Firmare un'opera come se fosse l'ultima. L'imperfetto e l'incompiuto in Plinio il Vecchio
This article focuses on the analysis of the preface of Pliny the Elder’s Natural History. Pliny expresses the desire to gain acceptance on the example of the most famous founders of painting and sculpture. In fact, when they completed their works ‒ even those, as Pliny says, that we are not yet tired of admiring ‒ they signed them with a provisional inscription, such as Apelles faciebat aut Polyclitus, as if their art was always in process and not completed.