Judith with the Head of Holofernes, Pordenone (circle of), 1500 - 1539
Judith is a biblical heroine who saved the Jewish people from oppression by General Holofernes. She did this by entering his army camp and seducing him, after which she decapitated him with his own sword while he slumbered. Judith’s story is one of the few in the Bible in which a woman overpowers a man.