This group of Images, all taken in Italy from 1997 to 1998, focuses on the theme of war, power and murder since time immemorial.  In depicting these subjects, are we glorifying these barbaric acts or acknowledging and protesting against the dark side of human experience? 
     The earliest photograph is of the Greek Goddess Athena, the Goddess of war and wisdom, who first appeared in Greek mythology sometime around 4000 BCE.   Later there is the emotionally powerful sculpture, Galata Morenti, (The Dying Gaul) in the Capitoline Museum, Rome, from ca. The third century BCE. Two photographs are details from the massive floor in the Duomo in Siena, depicting the Strage degli Innocenti, (Slaughter of the Innocents), attributed to the artist Matteo di Giovani, and completed in 1481.  After being told that a new King of the Jews was born, King Herod commanded his soldiers to murder all first-born male children under of the age of two.

     The three photographs titled Un Soldato (A Soldier) are busts of some of the many soldiers who fought in the Italian war of Independence from 1848 to 1870 with Garabaldi.  The actual heads are 19th century sculptures, which line a road in a park called the Janiculum on the tallest hill in Rome.  These busts are in the open air and have been subject to the marks of weather, time and vandalism, changing them from the heroic to the vulnerable and poignant.
     La Sirena, (The Mermaid) has traditionally been a beacon of refuge for the sailor or soldier.  The double tailed mermaid first appeared west of the Rhone sometime in the 12th century.  This Sirena is found on a wall in Venice, her date is unknown, though I suspect she is relatively recent.  To me she represents the ideal of  “make love not war.”