local or fanciful scenes, or landscape panoramas.2 Brumidi

worked in an Italian stylistic tradition that went back to

Raphael’s walls in the Vatican

and relied heavily on allegory

and elaborate architectural embellishment. His corridor designs were in the Pompeian style

of ancient Roman frescoes.

Many American critics found this

foreign style inappropriate to the

central edifice of democracy (see

chapter 7). But the classically inspired architecture of the newly

expanded Capitol was similarly

“foreign,” and Brumidi’s way of

painting was more than suitable to its antique splendor.

The secret of Brumidi’s genius, however, is not to be

found so much in the style to which he was born and

which he imposed at the Capitol as in his capacity to see

the whole from its parts and to find an elegant overall solution to any pictorial or symbolic problem with which he

was faced, as he did in the Agriculture Committee room

(see chapter 5). It is plain that none of the highly skilled

artists working with him at the Capitol, such as Emmerich Carstens or James Leslie, or those who came after

him, such as Filippo Costaggini or Allyn Cox, could

match him in this totality of skill and vision.3 Thus an

artist of Brumidi’s temperament could well appreciate the

aesthetic dimension inherent in the political ideal of unity

that impelled his patrons and in the symbolism of raising

up the dome of the Capitol to proclaim the republic’s integrity in the midst of a savage and draining civil war.

he only inscription in the

Rotunda of the United

States Capitol is the Latin

motto E Pluribus Unum (from

the many, one), painted in the

dome by Constantino Brumidi

during the Civil War (fig.

10–1). Indeed, the dome of the

Capitol was erected and decorated as a symbol of the steadfastness and confidence of the

Union during the height of

that great insurrection

(fig.10–2).1 Brumidi submitted

his design and began negotiating his commission for the

dome painting during the autumn of 1862, while the Capitol was being used as a hospital for wounded soldiers. He worked on his cartoons

while battles raged, from early 1863, when his commission was approved, to the end of the year. When finally, in

late 1864, the canopy was installed and Brumidi was able

to start painting, the war had still not ended.

Brumidi was the first accomplished American muralist

in fresco. Before him, murals had been painted in oils or

tempera on wood or plaster, mostly in domestic interiors,

and took the form of wall panels, overmantels depicting

141

CHAPTER 10

Symbolism in the Rotunda

FRANCIS V. O’CONNOR

T

Fig. 10–2. The Capitol after completion of the

dome, 1866. Brumidi could not begin painting the

canopy until the dome was constructed.

Fig. 10–1. Detail of inscription “E Pluribus Unum.” Maidens representing the original states hold a banner in The Apotheosis of Washington. Rotunda.
The Evolution of The Apotheosis

It is almost possible to see Brumidi’s conception of a unified symbolic program for the central space of the Capitol

develop in the succession of studies he made for The Apotheosis of Washington in the vast canopy of the Rotunda’s

dome. The first study, in oil on canvas (fig.10–3), depicted

Washington, his head at dead center, standing with a group

of the Founding Fathers and flanked by deities and allegorical figures. Above Washington’s head is an eagle holding a

flag, while at the bottom can be seen the Earth, with the

North American continent clearly visible. 

Brumidi soon realized that this first conception, with

its axial symmetry establishing a clear top and bottom,

would be seen as upside down or sideways from three of

the four entrances to the Rotunda. His second sketch

(fig. 10–4) attempted to achieve a greater centricity, placing an oval portrait supported by putti and flanked by allegories in the middle of the composition supported by

the arc of a rainbow. Below this central group, the eagle

brandishing arrows harries the forces of discord and strife,

while to the right Mercury holds aloft the caduceus and,

opposite, putti offer the land’s abundance. The arc of the

thirteen colonies, with their scroll, appears above; and

above them is a firmament containing thirty-three stars.

This detail plausibly dates the sketch to 1859, when the

thirty-third state, Oregon, was admitted to the Union.

While this was certainly a great improvement over the

142

Fig. 10–3. First sketch

for The Apotheosis of Washington, c. 1859. The allegories of

the thirteen colonies holding a scroll

encircling Washington was an idea retained in the final design. Athenaeum of

Philadelphia.
viewer would look up into the space of the apotheosis. At

dead center was no longer the head of the protagonist,

but a brilliant, golden sky. Washington is enthroned beneath the sky, flanked by just two allegories, at the west

facing east. Above him, but reversed, is the arc of the

thirteen colonies, creating a second “eye” to the dome,

toward whose blinding glory all heads point, yet turn

away. But even more important, he has reorganized the

various historical and allegorical figures in the earlier

studies into six groupings around the edge of the design

in such a way that one or more would appear upright no

matter from what angle the whole was viewed.

