Susanna und die beiden Alten

Long before comic strips, Lorenzo Lotto gave his figures words to say. In this small panel the biblical Susanna, bathing in her walled garden, is ambushed by two respected old men who threaten to accuse her of adultery unless she submits. Lotto paints little scrolls coming from their mouths and from hers. Susanna's reads, in Latin, that she would rather die than sin. The elders' scroll carries their false testimony, that they saw her lying with a young man who then fled. Unusually, Lotto keeps Susanna almost fully clothed and pressed against the garden wall, so the scene reads as a trap closing rather than a nude on display, the two old men leaning in with their written lie already spoken.