Roman Charity

Additionally, wall paintings and terracotta statues from the first century excavated in Pompeii suggest that visual representations of Pero and Cimon were common, however it is difficult to say whether these existed in response to Maximus's anecdote or preceded – inspired – his story.

[5] Maximus's anecdote of Pero and Cimon posits the following ekphrastic challenge:[6] Men's eyes are riveted in amazement when they see the painting of this act and renew the features of the long bygone incident in astonishment at the spectacle now before them, believing that in those silent outlines of limbs they see living and breathing bodies.

This must needs happen to the mind also, admonished to remember things long past as though they were recent by painting, which is considerably more effective than literary memorials.The mid-1st century Natural History of Pliny the Elder includes the story in its section on the greatest examples of human affection known.

The earliest modern depictions of Pero and Cimon emerged independently of each other in Southern Germany and Northern Italy around 1525, in a wide range of media including bronze medals, frescoes, engravings, drawings, oil paintings, ceramics, inlaid wood decorations, and statues.

Barthel's first rendering of the theme in 1525 is usually brought in connection with a brief jail term that he, his brother Sebald, and their common friend Georg Pencz served for charges of atheism earlier that year.

Cimon's arms tied are behind his back and his shoulders and lower body are covered in a jacket-like piece of cloth, however his muscular chest and erect nipples are on full display.

[13] In 1606/1607, the early Baroque artist Caravaggio featured the scene in his altarpiece, The Seven Works of Mercy, commissioned by the confraternity of Pio Monte della Misericordia in Naples.

[15] Following Caravaggio's altarpiece, the veritable craze for gallery paintings of Pero and Cimon started in 1610–12, and spread through Italy, France, the Southern Netherlands, and Utrecht, even drawing traction among Spanish painters such as Jusepe de Ribera and, later, Bartolomé Esteban Murillo.

Followers of Ruben's tended to copy his 1630 version (now in Amsterdam) but began introducing a sleeping child at Pero's feet, a detail the original legend does not mention.

[18] Many examples of paintings, prints, and sculptures of Roman Charity include a baby or pre-school-age child (perhaps in the vein of the boy included in Poussin's The Gathering of the Manna), by artists such as Niccolò̀ Tornioli (1598–1651), Cecco Bravo (1607–61), Artus Quellinus the Elder (1609–1668), Louis Boullogne (1609–74), Jean Cornu (1650-1710), Johann Carl Loth (1632–98), Carlo Cignani (1628–1719), Adrian van der Werff (1659–1722), Gregorio Lazzarini (1657–1730), Francesco Migliori (1684–1734), and Johann Peter Weber (1737-1804).

[21] During this period of prolific engagement with the imagery of Pero and Cimon, Nicolas Poussin (1594–1665) stands out because of his rendering of the breastfeeding mother-daughter couple in The Gathering of the Manna (1639).

[22] Poussin's choice of subject matter demonstrated his knowledge of Maximus's other example of filial piety, as well as earlier French renderings of the theme.

[31] Perhaps this brief resurgence of interest can be explained by a French Revolutionary theme of political equality which found resonance in the reciprocity within kinship relations that the mother-daughter version displayed.