While redesigning the dome in 1859, architect Thomas

U. Walter incorporated Brumidi’s design into his plans

first design, it did not solve the problem of a design that

would be visually coherent from all sides.4

While the history of Brumidi’s thinking about the

Apotheosis between 1859 and 1862, when he was commissioned to paint it, cannot be documented precisely, it

can, nevertheless, be deduced with some plausibility. The

third and last study for the dome design (fig. 10–5) reveals a complete spatial reconceptualization.5 In this final

study Brumidi made the crucial conceptual transition

from easel painting to monumental mural, from the simple frontality and directional orientation of a conventional wall or ceiling painting to an environmental sense

of the soaring space of the enlarged Rotunda. He completely reversed the field of his composition so that the

143

SYMBOLISM IN THE ROTUNDA

Fig. 10–4. Second sketch

for The Apotheosis of Washington, c. 1859. Brumidi’s second design retained the thirteen

maidens but represented Washington with

a painted portrait. Private Collection.
144

Fig. 10–5. Final sketch for The Apotheosis of Washington, c.

1859–1862. The large oil sketch, three feet in diameter, of the final

composition, now in a private collection, is shown in the photograph

copyrighted by Brumidi in 1866.

Photo: Gardner.
central, enthroned allegorical figure. It is, however, painted

over in watercolor with a depiction of Freedom and other

figures identical to those Brumidi ultimately executed.6

Brumidi began in the spring of 1863 to work up his

full-scale cartoons for the dome and to perfect his design.

He spent the following year painting the nearly 5,000-

square-foot concave surface. The canopy fresco was unveiled in January 1866 (see frontispiece).

(fig. 10–6). His rendering of a cross section of the Rotunda with the redesigned dome clearly shows the canopy

and the frieze—the latter represented by a row of figures

that echo the Parthenon frieze—in relation to the eight

earlier historical paintings installed in the Rotunda walls. In

the drawing, two designs for the canopy mural are visible.

The first is a vague generalization—a line drawing of a

landscape with groups of figures and horses surrounding a

145

SYMBOLISM IN THE ROTUNDA

Fig. 10–6. Thomas U. Walter, Section

through Dome of U.S. Capitol, 1859. The cross

section shows Brumidi’s final design for a fresco

in the canopy. Architect of the Capitol. 
The Relationship of the Canopy

Fresco to the Rotunda

The finished canopy permits the viewer 180 feet below to

look up into a great funnel of light, which radiates

through a vast well. From the vantage point of the balcony surrounding the eye of the dome, with the great

frescoed canopy soaring 21 feet above and the Rotunda

below (fig. 10–7), it is clear that Brumidi not only solved

the technical problem of multiple vantage points, but he

also used the ribbing of the new dome to correlate his six

allegorical groups with the history paintings and sculptured reliefs set in the lower walls, creating a set of formal

and symbolic relationships between his crowning creation

and the earlier works of art.

In Brumidi’s time the eight historical paintings were

arranged differently than they are today.

7 The original locations and relationships are reconstructed in figures

10–8 and 10–9. (The letters and numbers in parentheses

in the following paragraphs refer to these diagrams.) The

four earlier paintings, by John Trumbull, installed on the

western side of the Rotunda, are Declaration of Independence in Congress (a), Surrender of General Burgoyne at

Saratoga (b), Surrender of Lord Cornwallis at Yorktown

(c), and General George Washington Resigning His Commission to Congress as Commander in Chief of the Army

(d). Installed later on the eastern side were Robert Weir’s

Embarkation of the Pilgrims (e), John Vanderlyn’s Landing of Columbus (f), William Powell’s Discovery of the Mississippi by De Soto (g), and John Chapman’s Baptism of

Pocahontas (h). These works, set into the walls in huge,

carved frames similar to the overmantels of their day, constituted the first public, monumental mural environment

in the country. If they seem a bit oddly composed today,

it is well to remember that they were conceived to be

seen beneath Charles Bulfinch’s lower hemispherical

dome, which sprang from the entablature directly above

them, not at the bottom of Walter’s 180-foot well.8

Also on the walls of the lower Rotunda, clockwise from

the west door, are eight alternating sculptured reliefs of

146

Fig. 10–7. View from the balcony to the Rotunda floor.

Brumidi would have been aware of the total space encompassed

under the new dome.
The Historical Murals

a Trumbull, Declaration of Independence

b Trumbull, Surrender of General Burgoyne

c Trumbull, Surrender of Lord Cornwallis

d Trumbull, George Washington Resigning his Commission

e Weir, Embarkation of the Pilgrims

f Vanderlyn, Landing of Columbus

g Powell, De Soto’s Discovery of the Mississippi

h Chapman, Baptism of Pocahontas

The Relief Sculpture

●1 Capellano, Preservation of Captain Smith by Pocahontas

●2 Causici, Christopher Columbus

●3 Gevelot, William Penn’s Treaty with the Indians

●4 Capellano, Robert La Salle

●5 Causici, Landing of the Pilgrims

●6 Causici, John Cabot

●7 Causici, Conflict of Daniel Boone and the Indians

●8 Capellano, Sir Walter Raleigh

147

SYMBOLISM IN THE ROTUNDA

Fig. 10–8. Diagram showing the theoretical relationship of

the works of art in the Rotunda. The diagram is made as if

looking down from the center of the canopy. (See key to identify

murals and relief sculptures.)

