Holopherne

The biblical account

Nabuchodonosor {{Ier}} (i.e. perhaps Sargon or Sennachérib) sent Holopherne to punish the people of the west which refused to support it in the war that it carried out against Persian king Arphaxad. After having plundered, killed and devastated in all Middle East, Holopherne besieges Béthulie, a Jewish city (probably Massalah) which bars a passage in the mountains of Judaea. As water has suddenly missed, the inhabitants are about to go, but a young widow, Judith, of an extraordinary beauty and a considerable richness, makes the decision to save the city. With its maidservant and jugs of wine it penetrates in the camp of Holopherne, and the general is immediately bewitched by the beauty and the intelligence of this woman; he organizes in his honor a large banquet at the end of which its servants withdraw themselves discreetly not to disturb the night of love who, think he, awaits their Master. But it continues with the enivrer and, when he sees himself out of state to defend himself, she decapitates it with the assistance of her maidservant and returns in Béthulie with the head. When the soldiers discover in the morning their assassinated chief, they are taken of panic: the ones flee and the Jews easily overcome those which remain.

Critical and interpretation

The majority of the scholars look at this history like purely imaginary and see in Holopherne a fictitious character. The account opposes the force and the aggressiveness on a side, the weakness and the incapacity to be denied the other; but the aggressiveness of the male will be destroyed by the desire of the male. Skilfully, Judith uses her female charm to achieve her goal: to save its people of the danger where it is. In the artistic representations, is clarified the dangerosity of the sensual charm of the woman, to which the men succumb too easily to the image of Holopherne.

A pictorial and literary topic

The decapitation of Holopherne per Judith inspired several works of art due to names such:

Donatello, Judith and Holopherne , 1455-60, Bronzes, Palazzo Vecchio, Florence.
Sandro Botticelli,

the discovery of the murder of Holopherne , about 1472, Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence.
Judith leaving the tent of Holopheren , 1495-1500, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.

Andrea Mantegna, Judith and Holopherne , 1495, National Gallery off Art, Washington.

Giorgione,
Lucas Cranach Old the, Judith with the head of Holopherne , about 1530, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna.
Giuseppe Cesari, Judith with the head of Holopherne , 1605-10, Berkeley Art Museum, the University of California.
Giovanni Baglione, Judith with the head of Holopherne , 1608, Galleria Borghese, Rome.
Artemisia Gentileschi, Judith decapitating of Holopherne , 1612-21, Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence.
Cristofano Allori, Judith with the head of Holopherne , 1613, Royal Collection, Windsor.
Pieter Pauwel Rubens, Judith with the head of Holopherne , about 1616, Museum Herzog Ulrich Anton, Braunschweig.
Valentine of Boulogne, Judith and Holopherne , about 1626, National Museum off Fine Arts, Valetta.
Francesco Furini, Judith and Holopherne , 1636, Galleria Nazionale d' Arte Antica, Rome.
Caravage,
Giulia LAMA, Judith and Holopherne , about 1730, Gallery dell' Accademia, Venice.
Horace Vernet
Gustav Klimt (see here).
Titien, Judith , 1565, (112 X 96 cm), Institute Strait off Art

Their history also inspired:

an old English poetry of the Middle Ages
the opera Betulia Liberata of Mozart
a part of Abraham Goldfaden
an opera of Jacob Pavlovitch Adler
Holopherne is also the name of a character shakespearien of the part lost Peines of love
Holopherne also appears in the Purgatoire of Dante
the Oratorio Juditha Triumphans of Antonio Vivaldi
a play of the English playwright Howard Barker (Judith or the separate body) (1995)
Michel Leiris like it explains in the Age of man, part of its autobiographical work.

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