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I am grateful to Gerhard Gruitrooy for pointing out what I had forgotten: in the story of Jonah, the sailors throw Jonah overboard at his own request. Thus, in Bartolomeo Bellano’s relief in the choir of the Santo in Padua, the sailors do not, as I wrote in my review of the recent Donatello exhibition there, “shout to one another to save Jonah” [“Bronze Beauties,” NYR, July 19]. Rather, in fear of retribution for their deed, they are crying out prayers to the Lord; the Latin of the Vulgate describes their action thus: “Et clamaverunt ad Dominum.”
Andrew Butterfield
New York City
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