Guido Reni’s Abduction of Helen: The Politics and Rhetoric of Painting in Seventeenth-Century Europe

This study explores how Guido Reni’s Abduction of Helen functioned as an instrument of political rhetoric in the context of diplomatic relations between Spain, France, and the Holy See during the Thirty Years War. The painting was commissioned amidst diplomatic negotiations between the Spanish monarchy and the papacy of Pope Urban VIII. Although actually commissioned for the King of Spain by his ambassador to the Holy See, the papacy, the author argues, sought to control the artist’s interpretation of his subject - the famous event that caused the Trojan War - by transforming it into a political metaphor alluding to the war between France and the Habsburgs. Contemporary encomia on Guido’s Abduction of Helen show that his style was perceived as analagous to the literary manner of the Seicentismo, which the Barberini papacy promoted as part of its cultural agenda.

• Unifies political and socio-historical context, rhetorical analysis and reception-history in hermeneutical framework • Includes complete edition of the two-dozen contemporary encomia (otherwise available only in rare seventeenth-century editions) • Colour and black and white illustrations of Guido’s Helen and its most significant details, along with other sixteenth- and seventeenth-century masterpieces

Introduction; 1. Origins and early history; 2. A message for Madrid; 3. The construction of fame; 4. Seicentismo and interpretation; Conclusion; Appendix.

‘… an enjoyable, yet challenging, examination into the historical, political and literary context of one particular work which stands as an exemplum of a particular genre of seventeenth-century painting.’ The Art Book