Editor: Chiara Petrolini
Cimetierre des Sacrifices (Cemetery of Sacrifices) (1745)
from: Prévost, Antoine François, Histoire générale des voyages, ou Nouvelle collection de toutes les relations de voyages par mer et par terre qui ont été publiées jusqu'à présent dans les différentes langues, Paris, Didot, 1754, vol. 12, p. after 544
Human Sacrifice to Vitzilipuztli (1745)
from: Prévost, Antoine François, Histoire générale des voyages, ou Nouvelle collection de toutes les relations de voyages par mer et par terre qui ont été publiées jusqu'à présent dans les différentes langues, Paris, Didot, 1754, vol. 12, p. after 544
The story of the prophet Zakariya (a conflation of Zacharias, the father of John the Baptist, and the Old Testament prophet Zachariah), who according to Muslim legend died a martyr's death. Escaping his pursuers by hiding in a tree that miraculously opened to admit him, Zakariya was betrayed by Iblis, the devil, who pointed out the hem of the prophet's cloak protruding from the trunk. The devil's forces sawed the tree apart and with it Zakariya, whose saintly aura is shown as flames bursting among the leaves. (1550-1560)
from: from a dispersed copy of the Falnama (Book of Omens)
Worcester Art Museum
Samson tears down the temple of the Philistines (1551-1575)
Herzog August Bibliothek Wolfenbüttel
Sacrifice of a Swan (1599–1622)
from: from "Ex Antiquis Cameorum et Gemmae Delineata/ Liber Secundus/et ab Enea Vico Parmen Incis
New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art
bottom left, Cranmer, Bishop Nicholas Ridley, and Bishop Hugh Latimer burning at the stake, with Queen Mary I and a monk observing from a balcony above (1682)
from: Engraved title-page to Gilbert Burnet, 'The Abridgment of the History of the Reformation of the Church of England' (London, Richard Chiswell, 1682)
London, British Museum