Adam and Eve (the Original Sin) - Tiziano Vecellio

in Titian's canvas the woman is doubly guilty: not only does she receive in her hands the fruit offered to her by a curious being with the face of a child (despite the small goat-like horns) and the body of a serpent, but in doing so she disobeys the will of Adam, who vainly attempts to draw her away from temptation.

The choice to depict this biblical subject (not very widespread in the Venetian area) may have been determined by some particular circumstance, especially if one also considers the growing importance of the female element in Venetian society of those years.

At Eve's feet appears a small fox, a symbol of lust as well as of the devil, with whom, in this context, it is assimilated, as seems to be indicated by the epithet used in the biblical text to refer to the serpent. To counterbalance these negative presences, Titian places, in the lower right, a plant, the Malvarosa (Malva Benedicta), which a text widely circulated in the sixteenth century considers powerful against every kind of poison