At the beginning of the 18th century there was a desire to reconstruct life as it had been lived in Antiquity. So people had become increasingly concerned with preserving, understanding and systematising the many ancient finds that had been made so far. Among these artefacts, excavated in the 16th and 17th centuries, there were both ancient sculptures and ancient artefacts of various kinds, for instance lamps.
In extension of the work of systematisation, extensive sets of books were published containing graphic reproductions of the many ancient objects. Pietro Santi Bartoli was a leading figure within this archaeological movement. Altogether 886 different graphic presentations of ancient artefacts by him are known. Thorvaldsen had about 50 of these in his collections. But they were in other words only a fraction of Bartoli’s huge production. As the aim of these sets of books was pedagogical, Bartoli informs us that this lamp was made of metal – “di metallo”.
The assumption that the word Pegasus originally meant “light” is one explanation of why the winged horse Pegasus is used to decorate lamp. It is thought that “Pegasus” derives from a dead language, Luwian, in which “pihassas” meant lightning and “pihassassi” was a weather god representing thunder and lightning.
