For many years scholars have been aware that Michelangelo included his own image in his art. In this study, Edith Balas discusses two previously unrecognized double self-portraits. The earliest of these, a statue known as the Victory, was a private project in which an aging Michelangelo of depicted himself surmounted by an idealized alter ego, a figure associated with his younger self, his beloved friend Tommaso Cavalieri, and the David and Goliath theme that preoccupied him through much of his career. In the second of these double self-portraits, The Conversion of Paul in the Pauline Chapel...

Although much has been written over the years about the ancient mystery religions and their influence on the intellectual life of the Renaissance, scholars have neglected their role in art. This is a serious omission in the case of one of the most popular cultic deities, the Mother Goddess, whose colorful myths and exotic rites, described in fascinating detail by classical authors, became a rich source of imagery for Renaissance writers, antiquarians, and artists. She was especially important to the Neoplatonist philosophers of the period, for whom she embodied the idea of love as the great...