The Triclinium in Religious Art

Abstract

Mercurium versipelle sidus . . . tum ordine inverso . . . Saturnum aquam senem, scilicet, damnatae frigiditatis"! (Heptaplus, expos. II, cap. II). On the unusual physiognomy of Burgkmair's Mercury, see above, p. 211, note 2. 1 Cf. the portrait of Alberto Pio in the National Gallery (Mond Collection). 2 It is certainly not by accident that water is represented in this picture no less than three times : in the foreground by the bath, in the background on the right by the well, in the background on the left by the river. A background with water is the normal form also in serious pictures of inspiration (see, for example, pl. 41b). THE TRICLINIUM IN RELIGIOUS ART