Ameto's Discovery of the Nymphs

This panel and its companion originally formed the front and back of a birth tray (desco da parto). The story they illustrate is from Giovanni Boccaccio's Comedia delle ninfe fiorentine, written about 1342. The hunter Ameto, dressed in red, peers over a hill and then approaches some nymphs, attracted by the singing of Lia. In the background they hunt. The nymphs instruct Ameto in the meaning of love in a later episode of the story. In the other panel Ameto and two nymphs judge a musical competition between the shepherds Alcesto and Acaten. The escutcheon at the right appears to be that of the Di Lupo Parra family of Pisa. The tray dates from about 1410.

Credit: Rogers Fund, 1926