Sacred and Profane Love

A clothed woman in silk sits at the left of an antique sarcophagus filled with water. A nude woman sits at the right, holding a lamp. Between them, a cupid stirs the water. For centuries the pair were read as Sacred vs Profane Love — but modern scholars increasingly argue they are the same woman, twinned: the earthly Venus and her heavenly counterpart, from the neoplatonic doctrine of the two Venuses. The debate is 500 years old. Now at Galleria Borghese, Rome @galleriaborghese