The rediscovery of antiquity
This exhibition presents images by Irish scholar and self-taught watercolourist Edward Dodwell and Italian artist Simone Pomardi who made detailed studies of Greece during their travels there in 1805-6. The fascinating series of drawings and watercolours, made prior to the creation of the modern Greek state in 1830, represents a resurgence in interest at the time for ancient Greece. The Napoleonic occupation of Rome in 1796 meant that by the beginning of the 19th century the emphasis of the Grand Tour had switched to Greece, during the so-called Age of Enlightenment. In addition to landscapes of monuments and ruins, the watercolours on show depict both Greeks and Turks at a time when Greece was still under Ottoman rule. Incidentally, after his Greek adventure, Dodwell settled in Rome where he lived until his death in 1832. Following its showing at the British Museum in London earlier this year, the collection comes to Italy for the first time, on loan from the Packard Humanities Insitute in California. Via Della Salara Vecchia, Roman Forum, tel. 0639967700, www.coopculture.it.