The Canopy of the Dome

A George Washington with Liberty and Victory/Fame

B Allegories of the Thirteen Colonies with Scroll

C Commerce—Mercury with Bankers of the Revolution

D Marine—Neptune and Venus with the Atlantic Cable

E Science—Minerva with Franklin, Morse, and Fulton

F War—Freedom defeating Tyranny and Kingly Power

G Agriculture—Ceres with a Reaper

H Mechanics—Vulcan forging Cannon into Railroads

The Frieze

(Brumidi’s titles on the sketch, with his spelling)

1 America and History

2 Landing of Columbus

3 Cortez and Montezuma at Mexican Temple

4 Pizzarro going to Peru

5 De Soto’s burial in the Mississipi River

6 Indians Hunting Buffalo

7 [missing]

8 Cap Smith and Pocahontas

9 Landing of the Pilgrims

10 Settlement of Pennsylvania

11 Colonization of New England

12 Ogelethorpe and muscogee chief

13 Lexington insurrection

14 Declaration of the Independence

15 Surrender of Cornwallis

16 Lewis and Clarke

17 Decatur at Tripoli

18 Col Johnson & Tecumseh

19 The American Army going in the City of Mexico

20 A laborer in the employ of Cap Sutter

Fig. 10–9. Diagram of the dome, frieze, historical murals,

and relief sculpture. This graphic representation shows the works

of art in the Rotunda in their theoretical three-dimensional 

relationship. (See key to identify murals and relief sculptures.)

f g

H D

E

F

8 9

7

6

5

4

1 20

17

10 11 12 15

13 14

16

18 3 19

●4

●2

●6

●8

2

Ó N

To

Senate

S È

To

House

Ô

West Front

f g

c b

d a

e h

G

C

B A

C

A

F

H B

G

D

E

5

e

7

5

4

3

2 ●2 ●8

●4 ●6

1 20

19

18

17

a

6

8

10 11 12

13

14

15

9

h

3 7

d

16

c b 1

●3 ●7

●5

●1
historical events and tondo portraits of early discoverers:

Preservation of Captain Smith by Pocahontas ●1, Christopher Columbus ●2, William Penn’s Treaty with the Indians

●3, René Robert Cavalier Sieur de La Salle ●4, Landing of

the Pilgrims ●5, John Cabot ●6, Conflict of Daniel Boone

with the Indians ●7, and Sir Walter Raleigh ●8, carved between 1825 and 1827 by Enrico Causici, Antonio Capellano, and Nicholas Gevelot.9

Gazing down on the Rotunda, Brumidi would certainly

have been conscious of the significance of the older murals and sculptures. It is also apparent that he was aware

of compass orientation, as anyone involved with an architectural environment would be. In arranging his motifs in

the Agriculture Committee room (H–144), for instance,

he oriented the allegories of the seasons to the cardinal

points. There, Spring is placed to the ever-renewing east,

Summer to the nurturing south, Autumn’s fruition and

death to the opposites inherent in the west’s sunset, and

Winter to the cold and mysterious north. This perennial

directional symbolism of dawn, day, dusk, and dark plays

its role in Brumidi’s Rotunda program as it did in all the

great mural cycles he would have known in Italy, such as

Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel, where the Last Judgment,

with its opposition of good and evil, is placed on a west

wall. This sense of environmental context was an important factor in Brumidi’s arrangement of the six groups of

gods and goddesses in the dome. 

The iconography of the canopy fresco, with its conjunctions of deities and humans, may seem strange to us

today. However, in the mid-nineteenth century the personification of abstract ideas by means of figures drawn

from classical mythology and the association of historical

figures such as George Washington and Benjamin

Franklin with these was part of the cultural vocabulary.

The gods and goddesses stood allegorically for universal

virtues embodied in popular historical personalities. Thus

Washington sits enthroned in the pose of all-powerful

Jupiter, and the great inventor and political philosopher

Franklin is associated with Minerva, goddess of wisdom.

The complete meaning of Brumidi’s dome can be understood only in respect to these traditional attributes of the

gods and goddesses and how they are related to the historical figures in their immediate context around the edge

of the canopy. These iconographic meanings are also reinforced by symbolic placement both above and opposite

the historical paintings and sculptured reliefs. 

Washington, flanked by allegories of Liberty and Victory/Fame (A) (see fig. 9–1), sits enthroned above Freedom (F) (see fig. 9–16), who, along with a militant bald

eagle holding arrows, wreaks havoc among the forces of

war, tyranny, and discord. The latter are represented by

figures with a cannon, a king in armor holding a scepter

and an ermine-lined cape, and anarchists with torches. All

these figures are on the west surface of the canopy. They

thus face the east front of the Capitol and are the first images seen when one looks up from the east door of the

Rotunda. They also face Columbus, the Pilgrims, and de

Soto—those who discovered and settled the land to

which Washington’s leadership gave liberty by means of

victories such as those he and his generals won over Burgoyne and Cornwallis, above which—along with the first

victory of Christian love over “heathen savagery”—they

are directly situated.

Next, Ceres, the goddess of agriculture (G) (see fig.

9–17), is seen riding on a reaper filled with grain and attended by Young America wearing a liberty cap. She is

holding a cornucopia, the traditional symbol of plenty,

which is crowned by a pineapple—a rare and exotic fruit at

the time. Ceres’s retinue is completed by Flora, the goddess of fertility and flowers, picking blossoms in the foreground, and Pomona, the goddess of fruit, carrying in the

background a basket overflowing with the earth’s abundance. An image of Vulcan, god of the forge (H) (see fig.

