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Table of Contents
Cover
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. Old Women under Investigation
The Drab Housewife and the Grotesque Hag
2. Chimerical Procession
The Poetics of Inversion and Monstrosity
3. Priapic Ride
Gigantic Genitals, Penile Theft, and Other Phallic Fantasies
4. Magical Metamorphoses
Variations on the Myths of Circe and Medea
5. A Visit from the Devil
Horror and Liminality in Caravaggesque Paintings
Epilogue
Bibliography
Index
List of Illustrations
Figure 1. Jacopo de' Barbari, A Naked Old Woman Riding on a Triton, 1495-1516, engraving, 10.2 × 11.7 cm. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.
Figure 2. Dosso Dossi, A Sorceress, ca. 1518-20, oil on canvas, 176 × 174 cm. Galleria Borghese, Rome. Photo: Bridgeman Images.
Figure 3. Parmigianino, Old Woman with a Distaff, 1530s, pen and brown ink, 18.7 × 13.4 cm. Collection of the Duke of Devonshire, Chatsworth. Photo: Chatsworth Settlement Trustees / Bridgeman Images.
Figure 4. Enea Vico da Parma, after Parmigianino, Old Woman with a Distaff, 1543-44, engraving, 22 × 14.8 cm. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.
Figure 5. Albrecht Dürer, Witch Riding on a Goat, ca. 1500, engraving, 11.7 × 7.1 cm. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
Figure 6. Baccio Baldini, Hostanes, ca. 1455-65, pen and brown ink and brown wash over black chalk, 32.6 × 22.6 cm., in The Florentine Picture Chronicle. London, British Museum. Photo © The Trustees of the British Museum.
Figure 7. The Innkeeper, woodcut, in Jacobus de Cessolis, Giuoco di Scacchi, Florence, 1493-94. MAK - Museum of Applied Arts, Vienna. Photo © MAK.
Figure 8. Monogrammist DWF, after Enea Vico, Old Woman with a Distaff, ca. 1550-58, engraving, 19.8 × 17.8 cm. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.
Figure 9. Leonello Spada, Witch Pursuing after a Young Man, a letter of February 14, 1620, pen and black ink, 30.7 × 21 cm. Windsor Castle. Photo: Royal Collection Trust / © His Majesty King Charles III 2023.
Figure 10. Orazio Borgianni, Potiphar's Wife Lusting after Joseph, 1615, etching, copy of the fresco by the school of Raphael in the Vatican Logge, 15 × 18.3 cm. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.
Figure 11. Antonio Tempesta, Circe Changing Picus into a Bird, etching, 10.9 × 12.3 cm., in Metamorphoseon Ovidianarum, Amsterdam, 1606, 136. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
Figure 12. Caravaggio, Fortune-Teller, 1594, oil on canvas, 93 × 131 cm. Musée du Louvre, Paris. Photo: Bridgeman Images.
Figure 13. Wenceslaus Hollar, after Leonardo da Vinci, A Young Man Caressing an Old Woman, 1646, etching, 17 × 13 cm. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
Figure 14. Guercino, A Witch, Two Bats, and a Demon in Flight, pen and brown ink with brown wash on laid paper, 11.7 × 25.7 cm. Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto. Photo © Art Gallery of Ontario / Purchased as a gift of the Trier-Fodor Foundation, 1986 / Bri
Figure 15. Guercino, Three Bathers Surprised by a Monster, ca. 1620-25, pen and black ink, 16.2 × 25.7 cm. Windsor Castle. Photo: Royal Collection Trust / © His Majesty King Charles III 2023.
Figure 16. Guercino, A Monstrous Animal and a Peasant, 1620-30, pen, ink, and brown wash, 15.1 × 22.2 cm. Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool. Photo © National Museums Liverpool / Bridgeman Images.
Figure 17. Marcantonio Raimondi or Agostino Veneziano, after Giulio Romano (?), Lo stregozzo, 1520s, engraving, 30.3 × 64.5 cm. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.
Figure 18. Lo stregozzo, detail.
Figure 19. Jusepe de Ribera (?), Lo stregozzo, 1640s, oil on copper, 34.3 × 65.5 cm. Wellington Museum, London. Photo © Historic England / Bridgeman Images.
