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A puer mingēns (; : puerī mingentēs ) is a figure in a work of art depicted as a prepubescent boy in the act of urinating, either actual or simulated. The puer mingens could represent anything from whimsy and boyish innocence to erotic symbols of virility and masculine bravado.
The term ''puer mingens'' comes from the Latin ''puer'', meaning "boy", and from the Latin ''mingens''; "urinating", the present participle of the verb ''mingere'' which means "to urinate".
In Latin, verbs for urinating like ''mingere'' were frequently employed in the sense of "to ejaculate".Adams, J. N. ''The Latin Sexual Vocabulary''. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1982. This connotation was preserved in various descendants of Latin, including Italian with such words as ''pisciare''. On account of this, the urine emitted from the penis of the ''puer mingens'' can be interpreted symbolically as semen; and ''pueri mingentes'' are frequently found in works auguring fertility and fecundity. Lorenzo Lotto's ''Venus and Cupid'' is an example.
In several languages, such as Italian, French, and English, "to make water" was a euphemism for urinating. In allusion to this, one can find depictions of a ''puer mingens'' "making water" in works such as
In Roman times the puer mingens was generally found in depictions of Bacchic rites on children's sarcophagi. From the Renaissance onward, the puer mingens can be found in both secular and religious art and across a range of media, from illuminated manuscripts, functional fountains, frescoes, to apotropaic amulets.
Owing to the abovementioned associations with fertility, pueri mingentes are found on deschi da parto – trays given to pregnant women and those who had recently given birth in order to betoken and celebrate the healthy birth of male offspring. Paintings intended as wedding gifts, such as Lorenzo Lotto's '' Venus and Cupid'', might also feature urinating boys.
The puer mingens was prominently incorporated into fountains that would shoot water out of the statue's penis. Although this artistic motif is Roman in origin, there is scant attestation of working fountains incorporating pueri mingentes in Roman times; the Romans did, however, have functional statues portraying the adult Priapus urinating, which may have inspired the Renaissance development of statues of urinating boys. In addition to public spaces, such as ''Manneken Piss location in central Brussels, functional fountains also graced many private sixteenth- and seventeenth-century gardens across Europe.
File:Andrea Vaccaro - Susanna and the Elders.jpg, A puer mingens statue in ''Susanna and the Elders'' by Andrea Vaccaro, 1650s
File:Nymph and Puer Mingens.jpg, A puer mingens next to a nymph pouring water, 1526–1528, Palazzo del Te, Mantua
File:Rembrandt - The Abduction of Ganymede - Google Art Project - cropped.jpg, A puer mingens showing Ganymede with his buttocks and penis exposed, and urinating from fright while being taken away by Jupiter as an eagle, '' The Rape of Ganymede'' (1635) at Staatliche Kunstsammlungen in Dresden
File:Putto mingens.jpg, A close up view of a puer mingens by
Etymology and word play
The term ''puer mingens'' comes from the Latin ''puer'', meaning "boy", and from the Latin ''mingens''; "urinating", the present participle of the verb ''mingere'' which means "to urinate".
In Latin, verbs for urinating like ''mingere'' were frequently employed in the sense of "to ejaculate".Adams, J. N. ''The Latin Sexual Vocabulary''. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1982. This connotation was preserved in various descendants of Latin, including Italian with such words as ''pisciare''. On account of this, the urine emitted from the penis of the ''puer mingens'' can be interpreted symbolically as semen; and ''pueri mingentes'' are frequently found in works auguring fertility and fecundity. Lorenzo Lotto's ''Venus and Cupid'' is an example.
In several languages, such as Italian, French, and English, "to make water" was a euphemism for urinating. In allusion to this, one can find depictions of a ''puer mingens'' "making water" in works such as Michelangelo
Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni (6March 147518February 1564), known mononymously as Michelangelo, was an Italian sculptor, painter, architect, and poet of the High Renaissance. Born in the Republic of Florence, his work was inspir ...
's ''Children's Bacchanal'', or in church lavabos whose waterspouts are positioned in front of naked boys' groins (thereby giving the illusion that their urine has been transformed into water). ''Pueri mingentes'' were frequently incorporated as fully functioning statues whose pipes shot forth streams of water out of the statues' penises.Coonin, A. Victor. ''The Spirit of Water: Reconsidering the Putto Mictans Sculpture in Renaissance Florence''. Italica Press, New York, 2013. One of the most famous examples of this is ''Manneken Pis
(; ) is a landmark bronze fountain sculpture in central Brussels, Belgium, depicting a puer mingens; a Nudity, naked little boy urinating into the fountain's basin. Though its existence is attested as early as the mid-15th century, ''Manneke ...
'' in Brussels
Brussels, officially the Brussels-Capital Region, (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) is a Communities, regions and language areas of Belgium#Regions, region of Belgium comprising #Municipalit ...
.
Renaissance revivals of puer mingens
Pueri mingentes are a classical motif occasionally found in antiquity. Ancient Roman examples of pueri mingentes occurred mainly on children'ssarcophagi
A sarcophagus (: sarcophagi or sarcophaguses) is a coffin, most commonly carved in stone, and usually displayed above ground, though it may also be buried. The word ''sarcophagus'' comes from the Greek σάρξ ' meaning "flesh", and φ ...
.
