Chapter 7

Poussin’s The Plague at Ashdod

A WORK OF ART IN MULTIPLE CONTEXTS

Elisabeth Hipp

AN UNUSUAL, BUT VERY SUCCESSFUL PLAGUE PICTURE

Nicolas Poussin’s painting The Plague at Ashdod (fig. 7.1), produced in Rome between 1630 and 1631, can be considered one of the most important and successful plague pictures of all time: many subsequent representations of historical or biblical plague epidemics are indebted to it, particularly in the way they depict the suffering masses and in their choice of visual motifs.1 Poussin’s canvas is now often regarded as a reflection of the contemporary experience of the bubonic plague cast in Old Testament garb. Yet, as has already been pointed out by scholars, the biblical epidemic depicted there was, in Poussin’s time, not generally understood as bubonic plague. Furthermore, although one now may take the painter’s choice of subject for granted, it was, in fact, an extremely unusual subject for an easel painting.2

[179]Poussin himself called the painting The Miracle of the Ark in the Temple of Dagon (Il miracolo dell’Arca nel tempio di Agone), thus placing stress on the cause of the epidemic—not on the epidemic itself.3 Nevertheless, it is indeed the calamity that dominates the composition. Giovan Pietro Bellori and André Félibien, two of Poussin’s early biographers, consequently accentuated the importance of the disease that is represented in the painting, using the expressions il Morbo (the Disease or the Pestilence) and la Peste (the Plague) to refer to the picture. Giambattista Passeri, however, used a designation that approached Poussin’s own title, while Joachim von Sandrart’s description refers both to the events that precipitated the epidemic and the epidemic itself.4 Clearly, both the plague and its cause have to be taken into account in order to understand and properly interpret the picture.

The incident shown in The Plague at Ashdod is described in 1 Samuel 5:5–7. Having captured the Hebrews’ ark of the covenant during the battle of Ebenezer, the Philistines took it home with them to the city of Ashdod and placed it in the temple of their idol, Dagon. Poussin shows a city square lined with distinguished buildings, among them the temple of Dagon on the left. According to Bellori, the obelisk in the background indicates the fact that Ashdod was close to Egypt.5 As a punishment for this offense, God twice caused the idol of Dagon to fall ignominiously to the ground; the second time, its head and hands were broken off. God also struck the Philistines with an affliction “in the more intimate part of their flanks“ (in secretiori parte natium),6 as stated in the Vulgate, which was the authoritative version of the Bible in that age (as mandated by the Council of Trent). God also set upon them a plague of mice (et nati sunt mures). This plague of mice is mentioned explicitly only in the Greek Septuagint and in the Vulgate; in the Hebrew text of the Old Testament, it can only be deduced from the guilt offering later made by the Philistines.7 Drawing upon his biblical source, Poussin shows a city being ravaged by the disease, while still including signs of the other punishments. The tribulations that the God of Israel has visited upon the Philistines and their god Dagon obviously have just begun to make Ashdod’s citizens—seen debating in the middle ground—realize that the stolen ark could not remain in their city.

In recreating this episode on canvas, it is quite possible that Poussin consulted, beside the Bible, Flavius Josephus’s Jewish Antiquities. Another [180]book by Josephus, his Wars of the Jews, had already been the artist’s source for the first version of The Sack and Destruction of the Temple at Jerusalem by Titus (1626, Jerusalem, The Israel Museum), and the Jewish Antiquities were definitely a source for some of his later pictures.8 Like the Vulgate, Josephus also includes a reference to the plague of mice in recounting the Ashdod episode. In the Jewish Antiquities, the description of the moment depicted by Poussin, including the scene before the temple, is more concise than that contained in the Bible: “Being, then, in this evil plight and powerless to withstand their calamities, the Azotians understood that it was from the ark that they arose and that their victory and the capture of this trophy had not been for their welfare.”9

Poussin portrays in detail the agony of the Philistines in the three figural groups dominating the foreground. In addition, vignettes of disease and death can be seen in the background. Among these suffering people, mice—depicted, actually, as the size of rats—are scurrying around. The large size of Poussin’s “mice” has a philological explanation. The Latin word mus, used in the Vulgate, is, in fact, ambiguous: it can signify “rat” as well as “mouse.” Thus, in various French translations of the Vulgate the Frenchman Poussin might have consulted, the Latin plural mures was translated either as souris (mice) or as “rats.”10 When Josephus’s work, originally written in Greek, was translated into Latin, his equally ambiguous Greek word mues (literally “mice,” but the term could also be applied to other rodents) was replaced by the likewise ambiguous Latin term mures. Nonetheless, some French translations did name the rodents unmistakably as “rats.”11 It is more likely, in any case, that Poussin encountered the reference to rats from a translated version of the Jewish Antiquities, rather than from a French or Italian translation of the Bible, since the reading of scripture in the vernacular was strictly regulated in this period: Poussin would have had to obtain ecclesiastical permission to use a French translation of the Bible and to obtain access to such a translation within the private collections of his former patrons and clients. However, it is here important to point out that the theory that Poussin had included the rats because he recognized an etiological connection between the plague and the rodents simply has no basis in the contemporary textual sources. No such scientific understanding, namely, that rats (or mice) were carriers of the disease, as yet existed.12

[181]Generally speaking, the precise identity of the disease suffered by the Philistines was not a major focus of attention in traditional discussions of and commentary upon this biblical passage, nor in its early pictorial representation (mostly in medieval illuminations). Furthermore, the term “plague” (in Latin and the vernacular tongues) had always been ambiguous.13 More important in these analyses was the fact that it was God who had sent the disease as a punishment of the enemies of his people.

By the time Poussin undertook the execution of this work, however, theologians had begun to attempt to shed light upon the various biblical plagues by using current medical knowledge and terminology in dealing with the historical/literal level of exegesis. Nonetheless, even in this early modern exegetical literature the Philistines’ affliction was not really understood as a “plague” in any specific medical sense. The great Jesuit biblical commentator Cornelius a Lapide (1567–1637), for example, discusses older interpretations of the Philistines’ malady as a kind of venereal disease (lues venerea) and as dysentery—the latter interpretation having been prompted by Josephus’s text, which was often cited in exegetical literature of the time. In the end, Cornelius concludes that the disease in question was a special one, sui generis, hitherto unknown and created only for this one specific case of divine punishment.14 Lapide’s avoidance of a diagnosis of the Philistine disease as bubonic plague is all the more notable because he refers to that disease elsewhere in his commentary on other biblical passages involving mass mortality. For instance, in his discussion of Exodus 9:3, the Jesuit adds to discussion of the passage on the pharaonic plague remarks about various remedies specifically for bubonic plague. Elsewhere, in his explanation of the Davidian plague (2 Sam. 24:12–17), he likewise mentions comparable historical plagues, including the outbreak of bubonic plague that struck Rome during the reign of Pope Gregory the Great in the early sixth century.15

In the exegetical literature of the early modern period, the Latin word pestis is found in reference to the Philistines’ disease at Ashdod only when commentators (such as Gaspar Sanchez [1594–1620]), for instance, cite the aforementioned Flavius Josephus. Yet, in this usage, the word pestis really means no more than “disease,” translating the original Greek term, nósos, which Josephus uses before he describes in detail the Azotians’ intestinal [182]symptoms.16 This translation of the word nósos as peste also recurs in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Italian and French translations of the Jewish Antiquities.17

However, there is another aspect of the biblical story that held even more importance for the early modern commentaries and that was also relevant to Poussin’s painting: it is the fact that the ark—and with it the Hebrew God—emerges as the winner of the story. This point frequently served as the basis for several of the commentators’ allegorical and moral interpretations of the story. Moreover, in the few pictorial representations of the ark in Ashdod that Poussin could have known—almost exclusively book illustrations, especially in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century biblical picture books18—the confrontation between the ark of the covenant and the idol Dagon occurs virtually always in the center of the composition. While the plague of mice is often shown, the suffering of the Philistines is generally omitted (although it had played a certain role in medieval illuminations).19

In Poussin’s painting, however, the Philistines’ suffering has become an essential component of the subject. Furthermore, the artist defines the illness specifically as bubonic plague by assembling a number of older pictorial formulations that the educated viewer would recognize as bubonic plague motifs.20 A prominent example is in the very center of the foreground: the dead mother lying on the ground with her children, seen in foreshortened perspective. This motif goes back to an old topos for the representation of catastrophe that already appeared in an ancient ecphrasis by Pliny the Elder, describing a work by the Greek painter Aristeides: according to Pliny, in the environment of a captured city, Aristides depicted a dying mother who watches her baby moving towards her breast, afraid that the child finally might drink blood.21 In the print known as the Morbetto (fig. 7.2), a representation of an epidemic of plague from Virgil’s Aeneid designed by Raphael and engraved by Marcantonio Raimondi, this topos reappears; however, the specific figure of the mother lying on the ground was obviously inspired by Michelangelo’s scene of the Deluge from the Sistine ceiling frescoes. With Raphael’s drawing and Raimondi’s print thereof, [184]the motif had received a new, more specific meaning that made it especially suitable for other plague representations as well.22 Viewers as early as Bellori recognized that Poussin had borrowed this motif from the Morbetto. Yet, notably, in the Morbetto and consequently also in the Plague at Ashdod, Pliny’s verbal image is modified in order to accord with these artists’ subjects: instead of being moribund, as in Pliny’s description, the mother is already dead in the two pictorial solutions.23

Another recognizable plague motif is the man who pinches his nose to protect himself from the stench and perhaps also the infectious miasma surrounding him: this image is likewise found in many plague pictures of the time, including the influential Morbetto print. An additional motif is the pale gray skin of the dead mother, which recalls the pale face that is part of Cesare Ripa’s description of the personification of plague in his Iconologia.24 Although a physical detail such as the skin color of a plague victim can be understood as reflecting some contemporary medical knowledge of the plague’s symptoms and effects,25 Poussin’s depiction does not intend to illustrate this medical data in any obvious or precise way. The artist, instead, employs almost exclusively those iconographic formulas and motifs that were already culturally encoded, irrespective of contemporary science. Thus, the figural groups in the foreground, composed of both the living and the dead, inevitably remind the viewer of previous plague representations. This is true as well of the middle-ground detail of the dead person being carried away.26

It is important to reiterate that, in deciding to represent the Philistines’ disease as “real” plague, Poussin deviates from the traditional exegesis of his biblical subject, as seen in the discussion above of this ecclesiastical literature. The artist’s decision is all the more striking since, not only is this connection between plague and Ashdod not found in the aforementioned exegetical literature; it does not exist in the contemporary historical-medical-scientific literature on the plague either. The Plague of King David, the Plague of Pope Gregory the Great, and other historical and biblical epidemics are mentioned frequently in such treatises, but all reference to the [185]suffering of the Philistines is omitted.27 Among the many early modern plague treatises, there is only one reference to be found to the Philistines’ disease as bubonic plague: this comes a few decades after the completion of Poussin’s painting, in Athanasius Kircher’s Scrutinium physico-medicum contagiosae luis.28 Though a unique case, Kircher’s reference does indicate that, by the later seventeenth century at least, interpretation of the Philistines’ disease as a bubonic plague—perhaps first proposed by Poussin in his painting—was a permissible as well as plausible deviation from traditionally accepted views. Poussin himself may have first had the idea of interpreting the Philistines’ disease as the “real” plague while undertaking an initial survey of his textual sources and finding in translations of Josephus the repeated mentioning of the word “peste” (though there used with a different sense).

Inasmuch as Poussin has chosen a seldom-depicted biblical epidemic for the subject of his painting, and in doing so has decided to represent it, contrary to tradition, as “real” plague and, furthermore, does so in the form of a history painting destined for a collector’s cabinet or gallery, the canvas can be considered highly unusual. Both its rare Old Testament subject and its primary purpose distinguish it from traditional religious plague pictures: the latter devotional scenes usually have as their focus the figure of the Madonna or an interceding saint and sometimes also include crowds of suffering people.29 Moreover, it is unusual that Poussin depicts the plague exclusively by means of its effects, since the epidemic had traditionally been represented through symbolic agents such as angels of death, arrows, or other emblems of this kind. As a plague picture, Poussin’s painting ought rather to be situated in relation to the tradition of representations of pestilential epidemics from literary—and especially classical literary—sources. Yet here, too, examples before Poussin are rare, especially in the art of painting. (In case of the Morbetto print, it should be noted that some scholars assume that the work was intended to become a book illustration, but there were no plans for a related painted canvas.)30

Though research on Poussin’s painting has for a long time acknowledged the work’s relation to the plague epidemic that struck large portions of Italy in the years around 1630, it nevertheless has failed to explore the more precise nature of this connection and its possible implications. Only recently have there been attempts to identify the specific reasons for which this plague picture came to be, and to understand the purpose it might [186]have served.31 This consideration, however, will not focus merely on the context of the historical plague of 1630: the function of Poussin’s canvas as a plague picture can only be fully understood if the artistic discourses that enveloped its creation are taken into careful consideration as well.

THE PICTURE AS A WORK OF ART

One portion of the painting’s early history is well known, thanks to the records from a court trial involving the Sicilian art dealer and adventurer Fabrizio Valguarnera, first published by Jane Costello in 1950. These records secure the date of the painting, confirming that Valguarnera visited Poussin in his studio by the end of 1630, at which time the Sicilian dealer decided to acquire The Plague at Ashdod, the canvas being already under way but still incomplete. In addition, Valguarnera ordered from Poussin The Realm of Flora (Dresden, Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister). Upon the completion of the The Plague in early 1631 and the Flora two months later, the pictures were brought to Valguarnera’s house.32 Despite this documentary evidence, one of the many questions remaining about The Plague at Ashdod is when exactly Poussin began its execution.

There are still other problems to resolve. For a long time, a drawing in the Louvre formerly ascribed to Poussin and a large early copy of the painting in London (National Gallery) now attributed to Angelo Caroselli were thought to reveal Poussin’s original concept, or some intermediary state of the painting’s evolution.33 Now, however, the documentary value of both of these works has been diminished. The drawing’s attribution is currently under debate,34 nor is it known when it was completed. As for the copy in London, it seems unlikely that this canvas was done after the unfinished original and documents an earlier state of The Plague at Ashdod, inasmuch as what is seen in the Caroselli version does not correspond to the compositional changes visible in infrared photographs of the Poussin painting; in particular, the scenery in the Caroselli copy does not relate to what an infrared photograph reveals about alterations in Poussin’s own architectural backdrop.35 The same infrared photograph also documents additional [187]changes not seen in the copy: for example, the relief in the temple was apparently conceived differently in a first version; originally, the sculpture of Dagon seems to have stood upright (Poussin’s revision of this latter detail to conform better with the biblical sources suggests that he refined his understanding of the story during the painting process).36

The suggestion that the Caroselli painting simply is reflecting a second earlier state—different from the one visible in the infrared photograph—does not seem satisfying.37 Another problematic thesis is that Poussin’s one-time housemate Jean Lemaire had invented or carried out parts of the scenery.38 Unfortunately, present documentation does not enable us to solve this specific question. However, it can at least be assumed that from the beginning, Poussin’s conception for his painting included several groups of the suffering people in the foreground. In addition, it seems that the total design of the painting originated with Poussin himself, even if it may be the case that in the actual process of painting he received assistance from another artist.

