Salvador Rosa

Salvator Rosa's “The Frailty of Human Life” (1656), was painted soon after the death of his son, Rosalvo.


In the painting, Death (the skeleton) is directing the child to write on a scroll. The scroll reads “Conceptio Culpa, Nasci Pena, Labor Vita, Necesse Mori”, which means “Conception is a sin, Birth is pain, Life is toil, Death a necessity.” Niall Ferguson used the Latin as a microphone test on Jonah Goldberg's podcast.