Anchises schenkt wijn in de zee als dank voor zijn aankomst in Italië 1663

Giuseppe Maria Mitelli made this print of Anchises offering wine on the sea in thanks for arriving in Italy, using etching techniques, most likely in Bologna, sometime in the later 17th century. In it, we see Anchises, father of Aeneas from Virgil’s Aeneid, offering libations to the gods upon his arrival in Italy. Italy’s cultural elites during this time saw themselves as inheritors of the Roman Empire, a political entity that gave itself divine sanction. It's likely that Mitelli had patrons in that cultural elite, as the print has the function of providing that class of people with a symbolic origin story. While Mitelli was associated with the Bolognese school of art, it’s useful to know that he supported himself and his family not through painting, but through printmaking. This made his art accessible to a much wider audience, an audience who may or may not have shared the values of Italy’s elite. By considering the wider context of the artist’s life, we can better understand what the artwork may have meant at the time and what it might mean today.