Illustrated Companion to the Latin Dictionary/Tutela

This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Rich, Anthony (1849). The illustrated companion to the Latin dictionary, and Greek lexicon. p. vi. OCLC 894670115. https://archive.org/details/illustratedcompa00rich. 

TUTE'LA. The tutelary genius of a ship, under whose protection the crew and vessel were supposed to sail (Ov. Trist. i. 10. 1. Pet. Sat. 105. 4.), as the vessels of Catholic countries are now put under the guardianship of some patron saint. The tutela, or image of the protecting genius, was placed in the after-part of the ship (Sil. Ital. xiv. 410.); whereas the insigne was the figure-head upon the prow. It sometimes consisted of a small statue on the deck (Pet. Sat. 108. 13.); sometimes of a portrait, either carved or painted upon the quarter (Sen. Ep. 76.); as in the annexed example (Tutela/1.1), from a marble bas-relief, in which it appears on a small square projection under the tower. The substructions of the island in the Tiber, designed to represent the ship that brought the serpent from Epidaurus to Rome, afford another instance of the same practice in the masonry forming the quarters of the vessel, on which a bust of Aesculapius is carved for a tutela, and may be seen, when the waters are low, under the garden-wall of the convent of Saint Bartholomew, or in an engraving of Gamucci (Antichità di Roma, p. 174. Venez. 1588.).

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  Tutela/1.1