Twelve Caesars by Mary Beard (Signed)
From the bestselling author of SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome, the fascinating story of how images of Roman autocrats have influenced art, culture, and the representation of power for more than 2,000 years.
Last available copies! signed (on bookplate) with a limited edition book tote.
What does the face of power look like? Who gets commemorated in art and why? Against a background of today’s sculpture wars, Beard’s latest book tells the story of how for more than two millennia portraits of the rich, powerful, and famous in the western world have been shaped by the image of Roman emperors, especially the so-called Twelve Caesars, from the ruthless Julius Caesar to the fly-torturing Domitian. Twelve Caesars asks why these murderous autocrats have loomed so large in art from antiquity and the Renaissance to today, when hapless leaders are still caricatured as Neros fiddling while Rome burns.”
World-reknowned classicist Mary Beard will speak about her new book, Twelve Caesars, with fashion icon Tim Gunn on Tuesday, March 15th at 6:30pm, hosted by the New York Public Library. A livestream of this event will be available on the NYPL event page. To receive an email reminder shortly in advance of the event, please be sure to register! The stream will also be available on NYPL’s YouTube channel.
“Beard, a prolific author and a distinguished classical scholar, brilliantly describes the ways in which images of Roman emperors have influenced art, culture and politics for two millennia. . . . Twelve Caesars is a masterly demonstration of scholarship in a variety of fields, from republican Roman politics to Renaissance tapestry to contemporary British collage… wonderfully readable, with graceful prose and witty comments along the way.” — Barry Strauss, Wall Street Journal
“A master class in historical analysis, with due attention to the reliability of sources, the corruption of traditions, politically motivated myth-making, and the mysterious process by which perceptions of the past determine the course of subsequent events.” — G.W. Bowersock, The New York Review of Books
“This thoroughgoing survey examines the relationship between ancient imperial imagery and the modern visual imagination. . . . With handsome illustrations of coins, canvases, frescoes, and teacups, Beard brings the prestige and power of these emperors’ half-invented faces into tighter focus.” — New Yorker
$ 50.00
