The Nilotic mosaic (of Palestrina)
By means of a modern staircase one ascends to the third floor of Museo Archeologico Prenestino where one can admire the famous Nilotic mosaic. Celebrated in archaeological literature as an inimitable exemplar of the Hellenistic mosaic tradition, the great mosaic (5.85x4.31 m.) made around 80 B.C. constitutes a programmatic manifesto of Alexandrian culture and the idea of Egypt that the Romans had created for themselves. It is, along with the mosaic of the Battle of Alexander at Pompeii, the largest Hellenistic mosaics to have come down to us. The mosaic was originally the floor of the apse that opened onto the backs of the hall facing the Prenestine Forum, most likely identifiable with an iseum.
Discovered at an unspecified date in the second half of the sixteenth century, the mosaic was examined in 1614 (with copious sprinklings of water to enliven its colored images) by Federico Cesi, the founder of the Accademia dei Lincei, who came to Palestrina on the occasion of his marriage to Artemisia Colonna. Cesi, who can be considered the true discoverer of the mosaic, ordered the painter Cassiano Dai Pozzo to reproduce it, who drew no less than eighteen plates. About a decade later, the mosaic was purchased by Cardinal Andrea Peretti (bishop of Palestrina from 624 to 626), who had it detached, divided into square fragments and transferred to Rome.
In 1640 the new cardinal of Palestrina, Francesco Barberini, managed to obtain the mosaic again as a gift, which he had restored by Giovan Battista Caiandra. He then arranged for it to be relocated back to Palestrina, but during transport the mosaic work, placed on wagons to the contrary, suffered such damage that it had to be restored again by the Caiandra who avvaise the panels executed by Cassiano Dai Pozzo. Brought back, after some time, to Palestrina it was placed in a room of the baronial palace.
Between 1853 and 1855 it underwent a new thorough restoration ordered by Prince Francesco Barberini and carried out by architect Giovanni Azzurri. The last detachment was carried out during World War II for security reasons. In the early 1950s it was brought back to Palestrina and placed in the room where it is currently. Restorations and studies conducted then by Salvatore Aurigemma and Giorgio Gullini made it possible to distinguish the original parts from those that had been restored or remade, such as the fragment with the papyrus boat and the banqueters under a canopy whose original fragment, through intricate events that took place mainly in the 1700s, ended up in the antiquities collection of the Pergamon Museum in Berlin.
The mosaic's Nilotic subject alludes, according to Marucchi, to a close relationship between Isis, an Egyptian deity, and Fortuna Primigenia, worshipped at Preneste. According to Romanelli, the inspiration for the work lies in the great suggestion that the Egyptian environment - considered exotic and fairy-tale-like at the time - exerted on the imagination of the Romans. For Reggiani, the current Archaeological Superintendent of Latium, the mosaic, which is to be related to the work of Demetrius the Topographer (a landscape painter active in the second century B.C.) is both a map and a natural history table. The upper part depicts Ethiopia and Upper Egypt, with its typically African landscapes, people, plants and animals.
Predominant is the landscape, where the Nile flows between sheer cliffs, rugged and bushy lands animated by beasts and hunters. Each animal is marked by name: but these names appear poorly decipherable, partly because of known linguistic variations and corruptions already present in antiquity, and partly because of the many and not always rigorous restorations the mosaic has undergone. The morphology of the animals is also often noticeably altered: some of them look like pure fantasy parts with no match in African fauna.
The lower area of the mosaics features animals that are closer to reality and better identifiable. Centrally located is the famous banquet scene under the arbor, recalling the lewd feasts celebrated in honor of Serapis along the Canopus Canal.
Also noted are:
- a columned temple with a large tent, under which soldiers perform a ritual (probably the temple of Ammon at Thebes);
- another temple with two obelisks next to it and a well-hydrometer, which was used to measure water levels;
- a hut of papyrus stalks, on which storks nest;
- other miscellaneous buildings, modest or grand, solid or in ruins;
- areas, aedicules, vegetation, palm trees;
- a warship; boats of fishermen and rank-and-file travelers;
- scenes of agriculture, hunting, farming, fishing.
The idea one gets from an overview of the work is not that of traditional Egypt, but of a Hellenized country, with temples built according to Greek canons, housing troops of Hoplites, where natives and animals are relegated to a background of exotic and wild flavor, underscored by the names of the beasts written in Greek, to impress a patronage imagined to be profane in this field. In the same room can be seen the reconstructive model of the Temple of Fortune. Made in the early 1950s, in the early museum it was placed in the room currently used for temporary exhibitions. Recently restored it was placed here.
