[Sappho Playing the Lyre] · Centre for Early Modern Visual Culture

Title: [Sappho Playing the Lyre]
Subject: Famous Women; Poetry; Poetess; Literature; Sappho; Important Women
Period: 1450-1500;
Geographic: Ancient Greece; Lesbos; Aegean Sea
Description: This illumination depicts a portrait of a woman named Sappho from the Greek island of Lesbos. She is illustrated playing a lyre with a solemn expression on her face. Sappho is renowned for being a skilled poetess. Boccaccio explains that her verses were often melancholy, due to being broken hearted by a man who did not share a mutual feeling of love for Sappho.
Image Creator: Robinet Testard (Illuminator)
Type: Text; Illumination
Identifier: mta:18012
Language: frm
Source Name: Boccace, Des cleres et nobles femmes, traduction française anonyme [Boccaccio, The cleric and noble women, anonymous French translation]
Parent Collection: Boccace, Des cleres et nobles femmes, traduction française anonyme. Illuminations by Robinet Testard (1488-1496); Boccace, Des cleres et nobles femmes, traduction française anonyme. Illuminations by Robinet Testard (1488-1496)
Image: mta_18012_OBJ.png
Collection: Early Modern Women
Subject: Famous Women; Poetry; Poetess; Literature; Sappho; Important Women