ABSTRACT
In the center of Anton Raphael Mengs’s 1772/3 allegorical ceiling fresco of the Museum Clementine in the Camera dei Papiri of the Vatican, Clio (History) writes in her book as she watches Janus Bifrons (Past and Future) pointing to the statue of a sleeping Cleopatra in the museum (see figure 6). 1 The foundation of the Museum Clementine is recorded for posterity. The personification of fame and glory, Fama, too points to the museum, and on the left a Genius (the museum’s “soul”?) carrying several scrolls of papyrus is depicted. It is striking that Clio has placed her book on the shoulders of Chronos (Time), who, while sitting on the floor, gazes at an epigraph only he has in view. This epigraph is a testimony of the pagan past, subjected to decay and in danger of being forgotten. The message we may infer from this fresco is that the museum, like history, keeps the past alive while time passes: that is history’s triumph over time.
