Pliny the Elder

Gaius Plinius Secundus, (23–79) better known as Pliny the Elder, was an ancient author and Natural philosopher of some importance who wrote Naturalis Historia.

Research after 1500

Sir Thomas Browne expressed a wholesome skepticism about Pliny's dependability in his Pseudodoxia Epidemica (1646):

Related Topics:
Thomas Browne - Pseudodoxia Epidemica - 1646

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:"Now what is very strange, there is scarce a popular error passant in our days, which is not either directly expressed, or diductively contained in this Work; which being in the hands of most men, hath proved a powerful occasion of their propagation. Wherein notwithstanding the credulity of the Reader is more condemnable then the curiosity of the Author: for commonly he nameth the Authors from whom he received those accounts, and writes but as he reads, as in his Preface to Vespasian he acknowledgeth." http://penelope.uchicago.edu/pseudodoxia/pseudo18.html#b15

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Most of the recent research on Pliny has been concentrated on the investigation of his authorities, especially those which he followed in his chapters on the history of art - the only ancient account of that subject which has survived.

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A carnelian inscribed with the letters C. PLIN. has been reproduced by Cades (v.211) from the original in the Vannutelli collection. It represents an ancient Roman with an almost completely bald forehead and a double chin; and is almost certainly a portrait, not of Pliny the Elder, but of Pompey the Great. Seated statues of both the Plinies, clad in the garb of scholars of the year 1500, may be seen in the niches on either side of the main entrance to the cathedral church of Como.

Related Topics:
Carnelian - Vannutelli collection - Pompey the Great - 1500 - Cathedral

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The elder Pliny's anecdotes of Greek artists supplied Vasari with the subjects of the frescoes which still adorn the interior of his former home at Arezzo.

Related Topics:
Vasari - Fresco - Arezzo

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