Editing Sibyl (section)

== In Renaissance art and literature ==
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File:Filippino Lippi--Five Sibyls--Samian, Cumean, Hellespontic, Phrygian and Tiburtine (cropped).jpg|[[Filippino Lippi]], ''Five Sibyls Seated in Niches: the Samian, Cumean, Hellespontic, Phrygian and Tiburtine'', c. 1465–1470, [[Christ Church, Oxford]].
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In [[Medieval Latin]], ''sibylla'' simply became the term for "prophetess". It became used commonly in Late Gothic and Renaissance art to depict female ''Sibyllae'' alongside male prophets.
<ref>See e.g. {{cite web |url=http://www.lancs.ac.uk/depts/english/courses/214/sibyls/sibyls.htm |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20050329184954/http://www.lancs.ac.uk/depts/english/courses/214/sibyls/sibyls.htm |archive-date=2005-03-29 |title=Sibyls |publisher=[[Lancaster University]]}}</ref>

The number of sibyls so depicted could vary, sometimes they were twelve (See, for example, the [[Apennine Sibyl]]), sometimes ten, e.g. for [[François Rabelais]], "How know we but that she may be an eleventh sibyl or a second Cassandra?" ''[[Gargantua and Pantagruel]]'', iii. 16, noted in ''Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable'', 1897.<ref>[http://www.bootlegbooks.com/Reference/PhraseAndFable/data/1137.html ''Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable'', 1897] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20050405195944/http://www.bootlegbooks.com/Reference/PhraseAndFable/data/1137.html |date=2005-04-05 }}</ref>

[[File:Bacchiacca - Sibyl.jpg|thumb|''Sibyl'' by [[Francesco Bacchiacca|Francesco Ubertini]], c. 1525]]
The best known depiction is that of [[Michelangelo]] who shows five sibyls in the frescoes of  the [[Sistine Chapel ceiling]]; the Delphic Sibyl, Libyan Sibyl, Persian Sibyl, Cumaean Sibyl, and the Erythraean Sibyl. 
The library of [[Pope Julius II]] in the [[Palace of the Vatican|Vatican]] has images of sibyls and they are in the pavement of the [[Duomo di Siena|Siena Cathedral]]. The Basilica of [[Santa Maria in Aracoeli]] crowning the [[Campidoglio]], Rome, is particularly associated with the Sibyl, because a medieval tradition referred the origin of its name to an otherwise unattested altar, ''Ara Primogeniti Dei'', said to have been raised to the "firstborn of God" by the emperor Augustus, who had been warned of his advent by the sibylline books: in the church the figures of Augustus and of the Tiburtine Sibyl are painted on either side of the arch above the high altar. In the nineteenth century, [[Rodolfo Lanciani]] recalled that at Christmastime the {{lang|la|[[presepio]]}} included a carved and painted figure of the sibyl pointing out to Augustus the Virgin and Child, who appeared in the sky in a halo of light. "The two figures, carved in wood, have now [1896] disappeared; they were given away or sold thirty years ago, when a new set of images was offered to the Presepio by prince Alexander Torlonia." (Lanciani, 1896 ch 1) Like prophets, Renaissance sibyls forecasting the advent of Christ appear in monuments: modelled by [[Giacomo della Porta]] in the Santa Casa at [[Loreto (AN)|Loreto]], painted by Raphael in [[Santa Maria della Pace]], by Pinturicchio in the [[Borgia apartments]] of the Vatican, engraved by Baccio Baldini, a contemporary of Botticelli, and graffites by Matteo di Giovanni in the pavement of the Duomo of Siena.
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The 19th-century French historian [[Jules Michelet]] attributed the origins of [[European witchcraft]] to a "religion of the sibyls". In his introduction to ''La Sorcière'' (1862), Michelet wrote:
<blockquote>A powerful, tenacious religion, as Greek paganism was, begins with the sibyl, ends with the witch. The former, a beautiful virgin, in the full light of day, rocked its cradle, gave it its charm and glory. Later, fallen, ill, in the darkness of the Middle Ages, on heaths and in forests, it was hidden by the witch&nbsp;...<ref>Translated by Mark K. Jensen</ref></blockquote>
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[[Shakespeare]] references the sibyls in his plays, including ''[[Othello]]'', ''[[Titus Andronicus]]'', ''[[The Merchant of Venice]]'', and especially ''[[Troilus and Cressida]]''. In the latter, Shakespeare employed the common Renaissance comparison of [[Cassandra]] to a sibyl.<ref>{{cite book|last=Malay|first=Jessica|title=Prophecy and Sibylline Imagery in the Renaissance: Shakespeare's Sibyls|year=2010|publisher=routledge|pages=115–120|isbn=9781136961076|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=N48vCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA115}}</ref>

A collection of twelve [[motet]]s by [[Orlande de Lassus]] entitled {{lang|la|[[Prophetiae Sibyllarum]]}} (pub. 1600) draw inspiration from the sibyl figures of antiquity. The work—for four voices a cappella—consists of a prologue and twelve prophecies, each once corresponding to an individual Sibyl. While the text speaks of the coming of Jesus Christ, the composer reflects the mystical aura of the prophecies by using [[chromaticism]] in an extreme manner, a compositional technique that became very fashionable at the time. It is possible that Lassus not only viewed Michelangelo's depictions, but also drew the chromatic manière from a number of Italian composers, who experimented at the time.
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File:Filippino Lippi--Five Sibyls--Persian, Libyan, Delphic, Cimmerian and Erythraean (cropped).jpg|[[Filippino Lippi]], ''Five Sibyls Seated in Niches: The Persian, Libyan, Delphic, Cimmerian and Erythraean, c. 1465–1470, [[Christ Church, Oxford]].
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