The Massacre of the Innocents, the description of which is found in the Gospel of Matthew (2:16-18), recounts a terrible story, which may or may not be true: that Herod ordered the killing of all the infants of Bethlehem.  In art, it provided painters and sculptors with a chillingly dramatic subject. One of the most graphic I’ve ever seen can be found it Verona, Italy, on one of the faces of a baptismal font sculpted by Brioloto de Baleno around 1300. Low down, a child has been eviscerated by a soldier, beside him two younger children take futile refuge in their mother’s skirt. The Biblical account goes as follows: “Then Herod, when he saw that he was deceived by the wise men, was exceedingly angry; and he sent forth and put to death all the male children who were in Bethlehem and in all its districts, from two years old and under, according to the time which he had determined from the wise men^. Then was fulfilled what was spoken by Jeremiah the prophet, saying: “A voice was heard in Ramah, Lamentation, weeping, and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children, Refusing to be comforted, Because they are no more.”