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| Lelio Orsi Storm Scene with Marine Deities ca. 1555-56 detached fresco fragment Galleria Estense, Modena |
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| Lelio Orsi Storm Scene with Marine Deities ca. 1555-56 detached fresco fragment Galleria Estense, Modena |
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| Girolamo Bonsignori Virgin and Child before 1530 detached fresco Chiesa di San Barnaba, Mantua |
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| Agostino Ciampelli Banquet of Ahasuerus (detail) ca. 1590 fresco Palazzo Tornabuoni, Florence |
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| Agostino Ciampelli Banquet of Ahasuerus (detail) ca. 1590 fresco Palazzo Tornabuoni, Florence |
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| Giovanni and Bernardino da Asola The Flagellation ca. 1510 fresco Cattedrale di Sant'Andrea, Asola |
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| Anonymous Italian Artist Hercules on the Pyre 16th century fresco Palazzo Buonaccorsi, Macerata |
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| Perino del Vaga Lunette Figures 1529-32 fresco Loggia degli Eroi, Palazzo del Principe, Genoa |
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| Giovanni Battista Naldini The Raising of Lazarus ca. 1580 fresco Basilica di San Marco, Florence |
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| Giuseppe Porta (Giuseppe Salviati) Prophet Isaiah ca. 1550-60 fresco Chiesa di San Francesco della Vigna, Venice |
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| Raffaellino del Colle Benediction of God the Father ca. 1560 fresco Chiesa di San Lorenzo, Sansepolcro |
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| Jacopo Siculo (Giacomo Santoro da Giuliana) Crucifixion with Saints (detail) ca. 1535 fresco Duomo di Spoleto |
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| Jacopo Siculo (Giacomo Santoro da Giuliana) Archangel Michael ca. 1535 fresco Duomo di Spoleto |
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| Baldassare Croce Posthumous Portrait of Giles of Viterbo ca. 1590 fresco Palazzo dei Priori, Viterbo |
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| Baldassare Croce Posthumous Portrait of Emperor Michael VIII Palaeologus ca. 1590 fresco Palazzo dei Priori, Viterbo |
Continued in Our Next
Over the quiet paper, in light that is
Interested only in a casual way,
All quite polite, the neat pen idly marries
Third sons to princesses.
They go away
To the widest margin, to a land of white,
Wholly uninhabited until they came,
And from the sacks with which they are provided,
Stock it with leaping trout and huntable game,
Hounds to be cursed at when the blood trail falters;
Eventually, reasons why the hounds went wrong.
Then to the reasons they establish altars.
The gods are weak at first.
When they grow strong
They bring into the world their choicest thunders.
Plagues, curses color the narrow countryside.
The peasantry speaks of horned unnatural wonders,
And in the violence takes a natural pride.
But all the while the map-makers are busy.
Faint explorations die in the savage hills,
Others go on to the farthest fabled city,
Where for six months the sun is lost, and the cold kills.
Geometers prove the world, and it is conquered.
Truth overtakes the aborigine.
The gods depart. Mankind is safely anchored
To clear historical necessity,
Until one day at midday when the sun
Ought to be loudest in the shouting sky
Shadow occludes it. Suddenly life is done.
The fire goes out. The constellations die.
Only, above the following page, the pen,
Whose quality is not to have taken part,
Hovers in uncommittedness again,
Poised for the signal of another start
Toward some fresh country, princesses more golden,
And younger sons who wage a bolder fight,
Stags nobler, hounds more diligent than the olden.
The page lies empty in the easy light.
– William Dickey (1961)