“Consideraciones sobre la iconografía e iconología del mito de Ganímedes, el troyano, a través del arte antiguo y medieval”

Abstract

There are many versions of the myth of Ganymede in Greco-Latin classical literature. In spite of the differences detected in the Iliad, the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite or Ovid's Metamophoses, among athers, every written source coincides in describing Zeus carrying off a Trojan boy of unparalleled beauty, who he falls in love with and to whom he offers both immortality and eternal youth. The literary sources are varied, but the iconographies that range between the most solemn forms presenting the kidnapping concealed either as a storm or as an kidnapping eagle, or the more risque ones showing Ganymede seduced by Zeus have been more diverse. However, the most important iconography of the myth of myth of Ganymede is the one showing him in the trade he was assigned on arriving at Olympus: serving nectar at banquets. This iconography, transformed to the constellation of Ganymede, Aquarius, passed to the Middle Ages and Has survived till nowadays. During classical antiquity, the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, the Baroque and neoclassical periods, Ganymede was used as a vehicle to express very diverse attitudes towards homosexuality, artistically and literarily, going from clear acceptance to heroic exaltation, passing through more or less explicit erotic visions.