[The Women of Lemnos Kill all the Men in the City] · Centre for Early Modern Visual Culture

Title: [The Women of Lemnos Kill all the Men in the City]
Subject: Important Queens; Hypsipyle; Important Women
Period: 1450-1500;
Geographic: Lemnos; Aegean Sea; Ancient Greece
Description: The women of Lemnos, as Boccaccio explains, devised a plan to kill all the men in the city in order to remove themselves from the control of a patriarchy. There are two women in the illustration holding swords, killing the men who are lying on the ground in front of them. The woman depicted without a sword is Hypsipyle, the daughter of king Thaos of Lemnos. She is illustrated wearing a crown to indicate her royal status. She is illustrated without a sword as she does not participate in this plan, and helps her father escape the wrath of the women of Lemnos and becomes queen herself.
Image Creator: Anonymous (Illuminator)
Type: Text; Illumination
Identifier: mta:11987
Language: frm
Source Name: De la louenge et vertu des nobles et cleres dames [Of praise and virtue of the noble and clergy women]
Parent Collection: 1493 Paris; 1493 Paris
Image: mta_11987_OBJ.png
Collection: Early Modern Women
Subject: Important Queens; Hypsipyle; Important Women