Intact Gallery

A Gallery of Intact Penises in Art

3. The Renaissance.

Thousands of statues and paintings featuring nude male figures - virtually all intact - were created during the Renaissance, when Christian diffidence gave way before ideals of classical beauty. This is only a small selection.

Tommaso
Masaccio
(Active ~1401
-1428)
shows Adam's
foreskin as
short or
partly retracted.

Adam's penis

Capella Brancacci, Chiesa del Carmine, Florence

The Rape of Persephone (c.1502) by Pinturicchio (1454–1513)
Persephone/Proserpina, daughter of Demeter/Ceres, was carried of to the Underworld by Hades/Pluto.
The fresco is the more remarkable for being in a space devoted to Pope Pius II

vault of the Piccolomini Library, Duomo, Siena

Leonardo's Vitruvian man

Vitruvian man's penis
Leonardo da Vinci's "Vitruvian man" is much copied - though his intact penis is seldom shown clearly.

Leonardo's standing man

Again, in a few simple strokes, Leonardo indicates the corona, the acroposthion - and the assymetrical testicles.

Leonardo da Vinci
A nude man standing facing the spectator
property of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II
(Royal Library at Windsor)

Creation of Adam

Adam's penis
One of the best known nude male images in the world. Michaelangelo's Adam is portrayed with a baby's penis - presumably to indicate his innocence.
As such, this is quite accurate - a baby's foreskin may extend far beyond the end of his glans. (The closeup was taken after the recent restoration.)

Ignudo Ignudo's penis
One of the enigmatic male nudes (ignudi) on the Sistine Chapel ceiling. He is portrayed with a small adult penis.

David David's penis
David's penis is relatively small, probably to avoid attracting attention (the viewers' eyes are level with his feet), and following classical ideals. He is intact because:

Michaelangelo preferred it
his model was (of course) intact
Michaelangelo had regard to the midrash (Men 43 6) that David "looked on himself in the bath and was distressed he had no evidence of a covenant fulfilled" and had himself (re-)circumcised (Encyclopedia Judaica)
the ancient Israelite circumcision was minimal, and/or
it isn't of the Biblical David at all. Some art historians believe that David was actually the name of the model who posed for the statue, and that Michaelangelo claimed the Biblical reference to make it acceptable to the Christian world.

Hercules by Vincenzo de' Rossi
(1525-1587)

Palazzo Vecchio, Florence



	Jacopo Pontormo, Vertumnus and Pomona, fresco in the Villa Medici, Poggio a Caiano (Florence), 1519 - 21

Allegory of
the Victory
of Honesty
over Deceit
by Vincenzo Danti
(1530-76)

Boboli Gardens, Florence



Mercury, by Johann Gregor van der Schardt (c. 1570-80) has a flaring, detailed acroposthion.

- the Getty Center


The Fontana delle Tartarughe (Fountain of the Tortoises) in Piazza Mattei, Rome, was designed in 1581 by Giacomo della Porta, with bronze figures by Taddeo Landini. This replica was made in the early 20th century and installed in its present location, Huntington Park, San Francisco, in 1954.

	The cyclops' penis is boyish after the classical manner, with a long foreskin...	...and a detailed acroposthion. (c.1597)
Polyphemus and Acis		Polyphemus and Galatea
after Annibale Carracci (1560-1609)

Biblioteca Ambrosiana
Milan

Next (post-Renaissance)

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	Leonardo da Vinci's "Vitruvian man" is much copied - though his intact penis is seldom shown clearly.


	Again, in a few simple strokes, Leonardo indicates the corona, the acroposthion - and the assymetrical testicles.


	One of the best known nude male images in the world. Michaelangelo's Adam is portrayed with a baby's penis - presumably to indicate his innocence.
As such, this is quite accurate - a baby's foreskin may extend far beyond the end of his glans. (The closeup was taken after the recent restoration.)