Nerone, also known as Nerone o l’incendio di Roma (Nero or the Burning of Rome in Anglophone distribution), directed by Luigi Maggi and Arturo Ambrosio in 1909, should be regarded as one of the true ‘gems’ of early Italian cinema. In a period that predates the triumphs of Cabiria (1914), Quo vadis? (1913), and other grand colossal or epics, Nerone stands out as a particularly striking example of a cinema whose strength lay in its power of synthesis. How do you capture, in just a quarter of an hour, the defining moments in the life of history’s most bloodthirsty emperor? How do you evoke the grandeur of ancient Rome using nothing more than painted backdrops? Fortunately, we have at our disposal a beautifully restored print of the film, allowing us to reflect on these questions. Yet the restoration process, too, holds its own mysteries…

Cléopâtre, as the first in the Pathé studio’s Série d’Art, places the queen theatrically at the centre of a resplendent Orientalist tableau filled with pharaonic monuments, lotus leaf pillars, exotic canopies and couches, black slaves, leopard skins and feathered fans, all showcased in stencil colour. Digging into the archaeology of this Egyptian environment played out before a French camera in a cold January exposes its colonialist tropes: the dangerous queen seduces Mark Antony but is overcome by Octavian, the true embodiment of the masculine West. However, the colonial rhetoric of the film turns out to be more complicated when compared with the Pathé film Le caprice du vainqueur with which it had been paired. Here Julius Caesar, as the embodiment of the Western imperialist in Egypt, is cruel and licentious. His demand that an innocent girl dance before him results in an uprising by the Egyptian people who burn down the palace and oust him from it. Overturning the discourses of colonialism, the West is here temporarily defeated by the East. This analysis explores how these two films shape Roman Egypt according to a complex, distinctively French, brand of Orientalism played out within a late nineteenth-century French culture of Egyptomania.

While most French silent films on Greco-Roman Antiquity in the collection of the British Film Institute are Pathé and Gaumont productions, a rare example is a film by the company Éclipse: Bélisaire (1910). It not only refers to a historical figure. It also relies on a long tradition of French literature, theatre and painting concerning the Byzantine general, while deviating from it in intriguing ways. Little is known about the film and who made it, and the actors remain unidentified. Yet, some information is known about the company that produced it: Éclipse. So detective work has been required to analyse this unusual antiquity film.

In addition to other early Pathé film titles on antiquity,  the BFI National Archive holds a copy of the 1910 Pathé frères film Cléopâtre (Cleopatra), directed by Ferdinand Zecca and Henri Andréani. The film is mostly based on the French stage play Cléopâtre by Victorien Sardou and Émile Moreau (1890), which was in turn inspired by William Shakespeare’s play, but it also bears similarities with nineteenth-century painting. The film contains a typical tableau-like style and histrionic acting, reminiscent of the stage. The lead role was performed by the acclaimed stage actress Madeleine Roch, who previously had acted in several stage plays set in antiquity and acted in various historical films at Pathé around 1910. Cléopâtre also typically follows the Western Orientalist tradition in representing the East as feminine and cruel.

The print of the film Héliogabale (André Calmettes, Le Film d’Art 1910) that survives in the British Film Institute National Archive is, as far as we can tell, unique. While another early French film on the life of the Roman emperor Heliogabalus, L’Orgie romaine (Louis Feuillade, Gaumont 1911) has received considerable attention from scholars, much less consideration has been given to this Film d’Art version of his life. So what aspect of antiquity does this film reconstruct, what can we say about its cast, production team and set design, in its plot and mise-en-scene what ties does it have with contemporary theatre and painting, how different is it from L’Orgie romaine, and why does it seem that the only two films made about such an unusual Roman emperor were produced solely in France and solely at this time?

Among the silent antiquity prints in the BFI, we have recently been able to identify the 1912 British film Pygmalion and Galatea, previously considered lost. The original story for the film’s representation of the Cypriot sculptor Pygmalion is Publius Ovidius Naso’s Metamorphoses (1-8 AD). Two recent studies by Victor Stoichita and Paula James have productively explored the centrality to cinema of Ovid’s mythic tale in which the stone of Pygmalion’s creation is transformed into female flesh. Yet, closer in time to the film lies the influence of nineteenth-century ‘Pygmalionism’ in art and theatre, as well as the myth’s development in earlier European cinema

At the turn of the 19th century, Pompeii’s remarkable preservation made it a focal point for exploring and visualising ancient Roman life, particularly in early Italian silent cinema. This essay examines the 1913 Pasquali Film Jone, ovvero Gli ultimi giorni di Pompei, directed by Giovanni Enrico Vidali. The film combines three-dimensional sets with authentic locations and draws extensively on archaeological evidence, nineteenth-century paintings, and literary sources to reconstruct Pompeii’s urban and domestic spaces. Outdoor scenes depict streets, the Forum, and exedra seating, highlighting public life, while interiors, including triclinia, cubicula, and atria, illustrate elite domestic practices, luxury, and social hierarchy. The Villa of Diomed and the Temple of Isis emphasise refinement and exoticism, while amphitheatre sequences, with live animals and staged crowds, underscore spectacle and civic culture. By integrating archaeological accuracy with artistic and cinematic conventions, the Pasquali film transforms Pompeii into both a historical reconstruction and a dramatic stage, allowing audiences to witness daily life, ritual, and catastrophe.

Phidias, renowned as the greatest sculptor of Greek antiquity and the lead artistic director of the Parthenon, is the subject of the 1917 French film L’Esclave de Phidias, directed by Léonce Perret. The film draws on aspects of Phidias's tumultuous life, focusing on a melodramatic narrative that explores his relationships and eventual exile, while largely neglecting his sculpture. Upon release during World War I, critics highlighted the film's artistry and the importance of its music, underlined by the special score composed for this film. Thanks to the joys of music, the artist finally capitulates to his model who is herself hopelessly in love with him.

This article focuses on four of Itala Film's first silent films, preceding the famous epic Cabiria (Giovanni Pastrone, Itala 1914), but already developing an iconographic vocabulary on antiquity, especially through the search for scenic elements. All prints used stem from the collection of the British Film Institute but are analysed in comparison with prints elsewhere. Giulio Cesare (Giovanni Pastrone, Itala 1909) is contextualised by its roots in theatre and painting, but also its recycling of sets, costumes and even actors from a previous Itala production, Principessa e schiava (dir. unknown, Itala 1909). Both films mark Itala's debut in films about Roman antiquity. Confirmation of this recycling by Itala can be found in two films both set in ancient Greece instead: the famous film La caduta di Troia (Giovanni Pastrone, Romano Luigi Borgnetto, Itala 1911) and the lesser-known Clio e Filete (Oreste Mentasti, Itala 1911), with the latter reusing parts of the scenography and costumes of the former. This analysis considers the sources of the ancient worlds designed by Itala, the style of its reconstruction, the use of recycled materials, and what all this says for Italian filmmakers’ visions of the ancient world in 1909-1911.