Quo vadis?, Cabiria and the 'Archaeologists'

Today, 12 October 2023, the new book by Ivo Blom, 'Quo vadis?, Cabiria and the 'Archaeologists'' is presented at the Giornate del Cinema Muto, The Pordenone Silent Film Festival in Pordenone, Italy. In the early 1910s, Italy was the world leader in cinema with its spectacular films of Roman and Carthaginian antiquity. Despite their innovations in storytelling and mise en scène, filmmakers like Enrico Guazzoni and Giovanni Pastrone also looked backwards to the 19th century, by appropriating not only literature and theatre but also painting, which has been hitherto little researched. ‘Archaeologist’ painters like Gérôme, Alma-Tadema and Rochegrosse, who combined painstaking historical research with their own imagination of antiquity, thus experienced a second life in the 20th-century medium of film. Thanks to the use of mechanical reproduction, their works became part of public memory and were reused by filmmakers, most evident in two key films of the early years of Italian cinema: Quo vadis? (1913) and Cabiria (1914). Yet, particularly for Cabiria, this book, published by Edizioni Kaplan, also creates a new archaeological framework from which to approach early Italian epics.


Book cover of Ivo Blom's 'Quo vadis?, Cabiria and the 'Archaeologists''. Edizioni Kaplan, 2023. Photo: Italia Almirante Manzini in Cabiria (Giovanni Pastrone, 1914).

Quo vadis? (1913)

Italian postcard by Uff. Rev. St. Terni. Photo: Cines. Picture for the early epic Quo vadis? (Enrico Guazzoni, 1913), adapted from Henryk Sienkiewicz's classic novel and the biggest film hit of 1913 worldwide. Caption: The death of the gladiator. This image cites Jean-Léon Gérôme's famous painting 'Pollice verso' (Thumbs down, 1872) and was often used in the publicity for the film. In the back, the emperor Nero (Carlo Cattaneo) makes the sign of thumbs down, a sign for the conqueror to kill his adversary. Flanking Nero are, at left, Tigellinus (Cesare Moltroni) and, at right, Petronius (Gustavo Serena). Left of the imperial box, the Vestal Virgins are seated.


Italian postcard by Uff. Rev. St. Terni. Photo: Cines. Picture for Quo vadis? (Enrico Guazzoni, 1913). Helped by Acte, Nero's former mistress, Ursus (Bruto Castellani) subtracts Lygia (Lea Giunchi) from the orgy of the imperial banquet, where the drunken Roman Vinicius tries to rape her.


Italian postcard by Uff. Rev. St. Terni. Photo: Cines. Picture for Quo vadis? (Enrico Guazzoni, 1913). Ursus (Bruto Castellani) and Vinicius (Amleto Novelli) implore the audience and emperor Nero to grace the Christian Lygia (Lea Giunchi) after Ursus has killed the bull on which back Lygia had been bound. The audience raves because of Ursus' tour de force. Vinicius has stripped his clothes to show his scars from the wars, while Ursus holds up Lygia. All around Nero hold their thumbs up for grace, even if this sign seems to have been a 19th-century invention and historically incorrect.


Italian postcard by Uff. Rev. St. Terni. Photo: Cines. Picture for Quo vadis? (Enrico Guazzoni, 1913). Caption: A banquet on the Palatine. The fat and drunken man in front is Giuseppe Gambardella, who was also famous as Checco in short Italian comedies.


Italian postcard by Uff. Rev. St. Terni. Photo: Cines. Picture for Quo vadis? (Enrico Guazzoni, 1913). Caption: The last prayer. This scene quotes Jean-Léon Gérôme's painting 'The Christian Martyrs' Last Prayer' (1863-1883).

Who is Ivo Blom?

Ivo Blom is lecturer in Comparative Arts & Media Studies at Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam. His research often deals with intervisual relationships between cinema and other arts.

