Plutarch and the Triumph of Aemilius Paullus in Italian Renaissance Art. Part I: The Fifteenth Century and Sixteenth-Century Rome

Abstract

One of the most remarkable texts that Plutarch left us in his biographies is the ekphrasis of the triumphal procession of Aemilius Paulus following his victory over Perseus of Macedon at Pydna. Like other triumphs, it began its entry into Western culture through the inclusion—as a kind of calling card—in the triumphs of Petrarch, Boccaccio, and the codices that summarised Roman history. Its descriptive richness captured the artistic interest of rulers and merchants from the Italian republics, as well as ecclesiastical authorities, who adorned a variety of material supports from the 15th and 16th centuries—that is, throughout the Italian Renaissance—with representations of all the triumph, as it has been described by Plutarch (Aem. 32-34), or with selected individual scenes chosen according to the customers’ interests. In this First part of the article, I present and discuss (always using Plutarch’s Life of Aemilius as the primary text of reference) the iconography of this triumph as depicted on bridal chests and engravings (15th century) and, especially, in the frescoes adorning halls and façades of palaces in Rome (16th century).