Editing Prometheus (section)

==Renaissance==
[[File:Piero di cosimo, prometeo.jpg|thumb|upright=1.25|Mythological narrative of Prometheus by [[Piero di Cosimo]] (1515)]]
After the writings of both Boccaccio and Ficino in the late Middle Ages about Prometheus, interest in the Titan shifted considerably in the direction of becoming subject matter for painters and sculptors alike. Among the most famous examples is that of [[Piero di Cosimo]] from about 1510 presently on display at the museums of Munich and Strasburg (see Inset). Raggio summarises the Munich version<ref>Munich, ''Alte Pinakothek'', Katalog, 1930, no. 8973. Strasburg, ''Musee des Beaux Arts'', Catalog, 1932, no. 225.</ref> as follows; "The Munich panel represents the dispute between Epimetheus and Prometheus, the handsome triumphant statue of the new man, modelled by Prometheus, his ascension to the sky under the guidance of [[Minerva]]; the Strasburg panel shows in the distance Prometheus lighting his torch at the wheels of the Sun, and in the foreground on one side, Prometheus applying his torch to the heart of the statue and, on the other, [[Mercury (mythology)|Mercury]] fastening him to a tree." All the details are evidently borrowed from [[Boccaccio]]'s ''Genealogiae''.

The same reference to the ''Genealogiae'' can be cited as the source for the drawing by [[Parmigianino]] presently located in the [[Morgan Library & Museum]] in New York City.<ref>''Parmigianino: The Drawings'', Sylvie Beguin et al. {{ISBN|88-422-1020-X}}.</ref> In the drawing, a very noble rendering of Prometheus is presented which evokes the memory of Michelangelo's works portraying [[Jehovah]]. This drawing is perhaps one of the most intense examples of the visualisation of the myth of Prometheus from the Renaissance period.

Writing in the late British Renaissance, [[William Shakespeare]] uses the Promethean allusion in the famous death scene of [[Desdemona]] in his tragedy of ''[[Othello]]''. Othello in contemplating the death of Desdemona asserts plainly that he cannot restore the "Promethean heat" to her body once it has been extinguished. For Shakespeare, the allusion is clearly to the interpretation of the fire from the heat as the bestowing of life to the creation of man from clay by Prometheus after it was stolen from Olympus. The analogy bears direct resemblance to the biblical narrative of the creation of life in Adam through the bestowed breathing of the creator in Genesis. Shakespeare's symbolic reference to the "heat" associated with Prometheus' fire is to the association of the gift of fire to the mythological gift or theological gift of life to humans.