Un caso di collezionismo internazionale (CIL XI 1645)

A Latin funerary inscription, found near Faesulae, was already known in the epigraphic collection of Senator Carlo Strozzi in the 17th century, transcribed in the manuscript of Iscrizioni Antiche; Anton Francesco Gori (Inscriptiones antiquae in Etruriae urbibus exstantes) published the manuscript in the 18th century. The stone, Greek marble, describes a scene from the Ilioupersis: the killing of King Priam of Troy in the front of his wife Hecuba by the Greek hero Neoptolemus. The text of the inscription is on the front of the altar of the temple of Zeus Herkeios where the scene takes place. Clear traces of erosion indicate that the stone was reused. The relief was probably carved between 50 BC - 50 AD, while the shapes of the letters point to a date between the end of the 2nd century AD and the beginning of 3rd century AD. The inscription had been in a hall (either the library or art gallery) of the Palazzo Ximènes Panciatichi d’Aragona in the centre of Florence. The quality of the relief caught the attention of a well-known American collector of antiquities in the 20th century, the Bostonian Edward Perry Warren. He bought the piece at the beginning of the century to sell soon afterwards to the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, where it has been until today. The relief represents an interesting episode in the history of Florentine culture: one of the many cases showing the dispersal of the city’s artistic heritage. It also highlights a certain number of interesting issues related to the history of Roman art, and it is unique among the inscribed stones of Roman Florentia.