9–18), dominates the following scene. His foot is set

firmly on a cannon, and a steam engine is in the background. His pose and activity signify the peaceful intentions and modernity of American industry. 

Both Ceres and Vulcan face south from the north surface, to the region of daily enterprise and growth, where

Pocahontas, Daniel Boone, and the Declaration of Independence symbolize the planting of spiritual and political

seeds and the forging of territory-spanning industry. Similarly, both preside over the sowing of democracy inherent in Washington’s resigning his commission and in the

Pilgrims who first tamed the wilderness, which was soon

to be conquered nationally.

To the east reigns Mercury, the trickster god of opposites

and of commerce (C) (see fig. 9–19), who faces west, toward the conflicts of warfare and surrender. In his guise as

god of travelers, however, he presides above Columbus, the

Pilgrims, and de Soto — while holding over all the caduceus, symbol of healing and peaceful interactions. In this

respect, he is surrounded by the heaving and hauling of

boxes and bales. Shipping is represented to the right by two

sailors with an anchor. One of the sailors gestures to an

ironclad boat in the background, which may refer to one of

the great naval achievements of the Civil War, the building

of the ironclad ships such as the Monitor. The god himself

deals with one of the bankers of the Revolution, Robert

Morris, to whom he offers a bag of money. Similar bags are

stashed at the foot of his dais. It is interesting and amusing

to note that Brumidi chose to identify himself with the god

of commerce by signing his masterpiece (the inscription

reads “C. Brumidi/1865”) on the box next to these.

Neptune and Venus are shown together (D) (see fig.

9–20) in one of the most beautifully designed groupings

148
the Capitol. Brumidi himself would be sporadically employed there for the next decade. But at the end of that

time the great frieze remained blank.

In 1876 Brumidi petitioned Congress to be allowed to

finish the overall Rotunda program, and he was eventually permitted to begin the cartoons for his frieze in

1877. He began painting the fresco in 1878 but died in

1880 before he finished it. Filippo Costaggini was selected to complete the frieze following Brumidi’s designs.

But miscalculations in the projected dimensions left, from

about 1895 until 1953, a 31-foot length of wall unpainted.10 This was eventually filled by the academic muralist Allyn Cox. His somewhat anachronistic contribution honorably fills the gap, and the stylistic tensions

between the three artists are noticeable only to art historians with binoculars (see foldout following chapter 11).

Today it is difficult to understand clearly how Brumidi

might have intended to integrate the frieze into his overall

symbolic program. There are two reasons for this. First

and most obvious is that Brumidi’s surviving sketch for

the frieze (fig. 10–10) may not be complete and was made

in 1859, twenty years before he began to paint. Second, it

is plain that the selection of historical events to be shown

in the frieze was not the work of the artist alone.

Concerning this last point, surviving documents indicate that both Meigs and the great histor y painter

Emanuel Leutze contributed to the selection of subjects.

In his 1855 report Meigs described his conception of the

frieze as follows:

The gradual progress of the continent from the

depths of barbarism to the heights of civilization; the

rude and barbarous civilization of some of the AnteColumbian tribes; the contests of the Aztecs with

their less civilized predecessors; their own conquest

by the Spanish race; the wilder state of the hunter

tribes of our own regions; the discovery, settlement,

wars, treaties; the gradual advance of the white, and

retreat of the red races, our own revolutionary and

other struggles, with the illustration of the higher

achievements of our present civilization. . . . 11

In a letter to Meigs dated February 8, 1857, Leutze

elaborated his scheme for a mural series throughout the

Capitol, including a chronological sequence of events.12

While Meigs rejected this grandiose conception as impractical, he must have been intrigued by the thematic information Leutze had provided, and it is plausible to assume that he discussed his ideas with Brumidi and many

other historically aware individuals around the Capitol

and in Washington.

In his letter Leutze listed eight divisions for a chronology: discovery, causes of emigration, emigrants, condition

of the settlers, revolution, battles (through the War of

in the dome. The bearded god of the oceans rides his

horse-drawn chariot of shells and holds the trident, while

his attendants hold aloft the transatlantic cable—the communications revolution of the day—which the sea gods

happily receive into their realm. Venus, draped in a blue

robe, is born from the sea next to Neptune, and is attended by a putto riding a dolphin. 

These sea deities, along with Minerva (E) (see fig. 9–21),

are on the south surface and face into the region of northern

darkness and mystery, where the Pilgrims, Penn, and Washington stand for the heroism and self-sacrifice needed to

overcome an untamed continent and the temptations of political power. Below the water gods Neptune and Venus are

to be found de Soto, the discoverer of a great river, and Pocahontas, the first Indian to receive the waters of baptism.

Minerva (E), the goddess of wisdom, is shown surrounded to the left by educators teaching children and to

the right by famous scientists such as Benjamin Franklin,

Samuel F. B. Morse, and Robert Fulton. She gestures to

one of Franklin’s electrical experiments with Leyden jars,

the precursor of Morse’s magnetic telegraph, which ultimately prompted the laying of the transatlantic cable, allegorically depicted in the contiguous scene. Symbolically,

she is situated directly over the signing of the Declaration

of Independence, whose wisdom engendered liberty and

progress in the land.

