Cy apres sensuit de vierginee fille de virgine · Centre for Early Modern Visual Culture

Title: Cy apres sensuit de vierginee fille de virgine
Subject: Important Women; Famous Women; Chastity; Roman Legends; Verginia; Verginius
Period: 1400-1450;
Geographic: Ancient Rome; Italy
Description: This illustration depicts Verginius, a plebeian man, stabbing his daughter Verginia in the chest with a knife. Boccaccio explains that a man named Appius Claudius had fallen in love with Verginia, and although she was betrothed to Lucius Icilius, he devised a plan to make her his own. Appius Claudius, a judge and a decemvir, ordered a decree that stated she would become a slave so that he could own her. To protect his daughter’s chastity, Verginius stabbed Verginia as death would be better than her honour being destroyed. The men illustrated behind Verginius are most likely Appius Claudius and Lucius Icilius, as they were present in Boccaccio’s telling of the story.
Image Creator: Anonymous (Illuminator)
Type: Text; Illumination
Identifier: mta:19987
Language: frm
Source Name: Livre que fist Jehan BOCACE de Certalde des cleres et nobles femmes, lequel il envoia à Audice de Accioroles de Florence, contesse de Haulteville [Book from Giovanni Boccaccio of Certaldo called the cleric and noble women, of which he sent to Audice Accioroles of Florence, Countess of Haulteville]
Parent Collection: 1401 Florence
Image: mta_19987_OBJ.jpg