How does Caritas Romana (de Crayer, 1645) elucidate its Subject?
The subject matter of the painting is the exemplary episode of caritas as recounted by Valerius Maximus. In the story, part of Maximus' Factorum ac dictorum memorabilium, Pero, the daughter of a Cimon, a starving man locked into a cell and awaiting execution, is allowed by the jailer to enter the cell and visit her father. Pero then decides to give the starving man her breast.
Valerius Maximus Factorum ac dictorum memorabilium caritas