Twelve Caesars 

十二凯撒

出版社 ‏ : ‎ Princeton University Press; First Edition

出版日期：2021年 10月 12日

语言 ‏ : ‎ 英语

平装 ‏ : ‎ 392页

尺寸 ‏ : ‎ 16.76 x 3.81 x 24.13 cm

页面参数仅供参考，具体以实物为准

这本由畅销书作家玛丽-比尔德（Mary Beard）讲述的有声读物探讨了罗马专制者的形象如何影响了艺术、文化和权力的表现形式。

权力的面孔是什么样的？艺术中纪念的是谁，为什么？我们又是如何看待我们所憎恶的政治家雕像的？在本书中，玛丽-比尔德以当今的 "雕塑大战 "为背景，讲述了两千多年来西方世界的富人、权贵和名人肖像是如何被罗马皇帝的形象所塑造的，尤其是 "十二凯撒"，从冷酷无情的凯撒大帝到虐待苍蝇的多米蒂安。《十二凯撒》探究了为什么从古代和文艺复兴时期到今天，这些嗜杀成性的独裁者在艺术中的形象一直如此高大，无助的领导人仍被讽刺为罗马在燃烧时却在胡作非为的内罗斯。

本书贯穿 2000 年的艺术和文化历史，以全新的视角展示了从梅姆林和曼特纳到 19 世纪非裔美国雕塑家埃德莫尼亚-刘易斯等艺术家的作品，以及几代现已被遗忘的纺织工、橱柜工、银匠、印刷工和陶瓷工的作品。与其说《十二凯撒》是一个简单重复稳定、平淡保守的帝王形象的故事，不如说它是一个关于身份变化、无知或故意的误认、赝品以及往往是意想不到的故事。

从比尔德对提香遗失的非凡的《帝王之室》的重建，到她对亨利八世著名的凯撒挂毯的重新诠释，《十二凯撒》包含了一些引人入胜的侦探工作，并提供了一个扣人心弦的故事，讲述了一些有史以来具有挑战性和令人不安的权力肖像。

This audiobook narrated by best-selling author Mary Beard explores how images of Roman autocrats have influenced art, culture, and the representation of power.

What does the face of power look like? Who gets commemorated in art and why? And how do we react to statues of politicians we deplore? In this book - against a background of today’s “sculpture wars” - Mary Beard tells the story of how for more than two millennia portraits of the rich, powerful, and famous in the Western world have been shaped by the image of Roman emperors, especially the “Twelve Caesars”, from the ruthless Julius Caesar to the fly-torturing Domitian. Twelve Caesars asks why these murderous autocrats have loomed so large in art from antiquity and the Renaissance to today, when hapless leaders are still caricatured as Neros fiddling while Rome burns.

Beginning with the importance of imperial portraits in Roman politics, this book offers a tour through 2,000 years of art and cultural history, presenting a fresh look at works by artists from Memling and Mantegna to the 19th-century African American sculptor Edmonia Lewis, as well as by generations of now-forgotten weavers, cabinetmakers, silversmiths, printers, and ceramicists. Rather than a story of a simple repetition of stable, blandly conservative images of imperial men and women, Twelve Caesars is an unexpected tale of changing identities, clueless or deliberate misidentifications, fakes, and often ambivalent representations of authority.

From Beard’s reconstruction of Titian’s extraordinary lost Room of the Emperors to her reinterpretation of Henry VIII’s famous Caesarian tapestries, Twelve Caesars includes some fascinating detective work and offers a gripping story of some of the most challenging and disturbing portraits of power ever created.