Resumen de Hans Vredeman de Vries und die Klage des Milenus
A study of the drawing Lamentation of Milenus by Antwerp artist Hans Vredeman de Vries (1526/17–ca. 1607). The theme of this work appeared in Spanish artist Antonio de Guevara's 1528 pseudo-ancient text Libro áureo (Golden book), a series of fictional letters of Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius. One of these letters recounts the speech of Milenus—a poor peasant from the Danube River— before the Roman Senate to ask for justice against the enslavement of his people and the poor administration of his province. Vredeman presumably came to know this subject through poet Jan Baptist Houwaert's adaptation of the narrative published in Antwerp in 1577 with the title Milenus clachte, where engraver Antoon van Leest's full-page illustration of the episode was apparently the starting point of his composition. Houwaert explicitly referred to the political situation in the Netherlands, and particularly in Antwerp, under Spanish occupation. The theme's political implications must have had resonance for Vredeman when he composed his drawing.
