Thou handiest the matter, ... so scoundrelously, and so far below the Rules of alt Logick and Morality.

The furibundall Champion of Fame

The position depicted is often seen to characterize rituals of tarantism, used for centuries in southern Italy and elsewhere to treat victims of the tarantula's bite, expressing personal and social crises (De Martino 2005).

An 18th-century fukusa, an elaborately embroidered and painted cloth that is draped over a gift in place of wrapping paper, is one of 135 objects from the Katherine and Gilbert Boone collection of Japanese art that is on display at the Field Museum of Natural History through October 2.