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hour visit, we passed a couple of guided Probably my favorite painting is “The
tours but there were informational signs Peasant Wedding” by Dutch artist Pieter
everywhere in Italian and English so it was Bruegel (the elder). It was created in 1567
easy to take in the Villa on our own. Be‐ and is hung in Vienna’s Kunsthistorisches
sides we were ooh-ing and ahh-ing and Museum.
running around so much we were in no fit A few years ago, I stood before it for a
state to join a group. half-hour and tried to figure out why it af‐
There’s so much to see at the Villa that fects me so deeply. I didn’t come up with
it’s hard to pick out highlights. One floor an exact answer. Of course, there are some
depicts a spectator’s view of Rome’s Circus wonderful painterly things going on — the
Maximus complete with racing charioteers, movement, the blocks of color, the sprin‐
a chariot crash and a chariot crossing the kling of reds and whites, the perspective
finish line. A large reception hall is covered that pulls you into and out of the pictured
with scenes from the mythic “labors of Her‐ rom.
cules.” One of the corridors is a 65-yard- But I think its greatest effect is the
long depiction of the “Great Hunt.” It sense that Bruegel, by painting this semi-
shows tigers, elephants, bears, leopards chaotic scene of clumsy, celebrating peas‐
and other creatures being captured and ants, has captured and preserved a single
shipped from Carthage or Alexandria to moment of the past. It’s the closest thing
Italian cities be used for fighting in am‐ we have to a candid photograph of 1567.
phitheaters. It was like we were looking It reminds me of the thousands of
down at pages from ancient Marvel Comics semi-chaotic frozen moments I dealt with
laid out below us. as a newspaper editor looking over the
But before I get to the most famous work of news and feature photographers.
mosaic of all, let me jump ahead 1,200 The photographers’ goal was to try to cap‐
years. ture the essence of a story in a single main
Photo by José Luiz Bernardes Ribeiro
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