“The Ides of March are come” – so wrote William Shakespeare.

In tribute to the day on which Julius Caesar was felled by assassins in Rome, a look at a two pieces of art featuring views of Rome, which are in the Arkansas Arts Center collection.    
The first presents a classical take on Rome. View of the Piazza del Campidoglio (Veduta della Piazza del Campdoglio) was created in 1774 by Giovanni Battista Piranesi (1720 – 1778). The print is an etching, acquired by the Arts Center in 1990; it was a gift of John and Grace Marjorie Wood Keppel and Nell Wood.

According to the Arkansas Arts Center,

The Campidoglio has been the seat of the city government of Rome from ancient times to the present. At the top of the Capitoline Hill-one of the famed Seven Hills of Rome-the buildings in Piranesi’s etching are the work of Michelangelo. These elegant Renaissance palaces, perched on this ancient site, were important tourist destinations in the 18th century just as they are today.

Piranesi takes a viewpoint from the side of the site, giving us a dramatic diagonal view of one palace and a head-on view of the other. In the foreground are Grand Tourists in their three-cornered hats as well as a number of less well dressed, slightly suspicious-looking figures.

The second piece is John Heliker’s Pertaining to Rome. Heliker was a 20th Century artist from New York living from 1909 to 2000. His painting is an abstract look at the Italian capital city. It was a gift in 2005 to the Arkansas Arts Center from the Heliker-LaHotan Foundation, Inc.