Italian School. Florence. 17th century. “Agnodice and Metrodora” Oil on canvas. 63 x 48.5 cm.   With the contrasts of light and shadow characteristic of Caravaggio and the Italian Baroque, this painting portrays two women from the classical world associated with medicine — Agnodice and Metrodora. This identification arises from the symbol held by the woman on the right, as seen from the viewer’s perspective: the Rod of Asclepius (Greek) or Staff of Aesculapius (Roman), an ancient emblem linked to the Greek god Asclepius and to the art of healing. The staff, entwined by a serpent, symbolized the power to cure all diseases. These are, indeed, the two most significant women in ancient medical history: Agnodice, the first known female physician in Athens, and Metrodora, the author of the earliest surviving medical text written by a woman.   Agnodice was a physician in ancient Athens who, in the 4th century B.C., disguised herself as a man in order to practice medicine, since it was forbidden to women. When discovered, she was tried but defended by Athenian women, leading to the repeal of the ban and the subsequent permission for women to become midwives. Metrodora, a Greek physician who lived approximately between the 2nd and 4th centuries A.D., was renowned as the author of On the Diseases and Cures of Women — the oldest known medical treatise written by a woman. This text, fundamental to the medical knowledge of its time, comprises 63 chapters addressing the stages of a woman’s life and the principal health issues that may arise in each. In the painting, she appears to hold a surgical instrument — perhaps one of the many she devised for her procedures, whether for removing uterine tumors or repairing cervical lacerations — though the exact tool is indeterminable. An evocative and erudite portrait of two pioneering women of classical medicine, possibly commissioned for an Italian medical academy, celebrating figures whose contributions shaped the history of science itself.