Diana and Endymion or Venus and Adonis

Nobody is quite sure which myth this shows. It was painted as the companion to Tintoretto's weaving contest of Minerva and Arachne, the two canvases made for the same Venetian ceiling around 1575 to 1585, both probably octagonal and both meant to be read from below. The subject of this one has never been settled. Some see Diana, goddess of the moon, leaning over the sleeping shepherd Endymion; others read it as Venus with her mortal lover Adonis. The gestures fit either story, and the painting carries no inscription to decide it. Like its partner, it left Venice long ago and came to Florence with the collection of Alessandro and Vittoria Contini Bonacossi, bequeathed to the Florentine galleries in 1969, and it went on public view at the Uffizi only in 2018. The two lovers meet near the top edge, seen at the steep upward angle the ceiling once demanded.