Roman Charity
Roman Charity (Latin: Caritas Romana; Italian: Carità Romana) or Cimon and Pero is an ancient Greek and Roman exemplary story (exemplum) of filial piety (pietas) in which a woman secretly breastfeeds her father or mother, incarcerated and supposedly sentenced to death by starvation. Once caught, the loving devotion shown so moves the authorities that she is forgiven and the parent is typically freed. The father in the story is often named Cimon (Ancient Greek: Κίμων, Kímōn) and the daughter Pero,[1] although other versions name the father Mycon[2] (Μύκον, Mýkon). First attested in surviving Roman sources, it became a common theme in Early Modern period of Western European art, particularly the Baroque period.
History
Maximus's anecdote of Pero and Cimon posits the following ekphrastic challenge:[3]
Men's eyes are riveted in amazement when they see the painting of this act and renew the features of the long bygone incident in astonishment at the spectacle now before them, believing that in those silent outlines of limbs they see living and breathing bodies. This must needs happen to the mind also, admonished to remember things long past as though they were recent by painting, which is considerably more effective than literary memorials.
Subject in art
Early depictions in Germany and Italy
The motif appeared in both its mother-daughter and father-daughter variety, although the cross-gendered version was ultimately more popular. The earliest modern depictions of Pero and Cimon emerged independently of each other in Southern Germany and Northern Italy around 1525, in a wide range of media including bronze medals, frescoes, engravings, drawings, oil paintings, ceramics, inlaid wood decorations, and statues.[4]
Later in the sixteenth century German artists began depicting the scene in oil paintings, often choosing the classicizing half-length format, thereby drawing of formal analogies between Pero and ancient heroines and including Pero within the genre of the ‘strong woman,’ similar to Lucretia, Dido, and Cleopatra or Judith, Salome, and Dalila. Examples of these works include Georg Pencz’s version from 1538, Erhard Schwetzer’s depiction from the same year, Pencz’s version (housed in Stockholm) from 1546, and one by the so-called Master with the Griffin’s Head executed as well in 1546.[5] Italian oil paintings of the motif existed as early as 1523, when a notary described a painting in possession of the recently deceased Pietro Luna, as “a large canvas in a gilded frame with a woman who nurses an old man.” A similar painting is described by a notary for the house of Benedetti di Franciscis in 1538. Still another painting is listed, correctly identified as a daughter nursing her father, by a notary in the estate of miniaturist Gasparo Segizzi. Unfortunately, none of these paintings are still extant.[6]
Influences from Caravaggio and Rubens
In 1606/1607, the early Baroque artist Caravaggio featured the scene in his altarpiece, The Seven Works of Mercy, commissioned by the confraternity of Pio Monte della Misericordia in Naples.[7] With regards to his choice of iconography, Caravaggio may have been inspired by his predecessor Perino del Vaga, whose fresco of Roman Charity he could have seen during his stay in Genoa in 1605.[8] Following Caravaggio's altarpiece, the veritable craze for gallery paintings of Pero and Cimon started in 1610–12, and spread through Italy, France, the Southern Netherlands, and Utrecht, even drawing traction among Spanish painters such as Jusepe de Ribera and, later, Bartolomé Esteban Murillo. Given the fact that no gallery painting pre-dates 1610, Caravaggio's altarpiece must have inspired a fad that would last another two centuries. Despite this, the subject matter as one favored by many Caravaggisti has historically been overlooked.[9] Utrecht Caravaggisti, Gerrit van Honthorst, and Abraham Bloemaert both painted versions of the scene, as did Manfredi. Additionally, nine examples of Roman Charity were apparently produced by Caravaggio's noted and outspoken foe, Guido Reni (1575 – 1625) and his workshop.[10] Peter Paul Rubens and his followers are known to have painted at least three versions. Followers of Ruben's tended to copy his 1630 version (now in Amsterdam) but began introducing a sleeping child at Pero's feet, a detail the original legend does not mention. This element was introduced in the 17th century in order to prevent an interpretation that there was something incestuous about the deed – although the existence of a child is implicit in any case, since the woman is lactating. At the same time, the inclusion of the infant added a new level of meaning to the story as the three figures would represent the three generations and could therefore also be interpreted as an allegory of the three ages of man.[11] Many examples of paintings, prints, and sculptures of Roman Charity include a baby or pre-school-age child (perhaps in the vein of the boy included in Poussin's The Gathering of the Manna), by artists such as Niccolò̀ Tornioli (1598–1651), Cecco Bravo (1607–61), Artus Quellinus the Elder (1609–1668), Louis Boullogne (1609–74), Jean Cornu (1650-1710), Johann Carl Loth (1632–98), Carlo Cignani (1628–1719), Adrian van der Werff (1659–1722), Gregorio Lazzarini (1657–1730), Francesco Migliori (1684–1734), and Johann Peter Weber (1737-1804).[12]
