Il Bagno di Diana

Pierre Klossowski’s book describes and deciphers every detail of the famous story of Diana and Actaeon, dividing the painting into a network of fascinating symbolic elements. The frescoes of the Rocca Sanvitale in Fontanellato accompany the tale with their putti and adolescent nymphs, painted by an artist himself hardly more than an adolescent (Parmigianino was just twenty when he painted them). Here, the elegances of Mannerism, often pointed out as sophisticated and neurotic, appear young, natural and fragrant. All wrapped up in an excellent translation by Giancarlo Marmori, with a note on Parmigianino’s frescoes in Fontanellato by Vittorio Sgarbi.