La morte di Plinio il Vecchio: una ricognizione iconografica

The figurative representation of the episode of the death of Pliny the Elder, killed by the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 A.D., enjoyed a remarkable success during the 19th century, following the wake of interest generated by archaeological excavations of the Bourbon era, which brought to light new sites of the ancient cities destroyed by the cataclysm. The combination of the romantic conception of history, the affirmation of the aesthetics of the “sublime” and the proliferation of reproductions and descriptions of the active Neapolitan volcano, contributed, especially in France, to fueling the success of the historiated landscape genre, also used to describe, in a way that was not always faithful to the sources, the last moments of the Como naturalist’s life, poorly explored by artistic historiography.