Von Beronice der künigin von Capadocia · Centre for Early Modern Visual Culture

Title: Von Beronice der künigin von Capadocia
Subject: Important Women; Famous Women; Important Queens; Vengeance; Berenice
Period: 1450-1500;
Geographic: Anatolia; Modern day Turkey; Cappadocia
Description: This engraving depicts Berenice, the queen of Cappadocia, stabbing a servant in his abdominal area to avenge her sons’ deaths. Berenice’s name, written as Bernices is engraved above her head to identify her. After her sons had died at the hand of her brother, Mithridates, Berenice sought vengeance against him. The slave that Berenice is stabbing in this engraving is Caenus, a man who was involved in the murder of her sons. Although she is depicted stabbing him with a sword in this engraving, Boccaccio explains in his story that she actually chased Caenus down in a chariot, and after hitting him in the head with a rock, she drove over his body with the chariot until he died. The dead figures in the engraving who are lying on the ground are assumed to be Berenice’s children.
Image Creator: Anonymous (Engraver)
Type: StillImage; Woodcut Engraving
Identifier: mta:18051
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
Image: mta_18051_OBJ.png