Precursors were Greek/Roman nudes: 500-400BCE Munich Statuette Esquiline Venus 350 BC Cnidian Venus of Praxiteles Venus, the Roman goddess of love Diana, the goddess of the hunt and chastity Minerva, the goddess of wisdom and the protector of warriors Rapid development of mythological nude art in 16thC. Very little in 15thC. Same reasons as drove the development of the Renaissance, High Renaissance and then into Mannerism. The rise of the rich individual patron, the focus on man as the centre of the universe, the complex associations of the nude of which we are little aware, marriage, fidelity, morality.

• Allori Nudes
• Bassano Nudes
• Bellini Nudes
• Bronzino Nudes
• Correggio Nudes
• Giorgione
• Lorenzo Lotto
• Piero di Cosimo
• Pontormo
• Raphael
• Raimondi
• Schiavone
• Sodoma
• Tintoretto
• Titian
• Veronese
• Zucchi
• Antonio Pisanello (c. 1395-c. 1455), first painter of erotic art?