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ROMAN REPLICATIONS OF GREEK ART AT THE VILLA DELLA FARNESINA

2006; Oxford University Press; Volume: 29; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1111/j.1467-8365.2006.00499.x

1467-8365

Stéphanie Wyler,

Historical and Architectural Studies

The decoration of the Villa of the Farnesina, designed in early Augustean Rome, displays a complex system of artistic and religious references to Greek culture. By means of an eclectic collection of artistic replications and emulations spread out through art galleries painted in trompe l'oeil, artists and owner reached a new style based on the appropriation of the conquered world, very carefully organized into a cultural hierarchy. The arts of classical Athens, embodied not only stylistically, but also thematically, are reproduced as framed pictures, whereas those of Hellenistic Egypt are integrated into the imitation of architecture. Dionysiac imagery functions as a paradigm of this system, at least in the preserved part of the villa: instead of losing divine prestige after Augustus's victory at Actium and his assumption of sole power in 31 BCE , Dionysos appears as one of the main keys to the whole decoration – as a sign of Greek cultures, assimilated for their familiar exoticism, into the new imperial language.