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Allegory of History, E475

Explanation

  • Four figures are placed in such a way as to form a cross, the cruciform layout suggesting the room’s Christian association. Clio, the muse of history is sitting at the centre. She is writing in a book supported on the back of Saturn, the symbol of time. A genius is bringing scrolls to Clio, and the two-faced Roman god Janus is telling her what to write. One of Janus’s faces is looking back and the other forward in time. With his right hand, Janus is directing attention to the open door leading into the then recently founded museum, the Museo Pio Clementino in the Vatican. Fame hovers above them all. She is the goddess of rumour and is blowing her horn to spread news of the papal court. Each of the individual figures contributes to a visual, allegorical presentation of history. In 1772, Pope Clement the Fourteenth (1705-74) gave the German artist Anton Raphael Mengs (1728-79) the task of decorating the ceiling in the Camera dei Papiri in the Vatican. This was the home of the Vatican collection of manuscripts. Mengs was in his day considered to be one of the most important artists in Europe. And taking the purpose of the place as his starting point, he made the fresco reproduced in this print.

Dimension

  • Height (plate size) 580 mm
  • Height (paper size) 630 mm
  • Width (plate size) 370 mm
  • Width (paper size) 420 mm
  • Inscription / Certification / Label

    Franciscus Ramos delin. / Domini Cunego sculp. Romae 1782 / PIO. VI. P. M. / Praeclarissimo Bonarum Artium Fautori / Celeberinam tabulam ab Equite Antonio Raphaele Mengs / in Vaticanis Aedibus depictam / Michael Angelus Mazzoli obsequii causa D.D.D.