Cupid and winged death shooting arrows, by Alciato (1549)

Cupid and winged death shooting arrows, by Alciato (1549)

This emblem shows cupid, represented by a winged child, and death, represented by a winged skeleton, shooting arrows to people on the ground. We can see a man standing on the left and a woman having been shot on the floor, in the centre an old man and a child and on the right a man.

The emblem also shows that death, whose gender is in itself ambiguous, does not distinguish genres, like love, which is identified as a minimally sexed child.

Alciato, Andrea (1492-1550)
Daza, Bernardino (translator) (1528- c. 1576)

Emblematica Online - Resources for Emblem Studies.
http://emblematica.grainger.illinois.edu/oebp/ui/#/results?ekeywords=death&tab=emblemdetail&eskip=72&emblemid=A49a065&bookid=A49a

Archived in:
https://web.archive.org/web/20201115211147/http://www.emblems.arts.gla.ac.uk/alciato/images/pic_l/A49a065.jpg

Image De la Muerte y d’el Amor (p. F5rp89) from the book Los Emblemas (1549) translated edition by Bernardino Daza to Spanish of Emblematum liber or Emblemata by Alciato, first published in 1531 and 1534.
From Glasgow University Library: SM32
http://www.emblems.arts.gla.ac.uk/alciato/emblem.php?id=A49a065

Archived in:
https://web.archive.org/web/20130705083255/http://www.emblems.arts.gla.ac.uk/alciato/emblem.php?id=A49a065

1549

Emblem.
Dimensions: Unknown