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| Joachim Wichmann Six Sibyls - Persian, Libyan, Delphic, Cimmerian, Erythraean, Samian ca. 1648-86 etching British Museum |
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| Joachim Wichmann Six Sibyls - Cumaean, Hellespontine, Phrygian, Tiburtine, European, Agrippine ca. 1648-86 etching British Museum |
Of the named Sibyls active in antiquity, the largest group so-far located in one place consists of the etchings above – representing a dozen different ones – printed from two plates on two sheets in the middle of the seventeenth century and preserved today at the British Museum. Unlike Muses, Sibyls never worked in groups and were only rarely portrayed in groups. If shown in any company at all, they would typically be involved with noble supplicants or high divinities, not one another. The Cumaean Sibyl and the Delphic Sibyl were the most famous in the ancient world. That fact assured those two a corresponding prominence in the Renaissance and its after-ages. A sampling of these early-modern manifestations appears below, focusing on the figure of the Cumaean Sibyl.
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| Agostino Veneziano Cumaean Sibyl in a landscape 1516 engraving British Museum |
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| Girolamo di Benvenuto Cumaean Sibyl before 1524 drawing British Museum |
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| Adamo Scultori after Michelangelo Cumaean Sibyl from the Sistine Ceiling before 1585 engraving Teylers Museum, Haarlem |
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| Raffaello Schiaminossi Cumaean Sibyl 1609 etching British Museum |
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| Domenichino Cumaean Sibyl 1616-17 oil on canvas Galleria Borghese, Rome |
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| François Perrier Aeneas consulting the Cumaean Sibyl 1646 oil on canvas National Museum, Warsaw |
"The nature of Sibylline inspiration is diversely reported. Virgil offers a famous description of the Cumaean Sibyl uttering ecstatic prophecy under the inspiration of Apollo, but texts from Erythrae or recorded in various ways by Phlegon of Tralles, Plutarch and Pausanias clearly state that the Sibyl spoke under her own inspiration. . . . Widespread interest in Sibyls throughout the Mediterranean world probably stems from the connection between the Sibyl and Rome that dates to, at the very latest, the early 5th century BC. . . . The Sibyl's intimate connection with Rome made her a natural choice for Christians who sought evidence from pagan sources for the truth of their beliefs. . . . Belief that Virgil's Fourth Eclogue (modeled on sibylline prophecy) was in fact inspired by the Cumaean Sibyl combined with this interest to elevate the Sibyl to a position of remarkable importance in Christian literature and art."
– from The Oxford Classical Dictionary, 3rd edition, edited by Simon Hornblower and Antony Spawforth
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| Claude Lorrain Coast view with Apollo and the Cumaean Sibyl ca. 1645-49 oil on canvas Hermitage, Saint Petersburg |
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| Salvator Rosa River Landscape with Apollo and the Cumaean Sibyl ca. 1655 oil on canvas Wallace Collection, London |
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| Salvator Rosa Apollo and the Cumaean Sibyl ca. 1660-65 etching British Museum |
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| Guercino Cumaean Sibyl and Winged Genius 1651 oil on canvas National Gallery, London |
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| Claude Lorrain Aenaes and the Cumaean Sibyl 1673 drawing on blue paper British Museum |
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| Joseph Mallord William Turner Lake Avernus with Aeneas and the Cumaean Sibyl ca. 1814-15 oil on canvas Yale Center for British Art |