De coniugibus Menian · Centre for Early Modern Visual Culture · Center for Early Modern Visual Culture

Title: De coniugibus Menian
Subject: Important Women; Greek Mythology; Minyans
Period: 1450-1500;
Geographic: Sparta; Ancient Greece; Lacedaemon
Description: The engraving depicts a man guarding a jail, with three figures standing behind the bars of the jail and three figures leaving the jail covered in their garments. The three figures leaving the jail are Minyan men who had been sentenced to death for their crimes against their city. Boccaccio explains that the Minyans wives had gone into the jail and swapped clothing with their husbands and switched places. The men, in disguises, slipped past the guards unnoticed and into freedom, while their wives were executed in their place. Boccaccio explains that he chose to write on these women to demonstrate that there is no greater love than a wife’s love for her husband.
Image Creator: Anonymous (Engraver)
Type: Text; Woodcut Engraving
Identifier: mta:11939
Language: lat
Source Name: De Claris Mulieribus
Parent Collection: 1473 Ulm
Image: mta_11939_OBJ.png