The Salamander in the Furnace of the Loggia of Psyche at Villa Farnesina: Alchemy and the Hermetic Tradition in Renaissance Rome (With an Analysis of Jacopo del Sellaio’s Abegg-Stiftung Florentine Psyche Marriage Cassone Panel, as an Adaptation of Botticelli’s Primavera)

This article examines the unexplained image of a reptilian creature in the fire of a spandrel of Raphael’s Loggia of Psyche in Villa Farnesina, Rome, from the point of view of alchemy. The essay identifies the probable alchemical literary source upon which the image was based and explains its reason in the overall symbolism of the artwork. Moreover, evidence is brought to bear regarding the Cupid and Psyche myth from Apuleius’ Golden Ass in the Renaissance as being understood as an allegory of the Magnum Opus of alchemy. Alchemy and related astrology, furthermore, are here considered in relation to Hermetism within the context of the period’s notion of the prisca theologia and its learned magia. Medici household interest in the Psyche myth, as demonstrated by illustrations of Apuleius’ fable on three sets of Florentine marriage cassoni, are used as evidence to explicate this. The essay also provides plausible reasons why the patron Agostino Chigi, papal banker from Siena, likely harbored interest in alchemy and the consequent effect on the symbolism in the Loggia of Psyche it implies. The methodology employed is essentially humanistic, in that I consider medieval and Renaissance literary sources regarding the Psyche myth, but also Hermetic philosophy, astrology and alchemy to rationally explain the symbolism of the Psyche tale illustrated in the Loggia of Psyche according to the Hermetic ideals of alchemy.