As to the circumstances that prompted Poussin to undertake this canvas, it remains uncertain whether the artist began the painting with a specific commission that was subsequently withdrawn or whether he initiated this project without the benefit of a committed purchaser. At the time when he painted The Plague at Ashdod, Poussin was not in the service of any one particular patron. It must have been especially disappointing for him that his altarpiece for St. Peter’s basilica, The Martyrdom of Erasmus (1629, Pinacoteca Vaticana), had not led to further commissions from the papal court. Thus, with The Plague at Ashdod, he continued his former practice of making easel paintings destined for private walls and collections, but now obviously with even more ambition than before.39 Supporting the hypothesis of a specific original client for The Plague at Ashdod is its intellectual complexity. The picture is more than the representation of an Old Testament plague scene: with both its composition and its subject matter, Poussin tackles problems of significance to contemporary theories of art as well as to his Roman artistic environment.

Among these problems was the representation of the passage of time in a single picture that nevertheless respects the goal of temporal unity. The painting seems to show a particular moment of the story; yet, this “particular moment” is a complex one and is thus elucidated through the depiction [188]of various discrete actions that could have happened simultaneously.40 At the same time, however, the story’s larger narrative remains understandable. This occurs as the viewer’s eye is repeatedly steered by the composition from the groups of the suffering and fleeing people in the foreground back to the middle ground, especially to the group of the men near the temple. Indeed, according to the written account, the Azotians convene several times in the course of the story and the viewer might be reminded of all the meetings here, beginning with the discovery of the broken idol of Dagon. However, more specifically, the painting clearly shows the scene shortly before they decide their next course of action. From this middle-ground group, the viewer’s gaze is directed by the figures’ gestures and glances to the elevated ark. It is the ark that reveals itself as the picture’s real hero, triumphing over the broken Dagon while at the same time indicating the reason for the Philistines’ humiliation and suffering. The glance of the fleeing man in the blue cloak leads the viewer’s eye to the relief on the temple’s podium: there one observes a scene of worship, a reflection of the time before the fall of the god Dagon and, as will be discussed later, yet another reason for Yahweh’s punishment of the Philistines. Also in the trajectory of the same fleeing man’s glance is a rat, prominently placed on the temple’s steps and vividly indicating the plague of rodents, which are also present in other parts of the picture. Finally, the sunrise in the distance may have been intended as an indication of the time of day when the catastrophe began, since according to the Bible, Dagon was found toppled over in the morning hours.

One can perceive in the canvas a critical stage in the development of Poussin’s narrative technique, which he was to hone a few years later in The Gathering of the Manna (1637[?]–1639, Paris, Louvre).41 Another Roman painter who had recently endeavored to indicate the passage of time in depicting one temporal moment in a single composition was Domenichino, in his painting Diana with Nymphs at Play (1616–17, Rome, Galleria Borghese).42 According to Bellori, Poussin had frequented Domenichino’s Roman workshop in order to study the nude body.43 Poussin’s painting in general, together with The Plague at Ashdod, nevertheless, seems to take a rather individual stance vis-à-vis the mounting concerns regarding the proper organization of a composition in history painting. These concerns found a famous expression in Ferrante Carlo’s description of Lanfranco’s [189]fresco in the cupola of Sant’Andrea della Valle in Rome; it culminated in the debate that took place in 1636—several years after the completion of the The Plague at Ashdod—in the Roman Accademia di San Luca between Pietro da Cortona and Andrea Sacchi: in this debate, one party championed epic poetry as a model, while the other championed drama as was traditionally (in reception of Aristotle) exemplified in tragedy.44

According to Aristotle’s theory (as it influenced Torquato Tasso, whose own theoretical writings served as basis for this debate), epic poetry could describe a greater number of episodes happening at the same time, while tragedy was based upon unified action within a limited time span. It seems consequent that epic poetry could involve more persons than could be contained within a drama. Indeed, The Plague at Ashdod presents a rather large number of figures, and its multiple episodes seem to demonstrate Poussin’s preference for an epic approach as opposed to the tragic one. Yet, at the same time, these episodes are shown closely connected to each other in both a spatial and temporal sense. This also distinguishes the painting especially from the epic cupola frescoes by Lanfranco described by Ferrante Carlo.45 Further, explicit tragic elements can be found in the picture, too. These tragic elements in Poussin’s history painting become evident when the painting is compared to a famous artistic model, which Poussin certainly knew through prints (like fig. 7.3): Raphael’s The Fire in the Borgo (1514, Vatican, Stanza dell’Incendio). Poussin’s composition resembles this fresco in a number of places, and he doubtless reflected consciously upon this work while attempting to develop his own form of history painting.

Kurt Badt has convincingly interpreted The Fire in the Borgo in relation to the elements of an Aristotelian tragedy, and Raphael might indeed have encountered such principles through reading Castelvetro’s commentary of Aristotle’s Poetics.46 If one compares The Plague at Ashdod with Raphael’s fresco in the light of Badt’s thesis, the dramatic structure of Poussin’s picture becomes obvious.47 At the same time, though, it is clear that the elements of tragedy could not be applied to Poussin’s painting in exactly the same way they were applied to Raphael’s composition. It is equally clear that, in certain aspects, Poussin seems to be even closer to Aristotle’s concept of tragedy [191]than Raphael was. In particular, it should be stressed that the peripeteia (the reversal of one’s lot in the course of a play) called for by Aristotle has led, in Poussin’s painting, to misfortune for the Philistines. In Raphael’s painting, in contrast, one can see instead a turn towards more auspicious fortune for the people depicted: it shows the moment in which the fire suddenly stops (though flames are still visible and people are running about, attempting to extinguish them). In this way, Raphael illustrates the pope’s miracle, but does not seem to follow Aristotle as clearly as Poussin, since Aristotle demanded the unhappy ending of a tragedy, not a happy one. Despite the fact that Poussin does not depict peripeteia actually taking place as Raphael had (by showing the end of a fire and thus a turn towards more auspicious fortune), it is, nevertheless, manifest in the dire results of the Philistines’ actions against the Israelites. Furthermore, one could associate the triumph of the ark with a turn towards good fortune, too, if viewed in the context of the history of salvation, namely, as another memorable moment in the successful survival and progress of the Israelite religion, leading, as Christians believed, ultimately to the coming of the Messiah.48 The group of the men near the temple represents the tragic element of recognition (anagorisis) described by Aristotle as closely allied with the phenomenon of peripeteia.

Besides their dramatic structure, Poussin’s The Plague at Ashdod and Raphael’s The Fire in the Borgo also hold in common their catastrophic subjects and the compositional arrangement of component episodes, with the cause of the miracles located in the middle ground, and the impressive examples of the results (the calamity and the termination of the fire, respectively) in the foreground.49 Poussin’s painting additionally shares with Raphael’s fresco a clear and vivid visualization of past events, an approach that has been interpreted in terms of the ancient rhetorical device of enargeia (or evidentia) to explain the type of mimesis found in Raphael’s art.50 Another noteworthy aspect of The Fire in the Borgo is its indirect reference to an ancient historical parallel, the burning of Troy: this is evoked especially by the group of the son carrying his father and leading his son. Thus, this so-called “Aeneas and Anchises group“ alludes to another temporal and hermeneutical level.51 A similar situation is portrayed in The Plague at Ashdod: the Philistines’ suffering and its cause are visualized with narrative clarity, while a [192]number of borrowed motifs seem to function as allusions linking the scenes with allegorical or associative themes, thus furnishing the viewer, on the hermeneutical level, with a more refined and precise understanding of the depicted events.

One example of this is the representation of the god Dagon in the relief on the front of the temple, taken from an emblem in Alciato’s Emblemata in the Lyon edition of 1551, as Henry Keazor first pointed out.52 This emblem shows a creature that is half-snake and half-man (obviously the mythical first king of Athens, Cecrops, mentioned in the accompanying epigram), while in the background, similar creatures are worshipping an idol. The emblem refers to the vanity of human wisdom in its motto: “Sapientia humana, stultitia est apud Deum” (In the eyes of God, human wisdom is but foolishness). Since early modern biblical commentaries describe Dagon as a composite creature, half-human and half-fish, it seems clear that the relief in Poussin’s painting represents the Philistines worshipping their god. At the same time, the relief draws attention to their vice of idolatry; by recalling the Alciato emblem and alluding to its significance, it also alludes to a deeper comprehension of this vice. In this light, Poussin’s detail of the relief might accord with an interpretation of the Ashdod story found in contemporary Bible commentaries, namely that the citizens of that town were punished not only for the simple act of seizing the ark from the Israelites, but also for the larger, collective reason of their vice-ridden way of living.53 This way of living was, above all, marked by a folly or unreasonableness (dementia) that made them irrationally blind to the existence of the true God and to their error of worshipping a false idol.54 Corroborating this deeper reading of the events at Ashdod is Poussin’s detail of the man crouching in the foreground. This figure was apparently taken from one of Rosso Fiorentino’s frescoes for the gallery of François I in Fontainebleau, Ignorance Expelled (1533–39; fig. 7.4). In Fiorentino’s scene, a man in similar posture—probably a personification of despair—is found among the blindfolded personifications of ignorance and her children, the vices who lament their remediable blindness.55

Continuing the discussion of the details of Poussin’s painting that appear to be endowed with allegorical or otherwise associative themes, another example of this is seen in the figure of the dead mother who can be understood as a “dead” variant of the traditional and popular artistic [194]allegory of Charity. Indeed, this interpretation makes sense in the light of literary traditions that could have inspired Poussin: there is also a similar linking of a figural group with a mother of several children, first living, then dead, with a visual artwork representing Charity in the literary treatment of the Massacre of the Innocents by the Renaissance poet Pietro Aretino (1492–1556) and in the seventeenth-century treatment of the same subject in a famous poem by Giambattista Marino (1569–1625).56 Furthermore, the middle ground of Poussin’s painting shows two works of mercy: two men carry away a dead body, while another man gives alms to a beggar seated on some steps.57 This fact—an example of “living charity”—only seemingly stands in contradiction to the interpretation of the mother as “dead charity,” as will be shown later. The middle ground scene of two men carrying a dead body is a further good example of a pictorial element that integrates several layers of meaning. Perfectly suited to a scene of plague as well as a characteristic work of mercy, it evokes the iconography of Raphael’s Baglioni Altarpiece (1507, Rome, Galleria Borghese), in which the artist includes a representation of the carrying of the dead Christ to his tomb.58 By alluding to Christ’s redemption of humankind, this visual motif—the carrying of the dead body—thus seems to inscribe this Old Testament scene within the whole Christian history of salvation.

Borrowed motifs serve yet other functions in The Plague at Ashdod. Following a cinquecento pictorial tradition, Poussin adapted for his architectural setting the tragic scene described by Vitruvius and Serlio. This citation further legitimizes the interpretation of The Plague’s dramatic structure as that of classical tragedy. Furthermore, Vitruvius’s design of a forum provided Poussin with a historically appropriate setting for the representation of an event that had occurred in antiquity.59 In devising his setting, Poussin was respecting the demands of historical decorum that he later described in his letter to Fréart de Chambray with two French terms, costume (meaning “the customary” or “the custom”) and décoré (meaning “decorum” in the sense of what is in general “appropriate”).60 In using Serlio’s tragic scene for a scene of suffering, Poussin was also following Gian Paolo [195]Lomazzo’s recommendation in his 1584 treatise on the art of painting to make the architectural setting of a painting agree with the depicted story, including in this recommendation an explicit reference to the three traditional Vitruvian stage designs.61

Similarly, for reasons of decorum as well as for additional reasons to be explained below, Poussin incorporated important “classical” models into his painting. The figure of the dead mother, for example, refers formally to the antique sculpture of a dying Amazon;62 the fleeing man on the left recalls Lot fleeing Sodom in Raphael’s Loggie (1516–19); the man on the right, striding into the picture and followed closely by a child, refers, in visually reversed fashion (as Poussin might have seen it in prints like fig. 7.3), to the figure of Aeneas in Raphael’s Fire in the Borgo. Moreover, the vignette of the carrying of the body could also reflect the sarcophagus of Meleager, which Raphael already referred to in the aforementioned group of the Baglioni Altarpiece.63 Certain figures relating to classical prototypes—such as the dead mother, derived from Raphael’s Morbetto—were traditionally associated with the power to provoke an emotional response in the viewer. Further figures seem to follow the rhetorical and later art historical principle that the imitation of emotions also stimulates emotions in the audience or viewer: with this objective in mind, Poussin might have included the man who melancholically supports his head on his hand as well as the horrified and astonished people near Dagon’s temple who express their emotions directly while also evoking older iconographic [196]formulas and motifs.64 The people in flight, depicted by Poussin in the foreground, were recommended by Lomazzo explicitly for “composizioni di spaventi” (pictures of horrible subjects), and in particular for the depiction of the Egyptian smallpox plague.65 Given the latter specification by Lomazzo, the use of this motif here thus makes sense in connection with Poussin’s plague subject.

Above all, of course, such motifs would have appealed to the learned viewer who would have recognized their origins. At the same time, however, the fact that these motifs, in their formal aspect, derive from classical sources reduces the potential of the painting’s theme to frighten the viewer and consequently reduces the danger of repulsion. This is so because the classical references contextualize the catastrophic motifs within a conventional framework of established, recognizable, and therefore less disturbing, formulas.66 In a sense, this might be true also of the motifs’ symbolic aspects, mentioned above, such as the allusions to charity, idolatry, and so on, since these aspects are partly based in literature and partly adopted from previous pictures by other masters. Together with the narrative and iconographic aspects, formal qualities including composition (and color, as should be added) also make evident that The Plague at Ashdod is a consciously conceived, intricately complex piece of art. All these qualities demonstrate, more specifically, that Poussin undertook the contemporary artistic challenge of attempting to create a vivid and beautiful representation of a “horrible” subject, a concept that is closely linked with the painting’s intended effect.

THE INTENDED EFFECT OF A “HORRIBLE” PICTURE

All of Poussin’s theoretical writings (expressed exclusively in letters and notes, and never in any extended formal treatise) postdate the period in which the artist was working on The Plague at Ashdod. In addition, most of the concepts they contain and, indeed, often the very phrasing itself derive from the writings of other authors.67 Nevertheless, such texts provide a useful means of understanding the intended effect of Poussin’s picture, as well as testifying to the artist’s knowledge of the theoretical literature concerning his profession, knowledge that he must have begun cultivating even before the conception of The Plague at Ashdod.68 According to the artist himself (writing to Fréart de Chambray on 1 March 1665), the principal goal of his art is to provide the viewer with pleasure and delight (délectation). This is an old topos that can be found in the poetics of Poussin’s time as well as in rhetorical treatises and in art theory.69 In Poussin’s Observations—the theoretical notes published by Bellori—the French master repeats the older concept that the forms of things correspond to the emotions they excite.70 A similar concept is reflected in the idea of the “modes,” which Poussin explains in his famous letter to Chantelou in 1647, based on ancient music theory in general and a music treatise of Gioseffo Zarlino (1558) in particular.71 This theory of the “modes” shall be considered here, although the passages that explain it in the 1647 letter first and foremost have to be seen as a reaction to certain jealous reproaches by Poussin’s client Chantelou and not as an autonomous philosophical explanation. Nevertheless, it can be deduced [197]from the arguments presented there that a picture’s visual effects should be determined in accordance with its subject, just as the effects of literary works are often designed to correspond with their subject’s nature.

