Romana iuuencula · Centre for Early Modern Visual Culture · Center for Early Modern Visual Culture

Title: Romana iuuencula
Period: 1450-1500;
Geographic: Italy; Ancient Rome
Description: This engraving depicts a story of a young Roman woman who saved her mother from starving to death. Boccaccio explains that this unknown woman’s mother had been sentenced to death, and when she was locked away to die of starvation, her daughter saved her with her own breast milk. The girl and her mother are depicted behind the window of the jail cell as the mother drinks the milk of her daughter’s breast. The men that are standing guard outside the prison cell seem unconcerned and relaxed. They are unsuspecting of the young woman because they searched her every time that she visited her mother and she never seemed to carried food with her. The young woman saved her mother’s life through her breast milk, and Boccaccio explains that he wrote on this unknown young woman due to her filial devotion.
Image Creator: Anonymous (Engraver)
Type: Text; Woodcut Engraving
Identifier: mta:18184
Language: lat
Source Name: Iohannis Bocacij in librum de claris mulieribus
Parent Collection: 1487 Leuven; 1487 Leuven
Image: mta_18184_OBJ.png
Collection: Early Modern Women
Subject: Important Women; Famous Women; Filial Devotion