Da Quo vadis? a Gli ultimi giorni di Pompei: la rappresentazione della classicità attraverso la pittura ottocentesca nei peplum italiani

This paper focuses on the correspondences between nineteenth-century paintings by Lawrence Alma-Tadema, Jean-Léon Gérôme, Théodore Chassériau and Italian Peplum cinema, where an ideal reconstruction of Ancient Rome and its empire is staged. Such film as Enrico Guazzoni’s Quo vadis? and Mario Caserini and Eleuterio Rodolfi's The Last Days of Pompeii drew upon a pictorial-inspired Classical repertoire as the source material for high-budget art films aimed to evoke a sense of national grandeur. In particular, the analysis lingers on the representation of Roman prototypical rituals and settings, such as the symposium, the thermal baths, and the circus games in the filmic configuration and their pictorial sources.