Titian's 'Venus of Urbino'

With the revival of Plato's writings in the 15th century, Venus made a comeback, split of course, into naughty Venus Naturalis or Vulgaris - the extravagance of erotic visions seen above in Titian’s Venus of Urbino (1538) - and the demure Venus Coelestis (Heavenly Venus) like in Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus (1484-86) shown below.

Therefore, let there be two Venuses in the soul, the one heavenly, the other earthly. Let them both have a love, the Heavenly for the reflection upon divine beauty, the earthly for generating divine beauty in earthly. – from Ficino's Commentary on Plato's Symposium

Mark Twain affectionately dubbed Titian’s painting “the foulest, the vilest, the obscenest picture the world possesses.” Byron adored it too. And Botticelli’s Venus is one of the most homaged and parodied images in popular culture.

Below is a real life Venus: Piero di Cosimo's Portrait de femme dit de Simonetta Vespucci (1480's). Said to be one of the greatest beauties of the age, she is thought to have inspired Botticelli's Venus. She was already dead at this point, in 1476, aged only 23.

In Lorenzo Lotto's Venus and Cupid (1520's), shown below, traditional critics see a bride and symbols of fertility, while others see hints of alchemy. It's definitely an odd painting and Lotto was one of the oddest painters of the Venetian Renaissance.

Some critics see incest in Agnolo Bronzino's Venus, Cupid, Folly and Time (circa 1545), with Cupid on the left grabbing her breast and closing in for an erotic kiss. Venus has the arrow though...