Two Cleopatras: Appropriation of Cleopatra in Renaissance imagery and portraiture

This paper explores conceptions of the classical character Cleopatra in Renaissance literature and society and their manifestations in imagery. While past scholars have traced Renaissance attitudes towards Cleopatra in general, an in depth exploration of particular reinventions of her character in artwork is missing from scholarship. The question I seek to answer is how were images of Cleopatra appropriated in the Renaissance to reflect humanist intellectual and literary developments, as well as broader cultural concerns over the nature of women and love universally? What I found was that the most effective appropriation of Cleopatra involved the use of her multi-faceted character within Quattrocento female profile portraiture. The resulting image, by Piero di Cosimo, is one that reinforces the tensions inherent in Renaissance poetic discourse on love by endowing the image of a particular Renaissance woman, Simonetta Vespucci, with the contradictory character traits of a legendary and exotic ancient one, Cleopatra.