on looking back, "she became a pillar of salt." Such versions of the subject focus on the destruction of the cities in the distance while Lot's wife is shown being transformed. The destruction of the wicked cities was taken as a "'type' of the damnation of the wicked at the Last Judgment." But Rubens' choice of an earlier moment in the story shifts the meaning somewhat. Rather than referring directly to the question of humanity's final judgment for its sins, Rubens chose a moment that "was regarded as a symbol of renouncing carnal pleasures." Such renunciation was intended to lead, of course, to eternal salvation. But here the focu
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