In Reformation Germany, the ancient theme of Pero and Cimone — dating back to an anecdote in Valerius Maximus’ Memorable Deeds and Sayings of the Romans (31 CE) — became popular as an allegory of piety, perversion, and paradox. In Maximus’ story, Pero embodies the concept of “filial piety,” insofar as she engages in the heroic act of breastfeeding her own father in prison, condemned to death by starvation for a capital crime. As I will argue in my talk, the eroticizing, even pornographic rendering of the theme by Reformation artists explores the slipperiness of the signifying scene in the visual arts at a time when pictorial representations were thought to veil rather than reveal meaning, and when writing was emphasized as a medium of unambiguous transparency.