Figure 20. Michelangelo, The Creation of Sun, Moon, and Planets, 1508-12, fresco. Sistine Chapel, Vatican, Rome. Photo: Alinari / Bridgeman Images.
Figure 21. Anonymous artist, after an engraving of Marcantonio Raimondi's Position 9 from I modi (drawn by Giulio Romano), 1550s, woodcut, in "Toscanini volume," f. B2, image size: 6 × 6.5 cm. Private collection, Milan. Photo © Christie's Images / Bridgem
Figure 22. Giulio Romano, Apollo and Diana, 1527, fresco. Camera del Sole e della Luna, Palazzo del Te, Mantua. Photo: Ghigo Roli / Bridgeman Images.
Figure 23. Giulio Romano and others, The Battle of the Milvian Bridge, 1519-24, fresco. Sala di Costantino, Vatican Palace, Rome. Photo © Stefano Baldini / Bridgeman Images.
Figure 24. Marcantonio Raimondi, after Raphael, The Massacre of the Innocents, ca. 1511-12, engraving, 28 × 42.6 cm. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.
Figure 25. Raphael, Fire in the Borgo, ca. 1514-17, fresco. Stanza dell'Incendio, Vatican Palace, Rome. Photo © Stefano Baldini / Bridgeman Images.
Figure 26. Aristotile da Sangallo, after Michelangelo's cartoon, Battle of Cascina, 1542, oil on panel, 76.4 × 130.2 cm. Holkham Hall, Norfolk. Photo: By permission of the Earl of Leicester and the Trustees of the Holkham Estate / Bridgeman Images.
Figure 27. Andrea Mantegna, Battle of the Sea Gods, ca. 1475-80, engraving from two plates, 28.5 × 43 cm. (left) and 28.6 × 37.5 cm. (right). The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
Figure 28. Hans Baldung Grien, Preparation for the Witches' Sabbath, 1510, chiaroscuro woodcut, 36.6 × 25.9 cm. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
Figure 29. Master HFE, Marine Gods, ca. 1530s, engraving, 17.1 × 39.8 cm. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.
Figure 30. Accursio Baldi and Bastiano Marsili, after Raffaello Gualterotti, A Dragon Chasing after a Witch on a Chimera, in Feste nelle nozza del Serenissimo Don Francesco Medici gran duca di Toscana et della Sereniss sua consorte la Sig. Bianca Cappello
Figure 31. Girolamo da Carpi (attr.), Landscape with Magic Procession, 1528, oil on canvas, 159 × 116 cm. Galleria Borghese, Rome. Photo © Electa / Bridgeman Images.
Figure 32. Robert Mapplethorpe, Louise Bourgeois Holding 'Fillette', 1982, photograph, 37.5 × 37.4 cm. Photo © Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation. Used by permission.
Figure 33. Anonymous, after Parmigianino, A Witch Riding on a Phallus, 1530s, etching, 14.5 × 9.7 cm. British Museum, London. Photo © The Trustees of the British Museum.
Figure 34. Bernard Picart, after Parmigianino, A Witch Riding on a Phallus, etching, second state, in Bernard Picart, Impostures innocentes, ou Recueil d'Estampes d'aprés divers peintres, Amsterdam, 1734, no. 12. Photo © The Trustees of the British Museum
Figure 35. Jacopo Caraglio, after Parmigianino, Adoration of the Shepherds, 1526, engraving, 20.9 × 24 cm. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.
Figure 36. Parmigianino, Entombment of Christ, etching, 31.4 × 23.9 cm. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.
Figure 37. Parmigianino, after Marcantonio Raimondi's Modi, Two Lovers, pen and brown ink, 13.1 × 15.2 cm. Private collection. Photo © Christie's Images / Bridgeman Images.
Figure 38. Parmigianino, Lovers, etching and engraving, 14.7 × 10.4 cm. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.
Figure 39. Parmigianino, The Lower Part of Two Male Nudes, 1535-40, pen and brown ink, 19 × 8.9 cm. Musée du Louvre, Paris. Photo © RMN-Grand Palais / Art Resource, NY.
