Color photographic portrait of Rebecca Levitan wearing a white top

Rebecca Levitan

Samuel H. Kress Foundation/Emeline Hill Richardson Rome Prize
gennaio 11–agosto 6, 2021
PhD Candidate, Department of the History of Art, University of California, Berkeley
Project title
The Pasquino Group: Sculpture, Conversation, and Resistance from Ancient Rome to Renaissance Italy
Project description

My research uses an ancient sculptural type known as the Pasquino Group as a case study to examine how the changing inhabitants of Rome mobilized a single monument over a period spanning two millennia. The composition of the Pasquino Group—which depicts the recovery of a fallen warrior—derives from Homeric Epic. But this is only the beginning of its story. The statue was named after a Renaissance inhabitant of Rome, cherished by Emperors, resented by powerful popes, and still today “speaks” with the voices of discontented Romans. The resulting material and textual records surrounding the sculpture provide a diachronic window into larger trends surrounding the use of statues as political nexuses. The inherent compositional mutability of the sculpture allowed it to serve as a catalyst for dialogue in both popular and elite contexts. Thus, the monument was “animated” by the city’s artists, patrons, and passersby; my project traces this thread from antiquity into the Renaissance.