The Continence of Scipio

Scipio Africanus, the Roman general who defeated Hannibal, refuses to hold a captured princess as a prize of war, returning her to her kneeling fiancé — a prince who seals a military alliance with Rome in gratitude for the general’s lenience. Sebastiano Ricci painted the scene about 1706 in the full, theatrical Venetian Baroque: invented helmets and anachronistic costumes, fanciful architecture, gravity-defying drapery, the whole composition an allegory of compassionate diplomacy rather than a history lesson. The canvas long hung in Irish country houses, from Castle Oliver in County Limerick through Blarney Castle, before reaching the Art Institute in 1970. The painting is held in the Art Institute of Chicago.