The Persian Sibyl

The Roman scholar Varro once drew up a list of ten sibyls, the prophetesses of the ancient world, and the first name on it was the Persian. Christian writers took his list over, because they believed these women had foretold the coming of Christ. Guercino painted this one for Carlo Rondinelli, governor of Cento, the small town where the painter was born, and the payment of 259 lire, a little over 64 scudi, was recorded on 6 June 1647.

She sits at a table, her cheek resting on one hand and a quill in the other, and the book under her elbow carries her name on its spine. Between 1655 and 1663 the canvas passed to Cardinal Carlo Francesco Pio di Savoia, then the pope's legate in nearby Ferrara. In 1697 it was shown in Rome, at a picture exhibition in the church of San Salvatore in Lauro, listed simply as a Sibyl by Guercino.