This article investigates four widely studied versions of the biblical story of the Feast of Herod produced by Florentine artists in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries: Giotto’s fresco from the Peruzzi Chapel at Santa Croce (ca. 1320), Andrea Pisano’s panels on the south doors of Florence’s baptistery (ca. 1335), Donatello’s relief for the baptismal font at Siena (ca. 1425), and Filippo Lippi’s fresco in the main chapel at the cathedral of Prato (ca. 1465). The study explores how the narrative is interpreted by each artist and suggests social messages that contemporary audiences might have drawn from each interpretation by examining the actions of the figures in light of the teachings of late medieval and early Renaissance didactic literature. Conduct literature allows one to interpret what the works reveal about the story, but also suggests that they could function didactically, in and of themselves. In such a reading, Herodias and Salome are treacherous women: dangerous not only to John the Baptist, but also to Florentine society of the period.

This essay examines the role of ancient Egypt in courtly masquerades under François Ier (r. 1515–47). It opens with an analysis of the iconography of a sphinx costume that was designed by Francesco Primaticcio (1504/05–1570) and worn by the king and one of his favorite courtiers, Cardinal Jean de Lorraine (1498–1550), at a wedding celebration held in 1546. Two other costume drawings by the same artist are discussed next, and the first printed French translation of Horapollo’s Hieroglyphica, which was published in Paris in 1543, is identified as their source. In examining their strange aesthetic and multiple layers of meaning, this study considers how these costumes were symptomatic of a broader French Renaissance fascination with concealed truth and how, as conveyors of veiled messages, they were meant to spark lofty discussions and demonstrate the French court’s sophistication.

This essay examines how Dutch and English vernacular writers portrayed the Moor in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, when their respective governments were engaged in diplomatic and trade discussions with Morocco. It aims for a better understanding of the difference in religious attitudes and cultures between these two Protestant realms by arguing that their respective approaches to internal religious toleration significantly influenced how their residents viewed Muslims. Dutch writers adopted a less hostile tone toward the Moor than English writers due to the republic’s principled defense of freedom of conscience, its informal system of religious toleration in the private sector, and its merchant Realpolitik. Unlike in England, Dutch conversos were allowed to be Jews. A number of Moroccan Muslims also resided in Holland, lobbying on behalf of the Muslim King of Morocco. The Moroccan Jewish Pallache family played prominent roles with the government and in two of the pamphlets examined here, including one that interprets a Moroccan civil war through the lens of demonic sorcery. So too did Jan Theunisz, a liberal Mennonite of Amsterdam who collaborated with both Jews and Muslims in his home. As Dutch citizens were adapting to a new religious environment that effectively privatized religious practice, they were better equipped than their English counterparts to acclimatize to Jews inside and the Moor outside their borders.

The Venetian poet and librettist Giulio Strozzi (1583–1652) spent much of his career glorifying the Serenissima through a series of theatrical pieces. His only epic poem, the Venetia edificata (1621, 1624), while ostensibly a celebration of the republic, shows a level of commitment to Galileo Galilei (1564–1643) and to Galileo’s science that is unique among poets of the time, Venetian or otherwise. It is the apex of Strozzi’s artistic project to incorporate Galileo’s discoveries and texts into poetic works. The Venetia edificata also represents the culmination of a fifteen-year effort to gain patronage from the Medici Grand Dukes in Florence. While the first, incomplete version is dedicated to the Venetian Doge, the second, finished version is dedicated to Grand Duke Ferdinando II de’ Medici of Florence. More than a decade after Galileo’s departure from the Veneto to Florence, Strozzi cites from Galileo’s early works, creates a character inspired by Galileo, incorporates the principles of Galileo’s science into the organizing structure of the poem, and answers one of Galileo’s loudest complaints about Torquato Tasso’s Jerusalem Delivered (1581). Strozzi’s strategies both in writing the Venetia edificata and in seeking patronage for it underscore the ambivalent response to Galileo in contemporary poetry.