The frieze is the work of Bertel Thorvaldsen (1768-1844), an internationally renowned Danish sculptor who rivaled Canova for the primacy in sculpture between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The work is known in several versions: the original, in stucco, is located in the Sala delle Dame at the Quirinal Palace and was created in June 1812 on the occasion of Napoleon's visit to Rome. However Bonaparte was forced to give up the trip, due to the disastrous Russian campaign, but he ordered a marble reproduction for the Pantheon in the French capital, which nevertheless never reached its destination. In 1818 the commission was taken over by the Marquis Giovan Battista Sommariva for his residence at Villa Carlotta in Tremezzo. The frieze is still in place, on the second floor of the Villa Carlotta Museum, and consists of thirty-three slabs, not all present in the plaster version of Pavia, as numerous portions of the frieze were irreparably damaged during transport from Rome, which took place in 1840. The subject represents the triumphal entry of Alexander the Great and his army into the city of Babylon, conquered by the Macedonians in the autumn of 331 BC. In the event depicted, two processions converge towards a single central point, led by the allegories of Peace and Victory. The characters immortalized here constitute a vast slice of life in the Babylon of that time. The scenographic layout of the frieze is influenced by the historical and cultural impact that the event had at that time and by the general climate of grandeur aroused by the sources of the classical Greek and Roman tradition. Rereading Thorvaldsen's frieze in the original context also allows us to bring out the symbolic meaning of the work: Napoleon is a new Alexander and Rome a new Babylon.