Figure 40. Anonymous artist, after an engraving of Marcantonio Raimondi's Position 14 from I modi (drawn by Giulio Romano), 1550s, woodcut, in "Toscanini volume," f. B4v, image size: 6 × 6.5 cm. Photo © Christie's Images / Bridgeman Images.
Figure 41. German School, Melancholy, woodcut, in the German Almanac, Augsburg, 1484. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
Figure 42. Three Female Witches on a Night Ride, woodcut, in Johann Geiler von Kaysersberg, Die Emeis, Strasbourg, 1517, 37v. Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, Cornell University Library.
Figure 43. Harmen Jansz. Muller, after Maarten van Heemskerck, The Melancholy Temperament, 1566, engraving, 21.5 × 23.7 cm. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.
Figure 44. Giovanni Nicolò Miretto and Stefano da Ferrara, Saturn, the Melancholic, and Mercenary Love with a Woman on Top, 1425-40, fresco. Great Hall, Palazzo della Ragione, Padua. Photo: Alinari Archives, Florence.
Figure 45. Devil Seducing a Witch, woodcut, in Ulrich Molitor, De Lamiis et pythonicis mulieribus, Basel, ca. 1495, 1v. Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, Cornell University Library.
Figure 46. Woman Astride a Phallus, ca. 1400-1425, badge, tin and lead alloy, 2.5 × 2.2 cm. Musée Cluny, Paris. Photo © RMN-Grand Palais / Art Resource, NY.
Figure 47. Northern Italian, A Scene of Copulation, ca. 1480-1500, verso of a copper engraving plate, 15 × 22.4 cm. National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC.
Figure 48. Roman amulet pendant, 2nd century CE, gold, pearls, and amethyst, 3.1 × 1.8 cm. The Johns Hopkins Archaeological Museum, Baltimore. Photo: James T. VanRensselaer.
Figure 49. Bernardino Detti, Madonna of the Pergola (detail), 1523, tempera on panel, 213 × 164 cm. Museo Civico, Pistoia. Photo: Alinari Archives, Florence.
Figure 50. Francisco Goya, A Fine Teacher!, plate 68 of the Caprichos, 1799, etching and aquatint, 21 × 15 cm. Rosenwald Collection, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. Old Women under Investigation
The Drab Housewife and the Grotesque Hag
2. Chimerical Procession
The Poetics of Inversion and Monstrosity
3. Priapic Ride
Gigantic Genitals, Penile Theft, and Other Phallic Fantasies
4. Magical Metamorphoses
Variations on the Myths of Circe and Medea
5. A Visit from the Devil
Horror and Liminality in Caravaggesque Paintings
Epilogue
Bibliography
Index
List of Illustrations
Figure 1. Jacopo de' Barbari, A Naked Old Woman Riding on a Triton, 1495-1516, engraving, 10.2 × 11.7 cm. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.
Figure 2. Dosso Dossi, A Sorceress, ca. 1518-20, oil on canvas, 176 × 174 cm. Galleria Borghese, Rome. Photo: Bridgeman Images.
Figure 3. Parmigianino, Old Woman with a Distaff, 1530s, pen and brown ink, 18.7 × 13.4 cm. Collection of the Duke of Devonshire, Chatsworth. Photo: Chatsworth Settlement Trustees / Bridgeman Images.
Figure 4. Enea Vico da Parma, after Parmigianino, Old Woman with a Distaff, 1543-44, engraving, 22 × 14.8 cm. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.
Figure 5. Albrecht Dürer, Witch Riding on a Goat, ca. 1500, engraving, 11.7 × 7.1 cm. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
Figure 6. Baccio Baldini, Hostanes, ca. 1455-65, pen and brown ink and brown wash over black chalk, 32.6 × 22.6 cm., in The Florentine Picture Chronicle. London, British Museum. Photo © The Trustees of the British Museum.
Figure 7. The Innkeeper, woodcut, in Jacobus de Cessolis, Giuoco di Scacchi, Florence, 1493-94. MAK - Museum of Applied Arts, Vienna. Photo © MAK.
Figure 8. Monogrammist DWF, after Enea Vico, Old Woman with a Distaff, ca. 1550-58, engraving, 19.8 × 17.8 cm. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.