Poussin compares visual effects to the ancient categories of musical keys (“modes”) that were differentiated on the basis of their effects on the human psyche. Applied to art, this means that a painting executed in a certain “mode” aims to produce in the viewer the specific emotional state that is best suited to its subject.72 In The Plague at Ashdod, the above-mentioned motifs involving the expression of emotions (as well as the painting’s subdued palette) help to establish a specific mood appropriate to the represented scene. At the same time, Poussin’s definition of the mode as a tempered “middle measure” conveys the idea of a general “moderation”—this is Poussin’s term—which he also might have intended to apply to the painting’s expression. In other words, this “moderation” could be interpreted as a precaution against provoking a reaction of extreme or otherwise disordered emotion.73

An additional means of understanding the intended effect of Poussin’s plague picture is to consider the early recorded reactions to it. Some of these reactions are described in a session of the French Royal Academy held on 1 March 1670: on that occasion Jean-Baptiste de Champaigne asserted that viewers experience the “horror” (horreur) of the biblical plague at their first sight of the picture. However, at the same session, Charles Le Brun spoke of the “harmonious proportion” (proportion harmonique)—apparently with reference to the theory of the modes—that enabled Poussin’s picture to inspire sadness (tristesse) in his audience.74 At first sight, the two artists seem to describe different effects: one a rather fierce one (horreur) and the other a more moderate one (tristesse). Upon closer examination, Champaigne’s description seems to reflect his understanding of Poussin’s use of traditional pictorial expressive motifs in order to communicate clearly to the viewer the Philistines’ suffering and the horror of the biblical plague. Indeed, Champaigne is, in essence, describing the vividness of the figures’ expression; he takes most interest in this aspect (before turning to the way in which Poussin depicted his figures), paying little attention to the intended intensity of the picture’s effect. Consequently, Champaigne’s word “horror,” primarily shows that he understood that Poussin painted a horrible subject in a vivid manner. Moreover, his use of the word does not necessarily mean that he was overwhelmed by horror upon seeing it.

[198]The kind and also the intensity of the picture’s effect are, on the other hand, of primary interest to Charles Le Brun. Le Brun pays careful attention to the relationship governing the subject of a painting, its artistic representation, and the appropriate effect—in other words, the same relationship to which Poussin referred in his theory of the modes. Consequently, Le Brun’s determination that the picture’s effect on the viewer is “sadness” might be judged a more correct one, since it is grounded in his deeper insight into Poussin’s theory of painting. Indeed, since Poussin’s theory indicates that the mood produced by a “terrible” picture should respond “moderately” to the awful subject it depicts, Poussin was probably aiming towards a more moderate reaction on the part of the viewer rather than the more intense state of fright.

The statements of Champaigne and Le Brun are not contradictory in every respect. Both are interested in the representation of a horrible subject, even though they emphasize different artistic concerns (vividness versus moderation). Furthermore, the two emotions they mention, horror and sadness, are practically identical with the emotions of fear and compassion that Aristotle named as the intended products of tragedy. This coincidence suggests that Champaigne and Le Brun both understood Poussin’s picture as a kind of tragedy. It appears probable in light of the evidence of these two early reactions that Poussin intended the painting’s effect to be a moderate emotion that would not completely overwhelm the viewer. “Moderate horror” might sound like an oxymoron, but it seems that, indeed, moderate horror combined with sadness was what he intended. In short, Poussin aimed at a moderate tragic effect.

Given that the picture’s aesthetic qualities were designed to arouse the emotions, it seems somewhat contradictory that Poussin, as is known from his writings, also presumed a decisive role for reason (raison) in the contemplation of a picture. The artist believed that the faculty of rational judgment was important not only in the making of a painting, but also in its viewing. The presence of reason as a condition for good judgment is also emphasized in Poussin’s letter to Chantelou on the modes.75 Moreover, a viewer capable of reason and judgment is predicated by Poussin’s differentiation between the form of viewing that culminates in intellectual comprehension, which Poussin calls “prospect,” and the simplistic, uncomprehending form of perception, which he labels “aspect.” (These two categories of viewing had been taken by Poussin from a treatise by Daniele Barbaro [1513–70] on perspective.)76

[199]One may, however, question the compatibility of the role of reason in the viewing process with the intended goal of an immediate emotional reaction. One might also further ask: how could the stated goal of affording delight to the viewer be possibly achieved when the “horrible” subject of Plague at Ashdod is at the same time supposed to convey a sad, that is, emotionally unpleasant impression, upon the viewer?

Investigating the latter question first, the contemporary theory of tragedy provides some illumination upon the seeming contradiction: in this body of dramatic theory, the problem also had arisen of how to connect the Horatian demands for delectare et prodesse (“delighting and being useful for life”) with the goal of emotional catharsis (meaning purification) mentioned by Aristotle in his Poetics. In the early modern period, catharsis was understood either as a self-defensive hardening of the spirit against the depicted horror by visual and emotional habituation or else as a complete cleansing of sinful passions by deterrence from the represented evil, cruel actions of harmful persons, and by encouragement in the form of positive representations of the good actions of virtuous heroes who could be admired. Furthermore, it should be noted that the early modern Christian interpreters of Aristotle often opposed a complete cleansing of the passions of pity and fear, emotions which, even if limited to a moderate quantity and controlled by reason in the branch of theory first named here, were considered essential components of Christian life.77 In the early modern understanding, catharsis was not necessarily followed or accompanied by any specific tragic pleasure, as Aristotle had indicated when describing the phenomenon of catharsis in his Politics with respect to music.78

Regarding the delight mentioned by Horace and the pleasure indicated by Aristotle, most early modern commentators reasoned that this state of mind was provoked by the moral usefulness of a drama, based on their assumption that learning produces pleasure. Alternatively, the commentators explained this pleasure as the result of the quality of the imitation and the technical skill therein demonstrated, which was the source for the pleasure, drawing from a classic passage in Aristotle’s Poetics.79 Here, the Greek philosopher indeed stresses that, in general, everyone derives pleasure from the artful imitation of real things, even repulsive ones, “for we take pleasure in contemplating the most precise images of things whose sight in itself causes us pain—such as the appearance of the basest animals, or of corpses.”80

[200]Thus, in this chain of baroque poetics, the immediate fear and compassion that the tragedy causes within the spectator are presented beside a pleasure that is the consequence of every good mimetic representation, tragic or otherwise. Only a few authors in the early modern period had begun to assert that relief accompanied the purgation of the passions. The relief to which they referred was thought to be experienced as delight, and thus was not so far at all from the present-day scholarly understanding of Aristotelian catharsis.81 Certain remarks in Poussin’s letters speak for the fact that the artist also meant by the term “pleasing” the delight derived from a successful representation,82 which could also surely encompass the viewer’s discovery of borrowed motifs and hidden learned allusions, thus granting the faculty of reason a definite role in the process. In the case of “terrible” subjects painted beautifully, Poussin was, thus, also in accord with the sentiments expressed in the aforementioned passage by Aristotle.83

In fact, it was already a commonplace in Italian art literature of the late sixteenth century that horrible things beautifully represented could generate pleasure, and in virtually all instances in this literature, the same classic Aristotelian text was probably the authoritative basis for such a belief.84 A reflection of these problems is also found in the treatise on painting by Poussin’s first biographer, Giulio Mancini (1558–1630). Partly summarizing older artistic theories that were still current in early baroque Rome, the treatise was initially composed between 1617 and 1621 but reworked until 1628; though not published until the twentieth century, the manuscript had probably circulated early in learned Roman circles. In these Considerazioni sulla pittura, Mancini states that beauty could even be found in representations of old people’s faces or in the head of a corpse; shortly afterwards he states again that horrible things (cose horribili) could be represented beautifully (given that the artist first recognizes their distinctive qualities) and a little later again cites the classic Aristotelian statement on imitation.85 In the early 1620s, around the time when Mancini already had finished a first version of his manuscript, the issue of the difficulty of combining a pleasurable representation with the immediate effect of horror or sadness was also raised by Giambattista Marino (1569–1625) in his poetry, although his Strage degli Innocenti, a poem in which this question was especially in evidence, was only [201]published posthumously in 1632. Moreover, Guido Reni’s painting dedicated to the same New Testament subject, The Massacre of the Innocents (1611–12, Bologna, Pinacoteca Nazionale), had already given an exemplary solution to the problem, being an aesthetically beautiful representation of a scene of horrible cruelty. This very painting was treated by Marino in another poem published in 1619 in his book entitled La Galeria, pointing out the aforementioned quality of the painting (that is, as a visually beautiful depiction of the cruel and the horror-inspiring).86 Around 1630, Poussin himself took up the challenge of depicting the same Massacre; apparently, he too felt obliged to deal with the problem.87

The focus turns now to the other previously posed question regarding the paradoxes inherent in baroque art theory in general, yet particularly salient in Poussin’s thought: how can the role of reason be compatible with the otherwise emotionally defined process of artistic reception? It has already been affirmed that Poussin’s art aimed at a kind of intellectual pleasure. It shall be here argued that the effects of horror and pleasure can be brought together with reason to bear upon the process of reception, if a more complex understanding of this process is conceded, as, for example, in the interpretation that art historian Felix Thürlemann developed for Poussin’s The Gathering of the Manna (1637[?]–39).88

Since The Plague at Ashdod anticipates certain artistic solutions of the later Gathering of the Manna, especially those concerning the pictorial narrative, it is conceivable that the process of viewer response proposed by Thürlemann for this later picture might shed light on the way the viewer was intended to respond to The Plague at Ashdod. For The Gathering of the Manna, Thürlemann develops, primarily on the basis of an analysis of the painting itself and certain Cartesian concepts, the idea of a process of reception inherent in the painting. He maintains that the viewer was meant to experience first the emotion of astonishment upon seeing, in The Gathering of the Manna, a woman who is giving her breast to another, older woman, evoking the traditional motif of Caritas Romana; in this reaction, the viewer should follow the example of a male figure accompanying the group of the two women, evincing astonishment while looking at them.89 This emotion of astonishment is understood by Thürlemann in terms of the French concept of l’admiration as developed by René Descartes (1596–1650) and defined as [202]an emotion that results from the first encounter with a new, unusual object.90 (Thürlemann also supports his interpretation by indicating that the same word, l’admiration, had been used by Charles Le Brun in his famous conférence on the The Gathering of the Manna in the French Royal Academy in 1667, regarding the figure contemplating the group of the two women). This “rational passion”91 of astonishment then leads, according to Thürlemann, to the visual contemplation and examination of the whole painting, which in turn culminates in a deeper, intellectual understanding of the picture’s theological meaning.

It might be considered problematic to link Poussin too closely with Cartesian ideas—especially with regard to a painting as early as The Plague at Ashdod, made long before Descartes’ most important writings were published. Even so, Thürlemann’s model remains useful for this study of The Plague at Ashdod insofar as it introduces the theory that the viewing of Poussin’s paintings could have been intended as a multistage process into which reason and intellect are, at the end, integrated. Certainly, Thürlemann’s model cannot simply be transferred from The Gathering of the Manna to The Plague at Ashdod. However, in this earlier painting Poussin was also working with figures and motifs laden with meaning and highly expressive of distinct emotions—all of which would have been readily recognizable to the learned viewer. Furthermore, certain figures, like the man in the blue cloak in the left foreground or the men in front of the temple, draw the viewer’s attention to other meaningful pictorial elements, such as the relief on the temple socle or the broken statue of Dagon. Such motifs and figures stimulate an intellectual consideration of The Plague at Ashdod, inducing in this way a “reading” of the picture, as Poussin himself called the model of reception that he recommended to his client Fréart de Chantelou for The Gathering of the Manna.92

However, Thürlemann’s model is somewhat problematic for our purposes since the scholar omits the concept of the “modes” from his discussion, and this concept is undeniably pertinent to a complete understanding of the intended effect of The Plague at Ashdod. Moreover, the first emotion the viewer feels upon looking at The Plague at Ashdod is not astonishment, but rather a moderate emotional response corresponding to the painting’s “horrible” subject. Finally, the state of “intellectual pleasure” surely sought after by Poussin plays no obvious role in Thürlemann’s model (although [203]the Cartesian concept of admiration can be interpreted in analogy to Descartes’ concept of délectation).93

Perhaps the most effective way of understanding the process of viewer response intended by The Plague of Ashdod would be to take a more eclectic approach resembling Poussin’s own tendency to synthesize diverse theoretical topoi—namely, by combining some of Thürlemann’s insights with the aforementioned ideas found in early modern poetics and with the reception theory inherent in Poussin’s earlier described application of the musical “modes” to visual art. According to the latter, the “mode” of a picture produced a moderate emotional reaction in the viewer. This state is understood as occurring immediately upon the first sight of the picture. It thus serves merely as the initial phase of what is, in fact, a more complex process of effect. This initial emotional reaction is mild enough so as not to hamper the functioning of reason and judgment. This being the case, the effect provoked within the viewer would gradually adjust itself: the response process would begin with a mood consonant with the subject and visual characteristics of the pictorial representation, which would then be followed by an intellectual consideration of individual pictorial motifs (perhaps after an intervening transitional state of admiration as described by Thürlemann).

With the exercise of reason and judgment, the viewer would proceed subsequently to a state of intellectual pleasure and thus to a kind of intellectually defined catharsis. That state comprises the pleasure experienced in response to a successful artistic solution and also, no doubt, the pleasure that stems from grasping the picture’s deeper meaning. Such a process can be also described—as Thürlemann already did in regard to The Gathering of the Manna—as the evolution from aspect to prospect, that is (the terms have already been defined) the move from a simplistic, uncomprehending form of mere perception to a form of viewing that culminates in true intellectual comprehension.94

To sum up briefly, The Plague at Ashdod could be seen as an attempt by Poussin to show a terrifying subject in a moderate manner, which at first provokes a mild, dejected emotion within the viewer, but which in the end results in intellectual pleasure. This hypothesis finds confirmation as well as a deeper resonance in an examination of the historical circumstances of the plague epidemic that began its furious rage in Italy in 1629 and continued while Poussin was painting his plague picture.

[204]THE PAINTING IN A TIME OF PLAGUE

When Poussin was painting The Plague at Ashdod, the plague had already entered the Papal States. Surrounded on all sides by plague and knowing how insecure available means of self-protection were, Rome felt itself continuously under threat by the epidemic throughout its duration. However the city, through a stroke of great fortune, emerged unscathed in the end.

