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The Department of Transnational Italian Studies is delighted to announce a lecture by art historian and classicist  titled “Transatlantic Heroine: The Myth of Lucretia from Ancient Rome to Early America”. The event is organized within Luca Zipoli's course “Philadelphia the Global City: The Italian Legacy across Time” (ITAL B240) and is open to everyone.

Please contact lzipoli@brynmawr.edu for more information.

The event is co-sponsored by the Department of Greek, Latin, and Classical Studies, the Department of History of Art, Comparative Literature, Gender and Sexuality Studies, Praxis, and the Tri-Co Philly Program. 

Abstract:

The story of the heroine Lucretia, Collatinus’ wife raped by Sextus Tarquinius, the son of the last King of Rome, is traditionally connected to the overthrow of the Ancient Roman monarchy. The noble matron urged her husband Collatinus to come back home from the siege of Ardea; then, in front of him, her father and two close friends, Brutus and Valerius, she killed herself. But first, she told them what had happened, asking for revenge. Over the centuries, some painters have shown Lucretia as a sort of proto-Christian martyr, slated to an inevitable death. Other artists, on the contrary, have chosen to represent that event emphasizing the oath of Brutus, which leads to the popular rebellion, to convey a political meaning. At the end of the 18th-century during the American Revolutionary War, Lucretia becomes a symbolic model, both among the artists (such as the painter John Trumbull) and in the political thought of the Founding Fathers. The talk explores the transatlantic legacies of the myth of Lucretia in early-American architectural buildings, statues, paintings, and political speeches.

Speaker's bio:

 is an art historian and classicist interested in the transmission of classical subjects and models into early-modern and modern arts. She has taught in high schools, private universities, courses and seminars and she has also worked as a translator. She is the author and the co-author of many books, such as Un’altra Grecia. Le colonie d'Occidente tra mito, arte e memoria (with Donatella Puliga, Einaudi, 2019), Roma. Monumenti, miti, storie della città eterna (with Donatella Puliga, Einaudi, 2019), Roma antica e la nuova America. Come il mito di Lucrezia e l'idea della Repubblica varcarono l'Oceano (Donzelli, 2018), In Grecia. Racconti dal mito, dall'arte e dalla memoria (with Donatella Puliga, Einaudi, 2016), and L'eco dei marmi. Il Partenone a Londra: un nuovo canone della classicità (with Vincenzo Farinella, Donzelli, 2003). From 2000 to 2003 she was Councilor for Equal Opportunities for the Municipality of Pisa, and from 2008 to 2013 she was Councilor for Culture of the Municipality of Pisa.