■ 02 May 2010 | 9:00 AM
More on Cuccinelli's covered up lapel pin
A story in Saturday's Virginian-Pilot about Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli's more demure take on the state seal for his official lapel pin has sparked considerable blog and Twitter chatter on the Web.
For the pin, Cuccinelli chose an image that conceals with armor the exposed left breast of the Roman goddess Virtus, who is among the characters on the state seal.
The response to the story across the Internet prompted this statement from Cuccinelli, which his spokesman, Brian Gottstein, e-mailed shortly before 11:30 Saturday night:
"The seal on my pin is one of many seal variations that were used before a uniform version was created in 1930. I felt it was historic and would be something unique for my staff. My joke about Virtue being a little more virtuous in her more modest clothing was intended to get laughs from my employees -- which it did! Just because we've always done something a certain way doesn't mean we always have to continue doing it that way. Now seriously, can we get on with real news?"
Our initial story quoted Gottstein saying that Cuccinelli opted to put an historic image of the seal on his pin.
A few observant readers noted that Cuccinelli's rendition appears to be strikingly similar to a seal design on a version of the Virginia flag apparently used in the early 1860s, around the time when the state seceded from the Union, according to this Web site. (The Web site also indicates Virginia officially adopted a state flag in 1861.)
It also bears a slight resemblance to a Virginia flag from a past era currently on display in the State Capitol which features Virtus clad in armor.
(The design of the current state flag is detailed in this section of state code.)
Meanwhile, blogger Ben Tribbett notes that by his count tens of thousands of people have tweeted about, commented on or otherwise seen the lapel pin story, which was picked up by numerous bloggers and prominently displayed on the Huffington Post Saturday.
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Pandering to the Christians
I believe Cuccinelli was just pandering to the evangelical Christians. I was raised a Christian but I was never taught that a woman's breast was something I should be ashamed of.
vIOLINSRUS
If Cuccinelli was just pandering to the evangelical Christians, wouldn't he get rid of this depiction of a Roman Goddess, rather than just cover the breast?
Go the the Naval Museum at Nauticus
and check out the Jamestown 1907 exhibit. You will see that the Virginia seal at that time had both breasts covered. When did it get dropped? Maybe the Pilot could do something it rarely does anymore, like full coverage of a story. But that might take away from its full time job of Republican bashing.
Check out Jefferson's 1780 medallion
1907? The seal design was adopted in 1776, and my understanding is that the current version is pretty much what George Wythe and others designed at the time. But check out the Wikipedia article on the Virginia state seal and take a look at the bronze medallion pictured there that was struck under the administration of Governor Thomas Jefferson then. That variant of the seal has Virtus with both breasts and her belly bare.
State law says Virtus is to be dressed as an Amazon, and the traditional depiction of Amazons is with one or both breasts bare. (There is a story, possibly apocryphal, that when Eleanor of Acquitaine joined her then-husband Louis VII of France on the Second Crusade, she and her ladies-in-waiting dressed as Amazons, riding bare-breasted. There's a line referring to that in The Lion in Winter: "I even made poor Louis take me on Crusade. How's that for blasphemy. I dressed my maids as Amazons and rode bare-breasted halfway to Damascus. Louis had a seizure and I damn near died of windburn... but the troops were dazzled.")