CA0576 Twelve Caesar plaques in Siena and Carrara marble

Rare and impressive set of late 19th century Italian Grand Tour marble plaques of the 'Twelve Caesars' of Rome. Twelve Siena marble roundels with bas relief profiles of each Caesar in Carrara marble. The profile portraits, based on representations from Roman coins. The twelve portraits include Julius Caesar and the first eleven emperors as documented by Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus in his biographies, 'The Lives of the Twelve Caesars' written in AD 121 during the reign of the emperor Hadrian. Political expediency meant that Suetonius wisely avoided writing about Hadrian. The Twelve Caesars include the Julio-Claudians, Rome’s first imperial dynasty (Julius Caesar, Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, Nero), three short-lived Emperors during the civil wars of A.D. 69 (Galba, Otho, Vitellius), and the Flavian dynasty (Vespasian, Titus, Domitian). Hanging hole drilled on reverse of each plaque. Italy, probably Rome, circa 1890.