The head of Medusa

La cabeza de Medusa
(Testa di Medusa)
Caravaggio, 1597

In Greek myth, Perseus used the severed snake-haired head of the Gorgon Medusa as a shield with to turn his enemies to stone. By the sixteenth century Medusa was said to simbolize the triumph of reason over the senses; and this may hava been why Cardinal Del Monte commissioned Caravaggio to paint Medusa as the figure on a cerimonial shield presented in 1601. Caravaggio painted two versions of, Medusa the first in 1596 and the other presumably in 1597. The first version, also known as Murtula, by the name of the poet who wrote about it  is signed Michel A F and is in private hands; the second version, shown here, is slightly bigger and is not signed; it is held in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence.


Sara María, 4º A