Apelles: The Alexander Mosaic

The mosaic depicting the Battle of Alexander represents one of the greatest masterpieces conserved in the National Museum of Archaeology in Naples and it is world-renown for depicting Alexander's features. It has been proven that this floor reproduces a "tablet".

An enthusiastic search to identify the original has been in course since the moment of its discovery in the House of the Faun in Pompeii, in the 1830s. Archaeological investigations spread over more than two hundred years have not managed to explore the full depth of the picture. Nor have they provided an exhaustive answer to the main questions: what battle does it depict, was the work executed at the time of Alexander or later, who should it be attributed to.

A photographic campaign expressly conducted for this volume presents new evidence of the work's most important details, facilitating the presentation of a hypothesis that would previously have seemed bold, but which is justified by literary or archaeological tradition and by the constant discovery of original paintings in Macedonia: its attribution to Apelles, the most famous painter of antiquity, with new evidence being presented here that highlights his revolutionary significance.