While Petrarch's Laura and her descendants display the beauty of youth, later twists on tradition, under sway of baroque aesthetics, wither spring roses to winter wreckage. The versatile Giambattista Basile (1575?-1632) turned out madrigals of young charmers in amorous moments as readily as bawdy caricatures of their crumbling elders, best among them two grotesquely aged sisters, "il riassunto delle disgrazie" (1995,199-200). Comic satire of female decrepitude is, in fact, plentiful in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Less frequently, art pays tribute to members of the fair sex in their twilight. Ladies more fortunate than Basile's hags are likely to be cherished family members, the artist's mother or his wife, or simply an unnamed beloved, whose faithful admirer follows her into the sunset of life.