Antiquity of Rome: Menelaus Holding the Body of Patroclus? (Pasquino)

Marforio and Pasquino are Rome’s two most prominent "talking statues," on which satirical poems or other commentaries are posted in an ongoing public forum. Generally written in broad Roman dialect, so-called "pasquinades" may denounce injustice or lampoon political or religious figures. Marforio, the better preserved of the two ancient statues, is the name of a river god, whereas the subject of the dismembered statue called "Pasquino" has been identified as Menelaus holding the dying body of Patroclus (an episode from Homer’s Iliad).

Both of these prints, copied from much earlier engravings, served as illustrations for François-Maximilien Misson’s A New Voyage to Italy. The New Voyage was reprinted in several editions over a period of fifty years, but already at its initial publication in 1695, Misson was lamenting that "a thousand travelers" before him had written about Italy, and wondering what he could say "that has not been already a hundred times repeated." The book’s lengthy subtitle promised "curious observations" of the places visited as well as "useful instructions" for those planning to travel there. The latter focus suggests a transition to the more practical commercial guidebooks that would mark the age of tourism.