The Continence of Scipio

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(Redirected from
Allucius
)
For individual paintings, see The Continence of Scipio (painting).
Nicolò dell'Abate
, The Continence of Scipio, c. 1555.
The Continence of Scipio, Pompeo Batoni, c.1771.

The Continence of Scipio, or The Clemency of Scipio, is an episode in the life of the Roman general Scipio Africanus, recounted by the historian Livy. During Scipio's campaign in Spain during the Second Punic War, he refused to accept a ransom for a young female prisoner, returning her to her fiancé Allucius, who in return became a supporter of Rome. Scipio's magnanimous treatment of a prisoner was regarded as an exemplar of mercy during warfare in classical times. Interest in the story revived in the Renaissance and the episode became a popular topic for literary works, visual arts, and operas.

The classical story

The oldest surviving appearance of the story is in book 26 of

Ab urbe condita by the Roman historian Titus Livius (Livy). The events related in Livy's account were followed by all later writers, although it is recorded that the earlier lost work by historian Valerius Antias took a different view on the episode.[1]

Livy describes

wedding gift from himself. In gratitude, Allucius allied himself with Rome, bringing his tribe's forces to support the Roman armies.[2][3][4]

Early modern treatments

Literature and opera

Beginning in the

exemplary literature
, growing to a peak of popularity during the 17th and 18th centuries.

In 1567,

Plutarch’s Lives. Plutarch did not mention the episode, so Clusius prominently inserted his own description of it, based on Livy, into the translation.[5]

Other dramatic treatments of the story include the Scipion of Jean Desmarets (1638), which was adapted into Dutch by Jan Lemmers as Schipio in Karthago (1649) and also performed later as Schipio en Olinde. In England a verse drama on the episode, Scipio Africanus was produced by a schoolboy, Charles Beckingham; it was acted in theatres and later printed in 1718.

The Clemency of Scipio by Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo (1751), Städel.

George Friederic Handel (1726), Carlo Arrigoni (1739), and Leonardo Leo (1740). Johann Christian Bach
's La Clemenza di Scipione (1778) was also based upon it.

Visual arts

Domenico Beccafumi

There were numerous artistic depictions of the mercy and sexual restraint of Scipio although, as with the operas, they go now by a variety of titles. "The Continence of Scipio" is most common in English, although "The Clemency of Scipio" is also found. In other languages the terms magnanimity (großmütigheit) and generosity are alternatives. There is also sometimes a difficulty in identifying which scene is intended. The most common alternative example of military clemency descending from classical times was

Veronese's painting in London. The scene of a victorious general seated at the centre of the composition with kneeling figures before him might portray either story without other clues to its interpretation.[6]

Typically, Scipio sits on a throne on a raised dias, stretching out an arm in the direction of the Spanish party, with their treasure laid out in front of them. The "continence" shown by Scipio is both sexual and financial.[7] The story of Timoclea and Alexander the Great is rather different, but produces similar compositions of a woman brought before a magnanimous classical commander, which sometimes accompanied the Continence in a series,[8] and is also capable of being confused with it.[9] Bernard de Montfaucon paired the two stories as his "Examples of the clemency and continence of conquerors" in a book of 1724.[10]

Tapestry series based on the exploits of Scipio, which would often portray this scene, was one contextual identifier; so was connection with the histories of Livy or the expanded Plutarch for which the numerous surviving prints were intended, or on which they were dependent. Another context was the work's association with marriage, since the wedding between Allucius and his bride followed immediately on her restoration to him. Apollonio di Giovanni di Tommaso's episodic depiction appeared as a painted panel on a 15th-century marriage chest.[11]

Giovanni Antonio Fasolo's 16th century fresco is to the right of the door at the Castello Porto Colleoni Thiene.

Francesco II d'Este, Duke of Modena and Margherita Maria Farnese.[12]

Many paintings of Scipio's act of clemency were produced in Europe - over a hundred by

Gian Battista Zelotti
at the Villa Emo, Fanzolo; the Villa Caldogno-Nordera, Caldogna; and elsewhere in Italy.

Paintings

Simon de Vos
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Continence of Scipio.

Below are listed some paintings of the subject in museum collections:

Notes

  1. ^ Kunzle, p.550
  2. Ab urbe condita Book 26, chapter 50
  3. ^ Valerius Maximus, iv. 3. § 1
  4. ^ Sil. Ital. xv. 268 &c
  5. ^ Kunzle, p.519
  6. ^ Kunzle, p.524
  7. ^ Kunzle
  8. ^ "Giovanni Battista Gaulli, called Il Baciccio The Continence of Scipio, Sotheby's
  9. ^ British Museum, Drawing Cat. 1860,0616.118, by Perino del Vaga
  10. ^ Supplement au livre de l'antiquité expliquée et représentée en figures: tome quatrième: qui comprend la guerre, les ponts, les aqueducs, la navigation, les phares & les tours octogones, Chapter 4
  11. ^ Victoria and Albert Museum
  12. ^ Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani - Volume 10 (1968)
  13. ^ Kunzle p.565ff
  14. ^ Art UK Arts

References

  • Kunzle, David (ed.), “The Magnanimous Soldier: The Continence of Scipio Africanus” in From Criminal to Courtier: The Soldier in Netherlandish Art 1550–1672, 2002, BRILL,
    ISBN 9004123695, 9789004123694, pp. 507–71
    .
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