Roman Widow (Rossetti)

{{short description|Painting by Dante Gabriel Rossetti}}

{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}}

{{Infobox artwork

| title=Roman Widow

| painting_alignment =

| other_language_1 =

| other_title_1 = Dis Manibus

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| image = Dante Gabriel Rossetti - La viuda romana (Dîs Manibus).jpg

| image_size = 250px

| image_upright = 1

| alt =

| caption =

| artist=Dante Gabriel Rossetti

| catalogue =

| completion_date = 1874

| type= Oil paint on canvas

| material =

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| height_metric = 104.8

| width_metric = 93.3

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| metric_unit = cm

| imperial_unit = in

| city = Ponce, Puerto Rico

| museum = Museo de Arte de Ponce

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}}

Roman Widow or Dîs Manibus is an oil on canvas painting executed in 1874 by the English Pre-Raphaelite artist Dante Gabriel Rossetti. It is in the collection of the Museo de Arte de Ponce in Puerto Rico.

It depicts a young Roman widow, modelled by Alexa Wilding, sitting in a sepulchre by her late husband's cinerary urn, around which is wound her bridal girdle. She is dressed in classical mourning drapery and playing an elegy on two small harps, one with each hand. Pink roses, the flowers of Venus and symbolic of love, wreath both the harp and the urn.{{cite web|url=http://www.rossettiarchive.org/docs/s236.rap.html|title=Roman Widow|publisher=The Rossetti Archive|access-date= 19 February 2020}}

Rossetti's alternative title of Dîs Manibus refers to the prefix of the urn's inscription. A common epithet on Roman funerary monuments, often abbreviated to D M and meaning "to the Manes" or ghosts of the dead, it can be loosely translated as "to the memory of". The remainder of the text reads L. AELIO AQUINO - MARITO CARISSIMO - PAPIRIA GEMINA FECIT - AVE DOMINE VALE DOMINE which translates as L Aelio Aquino - Dearest Husband - Papiria Gemina made this [urn] - Hail Master Farewell Master.{{cite web|url=https://etinacademiaego.wordpress.com/2016/11/20/for-the-ghost-gods-invoking-the-dead-in-rossettis-roman-widow-dis-manibus-1874-prbday/|title='For the Ghost Gods': Invoking the Dead in Rossetti's Dis Manibus (The Roman Widow), 1874 #PRBDay|date=20 November 2016|publisher=Et In Academia Ego |access-date=19 February 2020}}

The painting with its theme of enduring love for the departed is contemporaneous with and similar in style and spirit to other Rossetti works such as A Sea-Spell and Veronica Veronese.