The Morbetto, or The Plague of Phrygia

<p>The subject of this print, as identified by the text on the central pedestal, is based on an excerpt from Virgil’s epic poem <em>Aeneid</em>, which follows the hero Aeneas on his flight from Troy to Italy after the Trojan War. In book three of the poem, Aeneas’s father interprets a message from the oracle of the god Apollo to mean that the Trojans should colonize the island of Crete. They build a city, which Aeneas names Pergamum, but are struck by a wretched plague, which brings a year of death to humans and animals. Aeneas then has a dream, as seen in the upper left, in which he learns that Apollo’s oracle intended the Trojans to occupy Italy, where Aeneas will eventually settle, becoming the ancestor of the Romans.</p>