a picture of Pope Alexander III putting his foot upon the neck of the Emperor

Federico Zuccaro (Sant' Angelo In Vado, Marches 1540/42 - 1609 Ancona) Submission of the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa to Pope Alexander III.

Sir John Harington at the same time sent to his Highness a picture of Pope Alexander III putting his foot upon the neck of the Emperor, with all the circumstances of that story, exactly as it was represented in the hall of the grand council of Venice. His reason for his sending this picture was, that as this behavious of the Pope had been positively denied in the last book, published under the name of Tortus*, against the oath of allegiance, his Highness might see the effrontery of those men in denying the truth, of which that picture was a perpetual monument.

*Cardinal Bellarmin disguised himself under that name

Birch/ 168