Von Cloelia · Centre for Early Modern Visual Culture · Center for Early Modern Visual Culture

Title: Von Cloelia
Subject: Important Women; Famous Women; Hostages; Cloelia
Period: 1450-1500;
Geographic: Italy; Ancient Rome
Description: This engraving depicts Cloelia, a young Roman woman, riding a horse through a deep river with many women looking at her. Boccaccio explains that Cloelia was given to a foreign king as a hostage, and when she escaped, she took many other hostages with her to get back to Rome. While escaping, she came across a river that was too treacherous to pass. She found a horse, and despite never having ridden one, she got herself and the other women across safely by means of this horse. This image depicts her taking the other women across the river one by one as there is only one other female on the horse with Cloelia. We know that this figure on the horse is Cloelia as her name is engraved above her head.
Image Creator: Anonymous (Engraver)
Type: Text; Woodcut Engraving
Identifier: mta:18039
Language: ger
Source Name: Hyenach volget der kurcz syn von ettlichen frauen von denen johannes boccacius in latein beschriben hat und doctor heinricus stainhöwel geteütschet [Following the short stories of several women of which Giovanni Boccaccio wrote in Latin, and doctor Heinrich Steinhöwel translated]
Parent Collection: 1473 Augsburg; 1473 Augsburg
Image: mta_18039_OBJ.png
Collection: Early Modern Women
Subject: Important Women; Famous Women; Hostages; Cloelia