Digital Gallery

Sanguineus, an engraving by the German artist Virgilius Solis, the Elder (1514–1562), is part of a series of works depicting the four humors as young women. Air was the element associated with the sanguine disposition. This image depicts a young woman riding a horse through clouds. A sanguineous person was said to have an excess of blood and was merry, sociable, capable of study, and peaceful. This is the origin for the modern word “sanguine” meaning “happy.” In The Castel of Helth, author Thomas Elyot wrote that blood was the strongest of the four humors because it delivered the other three humors—black bile, yellow bile, and phlegm—to the different parts of the body.

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