Figure 9. Leonello Spada, Witch Pursuing after a Young Man, a letter of February 14, 1620, pen and black ink, 30.7 × 21 cm. Windsor Castle. Photo: Royal Collection Trust / © His Majesty King Charles III 2023.
Figure 10. Orazio Borgianni, Potiphar's Wife Lusting after Joseph, 1615, etching, copy of the fresco by the school of Raphael in the Vatican Logge, 15 × 18.3 cm. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.
Figure 11. Antonio Tempesta, Circe Changing Picus into a Bird, etching, 10.9 × 12.3 cm., in Metamorphoseon Ovidianarum, Amsterdam, 1606, 136. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
Figure 12. Caravaggio, Fortune-Teller, 1594, oil on canvas, 93 × 131 cm. Musée du Louvre, Paris. Photo: Bridgeman Images.
Figure 13. Wenceslaus Hollar, after Leonardo da Vinci, A Young Man Caressing an Old Woman, 1646, etching, 17 × 13 cm. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
Figure 14. Guercino, A Witch, Two Bats, and a Demon in Flight, pen and brown ink with brown wash on laid paper, 11.7 × 25.7 cm. Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto. Photo © Art Gallery of Ontario / Purchased as a gift of the Trier-Fodor Foundation, 1986 / Bri
Figure 15. Guercino, Three Bathers Surprised by a Monster, ca. 1620-25, pen and black ink, 16.2 × 25.7 cm. Windsor Castle. Photo: Royal Collection Trust / © His Majesty King Charles III 2023.
Figure 16. Guercino, A Monstrous Animal and a Peasant, 1620-30, pen, ink, and brown wash, 15.1 × 22.2 cm. Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool. Photo © National Museums Liverpool / Bridgeman Images.
Figure 17. Marcantonio Raimondi or Agostino Veneziano, after Giulio Romano (?), Lo stregozzo, 1520s, engraving, 30.3 × 64.5 cm. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.
Figure 18. Lo stregozzo, detail.
Figure 19. Jusepe de Ribera (?), Lo stregozzo, 1640s, oil on copper, 34.3 × 65.5 cm. Wellington Museum, London. Photo © Historic England / Bridgeman Images.
Figure 20. Michelangelo, The Creation of Sun, Moon, and Planets, 1508-12, fresco. Sistine Chapel, Vatican, Rome. Photo: Alinari / Bridgeman Images.
Figure 21. Anonymous artist, after an engraving of Marcantonio Raimondi's Position 9 from I modi (drawn by Giulio Romano), 1550s, woodcut, in "Toscanini volume," f. B2, image size: 6 × 6.5 cm. Private collection, Milan. Photo © Christie's Images / Bridgem
Figure 22. Giulio Romano, Apollo and Diana, 1527, fresco. Camera del Sole e della Luna, Palazzo del Te, Mantua. Photo: Ghigo Roli / Bridgeman Images.
Figure 23. Giulio Romano and others, The Battle of the Milvian Bridge, 1519-24, fresco. Sala di Costantino, Vatican Palace, Rome. Photo © Stefano Baldini / Bridgeman Images.
Figure 24. Marcantonio Raimondi, after Raphael, The Massacre of the Innocents, ca. 1511-12, engraving, 28 × 42.6 cm. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.
Figure 25. Raphael, Fire in the Borgo, ca. 1514-17, fresco. Stanza dell'Incendio, Vatican Palace, Rome. Photo © Stefano Baldini / Bridgeman Images.
Figure 26. Aristotile da Sangallo, after Michelangelo's cartoon, Battle of Cascina, 1542, oil on panel, 76.4 × 130.2 cm. Holkham Hall, Norfolk. Photo: By permission of the Earl of Leicester and the Trustees of the Holkham Estate / Bridgeman Images.
Figure 27. Andrea Mantegna, Battle of the Sea Gods, ca. 1475-80, engraving from two plates, 28.5 × 43 cm. (left) and 28.6 × 37.5 cm. (right). The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
Figure 28. Hans Baldung Grien, Preparation for the Witches' Sabbath, 1510, chiaroscuro woodcut, 36.6 × 25.9 cm. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
Figure 29. Master HFE, Marine Gods, ca. 1530s, engraving, 17.1 × 39.8 cm. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.
