Sacred Love and Profane Love (c. 1515), 118×279 cm, oil on canvas, detail from the Borghese Gallery, Rome. This painting reflects the fervor of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation; clearly, the humble sacred love is dedicated to religion, while profane love belongs to the human world, situated between ideal and reality, conservatism and openness, heaven and earth. It is evident that this painting was commissioned by Niccolo Aurelio, secretary to the Roman Rota. Titian presents it with a poetic, implicit, and subtle technique, inspired by Francesco Colonna’s Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, published in the late fifteenth century. In this scenic landscape with clear mountains and waters, featuring a castle in the upper left and a church in the upper right, two magnificent female figures serve as symbolic signs. One wears noble and ornate attire with gloves, holding a rose symbolizing eternal love in her right hand, while leaning her left side against a bronze urn. The other, a sensual nude (Venus), leans slightly, supporting herself with her right hand, draped in red cloth and holding a bowl in her left. Like sacred and profane reflecting each other, both sit upon a sarcophagus adorned with metaphorical battle reliefs. A bronze plate lies at the center, scattered with rose petals, while a cute Cupid behind them dips his left hand into the sarcophagus pool, playing in the water. Full of mystery like a dream, the work poetically reveals the era's background and profound allegory through harmonious, perfect forms, vibrant warm tones, and rigorous symmetrical balance.