La bellezza maschile -- Amore

Speranza

Surmounting Amore’s lubriciously displayed back is his bold stare, with which, turning, he regards and transfixes the beholder.
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The literary
ekphrasis of Amore’s body not only facilitates the gen-eration of a strongly eroticised iconography of the god, but the visual tropes of Amore redirect and transform the conventionally gendered scenarios of

Petrarchan desire with which we began.