Silent films depicting antiquity utilized a range of representational strategies to vividly reconstruct Graeco-Roman architecture, thereby facilitating a temporal transport for audiences to the ancient past. One of the most prominent techniques was monumentality, which was used to create impressive sets and reflected advancements in film technology. This approach became a recurring feature in many films of the 1920s. The main set for the silent epic Quo Vadis (1924) set in the reign of the emperor Nero was the monumental palace created for the exhibition Mostra dell'Agricoltura, dell'Industria e delle Arti Applicate (Exhibition of Agriculture, Industry, and Applied Arts) held in 1923 at the Galoppatoio inside the Villa Borghese gardens in Rome. The architect Armando Brasini-renowned for his eclectic style rooted in Fascist architecture-designed the exhibition spaces. Brasini’s work drew inspiration from ancient Roman and Italian Baroque architecture, incorporating elements that evoked the poetic quality of ruins, a hallmark of Giovanni Battista Piranesi’s visionary drawings. This article explores Brasini’s architectural contribution to the film, with a focus on the representation of Nero’s palace and examines his influence on the rise of a monumental aesthetic in silent films portraying antiquity.

This article explores Gli Ultimi Giorni di Pompei (1926) as the culmination of silent-era cinematic representations of Pompeii, arguing that the film transforms cinematic fiction into a valuable source for understanding ancient architecture and urban life. By the 1920s, these layers converged in large-scale historical epics, enabling cinema to function as a medium of virtual time travel in which the spectator assumes the role of a beholder-traveller. Through close analysis of scenography, the article examines the reconstruction of streets, the Forum, public buildings, domestic interiors, baths, and the amphitheatre. It demonstrates how spatial organisation, architectural accuracy, decorative detail, and crowd scenes created immersive environments that animated Pompeii as a lived city rather than a static ruin. While acknowledging moments where fictional composition departs from archaeological precision, the article emphasises the film’s exceptional attention to material culture and its partial use of real locations. Ultimately, the study contends that Gli Ultimi Giorni di Pompei (1926) represents both the apex and the conclusion of silent Pompeii cinema, where spectacle, architecture, and narrative converge to produce a cinematic document of enduring archaeological and cultural significance.