Verne rooft de dochter van Filodamo 1819

Bartolomeo Pinelli made this print, "Verne abducts the daughter of Filodamo," sometime in the first half of the 19th century. The image shows a dramatic scene with classical architecture in the background and figures in classical dress enacting a violent abduction. Pinelli was Roman, and he devoted much of his career to etching and drawing popular images of the city, its costumes, and its history, particularly images that drew on the city’s classical past. In this image, Pinelli references classical history to comment on social structures of his time, with progressive and revolutionary ideas circulating in Europe in the wake of the French revolution. To understand this print better, it is useful to research Rome’s relationship to its classical past in the 18th and 19th centuries. Also, we can look at popular prints and the social conditions that shaped artistic production in the city. The meaning of the image is contingent on this social and institutional context.