[The Deification of Romulus] · Centre for Early Modern Visual Culture

Title: [The Deification of Romulus]
Period: 1550-1600;
Geographic: Rome; Italy; Palatine Hill
Description: The god Mars is depicted on the right-hand side of this engraving, holding his helmet in his left hand and a spear in his right. He is looking up towards his father, Jupiter, in a pleading manner. We know this is Jupiter as he is holding thunder bolts in his right hand. Mars is pleading to his father to allow his son, Romulus, to become a god. Jupiter grants this request, and Mars brings Romulus up into the sky in his chariot as they fly over Rome, as illustrated in the bottom left-hand corner of the engraving. Ovid explains that as Mars brings Romulus up into the sky, Romulus’ mortality dissolves while traveling through the atmosphere.
Image Creator: Virgil Solis (Engraver)
Type: Text; Woodcut Engraving
Identifier: mta:11896
Language: spa
Source Name: Las Transformaciones de Ovidio en lengua Española, repartidas en quinze libros, con las Allegorias al fin dellos, y sus figuras, para prouecho de los Artifices [The Transformations of Ovid in the Spanish language, distributed in fifteen books, with the allegories at the end of them and their figures, for the benefit of the creators]
Parent Collection: Las Transformaciones de Ovidio en lengua Española. Woodcut engravings by Virgil Solis (1595)
Image: mta_11896_OBJ.jpg
Collection: Ovid's Metamorphoses
Subject: Deification; Gods; Roman Mythology; Mars; Romulus