There is thus sufficient circumstantial evidence in the

symbolic relationships just described between the gods in

the dome and the historical murals and reliefs below to

support the argument that Brumidi was thinking in terms

of a comprehensive program for the Rotunda in the manner of the many European counterparts he would have

known, and similar to the carefully integrated programs

he had already developed in the Capitol’s various committee rooms. On this basis, one can presume that his design for the frieze was intended to be similarly integrated

into his overall conception.

The Frieze of American History

As the second element of the Rotunda program, Walter

and Meigs had envisioned a sculptured frieze comparable

to the famous one on the Athenian Parthenon (see fig.

10–6), but the lack of a suitable sculptor after the death

in 1857 of Thomas Crawford, whom Meigs had selected

as the sculptor of the Statue of Freedom and of the frieze,

as well as cost considerations, forced him to abandon the

idea in about 1859. Brumidi conceived a painted frieze of

illusionistic sculpture showing historical scenes with an

impressive array of life-size figures in sepia grisaille fresco.

The completion of the dome and the end of the Civil War

brought to a near end Meigs’s ambitious art program for

149

SYMBOLISM IN THE ROTUNDA
150

Fig. 10–10. Photo composite of Brumidi’s sketch for the

frieze, 1859. Two scenes cut out by Brumidi are reinserted here.

Architect of the Capitol.

Composite Photograph 

of Brumidi’s Original Sketch for the Rotunda Frieze

Reconstructed by Francis V. O’Connor

(Numbers correspond to those for Frieze in figs. 10–8 and 10–9.)

1 America and History 2 Landing of Columbus 3 Cortez and Montezuma at Mexican Temple

6 Indians Hunting Buffalo 7 [missing] 8 Cap Smith and Pocahontas

11 Colonization of New England 12 Ogelethorpe and muscogee chief

15 Surrender of Cornwallis 16 Lewis and Clarke 17 Decatur at Tripoli 18 Col Johnson & Tecumseh
151

SYMBOLISM IN THE ROTUNDA

13 Lexington insurrection 14 Declaration of the Independence

19 The American Army going in the City of Mexico 20 A laborer in the employ of Cap Sutter

9 Landing of the Pilgrims 10 Settlement of Pennsylvania

4 Pizzarro going to Peru 5 De Soto’s burial in the Mississipi River
1812), emigration to the West, and Texas and Mexico.

He then made an important distinction between a historical anecdote and an event, stressing that only the latter

has a consequence and is therefore significant. He noted

that the paintings of Weir and Chapman in the Rotunda

depicted anecdotes, since the Pilgrims’ embarkation (as

opposed to their landing) and the baptism of Pocahontas

had no consequence per se. While he did not like Trumbull’s Declaration of Independence, he thought it important as “a true illustration of an event.” In the next sentence, however, he stated, “I wish he had painted the

reading of the Declaration from the window of the Phila.

St. House.” This comment would not in itself be of much

interest, if it were not that Brumidi actually did include

this unusual subject in his sketch for the frieze. And this,

along with the fact that nine of the nineteen known

events Brumidi planned to depict are mentioned in

Leutze’s list, strongly suggest that Meigs showed this letter to Brumidi.

An analysis of the sketch for the frieze and a reconstruction of its fragments to form a complete number sequence

reveal what was apparently Brumidi’s original sequence of

twenty events.13 The table to the left keys these, with the

numbers and titles of the scenes as Brumidi inscribed

them, to the diagrams in figures 10–8 and 10–9.

While this reconstruction of Brumidi’s original frieze

provides a plausible picture of his original intentions, it is

difficult to integrate into the overall iconography of the

Rotunda. Unlike his sketches for the canopy, which, as we

have seen, display a clear development, this sketch did not

go through such a process. Nevertheless, it is possible to

discern some general patterns of relationship between the

sketch and the rest of the art in the Rotunda. 

In general the scenes to the west (1 through 6 and 16

through 20), over the Trumbulls and beneath the goddesses in the dome, represent images of war, conquest, rebellion, and death. Those to the east (8 through 15), over

the later historical murals and beneath the gods, represent

(though not consistently) images of peace, progress, and

enlightenment. More specifically, one can find conceptual

if not precise symbolic relationships between events in the

frieze and the murals and reliefs below.

Thus, on the west, the flanking scenes of Columbus and

the 1848 Gold Rush (1 and 20) are events very much oriented to the literal West, the former having gone west to

find the Indies of the east, the prospectors having done so

to find gold in California. Similarly, the next contiguous

scenes both relate to Mexico, and are “western” if the geographic relationship to the first colonies is considered. On

the north, in the original of Brumidi’s sketches, Plains Indians would have hunted buffalo (6) over the relief of

Penn’s treaty with the forest Indians ●3 —the Native Americans being a source of infinite mystery and danger for the

152

Brumidi’s Sequence for the Frieze of

American History

Note: Numbers and titles (with Brumidi’s spelling) of

missing sections, as well as additional wording for unclear

or incomplete titles, are supplied in brackets. The letters

M and L indicate the dozen events Meigs and Leutze may

have suggested to the artist.

Key Inscribed Inscribed Date of

Number Number Title Event Source

1 [none] America and History

[An Allegory]

2 [none] Landing of Columbus 1492 L

3 2 Cortez and Montezuma 1521 M

at Mexican Temple

4 3 Pizzarro going to Peru 1533 M

5 4 De Soto’s burial in the 1542 L

Mississipi River

Here the sketch is missing scenes 5 and 6. A tipi’s tent peg

can be seen in the lower right corner of Brumidi’s scene 4,

thus clearly placing the Indian scene following. Since the

scene with Captain Smith and Pocahontas is numbered 7 in

the sketch, a sixth scene is apparently missing.

6 5 [Indians Hunting Buffalo] M

7 [6] [Missing from sketch]

8 7 Cap Smith and Pocahontas 1606

9 8 Landing of the Pilgrims 1620 L

10 9 Settlement of Pennsylvania 1682

[by William Penn’s 

Treaty with the Indians]

11 10 Colonization of N England 1620

12 11 Oglethorpe and muscogee 1732

chief

13 12 Lexington insurrection 1775

14 13 Declaration of the 1776 L

Independence

15 14 Surrender of Cornwallis 1781 L

There is a gap between scenes 14 and 16 in the sketch;

the Lewis and Clark scene fits here chronologically and

numerically.

16 [15] Lewis and Clarke 1804–6 L

[Attacked by a Bear]

17 16 Decatur at Tripoli 1804 L

18 17 Col Johnson & Tecumseh 1813

19 18 The American army going 1847 L

in the City of Mexico

20 [none] A laborer in the employ of 1848

Cap Sutter [during 

California Gold Rush]
feet below or across the 96.7-foot width of the Rotunda

by those climbing to the dome. His brushwork was therefore quite free—just enough detail to be visually legible

but not enough to obscure the forms with busy work. 

Brumidi was not only an artist who could see the whole

situation of a wall and paint it accordingly; he was also an

aging master of his craft for whom the essence of a form

was more important than any detail, something his successor, Costaggini, had not mastered. 

Moreover, the reconstruction indicates that Brumidi’s

original conception of the frieze attempted to create a

formal as well as an iconographic unity with its environment. It would appear that he was trying to arrange the

sequence of events so that those with a predominantly

horizontal composition, such as the burial of de Soto (5)

(fig. 10–11), would fall over the north and south doors,

while those with a dominant triangular structure, such as

the allegory of America and History (1) and the colonization of New England (11) would crown the east and west

doors. When he discovered that the panels were falling

out shorter than he had intended, he seems to have experimented with new scenes, such as that of Lewis and

Clark (16) (fig. 10–12).14 This arrangement would have

subtly distinguished the front and back from the sides of

the confusingly circular Rotunda, broken the relentless

verticality of the rest of the scenes, and given a pleasing

rhythm to the whole design. 

Brumidi’s death prevented this aesthetic unity from

being realized. But it is justifiable to read his inscription

in the canopy fresco—“from the many, one”—as pertaining to his artistic ambitions in this great chamber as much

as it may have expressed the political sentiments and goals

of his patrons. That his grand design for the Rotunda was

colonists, and thus placed appropriately (for the time’s

thinking) to the lightless direction. Similarly, on the south,

Lewis and Clark (16) would have been seen over their illustrious predecessor Daniel Boone ●7. On the east the colonization of New England (11) would have been over the

landing of the Pilgrims ●5, and all the flanking scenes depict

events that took place “to the east” geographically. 

Curious discrepancies and duplications of imagery, not

to mention historical gaps, remain. The most obvious is

the omission of any events between the start of the War

of 1812 and the conquest of Mexico in 1847. Perhaps,

from the point of view of Brumidi’s patrons, there was

nothing much to idealize from the burning of Washington, through the Age of Jackson, to the years tense with

dispute over slavery. The fresh conquest of Mexico and

the thrilling discovery of gold which laid claim to the last

continental frontier were perhaps felt more suitable for

depiction. And when the aged artist finally began to paint

his frieze well after the Civil War, there was no one about

who cared much to help with an updating, and he may

well have forgotten or put aside his original intentions, in

order to get something of his conception in place.

It is interesting to compare the canopy fresco with the

frieze. The canopy was painted with great attention to detail because he knew it would be seen at close range from

the balcony around the eye of the dome as well as from

below. He was thus careful to create there a series of striking silhouettes against the sun-filled aura, so the detailed

images can also be read from a distance. The frieze, however, would be seen only from afar—either from 60 or so

153

SYMBOLISM IN THE ROTUNDA

Fig. 10–11. “De Soto’s Burial in the Mississippi River.”

Brumidi apparently planned to have the more horizontal compositions over doorways to relate the frieze to its architectural setting.

Architect of the Capitol.
154

Fig. 10–12. “Lewis and Clark.” This scene was at some 

point cut out of the scroll of sketches for the frieze. Architect of 

the Capitol.

left incomplete and is now obscured by the works of others does not subtract from the genius that made the attempt to bring a sense of aesthetic and symbolic unity to

this central space of our national Union.

