63 Fig. 2 GIUL IO ROMANO AND WORKSHOP Ceiling of the Camerino degli Uccelli, 1536 Fresco, Mantua, Palazzo Ducale THE TWIN TONDO Nowhere is this playful handling of inscriptions more evident than in a tondo with twins (cat. 12).16 Two children, bound together back-to-back, are set in an undifferentiated pictorial space, which, in the state of the engraving shown here, is lightly stippled to create a sense of depth.17 Looking at the print from the angle it is presented here, we see, on the right, the name of the draughtsman, Raffaellino da Reggio (1550–1578) who had provided Diana with a drawing of Giulio Romano’s fresco for her print, the engraver’s signature on the left, and a dedication at the top and bottom.18 But if we want to read these four blocks of text, we have to rotate the print. This rotation promptly makes us doubt our initial assumption that the two children are joined at the back. Indeed, by the time we have completed a 90-degree turn, we now find ourselves convinced that they are in fact lying belly-to-belly. This effect had already baffled viewers of Giulio Romano’s original composition on the ceiling of the Camerino degli Uccelli in the ducal palace in Mantua, where the way the frescoed twins (fig. 2) are connected seemed to change depending on where the viewer was standing. Diana’s engraving invites interaction: by rotating the tondo, viewers may come to discern the inscription in full, but by doing so they forfeit any solid grasp of the physical relationship of the two children.
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