Many of the measures taken to protect the city are recorded in the regulations and edicts of the Congregazione della Sanità, the board of health founded at the pope’s behest on 27 November 1629.95 Even the most superficial consideration of these plague-time measures makes it obvious that Poussin himself would have been personally affected by them, his daily routines not a little disturbed, so that it would have been impossible for him to ignore the reality of the plague even though technically it never penetrated the city. For instance, the decrees and other public notices often specifically reported the list of towns affected by the epidemic, including, in April 1630, Paris, where Poussin had once lived.96 Some of the artist’s clients were, moreover, members of the Congregazione:97 among these was Cardinal Francesco Barberini (1597–1679), the director of the Congregazione, for whom Poussin had (according to Denis Mahon) already painted the first version of The Sack and Destruction of the Temple at Jerusalem by Titus (1626, Jerusalem, The Israel Museum) and the Death of Germanicus (1628, Minneapolis, Institute of Arts). Also serving as member of the Congregazione was Cassiano dal Pozzo (1588–1657), who had been in the employment of Francesco Barberini since 1623. Cassiano was probably Poussin’s most important social contact, as well as being the patron of many of his paintings, including the famous first series of the Seven Sacraments (Granthan, Belvoir Castle; Rome, private collection; Washington DC, National Gallery of Art), completed in between 1636 and 1642.

Another member of the Congregazione was a personage who has already been encountered in this discussion of Poussin’s plague painting: the Sienese art expert and author Giulio Mancini, who also served as the personal physician of the pope. With him, too, Poussin might have had ties. In 1627/28 Mancini had added a short biography of Poussin to his Considerazioni, the above-mentioned manuscript survey of the history and theory of [205]painting: therein, Poussin is praised as a learned artist capable of painting any subject that a client might desire.98 Mancini was, like Cassiano dal Pozzo and Francesco Barberini, a collector of art (with an apparent predilection for the Bolognese school of painting), but he also sold pictures. Mancini knew Annibale Carracci personally, and it seems probable that, as a doctor, he would have treated Caravaggio, whose biography was also included in Mancini’s Considerazioni.99 An early biography (1646) of this physician-connoisseur by Gian Vittorio Rossi suggests that Mancini might have at times been given paintings by his (mostly wealthy) patients in return for his medical services.100 On the topic of medical services, it might also be mentioned that Mancini treated, among other things, venereal disease, some variety of which Poussin may have recently recovered from at the time he painted The Plague at Ashdod.101

In view of these circumstances, it is reasonable to conclude either that Poussin began his plague canvas for one of the members of the Congregazione, or alternately, that he began his work without a specific commission but had this particular circle of potential buyers in mind. Regarding the former thesis, it is reasonable to suspect that Poussin’s initial commission in this case could have indeed come from Mancini himself.102 Mancini died in July 1630, but this does not invalidate the theory because, according to Denis Mahon, there are grounds for believing that Poussin had begun the painting in the first half of the year.103 If Mancini was in fact the original patron or at least the intended recipient of The Plague at Ashdod, then this would explain why Poussin did not immediately finish the painting, which Valguarnera found in an incomplete state at the artist’s studio towards the end of 1630: perhaps, then, the unfinished work had been set aside by Poussin specifically as a result of Mancini’s death. It is also possible that Mancini ordered the painting from Poussin with the intention of selling or giving it to another person, such as, for instance, Francesco Barberini.104 Without new documentary evidence, such considerations are, of course, hypothetical. However, given the painting’s unusual subject and its highly learned approach to both visual and iconographical aspects, it remains [206]entirely reasonable to assume that The Plague at Ashdod was conceived for some private collector.

When seeking to determine how Poussin’s canvas may have functioned specifically in a time of plague, comparison with other pictorial representations of plague or works of art standing in some functional connection with plague epidemics does not lead very far at first. The reason for this is that the majority of such pictures were religious in nature and made explicitly for ecclesiastical contexts.105 Instead, it is in the plague literature of the time where one finds clues about the function that Poussin’s picture might have served in plague-time.

Plague literature of early modern Europe, specifically that in treatise form, falls into two categories: medical and moral. The latter moralizing plague literature, in turn, can be further subdivided into two classes: theological and philosophical.106 In plague literature of the moralizing type, it is generally presumed to be beyond question that plague is sent by God and that disease’s purpose is to punish and to educate humanity. This is the case in two highly pertinent examples of such literature, both of which have French origins but nonetheless circulated in Italy. The first is the book Medicina filosofica contra la peste (Philosophical Medicine Against the Plague), published in 1581 by Lorenzo Condio, a copy of which treatise, significantly, was in Francesco Barberini’s library.107 Although written in Italian, Medicina filosofica was published in Lyon and probably composed when the author was living in France. The other is Remèdes souverains contre la peste et la mort soudaine (Unsurpassed Remedies Against the Plague and Sudden Death) by the Jesuit Etienne Binet, first published in French in 1628 but later translated into Italian.108 Both treatises aim to offer consolation to the reader in time of medical calamity. Binet does so with the rhetorical tools that were part of his clerical training; Condio, though asserting a philosophical approach, partly employs a similar rhetoric and designs his consolation for the benefit of a Christian readership. Thus, both Binet and Condio lay out their arguments along a Christian framework, while at the same time referring to ancient Greek and Roman sources. Furthermore, despite the differences between their approaches, both seem to rely—if only indirectly—upon the tradition of the late antique work De mortalitate by [207]Cyprian, bishop of Carthage, which was of great importance to nearly all moralizing plague literature of consolation in the Christian tradition.109

Lorenzo Condio was librarian at the court of King Henry III of France (reg. 1574–89); the scanty extant biographical sources praise him as a scholar with competence in both philosophy and theology.110 As for philosophy, Condio notes in the preface of his book that vera filosofia (true philosophy) is a means of overcoming the fear of plague.111 With the use of this term, he was probably positioning himself within the Christian humanist tradition of moralizing philosophy, largely indebted to the Italian scholar-poet Petrarch (1304–74), who had also used the term “vera filosofia.”112 Indeed, the subject of plague itself is intimately connected with Petrarch, who lived through the horrendous outbreak between 1348 and 1350, bequeathing to posterity stirring accounts of that experience. Whereas Petrarch’s Remediis utriusque fortunae (Remedies for Fortune Fair and Foul) includes, among other dialogues, a short dialogue discussing in a broader sense fear of the plague, Condio’s book, instead, is a long, expository text. And while Petrarch discusses fear of the plague as merely one form of the overall fear of death,113 Condio devotes lengthier passages specifically to fear of that epidemic, maintaining that it was, above all, death by plague that usually was feared.114 Condio fills ten chapters with argumentation directed against this fear while at the same time addressing the relationship between humankind and the epidemic from various points of view. The book closes with an eleventh chapter describing some universal plague remedies.

Among the plague remedies described by Condio in his eleventh book are the traditional and most popular solution to flee (merits of which are debated in his treatise and endorsed only when charity is not sacrificed); drugs in moderation; and, above all, any activity that fosters peace of mind and a sense of serenity, such as the reading of proper books, engagement in polite conversation, and listening to music, as well as a general program of moderation in eating and drinking.115 In contrast, on the same subject of plague remedies, Binet instead ends his treatise with a chapter about appropriate devotional practices. Offering a selection of efficacious prayers in time of plague, the Jesuit recommends such religious practices as the best means of dealing with the epidemic.116

[208]Condio’s treatise is about achieving a well-balanced mental repose, which serves as a defense against contagion. Like Binet, but with a different emphasis, Condio, too, seeks to provide his readership with moralizing insight into the deeper meaning of plague epidemics, which for him also entails an understanding of the plague’s role in the normal course of nature.117 Both authors describe plague epidemics as corrective chastisements employed by a loving God upon humankind.118 Condio calls this well-planned course of the world a “lovely play” (vaga commedia).119 However, from a more immediate perspective on events, human suffering appears tragic. Condio and Binet both use verbal imagery to convey the dimensions and the horror of plague, with Condio explicitly referring to its impact in the cities as a “solemn tragedy” (solenne tragedia).120 According to Binet, the plague “separates the father from his son and the mother from the infant at her breast; and, even before killing people, it first kills charity and friendship.”121 Condio paints a similarly horrifying picture for his readers of

a father, holding a little dead son in his arm, while another son is struck with convulsions at his feet, and a third one is wailing, and his wife is stretched out on the ground; and he, being more dead than alive, cannot move at all to help them except with his eyes, looking from one to the other; verily all charity, all humanity, all piety being utterly lost . . . .122

The parallels between these literary passages and The Plague at Ashdod are undeniable. The fact that the mother in the foreground of Poussin’s painting resembles a dead allegory of charity, as argued earlier, now takes on new resonance. The imagery at the origin of these descriptions is rooted in old traditions, of course. Empty houses and the death of families had already been evoked in a sermon attributed to Gregory the Great, while the destruction of families was a topos familiar to Boccaccio (1304–74) who [209]refers to it in the introduction to his Decameron, as do plague dramas of the seventeenth century.123 The topos of the demise of charity during plague-time can be found as early as in the fourteenth century in a text by the doctor Guy de Chauliac (d. 1368).124 To some degree and not surprisingly, these literary plague descriptions harken back to the same sources from which plague imagery in the visual arts was derived.125

The topoi of plague literature were already used in other plague-themed paintings before Poussin’s The Plague at Ashdod, though not widely, and only seldom did the topoi play a comparably significant role in the composition. This is illustrated by the example of Camillo Procaccini’s Saint Roch Curing the Plague Stricken, formerly in the Dresden picture gallery (fig. 7.5) and originally commissioned in 1585 by the confraternity of San Rocco in Reggio Emilia.126 It is compositionally quite similar to Poussin’s painting, partly due to the fact that Procaccini’s painting, like Poussin’s, closely follows the composition of Raphael’s The Fire in the Borgo. Clearly, its imagery of the dead mother and the families torn apart by the epidemic in the poignant figure groups in the foreground evokes the aforementioned literary descriptions. But in contrast to Poussin’s painting, Procaccini’s picture represents a scene of healing in the middle ground, which, placed in the composition’s center, provides a resting place for the eye and therefore acquires special importance. It is accentuated by the representation of an angel with a sword in the clouds above. The figures of the lamenting father and the man carrying away a dead body only have flanking positions with regard to the composition’s central scene of healing. Poussin, in contrast, uses the whole foreground for such scenes that vividly show the plague’s effects. The scenes in the middle ground of The Plague at Ashdod (which are also important for the story therein depicted and contribute to the painting’s pictorial narrative) are not nearly as dominant in the overall balance of the composition.

In addition, the theatrical metaphors used by Condio (“lovely play” and “solemn tragedy”) are suggested in Poussin’s painting by the visual motifs derived from Serlio’s tragic scene as well as by the spectators watching the events from their elevated balcony on the right. Undeniably, then, Poussin’s plague painting most closely resembles the rhetorical descriptions in the moralizing plague literature (particularly Condio’s work)—perhaps [211]even more than it recalls other plague paintings. Indeed, in contrast even to Procaccini’s partly analogous painting, the disaster, including the grief it provoked, is the dominant aspect of The Plague at Ashdod: no imminent redemption is indicated for the suffering Philistines. One could thus imagine that The Plague at Ashdod’s function in plague-time was analogous to that of the verbal pictures in the plague treatises. This function is best understood in terms of the rhetorical device of enargeia (evidentia), which, according to Quintilian, “makes us seem not so much to narrate as to exhibit the actual scene, while our emotions will be no less actively stirred than if we were present at the actual occurrence.”127 Ansgar Kemmann describes evidentia as a general term for the “means which lead in a nondiscursive manner, namely in the way of illustration, to insight.”128 As observed earlier, in order to approach methodologically Raphael’s The Fire of the Borgo, scholars have repeatedly described its imagery in terms of evidentia. This was not by chance: Quintilian himself had explained evidentia with the example of a description of a captured, burning town.129 In the context of the moralizing plague literature, a much more direct connection can now be seen between such rhetorical devices and The Plague at Ashdod.

The specific effect and function of the verbal pictures in moralizing plague literature can be summarized as follows: with their moving descriptions of the plights of these strangers, they demonstrate the plague’s consequences, especially its destruction of a society. The reader experiences emotions of fright, fear and compassion. He must withstand them in order to reach the stage of cognition and insight facilitated by other parts of the text, such as those passages where Binet and Condio—in treating the issue of theodicy—stress that the plague is God’s will and is to be understood as being just, since it arises from God’s concern and love for humankind.

One purpose of moralizing plague literature and its rhetorical devices is to assist the reader in accepting a gruesome reality, trusting that, at least from the divine perspective, there is some sense to it. Binet’s vivid descriptions of the plague’s atrocity are positioned at the beginning of his book in a chapter dealing with the question of whether plague causes more negative results or positive ones; yet, the terror that these initial pages produce is conquered in the subsequent pages through the arguments proving the plague to be an essential aspect of part of the divine plan. Nevertheless, the Jesuit now and then uses further negative rhetorical plague pictures in the successive chapters, but only to emphasize his arguments.130 Condio verbally evokes more than once the same negative picture; the gloomy passage [212]quoted above (“a father, holding a little dead son in his arm . . . ”) was, in fact, taken from a section striving to convey a positive message, in which the author, using the metaphor of a “tournament” taken up by the “Christian knights” (cavallieri christiani), insists that plagues offer humankind a precious opportunity of proving themselves good Christians.131

As the effect of the argumentation and, perhaps even more so, of the rhetoric of these treatises, the insight attained in the course of reading such works produces several results in the reader: this insight provides him with the serenity needed to continue pleasing God with morally correct living; it directs him to prayer and other penitential activities (emphasized by Binet) and to the performance of social duties (emphasized by Condio); in general, it encourages him to cultivate Christian virtues, especially charity.132 Of course, the emotion produced at first by the vividly gruesome descriptions contained in these works contradicts contemporary medical advice, which cautioned against fright and horrifying thoughts during plague-time and advised, above all, the maintenance of a calm demeanor and emotional state.133 In his chapter on remedies against the plague, Condio instructs his reader to avoid imagining terrible things (including, explicitly, plague epidemics),134 in apparent contradiction of what he himself does by including in this same book the various horrible descriptions discussed earlier. This contradiction might dissolve as soon as one understands that Condio’s text aims primarily at enabling its readership to overcome fear during times of the threat of plague—such as the situation experienced by Poussin in Rome. But, as his preface suggests, Condio also wants to console those currently experiencing an outbreak of plague in their immediate environment and living in fear of death while trapped within their houses: hence, in the latter case, the contradiction inherent within Condio’s text certainly remains.135

This very issue—that the consoling treatises also might frighten the reader and thus be harmful if read under the wrong circumstances—is raised indirectly in the Italian edition of Binet’s treatise in the admonitory preface to the reader (Avviso al lettore), which indicates that the book should be read with a peaceful mind; such a manner of reception is indicated (but not explicitly mandated) in Condio’s preface, too.136

[213]The cathartic effect of The Plague at Ashdod, which has been here deduced in the context of art theory and early modern poetics, though more moderate, nevertheless presents certain parallels to the literary situation that has been seen in the discussion of the Condio and Binet treatises. The state of quiet delight and pleasure attained through the viewing of the picture could provide the basis for further consideration of the details depicted therein. The scenes of the carrying of the body and the almsgiving in the middle ground might bring to mind the obligation of fulfilling one’s social and Christian duties, while the dead mother as an allegory of “dead charity“ reminds the viewer of the danger of disregarding charity; thus, the implications of these figures are not actually in contradiction. In this sense, Poussin’s work bears a certain resemblance to Procaccini’s painting of St. Roch, which would have served as a model of charitable activity for the members of the confraternity for which it was made. Yet, it should be pointed out that the effect of Poussin’s picture does not correspond entirely to that of Binet’s and Condio’s treatises. The painting is more complex, and its objective is not exclusively moral. It is at the same time an end in itself, as a work of art, and it entertains the viewer with all its facets, formal or otherwise. However, the delight that is released by the completion of the viewing process can also be seen as a kind of therapy that protects the viewer against the menace of plague by placing his mind in a state of balanced serenity.137

One can, therefore, plausibly ascribe to Poussin’s painting a function directly related to the plague and intended for the benefit of a learned person; this theory would be even more persuasive if the picture was intended for someone who was at the same time a member of the Congregazione della Sanità. Such a person could have appreciated its formal aspects and its motifs; this kind of client could have also understood these motifs in their special relation to the topoi of literary plague descriptions and applied its moral dimension to his own responsibility for the defense of Rome against the plague.

