Pudicitia, an embodiment of female virtue, seems an odd visual model for Poppaea, who was notorious for her sexual exploits. While printed illustrations of Poppaea do not foreground this aspect of her persona, her licentiousness was the crux of written descriptions. This printed portrait bust of Poppaea from the 16th century (fig. 1), for example, is consistent with Boccacio’s and Fulvio’s straightforward visualizations, but the rhyming quatrain printed below her likeness is more charged:
Sabina, your luxurious gaze, your grace
Your beautiful attractive eyes, the beauty of your face
Caused above all the exile of your Otto
The murder of the sister and wife of Nero
The first two lines read as a conventional ode to the subject’s beauty. The final two lines startle the reader with Poppaea’s misdeeds. The poem thus mimics the very arc of deception in its structure, first luring the reader in and then exposing Poppaea’s sinister reputation.
The School of Fontainebleau painting’s allusion to Pudicitia would have produced a similar effect.
Figure 1: Lambertus Suavius, Buste van Poppaea Sabina, c. 1520–1567, engraving on paper, 5.51 x 3.54 in. (14 x 9 cm), Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam