Tower of Babel c. 1529
[THE NARRATOR, spoken]
This image of the Tower of Babel bears a strong resemblance to Peter Brogel the Elder’s 1563 depictions, but Epifanio Medici completed this painting in 1529, only four years after Brogel was born. Epifanio painted “Tower of Babel” just after he attempted to purchase a parcel of land that would expand his isolated estate by several dozen acres. A local duke intercepted the transaction, claiming that Epifanio was a foreigner, and therefore too untrustworthy to be allowed to buy the land.

While it is true that Epifanio was very deeply in debt by this time, largely due to his expensive experiments in hermeticism, the duke also privately threatened to reveal the true reason for his exile from Florence unless Epifanio kept quiet. It was, perhaps unsurprisingly, Anzola who eventually failed to hold her tongue. An outspoken young women, she had learned to read and write while courting Epifanio, and eventually put her gifts to use by publishing a pamphlet containing a series of sonnets defaming the duke as a liar and philanderer. Incensed, the duke publicly threatened to kill her unless she retracted the writings. She did not, and in 1530 died in an alleged accident in which her neck was broken by a falling beam of wood from a high window.

The loud colors and structural confusion of Epifanio’s “Tower of Babel” seem to reflect his mental state in these last few years of his life. He would complete his final painting, “Self-Portrait (Crucifixion)”, on the day of Anzola’s death, as the duke himself rushed to his residence to break the news. According to popular account, he greeted Epifanio with a rushed:

“I have something to tell you.”

To which Epifanio responded, “I have something to tell you,” and pulled a dagger from the inside of his sleeve.