ABSTRACT
Fourteenth-century manuscript illustrations, frescoes and literary narratives alike address public political issues cloaked in the guise of widowed women. The city of Rome has always possessed a dual identity. Depending on an author's intention to praise or to blame, the city can be figured as the head, summit, the caput mundi, or as low, fallen, an abandoned woman. The image of widowed Rome appealing to King Robert's monarchical power was soon put to new use, serving a diametrically opposite political agenda. The second allegory was painted on the facade of Sant'Angelo in Pescheria, in a busy commercial area and Colonna family stronghold; the fresco was aimed at the Roman populace, in general, but more particularly at the Colonna barons who opposed Cola's rebellion. Art historians relate the Panegyric to King Robert of Anjou and Cola di Rienzo's frescoes to a larger context, seeing them as part of an explosion of civic imagery and the rise of naturalism in the Trecento.
