Category:Judith--fiction (subject)

Judith (fiction)

Overview

Judith enjoyed an extraordinary success in Christian literature and iconography since the Middle Ages. Her exemplum of courage against tyrannical rule from afar could be easily applied to different circumstances. She symbolized the proud of independent Florence in the sculpture by Donatello (1460), and the struggle of the Croats against the Ottomans in the poem by Marko Marulić (1521). In the period of the Counter-Reformation, the "deutero-canonical" Judith became a symbol of the inviolability and invincibility of the Roman Catholic Church.

What made the subject so appealing to artists and audience, however, was not as much its political and theological meaning but rather the opportunity it offered to portray a heroine in which beauty and strength were united. Judith was usually depicted in the act of beheading Holofernes, or triumphant with the sword and the head of Holofernes, often in company with her maidservant, by artists such as Titian, Caravaggio, Valentin de Boulogne, and many others.

In the 18th cent. Judith was the protagonist of numerous oratorios. Pietro Metastasio's libretto, La Betulia liberata (1734), was set to music by more than 40 composers, including the young Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in 1771.

In the 19th century, as other biblical heroines Judith underwent a transformation into an Oriental beauty. The result was that her character became more and more similar to, and competing with, that of Salome.

By the early 20th century, Salome replaced Judith as the most popular Biblical heroine, by taking up most of her features and adding that touch of youthful perversion that the pious widow Judith could not have.