Masaccio’s Tribute Money deciphered, and examples from masters including Duccio, Jacopo da Sellaio, Botticelli, Fra Bartolomeo and the Carraccis.
Carracci
Brought up by the centaur Chiron, he challenged Pelias for his throne, so was sent to get the Golden Fleece with his Argonauts. He married Hypsipyle and they had twins before he abandoned her and promised to marry Medea in return for her help.
Associated with the legendary story of the origin of Rome, a woodpecker kept a close eye on the twin infants Romulus and Remus. It’s also associated with the sorceress Circe.
Lycaon transformed into a wolf, the origin of later werewolves, the she-wolf who fed Romulus and Remus, a shepherd defending his flock, the wolf of Agubbio, the fable of the wolf and the lamb, and others.
First Dante and Virgil have to negotiate the three-headed monster dog Cerberus, guarding Hell, then the stinking mud containing gluttons.
The Renaissance provided the tools of realist painting, but remained largely bound to religious and mythical motifs. Seventy years later, many new genres had appeared.
Parrots in still life paintings from the Dutch Golden Age, accompanying a Turkish page, in English summer, or passing Pierre Bonnard in Saint Tropez.
Romulus ploughs the boundary of the city of Rome, then defeats the Sabine king Tatius, marries his daughter, and is eventually taken to be the god Quirinus.
How ancient Egyptians painted women white and men more swarthy in colour. Separately, colour coding of devils brought similar distinctions.
The lover of Venus is gored in the groin by a wild boar, and dies in pools of blood to be transformed into red anemone flowers.
