拍品专文
The arms are for Antonio Pucci, who was made a Cardinal by the Medici Pope Clement VII in 1531. This dish is part of an armorial service of which ten other pieces are known, and they must presumably pre-date the Cardinal's death in 1544. For a list of the ten other known pieces, and a discussion of the piece in the British Museum, see Dora Thornton and Timothy Wilson, Italian Renaissance Ceramics, A Catalogue of the British Museum Collection, London, 2009, Vol. I, pp. 304-305, no. 179.
The inscription Come Cadamo ocise el serpente translates as 'How Cadmus killed the serpent', and it refers to the story of the founding of Thebes by Cadmus. An oracle advised Cadmus to follow a cow to the site of the new city, but his companions were killed by a dragon (or giant snake) when they fetched water from a nearby spring for a libation. After battling with the dragon Cadmus killed it, and Minerva instructed him to sow its teeth in the ground. Warriors sprang up from these sown teeth and fought each other until only five were left. It was with these five warriors that Cadmus founded the city of Thebes.
The inscription Come Cadamo ocise el serpente translates as 'How Cadmus killed the serpent', and it refers to the story of the founding of Thebes by Cadmus. An oracle advised Cadmus to follow a cow to the site of the new city, but his companions were killed by a dragon (or giant snake) when they fetched water from a nearby spring for a libation. After battling with the dragon Cadmus killed it, and Minerva instructed him to sow its teeth in the ground. Warriors sprang up from these sown teeth and fought each other until only five were left. It was with these five warriors that Cadmus founded the city of Thebes.