Detail View: The AMICA Library: Hercules Chasing Avarice from the Temple of the Muses

For Renaissance artists, classical mythology was an inexhaustible source of subjects, sometimes shown as recounted in ancient texts, more often devised to suit the purposes of artist or patron. The theme of one or more of the Vices being expelled by a figure personifying Virtue was frequent; here Hercules, often shown exemplifying strength in the service of Virtue, chases Avarice, one of the seven Vices, personified by a woman carrying a load of precious goods. Minerva standing, Apollo seated, and the Muses all look on with satisfaction. No drawing of this subject by Peruzzi is known, nor are the date or specific purpose or reference (if any) of the composition. Ugo da Carpi was the prime Italian practitioner of the medium of chiaroscuro woodcut-a method in which an image is created by printing two or more blocks, one usually in black, the other(s) in color, each of which contributes lines or shading not found on the others to the final image; the word 'chiaroscuro' in Italian literally means 'light-dark.' Ugo and Peruzzi were both in Rome between 1518 and 1527, and they could have worked together at that time, or possibly somewhat earlier, as Peruzzi had numerous connections with Ugo's native Carpi, a small town near Reggio and Modena.