In the sixth century BCE, the inventor Perillos created a life-sized bronze bull and presented it to the Sicilian tyrant Phalaris, proposing that condemned criminals could be roasted alive inside it. Phalaris, however, ordered that Perillos be the bull’s first victim: the moment shown here. In some versions of the tale, the cruel ruler himself later met the same fate. The drawing is preparatory for a fresco that once adorned a Roman façade.
Polidoro da Caravaggio (ca. 1499–ca. 1543), The Condemnation of Perillos, ca. 1520. Pen and brown ink and wash, with white opaque watercolor, over black chalk. Purchased by Pierpont Morgan in 1909. Inv. I, 20.