Chapter XI · Of the Pictures of the Sibyls.

The Pictures of the Sibyls are very common, and for their Prophesies of Christ in high esteem with Christians; described commonly with youthful faces, and in a defined number. Common pieces making twelve, and many precisely ten; observing therein the account of Varro, that is, Sibylla, Delphica, Erythræa, Samia, Cumana, Cumæa, or Cimmeria, Hellespontiaca, Lybica, Phrygia, Tiburtina, Persica. In which enumeration I perceive learned men are not satisfied, and many conclude an irreconcilable incertainty; some making more, others fewer, and not this certain number. For Suidas, though he affirm that in divers ages there were ten, yet the same denomination he affordeth unto more; Boysardus in his Tract of Divination hath set forth the Icons of these Ten, yet addeth two others, Epirotica, and Ægyptia; and some affirm that Prophesying women were generally named Sibyls.

Others make them fewer: Martianus Capella two; Pliny and Solinus three; Ælian four; and Salmasius in effect but seven. For discoursing hereof in his Plinian Exercitations, he thus determineth; Ridere licet hodiernos Pictores, qui tabulas proponunt Cumanæ, Cumeæ, et Erythrææ, quasi trium diversarum Sibyllarum; cum una cademque fuerit Cumana, Cumæa, et Erythræa, ex plurium et doctissimorum Authorum sententia. Boysardus gives us leave to opinion there was no more than one; for so doth he conclude, In tanta Scriptorum varietate liberum relinquimus Lectori credere, an una et eadem in diversis regionibus peregrinata, cognomen sortita sit ab iis locis ubi oracula reddidisse comperitur, an plures extiterint: And therefore not discovering a resolution of their number from pens of the best Writers, we have no reason to determine the same from the hand and pencil of Painters.

As touching their age, that they are generally described as young women, History will not allow; for the Sibyl whereof Virgil speaketh is termed by him longæva sacerdos, and Servius in his Comment amplifieth the same. The other that sold the books unto Tarquin, and whose History is plainer than any, by Livie and Gellius is termed Anus; that is, properly no woman of ordinary age, but full of years, and in the dayes of dotage, according to the Etymology of Festus; Anus, quasi Ἀnoῦs, sine mente. and consonant unto the History; wherein it is said, that Tarquin thought she doted with old age. Which duly perpended, the Licentia pictoria is very large; with the same reason they may delineate old Nestor like Adonis, Hecuba with Helens face, and Time with Absolons head. But this absurdity that eminent Artist Michael Angelo hath avoided, in the Pictures of the Cumean and Persian Sibyls, as they stand described from the printed sculptures of Adam Mantuanus.