The Triumph of Time over Fame

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

An old man representing Time commands a chariot that crushes Fame beneath its wheels. Four famous long-lived men accompany him on foot: the biblical figures of Adam, Methusalah, and Noah as well as Nestor, from Greek mythology. The humbling theme that fame ultimately is lost to the passage of time derives from I Trionfi (The Triumphs), by the fourteenth-century Italian poet Petrarch. By about 1500, it had been translated into French for Louis XII and pictured in royal tapestries. This tapestry is one of a series from the château de Septmonts, the residence of the bishops of Soissons. Bishop Symphorien de Bullioud, who was familar with Italian culture because of his diplomatic missions to Rome and Milan for Louis XII, likely commissioned the work.

Medieval Art and The Cloisters

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Museum's collection of medieval and Byzantine art is among the most comprehensive in the world. Displayed in both The Met Fifth Avenue and in the Museum's branch in northern Manhattan, The Met Cloisters, the collection encompasses the art of the Mediterranean and Europe from the fall of Rome in the fourth century to the beginning of the Renaissance in the early sixteenth century. It also includes pre-medieval European works of art created during the Bronze Age and early Iron Age.

Metropolitan Museum of Art