To return to Condio’s Medicina filosofica, the theatrical metaphors more frequently used by the author to represent the plague and its consequences somewhat resemble Stoic metaphors—close in spirit and terminology to Michel de Montaigne—that appear in some of Poussin’s later letters.138 [214]Similar metaphors are also found in a letter regarding the plague of 1630 by Agostino Mascardi (1590–1640), a teacher of rhetoric who likewise argued that “true philosophy” (verace filosofia) can overcome the fear of death.139 (Condio especially emphasized the importance of fulfilling one’s civic responsibility during time of plague; this, too, would be relevant to the situation of a client entrusted with the protection of public welfare throughout a period of danger.) It is interesting to consider whether especially Condio’s frequent evocation of horrible verbal pictures reflects the late Stoic precept that the imaginary anticipation of calamities could be an effective remedy against fear—an idea found also in baroque poetics.140 Obviously, both Stoic and Christian ideas are present in Condio’s treatise, and this would accord with the “Stoicism” often ascribed to Poussin by modern art historians.141 But Binet, too, quotes Seneca the Younger, and he, similar to Condio, labels one historical epidemic a “horrible spectacle.”142 These parallels indicate that, although there seems to be a special, subtle affinity between Poussin’s painting (and the artist’s personality as it emerges from his later letters) and Condio’s text, in the end, The Plague at Ashdod ought to be seen in relation to the more general category of moralizing plague literature as represented here by Binet’s and Condio’s works. Both Binet’s and Condio’s works were meant to serve as books of consolation and have in common certain motifs and devices that were apparently in wide currency at this time and, therefore, certainly known by Poussin.

The function suggested here for Poussin’s painting and its moralizing subject would also explain why the Philistines have been designed to arouse pity, similar to the dying victims in representations of the Old Testament Deluge, a subject that was much more widely depicted than historical plague scenes. Though Poussin’s painting does not present the Philistines as a countertype to the “chosen people,” it nevertheless encourages reflection about humankind’s relationship to an angry God. In addition, the victory of the ark of the covenant also invokes the hope for redemption, since the biblical story can be interpreted allegorically as an allusion to Christ’s triumph over evil.143 In this respect, the painting could be seen as a stimulus to meditation on the providential course of history.

The picture, furthermore, could especially have appealed to Giulio Mancini for medical reasons as well. Olson discovered that Mancini believed that pictures have the power to prevent diseases, particularly venereal disease: thus, according to Olson, Mancini advocated the use of a picture depicting a man whose nose was deformed by syphilis as a prophylactic tool, in that it was meant to serve as a deterrent to sexual immorality.144 As a doctor, Mancini would have also appreciated the sheer representation of the Philistines’ illness; so, for that matter, would have Fabrizio Valguarnera, who eventually bought the picture, since he apparently had a dilettante’s interest in medicine.145

REASONS FOR THE CHOICE OF THE SUBJECT

It appears that Poussin sought a subject suitable for an unusual history painting showing a “historical” plague and its results. As sources for later canvases—but also for at least one earlier picture—the artist made use of Flavius Josephus’s writings. In so doing, he may very well have come across the story of Ashdod in Josephus’s Jewish Antiquities, as was argued above. As an original subject, this episode met the necessary criterion of novelty (nouveauté) mentioned several times by Poussin,146 and was thus a suitable basis for the creation of a history painting that treated a “terrible” subject in an elevated style. However, there are further reasons why this subject was both interesting to Poussin and suitable to his purposes. According to a moral interpretation of the Dagon story by John Chrysostom, the ark’s victory over Dagon stands for the triumph of virtue over vice in the soul of the converted man.147 Thus, the subject would have seemed especially adapted for a moralizing plague picture in times of plague. Indeed, as shown above, the painting contains allusions both to the vices of the Philistines as well as to the virtue of charity.

It had been argued in early modern biblical commentary that the Philistines were punished not only for the theft of the ark, but also for their practice of idolatry. Poussin’s subject can therefore be understood in the context of the theology of images. The ark, a work made through human artifice in response to a “commission” from God and decorated with artistic figures of cherubim, finally emerges victorious over a cultic idol. In this respect, the subject could be interpreted as the victory of art that is condoned by the true God over a piece of art venerated falsely and sinfully as a god itself, and, in an allegorical sense, as the triumph of true Christian art over pagan art.148 There seems to be the recapitulation of a traditional argument against iconoclasm and in favor of the use of images in churches [216]here: indeed, the seraphim of the ark had often been offered as demonstration of the fact that the Old Testament ban on religious images was not without exception.149 This argument, for example, is commonly found in theological treatises of the Counter-Reformation in defense of religious imagery.150

In this respect, the theme of the competition between the ark and the god Dagon could be interpreted as a confirmation of the Church’s official cultural policy, current during Poussin’s time in Rome and exemplified by the efforts of Pope Urban VIII (reg. 1623–44) to continue to press the observance of the Tridentine criteria with regard to religious art.151 Also relevant to this issue is the fact that Urban VIII, an accomplished poet himself, was promoting a programmatic Christian revival of antiquity with particular emphasis on Cicero for the purpose of establishing a Christian literary art firmly rooted in a purified and authoritative classical style. As is well known, he had rejected parts of Giambattista Marino’s poetic work, especially his celebrated Adone, which was put on the Index of Prohibited Books in 1627 after being condemned as “lascivious.”152 This opposition between the two “styles” of literature could be compared to the opposition found in Poussin’s picture between the two kinds of art. Of course, such an interpretation of the painting would only be tenable if the canvas were originally intended for a client somehow connected with the pope or his immediate circle. But a picture alluding to art itself certainly would have appealed to someone with a special expertise in art such as Giulio Mancini, whose own piety, however, is less clearly understood than that of the pope.153

Thus, in the hypothetical reconstruction of the genesis of The Plague at Ashdod, it is conceivable that Poussin first encountered the biblical episode while reading Josephus (afterwards, he might have discussed the subject with an expert in theology who could explain its exegetical implications), and that he initiated the painting for a member of the Congregazione della Sanità, perhaps Mancini, either on commission or in the hope of soon obtaining such a patron or favorable client in future. At that point, he may have sketched out the composition focusing on a historically appropriate representation of an Old Testament epidemic that was cast as a “learned,” unusual plague picture with the potential patron or intended recipient in mind. At the same time, however, the picture may also reflect the artist’s response to [217]his own personal fears and his recent venereal illness (in regard to this latter circumstance it is significant that the Philistines’ illness in biblical commentaries was sometimes described as a venereal disease).154

However, the painting clearly aims at an entire, complex process of perception that well transcends Poussin’s own personal experiences and private emotions.155 As such, The Plague at Ashdod aimed not only at addressing the conditions created by the epidemic but also at withstanding the test of time as a profound work of art. Indeed, it was soon recognized as such and served as a source of motifs for artists; it was copied, reproduced in prints, and subsequently discussed by literati, its fame persisting through the centuries. The canvas has revealed its impact not only as an exemplary representation of the plague but also as an exemplary history painting that displays a range of figures expressing and, to a certain degree, provoking human emotions, and as such has it been referred to in art theoretical discourses. In addition, in the eighteenth century, it served as an example for Winckelmann, Herder, Goethe, and other authors in their own aesthetic arguments dealing with the representability of the horrible, the ugly, and allegory.156 The history of the work’s later impact thus justifies the claim here made that Poussin’s elaborate painting deliberately sought to produce in the viewer a complex array of effects involving both reason and the emotions, and drawing on theories of art, philosophy, religion, theater, and even medicine.

[218]ABBREVIATION

BAV Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Achilles-Syndram, Katrin. “‘So macht nun Abbilder eurer Beulen und eurer Mäuse’: Die Pest als Thema der bildenden Kunst.” In Das große Sterben: Seuchen machen Geschichte, edited by Hans Wilderotter, 94–121. Exhibition catalogue. Berlin: Jovis, 1995.

Achillini, Claudio. Carteggio, in Giambattista Marino, Epistolario. Edited by Angelo Borzelli and Fausto Nicolini. 2:196–210. Bari: Laterza, 1912.

Alfassa, Paul. “L’origine de la lettre de Poussin sur les modes d’après un travail récent.” Bulletin de la Société de l’Histoire de l’Art Français 1 (1933): 125–43.

Aristotle. The Poetics of Aristotle. Translation and commentary by Stephen Halliwell. London: Duckworth, 1985.

Badt, Kurt. “Raphael’s ‘Incendio del Borgo.’” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 22 (1959): 35–59.

Barker, Sheila. Art in a Time of Danger: Urban VIII’s Rome and the Plague of 1629–1634. PhD diss., Columbia University, 2002.

———. “Poussin, Plague, and Early Modern Medicine.” The Art Bulletin, 86, no. 4 (2004): 659–89.

Bätschmann, Oskar. Dialektik der Malerei von Nicolas Poussin. Munich: Prestel, 1982.

———. “Three Problems on the Relationship between Scenography, Theatre and some Works by Nicolas Poussin.” In Atti del XXIV: Congresso Internazionale di Storia dell’Arte 1979: La scenografia barocca, edited by Antoine Schnapper,169–76. Bologna: Editrice Clueb, 1982.

Bellori, Giovanni Pietro. Le vite de’ pittori, scultori e architetti moderni. Edited by Evelina Borea. Turin: Einaudi, 1976.

Benati, Daniele. “L’oratorio di San Rocco: Il ruolo di Reggio nella prima attività di Annibale Carracci.” In Il Seicento a Reggio: La storia, la città, gli artisti, edited by Paola Ceschi Lavagetto, 51–65. Milan: Motta, 1999.

Binet, Etienne. Remèdes souverains contre la peste et la mort soudaine (1628). Edited by Claude Louis-Combet. Grenoble: Editions Jérôme Millon, 1998.

———. Sovrani et efficaci rimedi contro la peste e morte subitanea. Rome, 1656. (Italian edition of Binet, Remèdes souverains contre la peste.)

Blunt, Anthony. Nicolas Poussin. 2 vols. Bollingen Series 35; The A. W. Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts 7. New York: Bollingen Foundation, 1967. Distributed by Pantheon Books.

———. The Paintings of Nicolas Poussin: A Critical Catalogue. London: Phaidon, 1966.

———. “Poussin’s Notes on Painting.” Journal of the Warburg Institute 1 (1937/38): 344–51.

Boeckl, Christine M. Images of Plague and Pestilence: Iconography and Iconology. Sixteenth Century Essays & Studies 53. Kirksville, MO: Truman State University Press, 2000.

———. “A New Reading of Nicolas Poussin’s ‘The Miracle of the Ark in the Temple of Dagon.’” Artibus et historiae 12, no. 24 (1991): 119–45.

Bonfait, Olivier. “La peste d’Azoth, Copia di A. Caroselli (?).” In Roma 1630. Il trionfo del pennello, edited by Olivier Bonfait, 162–71. Exhibition catalogue. Milan: Electa, 1994.

———. “Poussin aujourd’hui.” Revue de l’art 119 (1998): 62–76.

Borromeo, Federigo. La peste di Milano. Edited by Armando Torno. Milan: Rusconi, 1987.

Brassat, Wolfgang. “Credas—cernas: Paradoxale Seinskonfigurationen in Werken Raffaels als blinde Flecken kunsthistorischer Wahrnehmung.” Kunsthistorisches Jahrbuch Graz 27 (2000): 11–26.

[219]———. Das Historienbild im Zeitalter der Eloquenz: Von Raffael bis Le Brun. Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 2003.

Buddensieg, Tilmann. “Gregory the Great, the Destroyer of Pagan Idols: The History of a Medieval Legend concerning the Decline of Ancient Art and Literature.” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 28 (1965): 44–65.

Bull, Malcolm. “Poussin and Josephus.” Gazette des Beaux-Arts 139 (2002): 331–38.

Cassirer, Ernst: Descartes: Lehre—Persönlichkeit—Wirkung. 1939. Reprint, Hildesheim: Gerstenberg, 1978.

Condio, Lorenzo. Medicina filosofica contra la peste. Lyon, 1581.

Cordova, Juan Rodolfo de. Catena proonima versionum glossematum SS: Patrum, veterum, et neothericorum interpretum Hebraeorum, Graecorum, Latinorum in IIII Regum tomus primus. Lyon, 1652.

Costello, Jane. “The Twelve Pictures ‘Ordered by Velasquez’ and the Trial of Valguarnera.” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 13 (1950): 237–84.

Cropper, Elizabeth. “Vincenzo Giustiniani’s ‘Galleria’: The Pygmalion Effect.” In Cassiano dal Pozzo’s Paper Museum, edited by Jennifer Montagu, Henrietta McBurney, et al., 101–26. Quaderni Puteani 3. Milan: Olivetti, 1992.

———, and Charles Dempsey. Nicolas Poussin: Friendship and the Love of Painting. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996.

D’Angers, Julien-Eymard. “Le stoïcisme chez les jésuites français du XVIIe siècle: E. Binet (1569–1639) et R. Cerisiers (1603–1662).” Mélanges de Science Religieux 10 (1953): 239–62.

Del Bravo, Carlo. “Temi biblici in Poussin.” In L’Arte e la Bibbia, edited by Timothy Verdon, 231–33. Settimello: Biblia, Associazione Laica di Cultura Biblica, 1988.

Descartes, René. Die Leidenschaften der Seele [Les passions de l’âme]. Translated and edited by Klaus Hammacher. Hamburg: Meiner, 1984.

Deutsch, Guy N. “L’Arche d’Alliance dans le temple de Dagon.” In Norms and Variations in Art: Essays in Honour of Moshe Barasch, 24–35. Hebrew University Studies in Literature and the Arts. Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1983.

———. “Légendes midrachiques dans la peinture de Nicolas Poussin.” Journal of Jewish Art 9 (1983): 47–53.

Dowley, Francis H. “Thoughts on Poussin, Time, and Narrative: ‘The Israelites Gathering Manna in the Desert.’” Simiolus 25, no. 4 (1997): 329–48.

Ebert-Schifferer, Sybille. “L’expression contrôlée des passions: Le rôle de Poussin dans l’élaboration d’un art civilisateur.” In Poussin et Rome, 329–52.

Emmerling, Sofie-Charlotte. Antikenverwendung und Antikenstudium bei Nicolas Poussin. Würzburg: Triltsch, 1939.

Fagiolo dell’Arco, Maurizio. Jean Lemaire—“pittore antiquario.” Rome: Bozzi, 1996.

