Leonardo da Vinci, Self Portrait, c.1510-15

This painting never gets any less funny. No, Venus did not get stung by a jellyfish … the little cupid urinating on her nude form is actually a symbol of fertility, according to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

NUDE OF THE WEEK: Raphael, La Fornarina, c.1518-19

Raphael, The Marriage of the Virgin, 1504

Michelangelo, The Last Judgement, 1537-41

Click here for the Vatican Museums’ run-down of who’s who in Michelangelo’s famous Sistine Chapel painting. My favourite figure is St Bartholomew, placed just below Christ, who is shown holding his own skin (Christian accounts tell of how he was skinned alive). The Museum explains that the figure of St Bartholomew is often believed to be a form of self portrait for Michelangelo.

Giorgione, Laura, c.1506

From the Web Gallery of Art:

The Madonna of the Goldfinch, one of Raphael’s Florentine panels, was painted by Raphael for the marriage of his friend Lorenzo Nasi and Sandra di Matteo di Giovanni Canigiani. It was severely damaged following the partial collapse of the Nasi house in 1547, as mentioned by Vasari. It was subsequently restored by Ridolfo del Ghirlandaio, the son of the artist who was deeply influenced by Raphael.

The Christ Child is lovingly stroking a goldfinch that the boy Baptist has just given him. A symbol of the Passion (the goldfinch, because it feeds among thorns) is thus combined in a scene that can at a first level of meaning be seen simply as children at play.