![]() ![]() ![]() Cranach's depiction of the theme was also influenced by early prints, including an engraving of about 1460 by the Master of the Banderoles. Guido's text also provides other specific details adopted by Cranach: the setting in the groves of Mount Ida, the horse tied near a tree, and the proviso that the goddesses present themselves naked to Paris. Cranach must have known either Dares's account or the medieval romances, for his Judgment of Paris follows two distinctive features of their texts: Paris as a hunter, not a shepherd as in other ancient sources, and Paris's encounter with Mercury and the three goddesses in a dream. Another well-known and widely disseminated romance was Guido delle Colonne's late-thirteenth-century Historia Destructionis Troiae (History of the Destruction of Troy). In the mid-twelfth century, the French poet BenĂ´it de Saint-Maure wrote the Roman de Troie (Romance of Troy), which was based on the purportedly eyewitness account of the destruction of the city by Dares Phrygius, a Trojan priest of Hephaestus. Paris chose Venus and embarked for Sparta to abduct Helen and bring her to Troy, thus instigating the Trojan War. After Mercury brought the goddesses to the Trojan prince, each offered him a bribe: Juno, power Minerva, all human knowledge and Venus, the love of Helen of Troy, wife of the Spartan king, Menelaus, and the world's most beautiful woman. Juno, Venus, and Minerva all claimed ownership of the prize, and Jupiter decreed that their dispute could be settled only by Paris, son of the king of Troy. This legend relates how the goddess of discord Eris, peeved at not having been invited to the wedding of Peleus and Thetis, attended unannounced and threw her golden apple, inscribed "to the fairest," into the midst of the guests. Among the most popular mythological scenes produced by Lucas Cranach the Elder and his workshop were those featuring Venus and, in particular, the Judgment of Paris. ![]()
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