when, after eating the dinner served to him, the Thracian king requests his son’s presence. At this moment, the two women, driven mad in the face of their imminent vengeance, show him the head of the victim upon a dish.
At the end of this paper we will demonstrate how the Tereus’ banquet of Mattia Preti (Carpi, Museo Civico) has been modified by the collector hiding its most horrifying detail (Iti’s severed head), in order not to upset the sensitivity of the watchers.