Editing Athena (section)

==Post-classical culture==
===Art and symbolism===
[[File:Austria Parlament Athena bw.jpg|thumb|right|upright=1.3|Statue of Pallas Athena in front of the [[Austrian Parliament Building]]. Athena has been used throughout Western history as a symbol of freedom and democracy.{{sfn|Deacy|2008|pages=145–149}}]]

Early Christian writers, such as [[Clement of Alexandria]] and [[Julius Firmicus Maternus|Firmicus]], denigrated Athena as representative of all the things that were detestable about paganism;{{sfn|Deacy|2008|pages=141–144}} they condemned her as "immodest and immoral".{{sfn|Deacy|2008|page=144}} During the Middle Ages, however, many attributes of Athena were given to the [[Virgin Mary]],{{sfn|Deacy|2008|page=144}} who, in fourth-century portrayals, was often depicted wearing the [[Gorgoneion]].{{sfn|Deacy|2008|page=144}} Some even viewed the Virgin Mary as a warrior maiden, much like Athena Parthenos;{{sfn|Deacy|2008|page=144}} one anecdote tells that the Virgin Mary once appeared upon the walls of [[Constantinople]] when it was under siege by the Avars, clutching a spear and urging the people to fight.{{sfn|Deacy|2008|pages=144–145}} During the Middle Ages, Athena became widely used as a Christian symbol and allegory, and she appeared on the family crests of certain noble houses.{{sfn|Deacy|2008|pages=146–148}}

During the Renaissance, Athena donned the mantle of patron of the arts and human endeavor;{{sfn|Deacy|2008|pages=145–146}} allegorical paintings involving Athena were a favorite of the Italian Renaissance painters.{{sfn|Deacy|2008|pages=145–146}} In [[Sandro Botticelli]]'s painting ''[[Pallas and the Centaur]]'', probably painted sometime in the 1480s, Athena is the personification of chastity, who is shown grasping the forelock of a centaur, who represents lust.{{sfn|Randolph|2002|page=221}}{{sfn|Deacy|2008|page=145}} [[Andrea Mantegna]]'s 1502 painting ''[[Triumph of the Virtues (Mantegna)|Minerva Expelling the Vices from the Garden of Virtue]]'' uses Athena as the personification of Graeco-Roman learning chasing the vices of medievalism from the garden of modern scholarship.{{sfn|Brown|2007|page=1}}{{sfn|Deacy|2008|page=145}}{{sfn|Aghion|Barbillon|Lissarrague|1996|pages=193–194}} Athena is also used as the personification of wisdom in [[Bartholomeus Spranger]]'s 1591 painting ''The Triumph of Wisdom'' or ''Minerva Victorious over Ignorance''.{{sfn|Aghion|Barbillon|Lissarrague|1996|page=194}}

During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Athena was used as a symbol for female rulers.{{sfn|Deacy|2008|page=147-148}} In his book ''A Revelation of the True Minerva'' (1582), [[Thomas Blennerhassett]] portrays [[Elizabeth I of England|Queen Elizabeth I of England]] as a "new Minerva" and "the greatest goddesse nowe on earth".{{sfn|Deacy|2008|page=147}} A series of paintings by [[Peter Paul Rubens]] depict Athena as [[Marie de' Medici]]'s patron and mentor;{{sfn|Deacy|2008|page=148}} the final painting in the series goes even further and shows Marie de' Medici with Athena's iconography, as the mortal incarnation of the goddess herself.{{sfn|Deacy|2008|page=148}} The Flemish sculptor [[Jean-Pierre-Antoine Tassaert]] (Jan Peter Anton Tassaert) later portrayed [[Catherine II of Russia]] as Athena in a marble bust in 1774.{{sfn|Aghion|Barbillon|Lissarrague|1996|page=194}} During the [[French Revolution]], statues of pagan gods were torn down all throughout France, but statues of Athena were not.{{sfn|Deacy|2008|page=148}} Instead, Athena was transformed into the personification of freedom and the republic{{sfn|Deacy|2008|page=148}} and a statue of the goddess stood in the center of the [[Place de la Revolution]] in Paris.{{sfn|Deacy|2008|page=148}} In the years following the Revolution, artistic representations of Athena proliferated.{{sfn|Deacy|2008|pages=148–149}}

A statue of Athena stands directly in front of the [[Austrian Parliament Building]] in Vienna,{{sfn|Deacy|2008|page=149}} and depictions of Athena have influenced other symbols of Western freedom, including the [[Statue of Liberty]] and [[Britannia]].{{sfn|Deacy|2008|page=149}} For over a century, [[Parthenon (Nashville)|a full-scale replica of the Parthenon]] has stood in [[Nashville, Tennessee]].{{sfn|Garland|2008|page=330}} In 1990, the curators added a gilded forty-two-foot (12.5 m) tall [[Athena Parthenos#Replica at Nashville|replica of Phidias's ''Athena Parthenos'']], built from concrete and fiberglass.{{sfn|Garland|2008|page=330}} The [[Great Seal of California]] bears the image of Athena kneeling next to a brown grizzly bear.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.learncalifornia.org/doc.asp?id=97 |title=Symbols of the Seal of California |publisher=LearnCalifornia.org |access-date=25 August 2010 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101124160916/http://learncalifornia.org/doc.asp?id=97 |archive-date=24 November 2010}}</ref> Athena has occasionally appeared on modern coins, as she did on the ancient Athenian [[Ancient drachma|drachma]]. Her head appears on the $50 1915-S [[Panama–Pacific commemorative coins|Panama-Pacific commemorative coin]].{{sfn|Swiatek|Breen|1981|pages=201–202}}

<gallery mode="packed" heights="200">
File:Minerva-Vedder-Highsmith-detail-1.jpeg|''Minerva of Peace'' mosaic in the [[Library of Congress]]
File:Rubens peace-war.jpg|''[[Minerva Protecting Peace from Mars]]'' (1629) by Peter Paul Rubens
File:Minerve chassant les Vices du jardin des Vertus, Mantegna (Louvre INV 371) 02.jpg|''[[Triumph of the Virtues (Mantegna)|Minerva Expelling the Vices from the Garden of Virtue]]'' (1502) by [[Andrea Mantegna]]{{sfn|Brown|2007|page=1}}{{sfn|Deacy|2008|page=145}}{{sfn|Aghion|Barbillon|Lissarrague|1996|pages=193–194}}
File:Palas y el Centauro.jpg|''[[Pallas and the Centaur]]'' ({{circa}} 1482) by [[Sandro Botticelli]]
File:Bartholomäus Spranger 017.jpg|''Minerva Victorious over Ignorance'' ({{circa}} 1591) by [[Bartholomeus Spranger]]
File:Peter Paul Rubens - Marie de Medicis as Bellona2.jpg|''Maria de Medici'' (1622) by [[Peter Paul Rubens]], showing her as the incarnation of Athena{{sfn|Deacy|2008|page=148}}
File:Rene Antoine Houasse - Minerva and the Triumph of Jupiter, 1706.jpg|''[[Minerva]] and the Triumph of [[Jupiter (mythology)|Jupiter]]'' (1706) by [[René-Antoine Houasse]]
File:Griepenkerl, Beseelung der menschlichen Tonfigur durch Athena.jpg|[[Prometheus]] watches Athena endow his creation with reason (painting by [[Christian Griepenkerl]], 1877).
File:Athena Scorning the Advances of Hephaestus.jpg|''Athena Scorning the Advances of Hephaestus'' ({{circa}} 1555–1560) by [[Paris Bordone]]
File:The Combat of Ares and Athena.jpg|''[[Minerva Fighting Mars]]'' (1771) by [[Jacques-Louis David]]
File:The Combat of Mars and Minerva.jpg|''The Combat of Mars and Minerva'' (1771) by [[Joseph-Benoît Suvée]]
File:Pompeii - Casa del Menandro - Menelaos.jpg|alt=Pompeii's Roman fresco shows Ajax dragging Cassandra away from palladium in the fall of Troy, event that provoked Athena's wrath to Greek armies[49]|[[Pompeii]]'s Roman fresco shows [[Ajax the Lesser|Ajax]] dragging [[Cassandra]] away from ''[[Palladium (classical antiquity)|palladium]]'' in the [[fall of Troy]], event that provoked Athena's wrath to Greek armies{{sfn|Deacy|2008|p=163}}
File:Giuseppe Bottani - Athena revealing Ithaca to Ulysses.jpg|''Minerva Revealing Ithaca to Ulysses'' (fifteenth century) by [[Giuseppe Bottani]]
File:Seal of California.png|Athena on the [[Great Seal of California]]
</gallery>

===Modern interpretations===
[[File:Hellen altar.png|thumb|Modern [[Modern Paganism|Neopagan]] [[Hellenism (religion)|Hellenist]] altar dedicated to Athena and [[Apollo]]]]

One of [[Sigmund Freud]]'s most treasured possessions was a small, bronze sculpture of Athena, which sat on his desk.{{sfn|Deacy|2008|page=153}} Freud once described Athena as "a woman who is unapproachable and repels all sexual desires{{snd}} since she displays the terrifying genitals of the Mother".{{sfn|Deacy|2008|page=154}} [[Feminism|Feminist]] views on Athena are sharply divided;{{sfn|Deacy|2008|page=154}} some regard her as "the ultimate [[Patriarchy|patriarchal]] sell out&nbsp;... who uses her powers to promote and advance men rather than others of her sex",{{sfn|Deacy|2008|page=154}} while some feminists regard her as a symbol of female empowerment,{{sfn|Deacy|2008|page=154}} In contemporary [[Wicca]], Athena is venerated as an aspect of the [[Wiccan views of divinity|Goddess]]{{sfn|Gallagher|2005|page=109}} and some Wiccans believe that she may bestow the "Owl Gift" ("the ability to write and communicate clearly") upon her worshippers.{{sfn|Gallagher|2005|page=109}} Due to her status as one of the twelve Olympians, Athena is a major deity in [[Hellenism (religion)|Hellenismos]],{{sfn|Alexander|2007|pages=31–32}} a [[Modern Paganism|Neopagan]] religion which seeks to authentically revive and recreate the religion of ancient Greece in the modern world.{{sfn|Alexander|2007|pages=11–20}}

Athena is a natural patron of universities: At [[Bryn Mawr College]] in Pennsylvania, a statue of Athena (a replica of the original bronze one in the arts and archaeology library) resides in the Great Hall.{{sfn|Friedman|2005|page=121}} It is traditional at exam time for students to leave offerings to the goddess with a note asking for good luck,{{sfn|Friedman|2005|page=121}} or to repent for accidentally breaking any of the college's numerous other traditions.{{sfn|Friedman|2005|page=121}} Pallas Athena is the tutelary goddess of the international social fraternity [[Phi Delta Theta]].<ref name="pdt">{{cite web |url=http://www.phideltatheta.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=20&Itemid=122 |title=Phi Delta Theta International – Symbols |access-date=7 June 2008 |publisher=phideltatheta.org | archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20080607045215/http://www.phideltatheta.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=20&Itemid=122| archive-date= 7 June 2008 | url-status= live}}</ref> Her owl is also a symbol of the fraternity.<ref name="pdt"/>
{{clear}}