Figure 30. Accursio Baldi and Bastiano Marsili, after Raffaello Gualterotti, A Dragon Chasing after a Witch on a Chimera, in Feste nelle nozza del Serenissimo Don Francesco Medici gran duca di Toscana et della Sereniss sua consorte la Sig. Bianca Cappello
Figure 31. Girolamo da Carpi (attr.), Landscape with Magic Procession, 1528, oil on canvas, 159 × 116 cm. Galleria Borghese, Rome. Photo © Electa / Bridgeman Images.
Figure 32. Robert Mapplethorpe, Louise Bourgeois Holding 'Fillette', 1982, photograph, 37.5 × 37.4 cm. Photo © Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation. Used by permission.
Figure 33. Anonymous, after Parmigianino, A Witch Riding on a Phallus, 1530s, etching, 14.5 × 9.7 cm. British Museum, London. Photo © The Trustees of the British Museum.
Figure 34. Bernard Picart, after Parmigianino, A Witch Riding on a Phallus, etching, second state, in Bernard Picart, Impostures innocentes, ou Recueil d'Estampes d'aprés divers peintres, Amsterdam, 1734, no. 12. Photo © The Trustees of the British Museum
Figure 35. Jacopo Caraglio, after Parmigianino, Adoration of the Shepherds, 1526, engraving, 20.9 × 24 cm. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.
Figure 36. Parmigianino, Entombment of Christ, etching, 31.4 × 23.9 cm. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.
Figure 37. Parmigianino, after Marcantonio Raimondi's Modi, Two Lovers, pen and brown ink, 13.1 × 15.2 cm. Private collection. Photo © Christie's Images / Bridgeman Images.
Figure 38. Parmigianino, Lovers, etching and engraving, 14.7 × 10.4 cm. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.
Figure 39. Parmigianino, The Lower Part of Two Male Nudes, 1535-40, pen and brown ink, 19 × 8.9 cm. Musée du Louvre, Paris. Photo © RMN-Grand Palais / Art Resource, NY.
Figure 40. Anonymous artist, after an engraving of Marcantonio Raimondi's Position 14 from I modi (drawn by Giulio Romano), 1550s, woodcut, in "Toscanini volume," f. B4v, image size: 6 × 6.5 cm. Photo © Christie's Images / Bridgeman Images.
Figure 41. German School, Melancholy, woodcut, in the German Almanac, Augsburg, 1484. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
Figure 42. Three Female Witches on a Night Ride, woodcut, in Johann Geiler von Kaysersberg, Die Emeis, Strasbourg, 1517, 37v. Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, Cornell University Library.
Figure 43. Harmen Jansz. Muller, after Maarten van Heemskerck, The Melancholy Temperament, 1566, engraving, 21.5 × 23.7 cm. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.
Figure 44. Giovanni Nicolò Miretto and Stefano da Ferrara, Saturn, the Melancholic, and Mercenary Love with a Woman on Top, 1425-40, fresco. Great Hall, Palazzo della Ragione, Padua. Photo: Alinari Archives, Florence.
Figure 45. Devil Seducing a Witch, woodcut, in Ulrich Molitor, De Lamiis et pythonicis mulieribus, Basel, ca. 1495, 1v. Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, Cornell University Library.
Figure 46. Woman Astride a Phallus, ca. 1400-1425, badge, tin and lead alloy, 2.5 × 2.2 cm. Musée Cluny, Paris. Photo © RMN-Grand Palais / Art Resource, NY.
Figure 47. Northern Italian, A Scene of Copulation, ca. 1480-1500, verso of a copper engraving plate, 15 × 22.4 cm. National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC.
Figure 48. Roman amulet pendant, 2nd century CE, gold, pearls, and amethyst, 3.1 × 1.8 cm. The Johns Hopkins Archaeological Museum, Baltimore. Photo: James T. VanRensselaer.
Figure 49. Bernardino Detti, Madonna of the Pergola (detail), 1523, tempera on panel, 213 × 164 cm. Museo Civico, Pistoia. Photo: Alinari Archives, Florence.
Figure 50. Francisco Goya, A Fine Teacher!, plate 68 of the Caprichos, 1799, etching and aquatint, 21 × 15 cm. Rosenwald Collection, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC.