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| Nicolò dell'Abate Ignudo lifting Garland ca. 1540-50 drawing Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna |
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| Heinrich Aldegrever Paris, Oenone and Cupid 1550 drawing Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam |
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| Luca Cambiaso Mercury ca. 1550 drawing Hamburger Kunsthalle |
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| Domenico Campagnola Penitent St Jerome ca. 1550 drawing Morgan Library, New York |
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| Paolo Farinati Abduction of Sabine Woman ca. 1550 drawing Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna |
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| Girolamo da Carpi Antique Statue of Bacchus 1550 drawing Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh |
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| Giulio Romano Andromeda ca. 1540-44 drawing Hamburger Kunsthalle |
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| Sebald Beham Ceres 1549 drawing Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna |
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| Anonymous Italian Artist after Michelangelo St Bartholomew (from Last Judgment fresco, Sistine Chapel) ca. 1550 drawing Hamburger Kunsthalle |
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| Anonymous Italian Artist Study of Seated Model ca. 1550 drawing Fondation Custodia, Paris |
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| Pirro Ligorio Venus and Cupid ca. 1550 drawing Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna |
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| Melchior Lorck Statuette of Diana the Huntress 1553 drawing Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen |
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| Tiziano Minio Three Studies for Figure of Hercules ca. 1550 drawing Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna |
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| Bartolomeo Passarotti after Michelangelo Charon (from Last Judgment fresco, Sistine Chapel) ca. 1550 drawing National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne |
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| Raffaello da Montelupo Figure Study ca. 1550 drawing Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam |
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| Pellegrino Tibaldi Polyphemus ca. 1554 drawing (study for fresco) Hamburger Kunsthalle |
Ovum
You'd take it for zero, or nothing,
or the spotless oval your lips make saying it,
as if you blew both yolk and albumen
through its pin-pricked head: the meat
of the word made orotund and Latinate.
It's like putting your mouth to the smooth
It's like putting your mouth to the smooth
breast of the ocarina, from oca, the goose,
hooting out its fledgling notes.
Unless you seal the gap it's left, they'll fall
out, those other o-words, like bubbles
streaming through a soapy blow-hole:
from oblation and obloquy to oxlip and ozone,
and that sneaky Trojan obol,
and that sneaky Trojan obol,
coin-shaped, it's true, but spawned
from the spiky Greek of obelus,
the death-mark, dagger or crucifix,
as phallic and obvious, now that you say it,
as that double o in spermatozoon,
as that double o in spermatozoon,
which enters by its own locomotion –
the flagellum, its tiny whip and scourge.
the flagellum, its tiny whip and scourge.
– Caitríona O'Reilly, Geis (2015)