Featured on PDR in the collection Erotic Cameos from Antiquity (ca. 1771)

In 1775, when the Marquis de Sade travelled to Italy at the age of thirty-five, he had yet to write his libertine Justine or the unfinished torture-orgy nightmare that is 120 Days of Sodom. Still, at this time, angling after a respectable career in letters, despite an increasingly marred reputation, Sade’s trip led him to confront what James A. Steintrager describes as “the most complete and preserved material culture of the ancient Roman lifeworld”, a world that appeared, at least on the surface, to be “radically other than Christian modernity, including — or most especially — with regard to religion and sexuality”.