Ancient Mosaics and Wallpaintings (review)

Reviews 245 than to nuns as such in the second half of her book is understandable. For the sad fact is that, even if late-medieval w o m e n religious were 'empowered' spiritually and economically, there is little or nothing to show for it in the cultural record. Except for the elusive Juliana Berners, all the fourteenth- and fifteenthcentury women writers whose names w e know - Julian of Norwich, Margery Kempe, Eleanor Hull, Lady Margaret Beaufort - were laywomen. W h y did these quasi-religious w o m e n achieve so much more than the genuine article? As far as present knowledge goes, the later-medieval nuns of Barking, in spite ofbeing well read and well fed, produced no saints, visionaries, writers or translators that w e know of. The Brigittine nuns, to w h o m so many material and spiritual resources were devoted at the time, and who exercise such a fascination over current scholarship, similarly passed into history not with a bang but a whimper. Perhaps more efforts should be devoted to recovering the achievements of w o m e n such as Sibilla de Felton of Barking and less to contemplating their etiolated after-lives as 'symbolic capital'. This book's endnotes , stuffed as they are with fascinating details, would be a good place to start. Alexandra Barratt Department of English University of Waikato Whitehouse, Helen, Ancient Mosaics and Wallpaintings (The Paper Museum of Cassiano dal Pozzo, Series A: Antiquities and Architecture, Part I), London/Turnhout, Harvey Miller Publishers, 2001; cloth; pp. 447; 99 b/w illustrations, 156 colour plates; R R P E U R 250.00; ISBN 1872501575. Cassiano dal Pozzo (1588-1657) commissioned seventeenth-century artists to provide him with copies of Antiquities (ancient, medieval and Renaissance works of art and architecture) and representations from Natural History (flora, fauna, stones, minerals and curiosities). H e collected approximately 7,000 images in what is known as his Museo Cartacceo, or Paper Museum. Most of the depictions are now in the Royal Library, Windsor, where they have been re-mounted and rearranged. The remainder are either in other collections, or have been lost. This book by Helen Whitehouse is the third volume of a Catalogue Raisonne of all the known images from dal Pozzo's Paper Museum. In all there are to be ten volumes on his c. 4,200 copies of Antiquities and Architecture 246 Reviews (Series A ) edited by Amanda Claridge, and nine volumes on his 2,700 depictions of Natural History (Series B) edited by David Freedberg. The Catalogue will make available the known works in the Paper Museum. Amanda Claridge and John Osborne have already published two volumes in Series A, on copies of early Christian and medieval antiquities in Rome. The volume under review is also in Series A. It concentrates on images of ancient Roman mosaics and murals, including some very significant works, such as the Nile Mosaic at Palestrina, the Barberini Landscape and the Aldobrandini Wedding. Francis Haskill (since deceased), Jennifer Montagu and Henrietta M c B u m e y planned this important and ambitious project. Haskill and M c B u m e y outline the history of the Paper Museum and the overall plan of the two Series in the General Introduction. There follow three Tables, and an introduction to Series A by Claridge. Helen Whitehouse discusses 132 items from the Paper Museum. These include copies of the following ancient Roman mosaics: the Nile Mosaic at Palestrina; two mosaics now in S. Maria in Trastevere, one of a harbour, the other of aquatic birds; another harbour landscape; the Rape of Europa; Apollo in a tempietto; a Marine Thiasus with nereids; mosaics in the collection of Cardinal Camillo Massimi, including three fragments of a Nilotic landscape, two emblemata of victorious charioteers, and images of Neptune and Somnus; and a mosaic of sea creatures from Bevagna (Catalogue numbers 1-26, 36-47 and 132). Included among the mosaics is the opus sectile decoration of the fourth-century basilica of Junius Bassus, which was later transformed into the church of S. Andrea Cata Barbara (Catalogue numbers 27-35). The ancient Roman paintings are those discovered...