The Triumph of Fame on Chastity, from The Triumphs of Petrarch 1529 - 1549

Georg Pencz made this engraving, "The Triumph of Fame on Chastity," sometime in the first half of the 16th century. The scene is one of Renaissance pageantry, filtered through the lens of classical antiquity. Pencz worked in Nuremberg, a city that, at the time, was a center of humanist learning and artistic innovation. Here, Fame, allegorized by a winged figure blowing a trumpet, rides atop an elephant. Below, we see Roman soldiers. The artist drew inspiration from the poems of Petrarch, who, in his "Triumphs," imagined a series of allegorical processions celebrating the victories of virtues over vices. The presence of Latin text above the procession would have signaled the educated status of the engraving's intended audience. We can see the influence of the Italian Renaissance, particularly in its revival of classical forms and themes. Cultural historians often look at prints such as this one to understand the transmission of ideas during the Reformation. By looking at the archives of the Nuremberg city council, we can better understand how such images were viewed at the time they were made.