The puer mingens was revived during the Renaissance
The Renaissance ( , ) is a Periodization, period of history and a European cultural movement covering the 15th and 16th centuries. It marked the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and was characterized by an effort to revive and sur ...
.Lavin, M. ''Art of the Misbegotten: Physicality and the Divine in Renaissance Images''. Donatello
Donato di Niccolò di Betto Bardi ( – 13 December 1466), known mononymously as Donatello (; ), was an Italian Renaissance sculpture, Italian sculptor of the Renaissance period. Born in Republic of Florence, Florence, he studied classical sc ...
, who paved the way in the reinvention of the larger motif of the putti in sculpture, depicted one of the earliest Renaissance examples of a puer mingens on the base of his Judith and Holofernes statue. From its revival in 15th-century Florence, the artistic motif of urinating boys spread throughout the rest of Europe, reaching its height of popularity during the late Renaissance in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries before gradually receding in popularity.
Pueri mingentes locations
In Roman times the puer mingens was generally found in depictions of Bacchic rites on children's sarcophagi. From the Renaissance onward, the puer mingens can be found in both secular and religious art and across a range of media, from illuminated manuscripts, functional fountains, frescoes, to apotropaic amulets.
Owing to the abovementioned associations with fertility, pueri mingentes are found on deschi da parto – trays given to pregnant women and those who had recently given birth in order to betoken and celebrate the healthy birth of male offspring. Paintings intended as wedding gifts, such as Lorenzo Lotto's '' Venus and Cupid'', might also feature urinating boys.
The puer mingens was prominently incorporated into fountains that would shoot water out of the statue's penis. Although this artistic motif is Roman in origin, there is scant attestation of working fountains incorporating pueri mingentes in Roman times; the Romans did, however, have functional statues portraying the adult Priapus urinating, which may have inspired the Renaissance development of statues of urinating boys. In addition to public spaces, such as ''Manneken Piss location in central Brussels, functional fountains also graced many private sixteenth- and seventeenth-century gardens across Europe.
Gallery
Annibale Carracci
Annibale Carracci ( , , ; November 3, 1560 – July 15, 1609) was an Italian painter and instructor, active in Bologna and later in Rome. Along with his brother Agostino Carracci, Agostino and cousin Ludovico Carracci, Ludovico (with whom the Ca ...
, 1600, Palazzo Farnese
Palazzo Farnese () or Farnese Palace is one of the most important High Renaissance palaces in Rome. Owned by the Italian Republic, it was given to the French government in 1936 for a period of 99 years, and currently serves as the French e ...
, Rome
File:Villa giulia, portici con affreschi di pietro venale e altri, pergolato 47 putto che fa pipi.jpg, A puer mingens on the ceiling of the Villa Giulia, Rome
File:Bacanal de los andrios.jpg, A puer mingens painted in '' The Bacchanal of the Andrians'' by Titian
Tiziano Vecellio (; 27 August 1576), Latinized as Titianus, hence known in English as Titian ( ), was an Italian Renaissance painter, the most important artist of Renaissance Venetian painting. He was born in Pieve di Cadore, near Belluno.
Ti ...
, 1523–1526, Museo del Prado, Madrid
File:Hypnérotomachie - éd. Martin - p28r.jpeg, Woodcut of a puer mingens, from the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, 1499
File:Pierino da vinci, putto da una fontana, 1540 ca. da fraternita dei laici, 02.JPG, A puer mingens statue with a mask covering its genitals, Pierino da Vinci, 1540s, Museo nazionale d'arte medievale e moderna della Basilicata, Matera
Matera (, ; Neapolitan language, Materano: ) is a city and the capital of the Province of Matera in the regions of Italy, region of Basilicata, in Southern Italy. With a history of continuous occupation dating back to the Palaeolithic (10th mi ...
, Italy
File:Boy as Fountain Figure by Andrea della Robbia, Florence, c. 1490, glazed baked clay - Bode-Museum - DSC03732.JPG, A glazed terracotta
Terracotta, also known as terra cotta or terra-cotta (; ; ), is a clay-based non-vitreous ceramic OED, "Terracotta""Terracotta" MFA Boston, "Cameo" database fired at relatively low temperatures. It is therefore a term used for earthenware obj ...
statue of a puer mingens, Andrea della Robbia, c. 1490, Bode Museum, Berlin
File:Bartolomeo Di Fruosino - Desco da parto (verso) - WGA01342.jpg, A puer mingens on a desco da parto, Bartolomeo di Fruosino, 1428, New York Historical Society
File:Breviarium Grimani - Februar.jpg, A puer mingens depicted in the '' Grimani Breviary'', c. 1510, Biblioteca Marciana
The Marciana Library or Library of Saint Mark (, but in historical documents commonly referred to as the ) is a public library in Venice, Italy. It is one of the earliest surviving public libraries and repositories for manuscripts in Italy and ...
, Venice
See also
* Putti – Artistic depictions of naked boys *Manneken Pis
(; ) is a landmark bronze fountain sculpture in central Brussels, Belgium, depicting a puer mingens; a Nudity, naked little boy urinating into the fountain's basin. Though its existence is attested as early as the mid-15th century, ''Manneke ...
(1619) – A bronze statue in Brussels of a naked little boy urinating
* Tea pet
References
External links
* {{Commons category-inline, Pueri mingentes Latin words and phrases Renaissance art Visual motifs Iconography Phallic monuments Ornaments Urine in art