Elisabetta Gonzaga come Danae nella medaglia di Adriano Fiorentino (1495)

Adriano Fiorentino's medal for Elisabetta Gonzaga (1495) exhibits on its reverse a naked woman, lying on a bed, under a rain of fiery flames. In 1985 Salvatore Settis identified the figure as Danae impregnated by Zeus' golden rain. Acrisius' daughter, who was locked up in a tower, was considered a negative character by the Fathers of the Church, like an allegory of pudicitia mulieris auro corrupta (Augustine, De Civitate Dei XVIII, 13), then in the Middle Ages she was rehabilitated as imago Pudicitiae, until Danae was considered a prefiguration of Virgin Mary, impregnated by the Holy Spirit. The reasons why Elisabetta Gonzaga chose the character of Danae for her medal are explained in the essay. The Duchess of Urbino, a loving and faithful wife, was doomed to sterility because of her husband's known impotence, but she hoped for a miraculous impregnation: the motto on the medal – HOC FUGIENTI FORTUNAE DICATIS – is an expression of her hope, suggesting that Elisabetta, like Danae, had dedicated herself to 'Fortuna fugiens', the instant and unexpected Fortune. In 1495 Elizabeth still hoped she would share Danae's fate. Pietro Bembo appears as one of main characters of Baldassare Castiglione's The Book of the Courtier, near the lady Elisabetta, which leads the overnight dialogues: at the center of the Palace, Elisabetta, as a model of courtesy and grace, is alone, without the Duke because of his sickness and infirmity. After the Dukes of Urbino died, Bembo dedicated an eulogy to them, De Guido Ubaldo Feretrio et Elisabetha Gonzaga Urbini Ducibus, in which he revealed in detail Elisabetta's unhappiness due to infertility: in the eulogy Bembo called his loved friend Elisabetta "a golden virgin", like Danae.