Uranus1.0002

Giorgio Vasari, 1511-1574. "Crono (Saturno) castra con la falce Urano, il dio greco del cielo (prima di Zeus)," (Cronus castrates Uranus with his sickle), ceiling painting, oil on panel, representing the element of Air, ca. 1556, Sala degli Elementi, Palazzo Vecchio, Florence.

The sickle/scythe Cronus uses to depose his father becomes the identifying icon used by Cronus/Saturn throughout his iconography. Whether it is the tool Saturn wields as the agrarian deity of Hesperia (e.g. Gherardi, Cronus1.0015, in the room next door) or the secondary identifier in Rubens' "Saturn Devouring One of His Sons", the sharpened tool often appears in Cronus' hand. And then in post-classical adaptations of the Cronus myth that tool becomes the impliment carried by Father Time (Chronos).

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Bibliography

Provincia di Arezzo. Giorgio Vasari. Exhibition catalog (Florence: EDAM 1981), no. 5.34c
Sinibaldi, Giulia. 1950 The Palazzo Vecchio in Florence. 2nd edition. Guide-Books to the Museums and Monuments of Italy, 39. Rome: Libreria dello Stato, for Ministero della Pubblica Istruzione, Florence. pp. 13, 22.