Speculum Romanae Magnificentiae: Trophies of Marius
late 16th century
Medium
Engraving and etching
Dimensions
sheet: 18 7/8 x 13 3/16 in. (48 x 33.5 cm) plate: 14 15/16 x 9 7/16 in. (38 x 24 cm)
Classification
Prints
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Harris Brisbane Dick Fund, 1941
Accession Number
41.72(3.12)
Tags
About this artwork
This engraving forms part of the celebrated Speculum Romanae Magnificentiae (Mirror of Roman Magnificence), an ambitious publishing project centered in sixteenth-century Rome that documented the city's ancient monuments and Renaissance splendor. The Speculum received its formal name in 1573 when Antonio Lafreri commissioned a title page, though the collection had been growing organically for decades. Lafreri, a French-born publisher working in Rome, envisioned organizing prints into seven themat...
About the Artist
Anonymous|Antonio Lafreri|Claudio Duchetti
In the vast tapestry of art history, "Anonymous" stands not as a singular individual but as a collective designation for countless unidentified creators whose works have endured across millennia. These artists, spanning prehistoric cave painters to medieval illuminators and folk craftsmen, produced the foundational layers of human visual culture. Prior to the Renaissance, when individual fame emer...