John Muzzioli

The Funeral of Britannicus, 1888

(Modena 1854 – 1894)

Oil on canvas, 146 x 330 cm
Museum of the Nineteenth Century, inv. 32

The last decades of the nineteenth century saw a renewal of traditional history painting: the most fashionable Italian artists treated genre scenes and literary themes in an increasingly fast and elegant manner. Giovanni Muzzioli also approached this fashionable painting, which included oriental and neo-Pompeian subjects, revisited with melodramatic tones close to the taste of the bourgeoisie. A theatrical accent characterizes the monumental episode of Britannicus’ funeral, taken from the writings of the Roman historians Suetonius and Tacitus and centered on the figure of Claudia Octavia. The woman mourns in despair the disappearance of her brother brutally poisoned by her husband Nero, while Agrippina, the emperor’s mother, watches the scene unperturbed. The ancient architecture is reconstructed by Muzzioli with rigorous archaeological accuracy, while the perspective fugue leads the eye to the funeral procession in the background, enhanced by the imposing silhouette of the brazier and made even more tragic by the impending storm. This large painting was triumphantly received at the 1888 National Exhibition of Fine Arts in Bologna: the Leghorn painter Eugenio Cecconi, commenting on the exhibition, praised Muzzioli, calling him “one of the few who knows how to find a painting, and who, once found, knows how to execute it with nobility of painting.”