Homer’s Riddle

For centuries this canvas existed only on paper. The Bolognese painter Bartolomeo Passarotti made it around 1575, and by 1584 his biographer Raffaello Borghini was describing it in his printed book Il Riposo: a boat of fishermen calling out to Homer on the shore, a dog so lifelike it seemed to breathe, real seawater, scattered shells. Then the picture vanished. Collectors' inventories mentioned it and copies survived, but the original dropped out of sight until the Uffizi tracked it down and acquired it in 2021. The scene tells the story of the poet's death. Fishermen tease Homer with a riddle about the lice they cannot catch, and the greatest poet of antiquity cannot work out the answer. Look at Homer's face and you are looking at Passarotti himself, who gave the blind bard his own features.