Besides his monographs 'Jean Desmet and the Early Dutch Film Trade' (2000) and 'Reframing Luchino Visconti: Film and Art' (2018), he has often published on Italian silent film and its ties with art and visual culture.

He has also contributed to the crossmedial exhibitions 'Alma-Tadema: At Home in Antiquity' (Fries Museum/ Untere Belvedere/ Leighton House, 2016-17) and 'Enfin le cinéma!' (Musée d’Orsay, 2021-22).

For the 2020 Cinefest ‘Kino, Krieg und Tulpen. Deutsch-niederländische Filmbeziehungen’ (13-22 November 2020) he was co-curator of the film program and co-author of the accompanying catalogue.   

And since 2007 Ivo Blom has been one of the editors of European Film Star Postcards.

Cabiria (1914)

Spanish minicard by Chocolate Amatller, Barcelona, no. 3 in a series of 12 cards. Photo: Itala Film. Picture from the Italian silent mega-epic Cabiria (Giovanni Pastrone, 1914), starring Italia Almirante Manzini as Sophonisba, Umberto Mozzato as Fulvio Axilla, Lydia Quaranta as Cabiria and Bartolomeo Pagano as Maciste. Here we see the giant entrance to the Temple of Moloch, which was inspired by a painting by the French artist Henri Motte. 


Spanish minicard by Chocolate Amatller, Barcelona, no. 5 in a series of 12 cards. Photo: Itala Film. Picture from Cabiria (Giovanni Pastrone, 1914), starring Italia Almirante Manzini as Sophonisba, Umberto Mozzato as Fulvio Axilla, Lydia Quaranta as Cabiria and Bartolomeo Pagano as Maciste. Here Sophonisba (Italia Almirante) and Massinissa (Vitale Di Stefano) are married. The statue in the back is a variation of the Egyptian statue of Sekhmet, as can be found at the Louvre in Paris and the Museo Egizio in Turin. 


Spanish minicard by Chocolate Amatller, Barcelona, no. 8 in a series of 12 cards. Photo: Itala Film. Picture from Cabiria (Giovanni Pastrone, 1914), starring Italia Almirante Manzini as Sophonisba, Umberto Mozzato as Fulvio Axilla, Lydia Quaranta as Cabiria and Bartolomeo Pagano as Maciste. Here Queen Sophonisba receives her former lover and now adversary Massinissa (Vitale Di Stefano) in her palace at Cirta. In contrast to the palace of Carthage, the one at Cirta has many Egyptian elements in its design, such as the Osiris-like decoration on the back wall, as well as the scarab motif.


Spanish minicard by Chocolate Amatller, Barcelona, no. 9 in a series of 12 cards. Photo: Itala Film. Picture from Cabiria (Giovanni Pastrone, 1914), starring Italia Almirante Manzini as Sophonisba, Umberto Mozzato as Fulvio Axilla, Lydia Quaranta as Cabiria and Bartolomeo Pagano as Maciste. Here we see the princess Sophonisba (Italia Almirante Manzini) in her boudoir. This set was inspired by a watercolour by the French artist Georges-Antoine Rochegrosse, used for a 1900 edition of Gustave Flaubert's novel 'Salammbô'.


Spanish minicard by Chocolate Amatller, Barcelona, no. 11 in a series of 12 cards. Photo: Itala Film. Picture from Cabiria (Giovanni Pastrone, 1914), starring Italia Almirante Manzini as Sophonisba, Umberto Mozzato as Fulvio Axilla, Lydia Quaranta as Cabiria and Bartolomeo Pagano as Maciste. Here we see the death of Sophonisba, surrounded by Cabiria, Fulvio Axilla and the courtiers. She has poisoned herself, rather than become a slave to the Romans.


Teaser trailer Quo Vadis, Cabiria and the 'Archaeologists'. Source: Ivo Blom @ YouTube. Teaser made by Jaar & Dag Media.

Sources: Edizioni Kaplan and Ivo Blom.