Félibien, André. Entretiens sur les vies et sur les ouvrages des plus excellens peintres anciens et modernes avec la vie des architectes. Farnborough: Gregg Press, 1967.

Fontaine, André, ed. Conférences inédites de l’Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture d’après les manuscrits des archives de l’École des Beaux-Arts. Paris: Fontemoing, 1903.

Friedländer, Walter. Nicolas Poussin: Die Entwicklung seiner Kunst. Munich: Piper, 1914.

Frommel, Christoph Luitpold. “Poussin e l’architettura.” In Poussin et Rome, 119–36.

Fumaroli, Marc. “Cicero pontifex romanus: La tradition rhétorique du collège romain et les principes inspirateurs du mécénat des Barberini.” Mélanges de l’école française de Rome: Moyen âge–temps moderne 90 (1978): 797–835.

———. L’école du silence: Le sentiment des images au XVIIe siècle. Rev. ed. Paris: Flammarion, 1998.

[220]Ghini, Constantino. Dell’immagini sacre dialoghi. Siena, 1595.

Goldstein, Carl. “The Meaning of Poussin’s Letter to De Noyers.” Burlington Magazine 108 (1966): 233–39.

Grimm, Hartmut. “Affekt.” In Asthetische Grundbegriffe: Historisches Wörterbuch in sieben Bänden, edited by Karlheinz Barck, 1:16–48. Stuttgart: Metzler, 2000.

Grimm, Jürgen. Die literarische Darstellung der Pest in der Antike und in der Romania. Munich: Fink, 1965.

Harper, James Gordon. The Barberini Tapestries of the Life of Pope Urban VIII. PhD diss., University of Pennsylvania, 1998.

Haskell, Francis. Maler und Auftraggeber: Kunst und Gesellschaft im italienischen Barock [Patrons and Painters]. Cologne: DuMont, 1996.

Hathaway, Baxter. The Age of Criticism: The Late Renaissance in Italy. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1962.

Hecht, Christian. Katholische Bildertheologie im Zeitalter von Gegenreformation und Barock: Studien zu Traktaten von Johannes Molanus, Gabriele Paleotti und anderen Autoren. Berlin: Mann, 1997.

Hendrix, Harald. “The Repulsive Body: Images of Torture in Seventeenth-Century Naples.” In Bodily Extremities: Preoccupations with the Human Body in Early Modern European Culture, edited by Florike Edmond and Robert Zwijnenberg, 67–90. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2003.

Henkel, Arthur, and Albrecht Schöne, eds. Emblemata: Handbuch zur Sinnbildkunst des XVI. und XVII. Jahrhunderts. Stuttgart: J. B. Metzler, 1967.

Hipp, Elisabeth. Nicolas Poussin: Die Pest von Asdod. Hildesheim: Olms, 2005.

Höffe, Otfried. Aristoteles. Munich: C. H. Beck, 1996.

Hope and Healing: Painting in Italy in a Time of Plague 1500–1800. Edited by Gauvin Alexander Bailey, Pamela M. Jones, Franco Mormando, and Thomas W. Worcester. Exhibition catalogue. Worcester, MA: Worcester Art Museum, 2005. Distributed by University of Chicago Press.

Index Bibliothecae qua Franciscus Barberinus S.R.E. Cardinalis ( . . . ) Magnificentissimas suae familiae ad Quirinalem aedes magnificentiores reddidit. Vol. 1. Rome, 1681.

Josephus Flavius. Di Flavio Giuseppe dell’Antichità de’ Giudei libri XX. Translated by M. Francesco Baldelli. Venice, 1588.

———. Histoire de Fl. Josèphe sacrificateur hébrieu. Translated by D. Gilb. Genebrard. Paris, 1609.

———. The Jewish Antiquities, Books 5–8. Translated by Henry St. John Thackeray and Ralph Marcus. Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1998.

Keazor, Henry. “A propos des sources littéraires et picturales de ‘La Peste d’Asdod’ (1630–1631) par Nicolas Poussin.” Revue du Louvre 45, no.1 (1996): 62–69.

———. “‘Coppies bien que mal fettes’: Nicolas Poussin’s ‘Rinaldo and Armida’ reexamined.” Gazette des Beaux-Arts 142 (2000): 253–63.

Kemmann, A. “Evidentia: Evidenz.” In Historisches Wörterbuch der Rhetorik, edited by Gert Ueding, 3:33–47. Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1996.

Kircher, Athanasius. Scrutinium physico-medicum contagiosae luis. Rome, 1658.

Kliemann, Julian. “Kunst als Bogenschießen: Domenichinos ‘Jagd der Diana’ in der Galleria Borghese.” Römisches Jahrbuch der Bibliotheca Hertziana 31 (1996): 273–312.

Lapide, Cornelius a. Commentaria in Pentateuchum Mosis. Antwerp, 1616.

———. Commentarius in Josue, Iudicum, Ruth, IV libros Regum et II Paralipomenon, tom. II. Antwerp, 1653.

———. In Josue, Judices, et Ruth Commentarii. Paris, 1642.

[221]Liebl, Ulrike. Die illustrierten Flavius-Josephus-Handschriften des Hochmittelalters. Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 1997.

Lomazzo, Gian Paolo. Scritti sulle arti. Edited by Roberto Paolo Ciardi. 2 vols. Florence: Marchi e Bertolli, 1973–74.

Lord, Carla. “Raphael, Marcantonio Raimondi, and Virgil.” Source: Notes in the History of Art 3, no. 4 (1984): 81–92.

Maccherini, Michele. “Caravaggio nel carteggio familiare di Giulio Mancini.” Prospettiva 86 (1997): 71–92.

———. “Giulio Mancini: Committenza e commercio di opere d’arte fra Siena e Roma.” In Siena e Roma: Raffaello, Caravaggio e i protagonisti di un legame antico, 393–401. Exhibition catalogue. Siena: Protagon Editori, 2005.

———. “Ritratto di Giulio Mancini.” In Bernini dai Borghese ai Barberini: La cultura a Roma intorno agli anni venti; Atti del convegno, Accademia di Francia a Roma, Villa Medici, 17–19 febbraio 1999, 47–57. Rome: De Luca, 2004.

Mahon, Denis. “Gli esordi di Nicolas Poussin pittore: Lavori dei suoi primi anni a Roma.” In Nicolas Poussin: I primi anni romani, 13–33. Exhibition catalogue. Milan: Electa, 1998.

Mancini, Giulio. Considerazioni sulla pittura. Vol. 1, Considerazioni sulla pittura. Edited by Adriana Marucchi, Fonti e documenti inediti per la storia dell’arte 1. Rome: Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, 1956.

Marianus, Joannes [Juan de Mariana]. Scholia in vetus et novum Testamentum. Paris, 1620.

McTighe, Sheila. Nicolas Poussin’s Landscape Allegories. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996.

Mendoza, Francisco de. Commentarium ac discursum moralium in Regum libros. Vol. 3. Cologne, 1634.

Mildner-Flesch, Ursula. Das Decorum: Herkunft, Wesen und Wirkung des Sujetstils am Beispiel Poussins. Kölner Forschungen zu Kunst und Altertum, B/5. St. Augustin: Richarz, 1983.

Missirini, Melchior. Memorie per servire alla storia della Romana Accademia di S. Luca fino alla morte di Antonio Canova. Rome, 1823.

Mollaret, Henri H., and Jacqueline Brossollet. “Nicolas Poussin et ‘Les philistins frappés de la peste.’” Gazette des Beaux-Arts 73 (1969): 171–78.

Montagu, Jennifer. “The Theory of the Musical Modes in the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture.” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 55 (1992): 233–48.

Mormando, Franco. “Response to the Plague in Early Modern Italy: What Primary Sources, Printed and Painted, Reveal.” In Hope and Healing, 1–44.

Neustätter, Otto. “Mice in Plague Pictures.” Journal of the Walters Art Gallery 4 (1941): 105–13.

———. “When Did the Identification of the Philistine Plague (1 Samuel, 5 and 6) as Bubonic Plague Originate?” Bulletin of the History of Medicine 11 (1942): 36–45.

Nussdorfer, Laurie. Civic Politics in the Rome of Urban VIII. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992.

Oberhuber, Konrad. Poussin: The Early Years in Rome. Exhibition catalogue. New York: Hudson Hills Press, 1988.

Olson, Todd P. “Caravaggio’s Coroner: Forensic Medicine in Giulio Mancini’s Art Criticism.” Oxford Art Journal 1 (2005): 83–98.

Oy-Marra, Elisabeth. “Poussins ‘Mannalese’: Zur Debatte der Zeitlichkeit in der Historienmalerei.” Marburger Jahrbuch für Kunstwissenschaft 24 (1997): 201–13.

Panofsky, Dora and Erwin. “The Iconography of the Galerie François I at Fontainebleau.” Gazette des Beaux-Arts 52 (1958): 113–90.

Parolini, Antonio Maria. Trattato della peste. Ferrara, 1630.

[222]Passeri, Giambattista. Vite de’ pittori, scultori ed architetti che hanno lavorato a Roma. Sala Bolognese: Forni, 1976.

Paulsen, Thomas, and Christian Schulze. “Das Motiv der Pest in der Literatur.” In Pest: Die Geschichte eines Menschheitstraumas, edited by Mischa Meier, 341–42. Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 2005.

[Petrarch, Francis.] Petrarch’s Remedies for Fortune Fair and Foul: A Modern English Translation of “De remediis utriusque Fortunae.” Vol. 1, Book 1: Remedies for Prosperity. Commentary and translation by Conrad H. Rawski. Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1991.

Picinello, Philippo [Filippo Picinelli]. Mundus Symbolicus, in emblematum universitate. Vol. 1. Cologne, 1681.

Pintard, René. Le libertinage érudit dans la première moitié du XVIIe siècle. 2nd edition. Geneva and Paris: Slatkine, 1983.

[Possevino, Antonio.] Cause et rimedii della Peste, et di qualsivoglia altra infermità. Florence, 1577.

Poussin, Nicolas. Lettres et propos sur l’art. Edited by Anthony Blunt. 2nd ed. Paris: Hermann, 1989.

Poussin et Rome: Actes du colloque de l’Académie de France à Rome 16–18 novembre 1994. Edited by Olivier Bonfait, Christoph Luitpold Frommel, Michel Hochmann, and Sebastian Schütze. Paris: Réunion des Musées Nationaux, 1996.

Preimesberger, Rudolf. “Tragische Motive in Raffaels ‘Transfiguration.’” Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte 50 (1987): 89–115.

Puttfarken, Thomas. “Poussin’s thoughts on painting.” In Commemorating Poussin: Reception and interpretation of the artist, edited by Katie Scott and Genevieve Warwick, 53–75. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999.

Quintilian. The Institutio Oratoria of Quintilian. Vol. 3. Translated by H. E. Butler. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1985.

Raben, Hans. “‘An oracle of painting’: Re-reading Poussin’s letters.” Simiolus 30 (2003): 34–53.

Ripa, Cesare. Iconologia. Milan: TEA, 1992.

Rosen, Valeska von. “Die Enargeia des Gemäldes: Zu einem vergessenen Inhalt des Ut-pictura-poesis und seiner Relevanz für das cinquecenteske Bildkonzept.” Marburger Jahrbuch für Kunstwissenschaft 27 (2000): 171–208.

Rosenberg, Pierre, and Louis-Antoine Prat, eds. Nicolas Poussin 1594–1665 : Catalogue raisonné des dessins. 2 vols. Milan: Leonardo Editore, 1994.

[Rossi, Gian Vittorio.] Janus Nicius Erithraeus. Pinacotheca altera imaginum illustrium. Cologne, 1646.

Rotermund, Erwin. “Der Affekt als literarischer Gegenstand: Zur Theorie und Darstellung der Passiones im 17. Jahrhundert.” In Die nicht mehr schönen Künste: Grenzphänomene des Asthetischen, edited by Hans Robert Jauß, 239–69. Poetik und Hermeneutik 3. Munich: Fink, 1968.

Salerno, Luigi. I pittori di veduti in Italia (1580–1830). Rome: Bozzi, 1991.

Sanctius, Gaspar [Gaspar Sanchez]. In Quattuor libros regum & duos Paralipomenon Commentarii. Antwerp, 1624.

Sandrart, Joachim von. Academie der Bau, Bild- und Mahlerey-Künste von 1675: Leben der berühmten Maler, Bildhauer und Baumeister. Edited by Arthur R. Pelzer. Munich: G. Hirth, 1925.

Sarasini, Pietro Toma. Trattato sopra la peste. Bologna, 1630.

Schröder, W. “Philosophie III: Renaissance, Humanismus, Reformation.” In Historisches Wörterbuch der Philosophie 7, edited by Karlfried Gründer et al., 656–62. Basel: Schwabe, 1989.

[223]Schröter, Elisabeth. “Raffaels Madonna di Foligno. Ein Pestbild?” Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte 50 (1987): 46–87.

Schütze, Sebastian. “Aristide de Thèbes, Raphaël et Poussin: La représentation des affetti dans les grands tableaux d’histoire de Poussin des années 1620–1630.” In Nicolas Poussin (1594–1665), Actes du colloque organisé au musée du Louvre par le Service culturel du 19 au 21 octobre 1994, edited by Alain Mérot, 2:571–601. Paris: Réunion des Musées Nationaux, 1996.

———. “‘Die sterbende Mutter des Aristeides’: Ein Archetypus abendländischer Affektdarstellung und seine Restitution durch Cesare Fracanzano.” Jahrbuch des Kunsthistorischen Museums Wien 4/5 (2002/2003 [2004]): 165–89.

Settala, Ludovicus. De Peste, et Pestiferis affectibus libri quinque. Milan, 1622.

Siguret, Françoise. L’œil surpris: Perception et représentations dans la première moitié du XVIIe siècle. Paris: Klincksieck, 1993.

Thümmel, H. G. “Bilder V.1. Mittelalter: Byzanz.” In Theologische Realenzyklopädie, edited by Gerhard Krause and Gerhard Müller, 4:532–40. Berlin: De Gruyter, 1980.

Thürlemann, Felix. “Nicolas Poussin: ‘Die Mannalese.’ Staunen als Leidenschaft des Sehens [1980].” In Vom Bild zum Raum: Beiträge zu einer semiotischen Kunstwissenschaft, 111–37. Cologne: DuMont, 1990.

Thuillier, Jacques. “Charles Mellin, ‘Très excellent peintre.’” In Les fondations nationales dans la Rome pontificale, 583–684. Collection de l’École Française de Rome 52. Rome: École française de Rome, 1981

———. Nicolas Poussin. Paris: Flammarion, 1988

———. “Perspectives du XVIIe siècle.” Art de France 2 (1962): 252–54.

———.“Temps et tableau: La théorie des ‘péripéties’ dans la peinture française du XVIIe siècle.” In Stil und Überlieferung in der Kunst des Abendlandes, Akten des 21. Internationalen Kongresses für Kunstgeschichte in Bonn 1964. Vol. 3, Theorien und Probleme, 191–206. Berlin: Mann, 1967.

Ueding, Gerd, and Bernd Steinbrink. Grundriß der Rhetorik: Geschichte, Technik, Methode. 3rd rev. ed. Stuttgart: Metzler, 1994.