Author’s Acknowledgment

I want to thank the U.S. Capitol Historical Society and

Dr. Barbara Wolanin, Curator for the Architect of the

Capitol, for the 1987 fellowship which enabled me to use

the Records of the Architect of the Capitol (hereafter

AOC) and to study Brumidi’s murals—many from the

scaffold of Bernard Rabin, who has crowned his career as a

restorer by bringing Brumidi’s great walls back to life.

The material in this essay is excerpted from my book in

progress, The Mural in America: A Histor y of Wall

Painting from Native American Times to Postmodernism,

and, where not specifically documented, is taken from

Charles E. Fairman, Art and Artists of the Capitol of the

United States of America (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1927); The Architect of the Capitol, Art in the United States Capitol (Washington, D.C.:

Government Printing Office, 1976); and Myrtle Cheney

Murdock, Constantino Brumidi: Michelangelo of the

United States Capitol (Washington, D.C.: Monumental

Press, 1950).

Notes to Chapter 10

1. It is unclear whether the dome itself was completed in defiance of

the Confederacy or because the contractors faced a substantial loss if the

vast quantity of cast-iron dome elements already delivered to the Capitol grounds were not put into place. William Allen, Architectural Historian for the Architect of the Capitol, believes that the latter was the case,

and that President Lincoln simply made political hay out of economic

necessity (unpublished lecture, March 16, 1990) (see chapter 4). There

is also evidence that the canopy was painted with similar practicalities in

mind, since it had to be executed while the scaffold used to erect the

dome was still in place. TUW to CB, August 18, 1862 and B. B. French

to secretary of the interior, May 4, 1863 AOC/LB. None of this, however, takes away from the patriotic sentiment that helped to inspire the

artist in his subject and the Union to victory.

2. There were certainly other muralists, but most of them worked for

decorating firms and few had opportunities for large-scale public commissions. One exception, notable because his work was known to Meigs, was

Nicola Monachesi (1795–1851), whose 1834 murals in the dome of the

Philadelphia Exchange are probably among the first true frescoes painted in

this country. See Agnes Addison Gilchrist, “The Philadelphia Exchange:

William Strickland, Architect,” in Historic Philadelphia from the Founding

until the Early Nineteenth Century (Philadelphia: American Philosophical

Society, 1953), pp. 86–95, and MCM to Gouverneur Kemble, April 24,

1854, AOC/LB, and Francis V. O’Connor, “A History of Painting in True

Fresco in the United States: 1825 to 1845,” in Fresco: A Contemporary Perspective (New York: Snug Harbor Cultural Center, [1994]), pp. 3–10.

3. Brumidi presided over what can be called an atelier (see chapter

6), and there is some evidence that Meigs encouraged this. For instance,

John Durand understood from Meigs that Brumidi was willing to take

pupils in fresco. Durand to MCM, January 31, 1857, AOC/CO.
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SYMBOLISM IN THE ROTUNDA

The nature of the atelier was complex. Existing payroll records

(AOC/CO) would seem to suggest that it was flourishing between

1856, when Brumidi had established himself as the premier fresco

painter, and 1861, when Meigs’s departure and the onset of the Civil

War brought most artistic activity to a halt. During that time about

eighty people were employed at the Capitol. There were roughly fiftyfive “decorative” painters and twenty-five “fresco” painters, with occasional overlaps of responsibility. One gathers, however, from a number

of sources, most notably from a letter from Brumidi to Meigs, that

those engaged in fresco painting resented being assigned decorative

tasks, CB to MCM, December 10, 1858, AOC/CO. Within this atelier

Brumidi maintained pride of place, and his written communications

suggest he brooked no interference from his colleagues. 

4. See: Kent Ahrens, “Constantino Brumidi’s ‘Apotheosis of Washington’ in the Rotunda of the United States Capitol,” in Records of the

Columbia Historical Society of Washington, D.C., 1973–1974 (Washington, D.C.: Columbia Historical Society, 1976), pp. 187–208; see p. 196

for the dating. 

5. The author discovered this long-lost work, known in an 1866 copyright photograph, in a private collection in Honolulu during a research

trip in 1987. Given the closeness of its details to the finished mural, there

is a slight possibility that this sketch is not so much a modello as a ricordo,

in that it could have been painted after the dome was completed so that

the full design could be copyrighted. This is suggested by Brumidi’s letter

of September 8, 1862, to Thomas U. Walter, in which he submitted his

design for the dome. His description of the six allegories and the figure of

Washington fits the finished work in every detail except when he says that

the latter will be “surrounded by . . . figures of eminent men of the times

of Washington, which latter will be likenesses,” AOC/CO. More likely is

the possibility that at this time a now lost oil study still included other figures around Washington in the manner of that at the Athenaeum and that

the one in Honolulu is later and records Brumidi’s final conception, developed while working in the dome. 

6. Brumidi submitted the third sketch, or one very similar to it (see

note 5), to Walter three weeks after it was requested in the fall of 1862

(indicating he was well prepared for the request). It was later approved

by the secretary of the interior, and Congress appropriated the necessary

funds that winter. Brumidi was authorized to proceed with the preparatory work on March 11, 1863. Later that spring, however, a new secretary of the interior questioned the commission and stopped payments.

