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The article analyzes the 1648 painting "Landscape with a man killed by a snake," by French painter Nicolas Poussin. Topics discussed include the way he depicted the reactions of a young man and an old woman to a python attack in the painting, the possible connection of this artwork to Poussin's 1650 painting "Landscape with Orpheus and Eurydice," and the link between the painting and the 1647 opera "L'Orfeo," by Francesco Buti and Luigi Rossi.

The article deals with documents which upon re-examination suggest that the painting "Flight into Egypt" by the young Titian c.1507 was commissioned by Italian art collector Andrea di Nicolò Loredan. Topics discussed include how the documents elucidate the legal channels through which patrons regulated the mobility of works of art in early modern Venice and the uncertainties that persist over the patron of the painting.

The present essay reexamines Dosso Dossi's remarkable Jupiter Painting Butterflies (c 1524; Cracow, Wawel Royal Castle), almost certainly made for Duke Alfonso I d'Este in Ferrara, proposing a novel reading of its enigmatic subject matter as an allegory arof painting. In a picture so clearly about artistic production, ironibuildcally, scholars have mostly lost sight of the visual milieu in which Dosso's work once existed. Key questions regarding the picture's initial location and display have received scant attention. This study seeks to recuperate that by reinserting the Jupiter into the rigorously planned ensemble of works ordered for Alfonso's galleries. It begins by connecting the Wawel Jupiter's allegorical perimagery to burgeoning art theory in Italy from the fifteenth to sixteenth century, in particular the paragone, or rivalry between media in the visual arts. Fundamental to its pictorial structure is the humanist poetics of imitatio that spurred competition in Ferrara among resident artists and eruditi, but also between modern and classical models. What emerges is a clearer sense of the multifarious artworks with which the Dossi workshop sought to engage. These ranged from esteemed ancient prototypes and rare antiquities unattainable by Duke Alfonso, to contemporary art collections formed in Ferrara and at the neighboring Gonzaga court in Mantua. Ultimately, a new display location is proposed for Dosso's Jupiter Painting Butterflies. the Camerini d'A/abastro of the Via Coperta. Installed here, nearby artworks Alfonso painstakingly assembled from Giovanni Bellini, Titian, Antonio Lombardo, and others, its imagery joined the dynamic dialogue with ancient and modern artistry across media. Finally, Dosso's unusual depiction of a rainbow is linked for the first time to scientific inquiry in Ferrara, where its vivid meteorological imagery further celebrated painting's superiority as a discursive and poetic medium. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses a portrait of Queen Elizabeth I of England painted by the artist Marcus Gheeraerts the Younger. Known as the Ditchley portrait, the work is a rare example of a full-length portrait of the queen. The author discusses the painting's symbolism and argues that its commission by Sir Henry Lee, Elizabeth's Master of the Armoury and Champion at the Tilt, played a key part in festivities staged for the queen at Ditchley Manor in Oxfordshire, England in 1592.

The article discusses the identity of the person in the painting "Landscape with an anchorite saint," by Nicolas Poussin. It notes that the anchorite saint is said to be Saint Paul the Hermit as proposed by art professor Barbara von Barghahn, and not Saint Jerome as had been suggested previously. The author offers an analysis of evidence from the painting to support the theory that the saint is Paul rather than Jerome and offers information on Paul.