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| Ferraù Fenzoni The Conversion of St Paul ca. 1620 oil on canvas Fondazione Cavallini Sgarbi, Ferrara |
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| Giuseppe Vermiglio Jael and Sisera ca. 1620 oil on canvas Pinacoteca Ambrosiana, Milan |
from the Book of Judges, chapter 5
She put her hand to the nail, and her right hand to the workmen's hammer,
and with the hammer she smote Sisera, she smote off his head,
when she had pierced and stricken through his temples.
At her feet he bowed, he fell, he lay down:
at her feet he bowed, he fell:
where he bowed, there he fell down dead.
– King James Bible (1611)
from Tamburlaine the Great
The two young children in the foreground of Fetti's Flight into Egypt are described by a commentator at the British Museum (in reference to an early print of this painting) as "sleeping putti" – but I wonder if this is what they are. Fully illuminated, they are gazed at by the Virgin with her habitual serenity, but also by St Joseph, with furrowed brow, seemingly expressive of perturbation. The traveling party crosses a small arched bridge, and the bodies of the so-called putti are disposed so as to mirror that shallow arch. Have they been lulled to sleep by some sort of sympathetic magic, reflecting the sleep of the Christ Child in the Virgin's embrace? Or are they dead? Granted, if they are indeed putti, it could make no sort of sense for them to be dead. But what if the two represent the much more numerous Holy Innocents, massacred by Herod's soldiers while the Flight into Egypt was going forward, and killed in place of the Christ Child himself? In that case, their sacrifice could represent the "bridge" that permitted the Holy Family's escape to safety. The prominence of the pair in the picture, their un-lifelike disposition, and above all what appears to be a red wound on the torso of the upper child, raise for me this question about their identity, though I haven't seen it questioned in any of the literature.
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| Luca Saltarello Christ in the Tomb ca. 1620 oil on canvas Accademia Ligustica di Belle Arti, Genoa |
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| Pier Francesco Mazzucchelli (il Morazzone) The Beheading of St John the Baptist ca. 1620 oil on canvas Palazzo Bianco, Genoa |
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| Giovanni Lanfranco St Peter freed from Prison ca. 1620-21 oil on canvas Birmingham Museum of Art, Alabama |
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| Nicolas Tournier Soldier lifting a Flask ca. 1620-24 oil on canvas Palazzo dei Musei, Modena |
from Tamburlaine the Great
What is beauty, saith my sufferings, then?
If all the pens that poets ever held
Had fed the feeling of their masters' thoughts,
And every sweetness that inspired their hearts,
Their minds, and muses on admirèd themes,
If all the heavenly quintessence they still
From their immortal flowers of poesy,
Wherein, as in a mirror, we perceive
The highest reaches of a human wit,
If these had made one poem's period
And all combined in beauty's worthiness,
Yet should there hover in their restless heads
One thought, one grace, one wonder at the least,
Which into words no virtue can digest.
– Christopher Marlow (1590)
"The first note of that passage is a surprise: we are used to thinking of Tamburlaine as acting, not suffering; it is his victims who suffer. But the apprehension of beauty, Tamburlaine recognizes, does indeed demand suffering of a kind."
– Alexander Leggatt, from Tamburlaine's Sufferings (Yearbook of English Studies, 1973)
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| Domenico Fetti The Flight into Egypt ca. 1622-23 oil on panel Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna |
The two young children in the foreground of Fetti's Flight into Egypt are described by a commentator at the British Museum (in reference to an early print of this painting) as "sleeping putti" – but I wonder if this is what they are. Fully illuminated, they are gazed at by the Virgin with her habitual serenity, but also by St Joseph, with furrowed brow, seemingly expressive of perturbation. The traveling party crosses a small arched bridge, and the bodies of the so-called putti are disposed so as to mirror that shallow arch. Have they been lulled to sleep by some sort of sympathetic magic, reflecting the sleep of the Christ Child in the Virgin's embrace? Or are they dead? Granted, if they are indeed putti, it could make no sort of sense for them to be dead. But what if the two represent the much more numerous Holy Innocents, massacred by Herod's soldiers while the Flight into Egypt was going forward, and killed in place of the Christ Child himself? In that case, their sacrifice could represent the "bridge" that permitted the Holy Family's escape to safety. The prominence of the pair in the picture, their un-lifelike disposition, and above all what appears to be a red wound on the torso of the upper child, raise for me this question about their identity, though I haven't seen it questioned in any of the literature.
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| Gérard Douffet Ecce Homo ca. 1623 oil on canvas Speed Art Museum, Louisville, Kentucky |
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| Jacopo Vignali Tobias and the Archangel Raphael ca. 1623 oil on canvas Palazzo Pretorio, Prato |
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| Giovanni Biliverti Angelica ashamed of her nakedness before Ruggiero ca. 1624 oil on canvas Palazzo Pretorio, Prato |
"Tenderly he addressed the maiden, after reining in his charger. 'Gentle lady, the only fetter you merit is that with which Love binds his votaries: quite undeserving must you be if this plight or of any other. Who is the miscreant so perverted as to blemish the smooth ivory of your delicate hands with unwelcome bruising?' On hearing him speak she perforce became like white ivory sprinkled with carmine, seeing those parts of her exposed to view which, for all their beauty, modesty would conceal. She would have covered her face with her hands were they not tied to the hard rock. But she bathed it in tears – this at least she was free to do – and tried to keep it bowed. After sobbing a little, she prepared to speak."
– Ludovico Ariosto, Orlando Furioso (1516), translated by Guido Waldman (1974)
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| Giovanni Biliverti Angelica ashamed of her nakedness before Ruggiero (detail with the distant Hippogryph ridden by Ruggiero) ca. 1624 oil on canvas Palazzo Pretorio, Prato |
"Logistilla was visibly pleased that so worthy a knight should have come to her, and she gave orders that everyone should make much of him and study to do him reverence. . . . She took counsel with herself how best to help Ruggiero and, after him, the duke. Her conclusion was that the winged horse would have to return the former to the shores of Aquitania; but first the beast would have to be fitted with a special bridle wherewith Ruggiero could turn him in flight and rein him in. She showed him what to do if he wanted the steed to climb, what to do to make him descend, how to make him wheel in a circle, or go fast, or simply hover. And whatever the knight was accustomed to performing on a good earth-bound horse he soon became adept at achieving in the air on the feathered steed."
– Ludovico Ariosto, Orlando Furioso (1516), translated by Guido Waldman (1974)
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| Gianlorenzo Bernini David ca. 1624-25 oil on canvas Palazzo Barberini, Rome |
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| Pietro Paolini (il Lucchese) Concert with Five Musicians ca. 1625 oil on canvas private collection |
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| Pietro Paolini (il Lucchese) Concert with Five Musicians (detail) ca. 1625 oil on canvas private collection |
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| Pietro Paolini (il Lucchese) Concert with Five Musicians (detail) ca. 1625 oil on canvas private collection |
from The Concert
No, I will go alone.
I will come back when it's over.
Yes, of course I love you.
No, it will not be long.
Why may you not come with me? –
You are too much my lover.
You would put yourself
Between me and song.
* * *
You and I have nothing to do with music.
We may not make of music a filigree frame,
Within which you and I,
Tenderly glad we came,
Sit smiling, hand in hand.
Come now, be content.
I will come back to you, I swear I will;
And you will know me still.
I shall be only a little taller
Than when I went.
– Edna St. Vincent Millay (1923)