Volume 46, Number 4 · March 4, 1999
Remaking the Renaissance
By Anthony Grafton
The Culture of the High Renaissance: Ancients and Moderns in Sixteenth-Century Rome
by Ingrid Rowland
Cambridge University Press, 384 pp., $65.00
The High Renaissance in Rome began as operas often end—as a dramatic, colorful ritual in which a dead girl played the central role. On April 19, 1485, Lombard masons working on the Via Appia opened an ancient tomb. There they found a marble sarcophagus, inscribed with the words 'Julia, daughter of Claudius.' Inside it lay the body of a girl, with a low, broad forehead, delicate ears, and dark eyes—an ancient beauty, so perfectly preserved in balsam, oil of cedar, and turpentine that one could move her arms and even bend her nose. Two days later, once the workmen had decamped with the treasures they also found in Julia's tomb, her body was moved to the Palazzo dei Conservatori on the Capitol.
Review, 5730 words
To read the full text of this piece, please choose one of the following options:
|
If you are already a subscriber to the Review's electronic edition, please sign in: |
To subscribe to the electronic edition, please press the button below. |
To purchase access to this article for $3, please press the button below. |