Unglaub, Jonathan. Poussin and the Poetics of Painting: Pictorial Narrative and the Legacy of Tasso. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006.

Vecchietti, Filippo. Biblioteca picena a sia notizie istoriche delle opere e degli scrittori piceni. Vol. 3. Osimo, 1793.

Weber, Gregor J. M. Der Lobtopos des “lebenden” Bildes: Jan Vos und sein “Zeege der Schilderkunst” von 1654. Hildesheim: Olms, 1991.

Wilberding, Erick. “Poussin’s Illness in 1629.” Burlington Magazine 142 (2000): 561.

Wild, Doris. Nicolas Poussin. 2 vols. Zurich: Füssli, 1980.

Wine, Humphrey. National Gallery Catalogues: The Seventeenth Century Paintings. London: National Gallery Company, 2001.

———. “‘Poussin Problems’ at the National Gallery.” Apollo 141 (1995): 25–28.

Winner, Matthias. “Flora, Mater Florum.” In Poussin et Rome, 387–96.

Wollasch, Joachim. “Hoffnungen der Menschen in der Zeit der Pest.” Historisches Jahrbuch der Görres-Gesellschaft 110, no. 1 (1990): 23–51.

Worcester, Thomas. “Saint Roch vs. Plague, Famine, and Fear.” In Hope and Healing, 153–76.

Zelle, Carsten. “Angenehmes Grauen”: Literarhistorische Beiträge zur Asthetik des Schrecklichen im 18. Jahrhundert. Studien zum 18. Jahrhundert 10. Hamburg: Meiner, 1987.

———. “Das Schreckliche als ästhetischer Begriff: Ein Abriß.” Archiv für Begriffsgeschichte 33 (1990): 125–35.

This essay summarizes, in revised form, selected topics from my recent monograph, Nicolas Poussin: Die Pest von Asdod. However, for important points raised therein, the present essay offers a reconsidered discussion and updated bibliographic references, while the monograph may be consulted for additional arguments and sources, as well as for the older literature. Sheila Barker merits warm thanks for her help with the English translation. I am also much indebted to Franco Mormando’s wise editing work and wish to thank as well Michael Korey (Dresden) who helped at a late state of the revision with his advice regarding the English language. Unless otherwise noted, all translations are mine.

1 See, for example, the painting by Michael Sweerts discussed by Franco Mormando in the present volume, as well as his essay, “Response to the Plague,” 12–15.

2 See Boeckl, “New Reading,” 120, 124, 143n9. Further important studies of Poussin’s The Plague at Ashdod are Mollaret and Brossollet, “Nicolas Poussin,” 171–78; Bonfait, “La peste d’Azoth,” 162–71; Keazor, “A propos,” 62–69; and Barker, “Poussin, Plague,” 659–89. See also Blunt, Paintings of Nicolas Poussin, 24–25; Blunt, Nicolas Poussin, 1:94; Schütze, “Aristide de Thèbes, Raphaël et Poussin,” 2:577, 582; and Ebert-Schifferer, “L’expression contrôlée,” 345–46. A more complete discussion of the older literature can be found in Hipp, Nicolas Poussin, 15–23.

3 See Costello, “Twelve Pictures,” 275.

4 See Bellori, Le vite, 429; Passeri, Vite de’ pittori, 352; Félibien, Entretiens sur les vies, 20; and von Sandrart, Academie der Bau, 29, 258.

5 Bellori, Le vite, 430.

6 The edition cited is Biblia sacra iuxta Vulgatam Clementinam, nova editio, logicis partitionibus aliisque subsidiis ornata a Alberto Colunga (Matriti: Ed. Catolica, 1965).

7 Neustätter, “Mice in Plague Pictures,” 110; and Grimm, Darstellung der Pest, 22. For the plague of mice in scripture and in relation to medieval book illustration, see also the essay by Pamela Berger in this volume.

8 For Poussin’s knowledge of Josephus, see Blunt, Nicolas Poussin, 180; del Bravo, “Temi biblici in Poussin,” 232; Deutsch, “Légendes midrachiques,” 47–53; and Bull, “Poussin and Josephus,” 331–38.

9 Josephus Jewish Antiquities, 167.

10 La Saincte Bible en Françoys (Antwerp, 1534), 100 (soris); La Sainte Bible traduite en françois sur la Vulgate. Avec de courtes notes pour l’intelligence de la lettre: par Monsieur de Sacy, vol. 2 (Brussels, 1701), 18 (“rats”).

11 See Josephus, Histoire de Fl. Josèphe, 185 (“rats”). The explanation of the rats in relation to translations of Josephus was also given by Bull, “Poussin and Josephus,” 335.

12 For the debated issue of what premodern science knew of the rodent-plague connection, see Mollaret and Brossollet, “Nicolas Poussin,” 172 (against Georg Sticker’s view published in 1898). See also in a critical sense Neustätter, “Mice in Plague Pictures,” 105–6, 113. Barker, “Poussin, Plague,” 665, points out, however, that rats and plague were associated already in the fourteenth century. See as well Pamela Berger’s essay in this volume.

13 For early modern times, see Mormando, “Response to the Plague,” 3.

14 Lapide, Commentarius in Josue, 242. For other commentaries asserting this argument, see Hipp, Nicolas Poussin, 85–89.

15 Lapide, Commentaria, 377; Lapide, In Josue, Judices, et Ruth Commentarii, 265.

16 See Sanctius, In Quattuor libros regum, 117.

17 Josephus, Histoire de Fl. Josèphe, 185; and Josephus, Di Flavio Giuseppe, s. 238.

18 Regarding the older iconographic tradition see Boeckl, “New Reading,” 124–33; Deutsch, “L’Arche d’Alliance,” 24–35; Liebl, Die illustrierten Flavius-Josephus-Handschriften, 107–111; and Hipp, Nicolas Poussin, 52–76. Again, see also Pamela Berger’s essay in the present volume.

19 Bull, “Poussin and Josephus,” 334, believes that Poussin referred directly to the illustration of Amman in the 1571 edition of the Jewish Antiquities. However, this illustration reflects a comparable iconographic type, like other contemporary illustrations of the biblical scene (e.g., the figure in Matthäus Merian the Elder’s Figurae biblicae from 1630).

20 See Boeckl, “A New Reading,” 120.

21 See Blunt, Nicolas Poussin, 94. See also Cropper and Dempsey, Nicolas Poussin, 268; and Schütze, “Aristide de Thèbes,” 573.

22 For the borrowings from Michelangelo in the “Morbetto” see Schröter, “Raffaels Madonna,” 71. Regarding the motif’s use in plague art see Boeckl, Images of Plague and Pestilence, 94; and Hope and Healing, esp. cat. 5.

23 This is also noted by Schütze, “‘Die sterbende Mutter des Aristeides,’” 179.

24 For the man pinching his nose, see Boeckl, “New Reading,” 89, 143n16; for the reference to Ripa, see Bonfait, “La peste d’Azoth,” 168; and Ripa, Iconologia, 351.

25 For a more detailed argument, see Barker, “Poussin, Plague,” 663–64. In a more general sense, it sometimes has been noted that people pinching their noses in plague pictures possibly referred to the theory of miasma; in reference to Raphael’s and Raimondi’s Morbetto and indirectly to Poussin’s Plague, see Achilles-Syndram, “‘So macht nun Abbilder,’” 100–101.

26 As an example of a depiction of carried bodies, see Sante Peranda’s painting of Saint Roch among the Plague-Stricken (Venice, Chiesa di S. Giuliano).

27 See, for example, Settala, De Peste, 19–20, 73; and Sarasini, Trattato sopra, 10.

28 Kircher, Scrutinium, 228. In contrast, Neustätter (“Identification of the Philistine Plague,” 39) held that the interpretation of the affliction of the Philistines as a plague arose only in the eighteenth century.

29 In Poussin’s own 1657–58 plague picture of Santa Francesca Romana (Paris, Louvre), there is also a personification of the plague.

30 See Lord, “Raphael,” 86–87.

31 See especially Bonfait, “La peste d’Azoth”; Barker, “Poussin, Plague”; and Hipp, Nicolas Poussin. See also Barker’s brief discussion of the painting—together with Poussin’s Flora—in her dissertation, which does not contain the central theses and key arguments of her later article, but does propose a possible function of the Flora as a plague painting: Barker, Art in a Time of Danger, 301–11.

32 See Costello, “Twelve Pictures,” 256, 263, 272, 275.

33 See, for example, Boeckl, “New Reading,” 129; and Wine, “‘Poussin’s Problems,’” 26.

34 See Thuillier, “Charles Mellin,” 616; in a more comprehensive sense, Rosenberg and Prat, eds., Nicolas Poussin, 2:998.

35 See Thuillier, “Perspectives du XVIIe siècle,” 254n8; Bonfait, “Poussin aujourd’hui,” 75; Keazor, “‘Coppies bien,’” 255; as well as Hipp, Nicolas Poussin, 42–51 and fig. 4. I am indebted to Patrick Le Chanu for communicating to me his observations concerning the infrared photograph at the time I was preparing my dissertation.

36 See, in this sense, Keazor, “A propos,” 66.

37 This thesis of two earlier states of the architectural background is raised by Wine, National Gallery Catalogues, 19-–20.

38 Salerno, I pittori, 44; Fagiolo dell’Arco, Jean Lemaire, 13–14. Mahon, “Gli esordi,” 28–29, presents the hypothesis that Caroselli’s painting copied the first conception of the scenery painted by Lemaire, which was later overpainted by Poussin.

39 See Bellori, Le vite, 431.

40 Dowley, “Thoughts on Poussin,” 333. Unglaub’s recent study also confirms such a view of Poussin’s narrative in the early 1630s; see Unglaub, Poussin and the Poetics of Painting, 166. Though in The Plague at Ashdod the “unity of time” is clearly maintained, Thuillier judges the different reactions of the men in front of the temple as being in contrast with this principle as well as that of “unity of action”; see Thuillier, “Temps et tableau,” 197; and Bonfait, “La peste d’Azoth,” 168–69.

41 See Thuillier, “Temps et tableau,” 197; and, more recently, Unglaub, Poussin and the Poetics of Painting, 172–73.

42 See Kliemann, “Kunst als Bogenschießen,” 279–86.

43 Bellori, Le vite, 427.

44 See Oy-Marra, “Poussins ‘Mannalese,’” 205–6; Hipp, Nicolas Poussin, 163–85, 250–76 (for a discussion of the other problems raised in this section as well); and Unglaub, Poussin and the Poetics of Painting, 185–97.

45 For the cupola, embodying “the episodic richness and variety of epic, and its latitude to encompass diverse times and places,” see Unglaub, Poussin and the Poetics of Painting, 186.

46 Badt, “Raphael’s ‘Incendio del Borgo,’” 45–48; see also Preimesberger, “Tragische Motive,” 111–12.

47 Françoise Siguret’s attempt to find dramatic elements in The Plague at Ashdod and other paintings by Poussin is also based on Badt; see Siguret, L’œil surpris, 161, 170. The Plague at Ashdod and The Fire in the Borgo have been directly compared by Oberhuber, Poussin, 241; and Ebert-Schifferer, “L’expression contrôlée,” 338. The idea that Poussin’s The Plague follows the example of Raphael’s The Fire in the Borgo has been developed in a more extensive way independently by both Hipp, Nicolas Poussin, 169–78, and by Unglaub, Poussin and the Poetics of Painting, 158–65.

48 Concerning peripeteia (reversal) and anagorisis (recognition), its companion phenomenon also relevant to Poussin’s composition, see Aristotle, Poetics, trans. Halliwell, 42–43. For the structure of Aristotelian tragedy in Poussin’s Plague, see also Barker, “Poussin, Plague,” 669 (a slightly different approach, without reference to Badt or Raphael).

49 See Ebert-Schifferer, “L’expression contrôlée,” 338.

50 Rosen, “Die Enargeia des Gemäldes,” 192–94. In the sense of vividness, “enargeia” has already been applied to The Plague at Ashdod by Bonfait, “La peste d’Azoth,” 170.

51 Brassat, “Credas—cernas,” 15; see also Brassat, Das Historienbild, 35. The “Aeneas and Anchises” group, itself a vivid image, helps to make temporal and causal relations evident to the viewer; therefore, it seems appropriate to interpret it also in relation to “enargeia/evidentia.” (Brassat does so in relation to another concept mentioned by Quintilian in his chapters on enargeia, the speaker’s “visio” [vision].)

52 See Alciato, Emblemata (1550); the emblem is reprinted in Henkel and Schöne, Emblemata, Sp. 1607; and Keazor, “A propos,” 66. For the problems of borrowed motifs in Plague at Ashdod, see Hipp, Nicolas Poussin, 97–142.

53 See, for example, Cordova, Catena proonima versionum, 237; Lapide, Commentarius, 241; Marianus, Scholia, 135–36; Mendoza, Commentarium, 273; and Sanctius, In quattuor libros Regum, 111–12. Dagon’s fishlike shape is also discussed by Keazor, “A propos,” 65; and Bonfait, “La peste d’Azoth,” 167.

54 See, for example, Mendoza, Commentarium, 273.

55 For the interpretation of the figures in the fresco’s foreground, see Panofsky, “Iconography,” 119–20.

56 See Cropper and Dempsey, Nicolas Poussin, S. 271. Charity is also mentioned in a description of Poussin’s painting by Siguret, L’oeil surpris, 168. It should be remembered here that Marino supported Poussin during the artist’s early years.

57 Not all authors conclude that the scene on the steps really depicts almsgiving; indeed one might debate this, inasmuch as the seated man does not stretch his hand out to the man walking towards him. Yet, there are two possible explanations for this missing gesture: on the one hand it may show his weakness, or on the other, it may indicate his status as one of the “shameful poor” who were often considered more deserving of charity than beggars (the second explanation is gratefully owed to Sheila Barker).

58 See Wild, Nicolas Poussin, 1:39; and Ebert-Schifferer, “L’expression contrôlée,” 338.

59 For the reception of the tragic scene, see Friedländer, Nicolas Poussin, 36; Blunt, Nicolas Poussin, 94; and Barker, “Poussin, Plague,” 668 (in relation to the painting’s tragic structure). Further developments of this fact are found in Bätschmann, “Three Problems,” 171. For the reference to Vitruvius, see Frommel, “Poussin e l’architettura,” 120–21.

60 Letter to Fréart de Chambray, 1 March 1665, in Poussin, Lettres et propos, 175.

61 Lomazzo, Scritti sulle arti, 2:352.

62 Emmerling, Antikenverwendung, 31. Cropper also refers to this statue: see Cropper, “Vincenzo Giustiniani’s Galleria,” 124.

63 For the reference to the sarcophagus of Meleager, see Emmerling, Antikenverwendung, 31.

64 Poussin himself had recommended the imitation of the passions, referring to Agostino Mascardi’s or Quintilian’s remarks about rhetorical action, in his theoretical notes that Bellori entitled Osservazioni; see Poussin, Lettres et propos, 182.

65 Lomazzo, Scritti sulle arti, 2:324.

66 See also Ebert-Schifferer’s interpretation of the motifs’ effect in Ebert-Schifferer, “L’expression contrôlée,” 340, 344.

