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Sulpicia (wife of Quintus Fulvius Flaccus)

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Sulpicia (fl. late 3rd century BC) was an ancient Roman woman whose outstanding sexual integrity (pudicitia) earned her the honor of instituting the cult of Venus Verticordia.

Sulpitia[1] by Pietro Orioli (Walters Art Museum)

Historicity

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The historicity of Sulpicia is generally accepted, though doubted by T. P. Wiseman, who regarded her as legendary.[2] She was the daughter of a Paterculus, possibly the Gaius Sulpicius Paterculus who was consul in 258 BC.[3] Her husband was the four-time consul Quintus Fulvius Flaccus.

Statue dedication

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Sulpicia was one of one hundred Roman matrons who were candidates to dedicate the statue of Venus Verticordia ("Venus Changer of Hearts"), who was believed "to turn the minds of women from vice to virtue." Using a method outlined in the Sibylline Books, ten were drawn by lot, and these examined to determine which was the purest and most virtuous. Judged the most chaste, it fell to Sulpicia to dedicate the statue.

The statue itself predates the temple in which it stood by over a hundred years, and so must originally have been dedicated someplace else—perhaps at the Temple of Venus Erycina on the Capitoline or the Temple of Venus Obsequens.[4]

The Sulpicia of the Italian Renaissance

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In the Italian Renaissance, the story appears in Boccaccio's book On Famous Women (1361–1362). The Sulpicia of Boccaccio is, paradoxically, outstanding primarily for being unobtrusive. Her virtues are described in terms of "denial and restraint".[5] She is the model wife who confines her interests to the household and avoids gossip, dinner parties, dancing, cosmetics, and perfume. She speaks only when spoken to, and in Christian manner submits to sex with her husband only blushingly and for the sake of procreation.[5] Even her gaze is constrained, allowed to wander no further than the edges of her own dress.[5] Hers is one of only seventeen biographies of "good" wives among the total of 106 famous women Boccaccio sketches.[6]

The painting Sulpitia by Orioli (1458–1496) is one of eight surviving panels thought to have been made to celebrate a wedding in 1493,[a] each depicting an ancient Roman who could serve as a moral example. Sulpicia holds a symbolic model of the goddess's temple, which was not built until at least century after her death, and stands before a view of the ancient city as imagined by Orioli.[7] It is the only work by Orioli that is not on a Christian theme.[10] The Latin inscription on the pedestal[b] erroneously identifies Sulpicia as the temple founder, with the moral "An altar of chastity (pudicitia) is that breast which is chaste unto itself. All earthly things fall into ruin; reputation and illustriousness remain."

See also

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Notes

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  1. ^ Thought to have been that of Silvio di Bartolomeo Piccolomini, a relative of Pope Pius II;[7] or the double wedding of the brothers of Antonio and Giulio Spannocchi.[8][9]
  2. ^ Sulpitia
    quae facere Veneri templum castaeq[ue] probaeq[ue]
    Sulpitia ex tota sum merita urbe legi
    ara pudicitiae pectus sibi quodq[ue] pudicum est
    terrea cuncta ruut fama decusq[ue] manet     (in all caps in the original)

References

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  1. ^ Kanter 1988, p. 335, per the inscription on the pedestal.
  2. ^ Schultz 2006, p. 200, n. 24, arguing against the skepticism expressed by Wiseman in Clio's Cosmetics (Leicester University Press, 1979), p. 98, n. 147.
  3. ^ Schultz 2006, p. 144.
  4. ^ Richardson 1992, p. 411.
  5. ^ a b c McLeod 1991, p. 67.
  6. ^ McLeod 1991, p. 68.
  7. ^ a b Walters Art Museum.
  8. ^ Kanter 1988, pp. 335, 339.
  9. ^ Edwards 2008, p. 311, noting the wedding and referencing the series of eight Sienese panels on this theme.
  10. ^ Kanter 1988, p. 335.

Primary texts

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  • Valerius Maximus, Factorum ac Dictorum Memorabilium libri IX (Nine Books of Memorable Deeds and Sayings), Henry J. Walker, trans., Hackett Publishing Company, Indianapolis (2004), ISBN 0-87220-674-2.
  • Gaius Plinius Secundus (Pliny the Elder), Naturalis Historia.
  • Gaius Julius Solinus, De Mirabilis Mundi (The Wonders of the World).
  • Giovanni Boccaccio, De mulieribus claris (On Famous Women), Virginia Brown, trans., Harvard University Press (2001), ISBN 0-674-01130-9.

Sources

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  • Edwards, Nancy (2008). "Penelope". In Bayer, Andrea (ed.). Art and Love in Renaissance Italy. Metropolitan Museum of Art. pp. 311–312.
  • Kanter, Laurence B. (1988). "Pietro Orioli". In Christiansen, Keith (ed.). Painting in Renaissance Siena 1420–1500. Metropolitan Museum of Art. pp. 334–339.
  • McLeod, Glenda (1991). Virtue and Venum: Catalogs of Women from Antiquity to the Renaissance. University of Michigan Press.
  • Mignone, Lisa Marie (2016). The Republican Aventine and Rome's Social Order. University of Michigan Press.
  • Richardson Jr., Lawrence (1992). A New Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome. Johns Hopkins University Press. ISBN 9780801843006.
  • Schultz, Celia E. (2006). Women's Religious Activity in the Roman Republic. University of North Carolina Press.
  • Walters Art Museum. "Sulpicia". Online Collection accession number 37.616. Retrieved 13 September 2024.
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