Cleopatra

Cleopatra VII Thea Philopator, Egypt’s last queen who committed suicide in 30 BC to avoid falling into the hands of Octavian, made an indelible mark on her age. Not particularly beautiful but seductive, intelligent, and resolute, she was brilliant, learned, and refined. She based her strength on her free and independent personality. A skilled politician who attempted to bring Egypt back into the political limelight, she took active part in the plans of Caesar and, subsequently, Marc Antony. She was the most famous queen in Antiquity, and her role in culture and politics was so important that it is hard to find in the centuries that followed. With over four hundred works from 3000 BC to today, from the most prestigious museums across the world, this publication views the short but intense life of Cleopatra, the “Queen of the Nile,” in a biography where myth and reality intertwine with art, literature, and cinema. Her fame has crossed literature, with ups and downs: while Dante condemns her to the circle of the lustful and Boccaccio calls her “the whore of the Kings of the Orient”, for William Shakespeare, who celebrates her in his tragedy Antony and Cleopatra, she was a fragile woman with a tragic fate. But this publication covers the myth of Cleopatra also through the eighteenth century up to today, displaying costumes and frames from Hollywood blockbusters that consecrated Cleopatra’s legend thanks to the stunning performance of Elizabeth Taylor.