Here we have a nice pic that encloses an entire world and perspective, a way to understand why Rome is a special city! We are inside one of the decorated rooms of the Casino Mssimo, a suburban building owned by a marquis two centuries ago that is located not so far from the huge Saint John in Lateran basilica. A building full of painted wonders which are strictly related to the italian literature traditions. 

Today we are very close to the city centre of Rome, but at that time that area was basically the countryside of the Eternal City, a perfect place to erect a nice villa outside the chaos of an urban centre. But this place became something more, because it became the painted jewel of a group of German painters who, at the XIX centuty, were able to give a new push to Italy and its renaissance traditions. A group that was named Nazarenes. Why this unusual name? Those painters (like Viet, Pforr or Overneck), founded a sort of congregation... people who lived studying, having a sort of monastic attitude. From this spirit and lifestyle this unusual name came. What was their purpose? They would like to travel in time, trying to paint and think like the people of the past, masters who made great the Renaissance age in Italy and Rome, people like Beato Angelico, Filippo Lippi or Raphael. For example this picture could show you how, in a stilistic way, the Nazarenes tried to get closer to the renaissance traditions: the brush strokes are flowing and clears, the colors are vivid and the fake architectonical elements are almost talking to the painted figures. So in this case this group of German painters worked in a very different way comparing the other masters of their time, people who used to celebrate different kind of subjects in their works of art. So they would like to escape from their reality and style, in order to embrace the rules and the word of the past, a word that for them was perfect.

Moreover, in order to pay homage and celebrate Italy and virtues like justice or truth, the Nazarenes decorated the rooms of this small villa with episodes from famous literary sources, like the Divine Comedy by Dante or the Gerusalemme Liberata by Tasso. So those paintings are able to show us themes and subjects that we used to study at school, figures that remind us how important was our literary past, people who tried to spread different kind of messages and ideals. Here, the Casino Massimo, is a sort of unicum in Rome, because we see paintings from the XIX century that are able to display universal values which were spread over the centuries by famous writers and masters. And we should thank this group of painters, which were not Italian but that were able to love our culture, if we can have this artistic gem that brings us in another time...