Plinio il Vecchio e le fonti della pittura greca

The search for sources relating to the Naturalis historia allows us to broadly define the thoughts of some Latin and foreign authors; but without explicit citation it is risky to attribute a specific part to one or the other with too much certainty, given the fusion of the information in the Plinian text, which sometimes already receives it through the filter of one or more intermediate sources. However, the contribution offers a review of the authors used in book XXXV (such as Xenocrates, Duris, Heliodorus, Varro, Licinius Mucianus), dedicated to painting, a once noble art capable of ennobling those it had deigned to pass on to posterity, and to the most illustrious tabulae. Furthermore, the article illustrates if and when Pliny’s words can suggest his direct vision of the Greek paintings preserved in particular in Rome, within some public complexes, and what the opinions expressed in this regard are. Finally, the article analyzes the painting by Philoxenus of Eretria with the battle between Alexander and Darius, not inferior to any other according to Pliny, and the authorship of the model supposed at the base of the mosaic of the House of the Faun in Pompeii.