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Della Bella, Stefano
Arch of Constantine & Colosseum (#9 in series of 13 from “Landscapes and Ruins of Rome”)
1646

In this etching, the artist frames a landscape with two monuments of ancient Rome: the Arch of Constantine (315 CE) and the Colosseum (72–80 CE). Stefano della Bella traveled to Rome from Florence with support from the influential Medici family. The prints derived from the drawings that he made there enforced familiar narratives of the timeless power of Roman antiquity, a power mirrored in his affluent patrons. These emblems of Rome’s past harmonize with the figures on horseback below, demonstrating the prominence of these monuments in seventeenth-century life.

 
Della Bella, Stefano
Florence, Italy 1610–Florence, Italy 1664
Arch of Constantine & Colosseum (#9 in series of 13 from “Landscapes and Ruins of Rome”)
1646
Etching on paper, state 5
height / width: 13.10 x 13.40 cm; 5.16 x 5.28 in.
Gift from the estate of Mabel E. Segsworth, through the Queen's University Art Foundation, 1944
00-536

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