The purpose of this paper is to show the argument-establishing features of a Renaissance altarpiece. Looking to Panofsky’s seminal studies and to more recent contributions, this essay shows how in a special environment like the Florentine pre-Renaissance, people could easily relate to the evocative and contrastive potential of images. In the Santa Lucia de’ Magnoli Altarpiece painted by Domenico Veneziano we see an interesting dialogue between the main piece and the predella panels. This juxtaposition can be formalized into a basic (...) argumentative text. (shrink)

This essay focuses on the competing representational projects of poet and emperor as represented (or polemically misrepresented) in Ovid's poetry. I begin by developing two readings of the famous weaving contest of Metamorphoses 6, the first emphasizing Arachne's will to truth (her exposé of Olympian injustice), the second her will to power (her appropriation of Olympian potency). With these models in mind, I explore the vicissitudes of Ovid's rivalrous identification with Augustus in the Tristia, ending with some unhappier implications of (...) this identification, and with some reflections on the question of the reality of Ovid's exile. (shrink)