The Flight of the Vestal Virgins

Dated to around 1480 and now in Oxford's Ashmolean Museum, this panel by Biagio d'Antonio depicts the Vestal Virgins — priestesses of the Roman goddess Vesta — in flight, a subject drawn from classical Roman history. Such pagan narrative subjects reflect the Early Renaissance appetite for antiquity alongside Christian imagery. Biagio d'Antonio worked primarily in Florence, where he contributed frescoes to the Sistine Chapel in 1481-82, placing him within the orbit of the major masters Sixtus IV summoned from across Italy. The panel's horizontal format and processional arrangement of figures suggest it originally served as a painted chest front (cassone), the standard vehicle for classical narrative scenes in Florentine wedding culture.

Tempera on panel with figures arranged in a frieze-like procession emphasizing narrative continuity across the picture plane. The architectural background locates the fleeing Vestals in a Roman urban setting rendered with the decorative antiquarianism characteristic of Florentine painters exploring classical subject matter.