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| Marco Dente after Francesco Salviati Group of Figures witnessing a Shipwreck ca. 1515-27 engraving Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
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| Marco Dente Ornamental Grotesque with Figure and Acanthus Scrolls ca. 1515-27 engraving Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
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| Jacopo de' Barbari Apollo and Diana ca. 1503-1505 engraving Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
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| Master I.O.V. after Polidoro da Caravaggio Group of Roman Figures ca. 1542-45 etching Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
On the Crash of an Airliner at Takeoff
When bodies broken and all bodies seared
Are counted up, uncrusted, tagged as feared,
We know next day the scene will stand alone
On pages white and mindless of the bone.
Shall notice recognize beyond the burned,
Or caption past the people tritely charred,
Related dusty partness with the term
Antiquity, the sense of death in stone
And knowledge of the previously marred?
On battlefields of Troy or Tuscany
Or other places where techniques engaged,
When warrior fell, or blade or boy enraged,
Of them did campfire journalists of song
Forget collective going, all but pathos,
In wretchedness and fact of having gone?
Accuse the gnostic grammar of old wars:
It maims our grasp of accidental death
Past putting down of papers to decry
Their overlooking what it means to die.
– Calvin Thomas, Jr., published in Botteghe Oscure XVI (Autumn 1955)
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| Nicoletto da Modena Apelles regarding a tablet of geometric figures ca. 1500-1510 engraving Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
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| Nicoletto da Modena Man carrying a sack ca. 1515-20 engraving Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
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| attributed to Nicoletto da Modena Victory or Minerva ca. 1500-1510 engraving Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
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| Anonymous printmaker after Battista Franco Faun preparing Pig for Sacrifice ca. 1599-1622 engraving Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
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| Anonymous printmaker after Battista Franco Figure with Serpent and Pig ca. 1599-1622 engraving Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
Palinode
Before I was born, I saw a tissue of ingenious detours, an inextricable tangle
wreathed with mistake.
Perhaps the ghost does not limp away, but rather forests flee me, frightened.
Look, they are setting a place for loss, clearing the table for the first glow of
antiquity.
Here we see William T. Walters in his little library illuminated, carefully
smoothing the lip of the continent.
What form bounds forward from behind but The Atlantic Railroad Coastline Co.?
The whole Roman Empire was sold by ascending auction in 193 A.D.
A globe enclosed. Bottomless years. The train has stopped on the platform and no
one is there, for these are the Public Days, when the "Poor Association" claims the
museum's building.
As if bound by the knots of invention, I found a wrong road dotted with weeds
and sorrows.
– Sasha Steensen, from The Method (Fence Books, 2008)
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| Anonymous printmaker after Battista Franco Reclining Female Figure on Chariot drawn by Centaurs ca. 1599-1622 engraving Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
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| Anonymous printmaker after Battista Franco Three Cupids and two Dolphins ca. 1599-1622 engraving Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
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| Battista Franco Angel ca. 1560 etching and engraving Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
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| attributed to Battista Franco Angel staying the arm of Abraham before 1561 etching and engraving Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
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| Battista Franco Deposition before 1561 etching and engraving Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |