Winged female term, flanked by owls

Engraving, with an oval-shaped ornamental design with scrolling motifs and grotesque figures on black grounds, likely created by Étienne Delaune before 1573. The print consists of a female term, in the center, with insect wings, her arms extended to the sides, holding two ribbons. On the sides of the ribbons are two owls, standing on scrolling leaves. Framing the lower body of the term are two olive branches, and to the sides are two different winged insects. Above and below her are pairs of snakes, facing each other; the snakes on the upper part rest on bundles of fruits and leaves, and are separated by another bundle of the same type, flanked to the sides by two additional olive branches, while the two on the lower part flank the sides of a grotesque mask, almost creating an allusion to Medusa's head. The motifs in the design have ambiguous allegorical meanings: the owls are symbols of night, death, and knowledge; the snakes of both sin, rebirth and transformation; and the olive branches are symbols of peace. Altogether, however, these motifs are allegories for birth and fertility, possibly also of spring, and together with the olive branches, they might represent an allusion to the promise of abundance brought about by peace. The symmetrical organization of the motifs around the terms might be an allusion, as in other allegorical prints by Delaune, to the confrontation between different divisions of the church, and a reflection of his own message advocating for their re-union, thus possibly calling for religious peace with the presence of olive branches and for a rebirth of the church with the snakes.