Speculum Romanae Magnificentiae: A Roman Legion (from Trajan's Column)
16th century
Medium
Engraving
Dimensions
sheet: 11 9/16 x 14 3/4 in. (29.4 x 37.5 cm) trimmed to platemark
Classification
Prints
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Harris Brisbane Dick Fund, 1941
Accession Number
41.72(2.130)
Tags
Art Historical Context
Step into the grandeur of ancient Rome through this 16th-century engraving *Speculum Romanae Magnificent: A Roman Legion ( Trajan's Column)*, created by Marco Dente after designs inspired by the monumental Trajan's Column and published by Antonio Salamanca. Measuring 11 9/16 x 14 3/4 inches, this finely detailed print captures a dynamic procession of Roman soldiers—legionaries in formation, shields raised and standards aloft—evoking the disciplined might of the Imperial Roman army as depicted in the column's spiral friezes from around 113 CE. Part of the celebrated *Speculum Romanae Magnifice...
About the Artist
Marco Dente|Antonio Salamanca · 1515–1527
Marco Dente (died 1527), also known as Marco da Ravenna, was among the most accomplished printmakers working in Rome during the High Renaissance, a period that witnessed an extraordinary flowering of engraving as both a reproductive and an independent artistic medium. Little is known of his early training, but by the second decade of the sixteenth century he had established himself in the orbit of...