Gezicht op het Capitool met ruïnes van het Forum Romanum, Rome c. 1865 - 1920

This stereoscopic photograph shows the Capitoline Hill and the ruins of the Roman Forum, and was created by M. Petagna in Rome. Photographs like these were popular with tourists in the 19th century as ways to see the world. But they also participate in a longer history of Europeans using images of classical ruins to think about their place in time. On the one hand, the presence of these ruins gives a sense of the rise and fall of empires. On the other, the image can also be about claiming a cultural inheritance and a political legacy. This is especially relevant to Italy, a relatively new nation in the 19th century seeking to claim the grandeur of the Roman Empire for itself. To better understand this image we would need to understand how it was circulated, how much it cost, and who was most likely to own it.