Ekphrasis and Narrative, or the Ideological Critique of Artworks: Alma-Tadema, Ennio Flaiano and the Legacy of Heliogabalus

Abstract

Just before his death in 1972, the Italian writer Ennio Flaiano wrote a short story entitled “La penultima cena” (The Penultimate Supper) in which Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema’s painting The Roses of Heliogabalus (1888) is referenced and the “myth” of Heliogabalus itself comes to play a fundamental role in the construction of the narrative. Though the scene recreated by the characters in Flaiano’s short story may be interpreted as a mise en abyme, through the transformation of Alma-Tadema’s original image using different modes of writing – in particular narrative dialogues and ekphrasis – Flaiano actually critiques an elitist and anti-historical use of art in literature. Building on a reference that the narrator makes to the Decameron , the article shows how the ekphrasis hosts an ideological conflict that opposes the narrator’s interpretation of Heliogabalus’s feast to the one reproduced and staged during a fancy dinner held by members of Rome’s high-society.