When the Nazis Burned Caligula’s Floating Palaces

Giulia Montanari
Exploring History
Published in
8 min readOct 21, 2020

--

An act of spite turned two invaluable historical artifacts to ashes

Black and white photograph of a man standing in front of a giant wooden hull
The hull of one of the ships (Wikimedia Commons)

I guess that anything we manage to save from history is a miracle,” Donna Tartt wrote in her 2014 Pulitzer winning novel The Goldfinch.
I suppose it must be true, considering how many historical and artistic treasures we managed to destroy — out of malice, bad judgment, political or religious zeal, or simply plain, sheer stupidity.

The botched restoration of Martínez’s Ecce Homo and the 17th-century painting of the Virgin Mary irreparably damaged by an incompetent restorer are some examples of this, but at least those were done in good faith.

The Buddhas of Bamyan were instead deliberately destroyed by the Taliban in 2001, but it is far from being the only time priceless artifacts were erased from history in an intentional act of spite: one instance of this is the burning of Emperor Caligula's pleasure ships.

White marbe statue of a young man
Bust of Emperor Caligula (Wikimedia Commons)

Caligula’s Dream Boat

Caligula was Emperor for only four years — from 37 to 41 CE — but his name has lived on in history due to his alleged inclination for brutality and excess.

--

--

Giulia Montanari
Exploring History

Thirty-something public servant in Italy. Can’t parallel park to save my life. Join Medium with my referral link: https://medium.com/@tanarx/membership