Nowadays, with the internet available in almost every corner of the world, it is very easy to stay informed about every possible thing that might interest you.
On my recent visit to Florence and Rome a simple thought was constantly going through my mind: How and where a regular Joe got his daily dose of celebrity nudity in the old days.
I didn't really get a clear answer to the question, but I have a feeling that collecting nude celebrity photos is more recent invention. With the exception of some very wealthy figures, I doubt anyone else could come up with enough gold florins to commission a famous artist to do a nude painting or a nude sculpture.
I assume people had the same lust for nudity in the old days, as we do now, not necessary celebrity nudity, but they still liked to look at naked women. Especially paintings and sculptures of naked women, as I found on during my visit of the
Uffizi Gallery in Florence. Artist mostly got their inspiration for the portrayed nudes from stories from The Bible and ancient Greek mythology.
While I was in Florence I visited the famous Uffizi Gallery, which had been open to visitors on request since the 16th century and was officially opened to the public in 1765.
Before you enter the gallery you can check out some nice sculptures in Loggia dei Lanzi:
Clash of the Titans fans will probably be impressed by Benvenuto Cellini's Perseus with the Head of Medusa, Spartacus: Blood and Sand fans will like statue of semi-nude barbarian prisoner Thusnelda. Two other statues that caught my eye were The Rape of the Sabine Women by Giambologna and Pio Fedi's The Rape of Polyxena.
While I was walking through the gallery I couldn't quite figure out why there were so many paintings and sculptures labeled "The rape of... ". Now, behind the computer I can google things up and, lo and behold, in the old days rape also meant abduction (raptio).
Since you're not allowed to take photos in the gallery (but I took some anyway), I combined what I saw in the gallery with what I could find on the internet.
The most impressive nude paintings were probably
Botticelli's Birth of
Venus and
Hans Baldung Grien's copy of Dürer's Eve.
Here's the listing of the rest of the paintings I saw in the Uffizi Gallery.
Giovannni da san Giovannni (1590-1636): Bacco e Arianna
Tommaso di Cristoforo Fini - Masolino . (c. 1383 – c. 1447): Madonna and Child
Lorenzo di Credi (c. 1459 – 1537): Venus
Lucas Cranach the Elder (1472 – 1553): Eve
Francesco Melzi (c. 1491 – 1570): Leda and The Swan
Agnolo di Cosimo - Il Bronzino ( 1503 – 1572): Pygmalion and Galatea
Tiziano Vecellio - Titian (1490 – 1576): Venus of Urbino, Flora
Dosso (c. 1490 – 1542): Allegory
Tintoretto ( 1518 – 1594): Adam and Eve in front of God, Leda and the Swan
Scuola di Fontainebleau: Due donne al bagno
Bernardino Licinio (c. 1489 – 1565): The young woman lying
Annibale Carracci ( 1560 – 1609): Venus
While I was compiling this article I found out that I didn't see the most famous room in the Uffizzi Gallery: Tribuna of the Uffizi, an octagonal room in the gallery designed by Bernardo Buontalenti for Francesco I de' Medici in the late 1580s, the most important antiquities and High Renaissance and Bolognese paintings from the Medici collection were and still are displayed there. Beside the all of famous paintings, the nude statue of Venus de' Medici is also stored in that room. Apparently the room will be closed for restoration until June 2011.