Aeneas, Anchises and Ascanius Fleeing Troy

Aeneas, Anchises and Ascanius Fleeing Troy, dated to around 1630 and in the Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Antica in Rome, depicts the founding moment of Roman civilization as Virgil recounted it in the Aeneid — the young Aeneas carrying his aged father Anchises on his back while leading his young son Ascanius through the burning city. The triple generational image — youth supporting age, age guiding youth — was among the most charged subjects in Western iconography for Roman national and imperial identity. In the 1630s, painted in Rome, it carried immediate resonance for patrons invested in the city's classical heritage. Preti's early version shows the influence of the Roman Baroque in its dramatic lighting and physical urgency. The Galleria Nazionale holds it as part of its extensive holdings of Italian painting from the medieval period through the eighteenth century.

The triple figure group — Aeneas, Anchises, and Ascanius — creates a compositional pyramid that Preti anchors against the implied conflagration of Troy in the background. The physical strain of Aeneas bearing his father is rendered through posture and musculature rather than mere gesture, with the weight of the old man visible in the young man's bent posture. The background flames are suggested through warm, flickering light rather than described in detail.