A version by Artemisia Gentileschi is notable in that the artist was a woman.[13]
A small annex to the Belfry of Ghent dating from 1741, including a sculpture of Roman Charity poised high above the front doorway. It is referred to as 'mammelokker', which translates from Dutch as 'breast sucker'.[14]
Mother-daughter version
During this period of prolific engagement with the imagery of Pero and Cimon, Nicolas Poussin (1594–1665) stands out because of his rendering of the breastfeeding mother-daughter couple in The Gathering of the Manna (1639).[15] Poussin's choice of subject matter demonstrated his knowledge of Maximus's other example of filial piety, as well as earlier French renderings of the theme. It is possible that Poussin was familiar with the print by Étienne Delaune (1518/19–88) and/or, perhaps, the “Histoire Rommaine” printed in Lyon in 1548, in which a mother begs her daughter to let her nurse at her breast – a request the daughter rebukes, challenging her mother to display greater dignity in her suffering, before ultimately succumbing and allowing her mother to suckle.[16]
Modern cultural influence
In the 20th century, a fictional account of Roman Charity was presented in John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath (1939).[17] At the end of the novel, Rosasharn (Rose of Sharon) nurses a sick and starving man in the corner of a barn. The 1969 painting Partisan Ballad by Mai Dantsig also echoes Roman Charity.[18] The 1973 surrealist film O Lucky Man! also contains a scene of Roman Charity when the protagonist is starving and a vicar's wife nurses him rather than let him plunder the food gathered for an offering. A contemporary version is made by the Flemish artist Yves Decadt in his series of Allegories called Falling Angels.
Depictions with articles
- Roman Charity by Rubens, c. 1612, Hermitage Museum
- Cimon and Pero by Rubens, 1630, Siegen
- Caritas Romana, Gaspar de Crayen aaron, Prado
- Caritas Romana, Gaspar de Crayer, c. 1645, private collection
Artists' depictions
-
Artist unknown.
(c. 1500–1520) -
Hans Sebald Beham
(1544) -
Master with the Griffin's Head (c.1546)
-
Peter Paul Rubens
(c. 1612) -
Jan Janssens
(1620–25) -
Dirck Van Baburen
(c. 1623) -
Guercino
(before 1661) -
Charles Mellin
(c. 1628) -
Pieter van Mol
(c. 1640) -
Artus Quellinus the Elder
(c. 1652) -
Christoph Maucher
(amber, 1690) -
Jean-Baptiste Greuze
(c. 1767) -
Mezzotint print by John Smith
-
Johan Zoffany
(c. 1769) -
Barbara Krafft
(1797) -
Rembrandt Peale
(1811)
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References
Citations
- ↑ "Iconographical sources of nursing and nursing gestures in Christian cultures," Darkfiber.com, last visited 29 March 2006
- ↑ Enc. Brit. (1911).
- ↑ Valerius Maximus, Memorable Doings and Sayings, ed. and transl. by D.R. Shackleton Bailey (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2000), vol. 1, 501–03.
- ↑ Sperling, Roman Charity, p. 37.
- ↑ Sperling,Roman Charity, p. 60-69.
- ↑ Sperling,Roman Charity, p. 69.
- ↑ Ralf van Bühren, Caravaggio’s ‘Seven Works of Mercy’ in Naples. The relevance of art history to cultural journalism, in Church, Communication and Culture 2 (2017), pp. 63-87, on the interpretation of the “Roman Charity” in Caravaggio’s painting see Bühren 2017, p. 72.
- ↑ Sperling,Roman Charity, p. 117.
- ↑ Sperling,Roman Charity, p. 114.
- ↑ Sperling,Roman Charity, p. 158-59.
- ↑ Jerôme Duquesnoy (attributed to Artus Quellinus the Elder), Caritas Romana at the Royal Museum of Fine Arts of Antwerp
- ↑ Sperling,Roman Charity, p. 194.
- ↑ "Italian police thwart illegal sale of Artemisia Gentileschi painting". The Guardian. 19 July 2022. Retrieved 19 July 2022.
- ↑ The Belfort of Gent
- ↑ Sperling,Roman Charity, p. 177.
- ↑ Sperling, Roman Charity, p. 181.
- ↑ Steinbeck, John. The Grapes Of Wrath. New York: Viking Press, 1939.
- ↑ "Partisan ballade 1969". Art Russe. Retrieved 10 Dec 2015.
Bibliography
- "Pietas", Encyclopaedia Britannica, vol. XXI (11th ed.), New York: Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1911, p. 592.
External links
- File:Commons-logo.svg Media related to Roman Charity at Wikimedia Commons
