Anthropophagy, Baths and Dissections: Visual Representations of Eson’s Rejuvenation in the XV Century

Abstract

Eson’s rejuvenation, one of the episodes of the myth of Medea recounted by Ovid, is an extensive scene, the visual representation of which during the Antiquity was scarce. The first images seem to date from the mid-15th century. The visual representations produced since then can be classified into two broad patterns: the French manuscripts and the Venetian editions of the Metamorphoses. This paper analyses the ways in which this scene was represented from that date until the beginning of the 16th century. Its aim, on the one hand, is to identify general trends, regional differences, and temporal breaks; on the other hand, to postulate some iconographic repertoires that could have inspired the two patterns.