67 See, for example, Raben, “‘Oracle of Painting,’” 47; an older work fundamental for this issue has been Blunt, “Poussin’s Notes,” 344–51.

68 For the problems treated in this section, see also Hipp, Nicolas Poussin, 205–50.

69 For this concept in the field of rhetoric, see Ueding and Steinbrink, Grundriß der Rhetorik, 277–78.

70 Bellori, Le vite, 481. According to Blunt, this topos might have medieval roots; see his comment in Poussin, Lettres et propos, 185.

71 Poussin, Lettres et propos, 133–37. For Zarlino as source, see Paul Alfassa, “L’origine.”

72 For the modes see, for example, Blunt, Nicolas Poussin, 226; Oskar Bätschmann, Dialektik der Malerei, 49; and Montagu, “Theory of the Musical Modes,” 238.

73 Poussin, Lettres et propos, 135.

74 Fontaine, ed., Conférences inédites, 112, 117. The source was also mentioned, for example, by Ebert-Schifferer, “L’expression contrôlée,” 330; and Barker, “Poussin, Plague” 666.

75 Poussin, Lettres et propos, 175 (letter to Fréart de Chambray, 1 March 1665), 135 (letter to Chantelou, 24 November 1647).

76 Poussin, Lettres et propos, 72–73 (letter to Sublet de Noyers, without date; first printed by Félibien). For the source see Goldstein, “Meaning of Poussin’s Letter,” 234n8; Puttfarken, “Poussin’s thoughts on painting,” 68.

77 See Zelle, “Angenehmes Grauen,” 6–8.

78 See, for example, Zelle, “Angenehmes Grauen,” 6–7, 9. For the understanding of catharsis in Italian poetics of the sixteenth century, see Hathaway, Age of Criticism, 205–300; and Zelle, “Das Schreckliche,” 125.

79 Rotermund, “Der Affekt als literarischer Gegenstand,“ 249. Also Zelle, “Angenehmes Grauen,” 10–13.

80 Aristotle, Poetics, trans. Halliwell, 34.

81 See Hathaway, Age of Criticism, 254–58 (referring to Lorenzo Giacomini). For a similar modern opinion, see Höffe, Aristoteles, 70.

82 See, for example, Poussin, Lettres et propos, 169 (letter to Chantelou, 25 November 1658). Poussin here explains the meaning of an Egyptian procession in the background of his painting of The Holy Family in Egypt (St. Petersburg, Hermitage), pointing out that he used such motifs not only to indicate Egypt as setting, but also to delight his viewer.

83 Barker, “Poussin, Plague,” 668–71, also discusses the cathartic effect of Poussin’s painting on the basis of early modern poetics, but reaching a different conclusion in the end.

84 See, for example, Hendrix, “Repulsive Body,” 82–89.

85 Mancini, Considerazioni, 121, 123.

86 For the relationship between Marino’s poetry and Poussin, see Cropper and Dempsey, Nicolas Poussin, 261–63, 276–77.

87 The date of Poussin’s The Massacre of the Innocents (Musée de Chantilly), painted for Vincenzo Giustiniani, is debated; while, for example, Denis Mahon (“Gli esordi,” 28) assumes the years 1628–29, Cropper and Dempsey (Nicolas Poussin, 256) suggest a date after 1632. For the relationship between the paintings by Poussin and Guido Reni, see also Ebert-Schifferer, “L’expression contrôlée,” 341.

88 Thürlemann, “Nicolas Poussin.”

89 See Thürlemann, “Nicolas Poussin,” 115.

90 Descartes, Die Leidenschaften der Seele, 94–95. See Thürlemann, “Nicolas Poussin,” 119–20, 130. For the concept of admiration and its meaning for the theory of painting in the seventeenth century, see Weber, Der Lobtopos des “lebenden” Bildes, 231–42.

91 Cassirer, Descartes, 117.

92 See Poussin, Lettres et propos, 45 (letter to Chantelou, 28 April 1639): “Lisez l’histoire et le tableau . . . ”

93 See Mildner-Flesch, Das Decorum, 141–42. In her book, Mildner-Flesch developed, independently of Thürlemann and on the basis of Poussin’s writings, a model of effect for Poussin’s paintings, for which she also used Cartesian concepts. Her intellectual model considers an effect of Poussin’s paintings that is founded exclusively upon admiration, leading to délectation, in analogy with Corneille’s drama.

94 See also Thürlemann, “Nicolas Poussin,” 121–22.

95 Nussdorfer, Civic Politics, 145–61; and Barker, Art in a Time of Danger, 190–210.

96 Giovanni Battista Spada (ed.), Bandi stampati dal 1629 al 1634 relativi alla Congregazione di Sanità formata per preservare Roma e lo Stato Ecclesiastico dalla Peste che afflisse l’alta Italia: Raccolti da Gio: Battista Spada Segretario di Consulta e della Congregazione medesima, e dedicati al Card: Francesco Barberini Prefetto specialmente deputato, BAV, Ms. Barb. Lat. 5629, fol. 2r, fol. 4r.

97 See Giovanni Battista Spada’s other collection of Lettere, Istruzioni, Bandi ed altre Scritture del 1629 e 1630 relative alla Congregazione della Sanità formata per preservare Roma e lo Stato Ecclesiastico dalla peste che afflisse l’alta Italia: Raccolte da Gio: Battista Spada Segretario di Consulta, e della Congregazione medesima, e dedicate al Card. Francesco Barberini Prefetto specialmente deputato della med.a Congregazione, BAV, Ms. Barb. Lat. 5626, fol. 4r. See also Nussdorfer, Civic Politics, 146n2; Harper, Barberini Tapestries, 343n747; and Barker, Art in a Time of Danger, 191n48. See also Barker, “Poussin, Plague,” 662.; and Hipp, Nicolas Poussin, 302.

98 Mancini, Considerazioni, 261.

99 See Maccherini, “Caravaggio nel carteggio,” 71, 73; and Maccherini, “Ritratto di Giulio Mancini.”

100 [Rossi], Pinacotheca altera imaginum illustrium, 81; see also Haskell, Maler und Auftraggeber, 180.

101 When exactly Poussin experienced his illness is not clear. See Wilberding (“Poussin’s illness in 1629”) for the opinion that Poussin still was ill in 1629. But this was a year in which Poussin was quite active as a painter. For the opinion that the most acute phase of Poussin’s illness had to have been earlier, see Thuillier, Nicolas Poussin, 105. For Mancini’s treatment of venereal disease, see Olson, “Caravaggio’s Coroner,” 91.

102 See Hipp, Nicolas Poussin, 291–95, 304–5.

103 See Mahon, “Gli esordi,” 28. For the date of Mancini’s death, see, for example, Maccherini, “Giulio Mancini,” 399.

104 For Mancini’s fear of being obliged to give paintings to powerful dignitaries, see Maccherini, “Giulio Mancini,” 394.

105 This is demonstrated more fully in Hipp, Nicolas Poussin, 312–29.

106 For a differentiation between philosophical and theological approaches to plague, see Parolini, Trattato della peste, 11–12. For a discussion of further plague treatises, including medical ones, see Hipp, Nicolas Poussin, 329–44.

107 See Index Bibliothecae, 295.

108 Binet, Remèdes souverains (an Italian edition, Sovrani et efficaci rimedi contro la peste e morte subitanea, was published in Rome in 1656; references are to this French edition unless otherwise indicated; Condio, Medicina filosofica. Concerning Binet, see also Thomas Worcester’s essay in this volume and his earlier essay, “Saint Roch,” 164–65.

109 For Cyprianus, see Grimm, Darstellung der Pest, 91; and Mormando, “Response to the Plague,” 26.

110 See Vecchietti, Biblioteca picena, 289.

111 Condio, Medicina filosofica, fol. 3v.

112 See Schröder, “Philosophie III,” 657.

113 [Petrarch], Petrarch’s Remedies, no. 92, trans. Rawski, 221.

114 Condio, Medicina filosofica, fols. 88v, 97v.

115 Condio, Medicina filosofica, fols. 189v–190r, 202r, 203v, 208r, 208v.

116 Binet, Remèdes souverains, fols. 89–102; for the selection of prayers (omitted from the modern French edition cited here) see Binet, Sovrani et efficaci rimedi, 125–43. While Condio ends his treatise with allusions to “rimedi umani,” Binet ends with allusions to “rimedi spirituali” (for difference between the two types of rimedi, see Mormando, “Response to the Plague,” 2. Somewhat regrettably for the object of this research, neither book takes images into consideration. Instead, one contemporary theological plague treatise that considers images clearly echoes Tridentine precepts in their condemnation of the viewing of “lascivious” pictures as one specific reason why God sends the plague. See, for example, [Possevino], Cause et rimedii, 29; and Mormando, “Response to the Plague,” 18. Thus, there is in the early modern plague treatises at least a general recognition that pictures could have an effect upon the health of individuals during plague-time. Given the virtually unanimous belief in the special power of images widely held in the post-Tridentine Church, this should not be surprising.

117 Condio, Medicina filosofica, fols. 85r, 114r.

118 Condio, Medicina filosofica, fol. 167v; and Binet, Remèdes souverains, 37.

119 Condio, Medicina filosofica, fol. 158v.

120 Condio, Medicina filosofica, fol. 179v.

121 Binet, Remèdes souverains, 16: “Elle sépare le père de son fils, la mère de son enfant qui lui pend à la mamelle, et devant que de tuer les hommes, elle tue toute la charité et amitié . . . .”

122 Condio, Medicina filosofica, fol. 178v: “[il vedersi] il padre in braccia morto un figliuolino, l’altro alli piedi giacere palpitando, il terzo gridare aita, la moglie stare distesa in terra, & lui più morto che vivo non potere a niuno soccorrere, fuora che con gli occhi, girandosi hor verso questi, hor verso quelli; l’essere all’hora persissima ogni carità, ogni humanità, ogni pietà . . . .”

123 See the citation from Gregory’s “Oratio ad plebem de mortalitate” in Grimm, Darstellung der Pest, 94. Regarding Boccaccio see, for example, Paulsen and Schulze, “Das Motiv der Pest,” 341–42. For dramas treating the subject of the plague, see Grimm, Darstellung der Pest, 181–92 (regarding Benedetto Cinquanta); and Hipp, Nicolas Poussin, 355–60 (discussing Cinquanta and Girolamo Bartolommei Smeducci).

124 See Wollasch, “Hoffnungen der Menschen,” 24.

125 For example, in his account of the effects of the Milanese plague of 1630, Cardinal Federigo Borromeo (1564–1631) refers to Pliny’s description of the picture by Aristides, which, as noted above, served as Raphael’s source for Il Morbetto; see Borromeo, La peste di Milano, 80.

126 See Benati, “L’oratorio di San Rocco,” 51–52. The painting was destroyed during World War II.

127 Quintilian, Institutio Oratoria, trans. Butler, 6.2.32.

128 Kemmann, “Evidentia,” 39–40.

129 Quintilian, Institutio Oratoria, 8.3.

130 Binet, Remèdes souverains, for example, 37, 41, 50, 66.

131 Condio, Medicina filosofica, fol. 178r. The same knight metaphor had been used famously by the humanist Erasmus of Rotterdam (1466 or 1469–1536), a further indication of the tradition in which Condio must be seen. Erasmus uses the metaphor especially in his Enchiridion militis Christiani (1503).

132 Binet, Remèdes souverains, esp. 53–54, 76–88; Condio, Medicinia filosofica, for example, fols. 168r, 180r–182r.

133 Binet, Remèdes souverains, 56; Condio, Medicina filosofica, fol. 202r; see also Binet, as cited in Barker, “Poussin, Plague,” 661.

134 Condio, Medicina filosofica, fols. 202v–203r.

135 Condio, Medicina filosfica, fol. 4r.

136 Binet, Sovrani et efficaci rimedi (Avviso al lettore); Condio, Medicina filosofica, fol. 3v. Binet himself develops the idea that in general it can be beneficial to maintain a good “divine fear,” which does not cause “storms” in the soul, but is instead accompanied by deep tranquillity; see Binet, Remèdes souverains, 82.

137 In a different yet related sense, Sheila Barker has explored extensively the painting’s possible function as a form of medicine; though she puts more emphasis on the psychosomatic interaction and understands the cathartic effect of the painting not so much as an intellectual one, Barker’s reading and the interpretation sketched here fundamentally support each other; see Barker, “Poussin, Plague,” 672, 682–85.

138 For example, see Poussin, Lettres et propos, 96 (letter to Chantelou, 21 December 1643), 146 (letter to Chantelou, 17 January 1649). See also, for example, Bonfait, “La peste d’Azoth,” 168.

139 See Achillini, Carteggio, 198.

140 See Grimm, “Affekt,” 21.

141 On Stoicism and Poussin see, for example, Blunt, Nicolas Poussin, 157–76; and McTighe, Nicolas Poussin’s Landscape Allegories, 19–20.

142 For example, see Binet, Remèdes souverains, 18, 60–61, 66. On Stoicism in Binet’s writings, see d’Angers, “Le stoïcisme,” 240–42.

143 This seems to be suggested by Mendoza, Commentarium, 288.

144 See Olson, Caravaggio’s Coroner, 97.

145 Costello calls him an “amateur of medicine”; see Costello, “Twelve Pictures,” 258.

146 See, for example, Poussin, Lettres et propos, 169 (letter to Chantelou, 25 November 1658).

147 For the literal citation, see Lapide, Commentarius in Josue, 242. A related interpretation can be found in Filippo Picinello’s Mundus Symbolicus, which was published several decades after the execution of The Plague at Ashdod (and thus is itself a testimony to the prolonged life span of these widely disseminated ideas); see Picinello, Mundus Symbolicus, 199.

148 For older artistic examples showing such confrontations see, for example, Buddensieg, “Gregory the Great,” 62–63.

149 Thümmel, “Bilder V.1. Mittelalter,” 534.

150 For the use of the argument see, for example, Ghini, Dell’immagini sacre dialoghi, 31; and Hecht, Katholische Bildertheologie, 95–99.

151 See, for example, the reforms of the statutes of the Accademia di San Luca in 1627 as approved by Urban VIII, in Missirini, Memorie per servire, 92 (especially point 9). Admittedly, however, these efforts by Urban might not have been the most important items in his cultural political campaigns.

152 See especially Fumaroli, L’école du silence, 128–31, 132–35; see also the same author’s “Cicero pontifex romanus,” 821–23; and Ebert-Schifferer, “L’expression contrôlée,” 342–43.

153 For Gabriel Naudé’s opinion that Mancini was already a “libertin,” see Pintard, Le libertinage érudit, 261–62. For a critical view of this source, see Maccherini, “Ritratto di Giulio Mancini,” 54n2.

154 For a more detailed consideration of a personal motivation of Poussin’s painting, see Barker, “Poussin, Plague,” 675–76, who examines the Plague at Ashdod more specifically as a response to the melancholy from which Poussin, according to certain sources, seems to have suffered during his venereal illness.

155 It is likely that on the same level Poussin understood his painting, The Realm of Flora (1631, Dresden, Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister) as a thematic counterpart to his The Plague at Ashdod and probably as an example of a different “mode”; see Winner, “Flora, Mater Florum,” 387–96.

156 See Hipp, Nicolas Poussin, 390–99.