The subject depicted in this splendid canvas is the rape of the Sabines, an episode narrated by Tito Livio and Plutarco and which tells of a "party" organized by Romulus (founder and first king of Rome): the guests are the Sabines, a population present among the territories included between the rivers Tiber, Nera, Aniene and Aterno. The occult intent is to kill Sabine men to kidnap their wives and daughters, to give them as wives to future Roman citizens to populate the nascent city. The episode, which we often find told on canvas, is an autograph work by the painter Giovanni Battista Merano, born in Genoa in 1632, a pupil of G. Andrea de Ferrari before and later of V