One of Ovid’s weirdest tales, in which Juno convinces the pregnant Semele to demand her lover Jupiter reveals himself, resulting in her death, caesarian section and his surrogate pregnancy.
Dossi
Candles in Candlemas, as votives, at pardons and funerals, and snuffed out as part of excommunication. Used in sorcery, allegory, and Vanitas.
She invited Odysseus and his crew to a feast, where she turned most of them into pigs. Odysseus avoids that fate, and later gets a prophecy from Tiresias.
Paintings of sorceresses, who combine dark arts and seduction. Circe with Odysseus and Scylla, Melissa, Armida, Morgan le Fay and others.
Summary of the plot in the first half of Ariosto’s epic, with links to detailed accounts, and paintings by Delacroix, Rubens, Böcklin, Ingres and others.
Bradamante continues her quest to find and release her lover from the castle of steel. And Rinaldo ends up in Scotland, where he starts an adventure.
From Pisanello and Dosso Dossi to William Holman Hunt and Richard Dadd: paintings showing butterflies.
From 1450-1650, paintings of ‘Christian sibyls’ who foretold the birth of Christ, became important motifs for painting. Here’s a selection.
A powerful and well-educated woman, rumoured to have murdered one of her three husbands, painted at the time, and later by Dante Gabriel Rossetti.
What happens to men who Circe desires, but refuse her? This one was turning into a woodpecker, his men into wild beasts, and his wife simply vanished into thin air.