It was necessary to establish that a frescoed dome was included in Walter’s original plans, and it is possible that Brumidi added a sketch to

Walter’s rendering at this time to support that correct contention.

(While this is probably not the first doctored document in the U.S.

Government’s history, it could well be the first which involved a painting after the fact.)

7. In 1979 Curator for the Architect of the Capitol David Sellin, in

the process of restoration of the Rotunda canvases, switched the positions of Weir’s Embarkation of the Pilgrims (E) and Powell’s Discovery of

the Mississippi by De Soto (G). He did this to create a better aesthetic balance across the wall comparable to that of the four Trumbull paintings

opposite. (Verbal communication, March 16, 1990.) The switch destroyed the relationships Brumidi made between the history paintings,

his allegories in the canopy, and the historical scenes in the frieze. 

8. The four large paintings on revolutionary themes on the west were

commissioned from John Trumbull in 1817 and placed between 1819 and

1824. On the Trumbull paintings, see Irma B. Jaffe, John Trumbull: Patriot-Artist of the American Revolution (Boston: New York Graphic Society,

1975), and, on the later historical murals, Kent Ahrens, “Nineteenth Century History Painting and the United States Capitol,” pp. 191–222. Concerning the relationship of the historical murals to the environment of the

Rotunda, it should be remembered that the original dome of the Capitol,

designed by Charles Bulfinch, was modeled on that of the Roman Pantheon, and consisted of an interior hemisphere with an oculus made of a

collar of stone. This was surmounted by a somewhat more elongated and

quite ill-proportioned exterior dome constructed of copper-clad wood,

which the architect was required to erect against his wishes to make the profile of the building more prominent. Thus the interior of the Rotunda was

capped by a low dome, and the artists who painted the eight history paintings designed their works for a far more intimate space than exists today. 

9. For a discussion of the sculptures, see Vivien Green Fryd, “The

Italian Presence in the United States Capitol,” in Irma Jaffe, ed., The

Italian Presence in American Art, 1760–1860 (New York and Rome:

Fordham University Press and Istituto della enciclopedia Italiana,

1989), pp. 132–149.

10. When Filippo Costaggini completed Brumidi’s frieze from his

measured sketch in the late 1880s, there remained over 30 feet to go—a

gap usually attributed to Costaggini’s ambition to add a few scenes of his

own design. Recent careful measurements of the frieze during restoration

suggest another explanation, as Barbara Wolanin points out in chapter

11. This is most visible in the fact that the burial of de Soto is just to the

left of the north door, rather than directly over it, as the reconstructed

sketch would suggest was Brumidi’s original intention. This proportional

compression, which was continued by Costaggini, along with the fact

that the frieze is actually about 303.5 feet long, created the gap.

11. Report of the Architect of the Capitol, November 16, 1855, pp.

117–118.

12. Leutze to MCM, February 8, 1857, AOC/CO.

13. Brumidi’s 30-foot-long scroll sketch for the frieze was discovered in

a scroll of pasted-together sheets used by him and his successor, Costaggini. Two other fragments, depicting a tipi with Indians hunting buffalo,

and Lewis and Clark (fig. 10–10, numbers 6 and 16) can be shown to fit

into the sequence, and one panel is missing (fig.10–10, number 7). See the

composite views in figure 10–10 and frieze foldout to compare the frieze

as completed with Brumidi’s original intention for it. I want to thank Barbara Wolanin for first pointing out the tipi peg to the lower right of scene 5

(numbered 4 in the sketch), which placed the hunting scene following.

14. As can be seen in figure 10–10, scenes 1, 6, 11, and 16 would

have fallen respectively over the west, north, east, and south doors. Scene

1, “America and History,” has a decidedly triangular composition, as

does scene 11, “Colonization of New England.” The fifth, “De Soto’s

Burial in the Mississippi,” is a decidedly horizontal design. It can be conjectured that, when Brumidi discovered that the last would not reach the

area over the door, he experimented with the triangular tipi motif for

that position, balanced by the succeeding horizontal hunting scene. Similarly, at the sixteenth panel, Lewis and Clark, he seems to have tried reversing this sequence of design motifs, with the horizontal bear falling

over the door, flanked by the horse and rider to the left and the figures

around the boat to the right. Also, these two additions (numbers 6 and

16) appear to be drawn in a looser style than the rest of the scenes, and

that may indicate that they date from the late 1870s, well after the original sketch. These, along with the missing scene 7, were probably all

added in an attempt to correct the growing discrepancy in the length of

the frieze. (See, however, Barbara Wolanin, “Constantino Brumidi’s

Frescoes in the United States Capitol,” in Irma B. Jaffee, ed., The Italian

Presence in American Art: 1760–1860, pp. 153–155 and note 16, where

it is argued that these additions were discarded c. 1859.) It is unclear

when or why they were abandoned, but a possible reason is that Brumidi

or those advising him came to see that they represented what Leutze had

called “anecdotes,” rather than consequential historic events.