#tuccia

This art is stunning, to me. It's not just beautiful, any detail is there with a story to tell. Take the sieve. Why Elisabeth I chose to be portrayed holding a sieve in her hand? Of course, as a ruler she needed to embody wisdom and discernment, and the sieve has always been an emblem of those virtues.

There's more, though. And it leads to another woman.

To her, Tuccia.

Tuccia was a Vestal, a priestess to the virgin goddess Vesta, protectress of home, hearth, family, keeper of Rome's sacred hearth. Vesta was deemed so important by Romans that her priestesses had extraordinary rights and privileges, some of which were granted to no others, male or female.

Privileges came with a cost. Ten years as student, ten years as keeper of the sacred flame, ten years as teacher, the Vestals sacrificed their youth to the temple, vowed to chastity, knowing that being buried alive was the punishment in case of incestum (sacrilege).

Falsely accused of having violated her vow, Tuccia asked of being allowed to prove her innocence.

"O Vesta, if I have always brought pure hands to your secret services, make it so now that with this sieve I shall be able to draw water from the Tiber and bring it to your temple", she prayed, according to Valerius Maximus. Then the young woman passed through the ordeal, not even a drop of water falling from the sieve.

Of course, Tuccia is only a myth.

Vestals were real women, though, and real was their special juridical status, a unicum in Rome and in all the ancient times. These women were free in a way that not even a pater familias was, their celibacy being actually a marriage, but with the State, the Goddess herself made flesh in them to keep the flames alive and the people safe.

Well, I think Elisabeth I had it all well in mind.

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