The use of Britannia in political communication to symbolize political liberty out of its original background was forged in an Atlantic circulation context beginning in the second half of the 18th century. She was often in association with the “liberty cap”, following the classical model of female figures called upon to represent political virtues, revived by the scholarly tradition in the seventeenth century. Paul Revere, the American engraver and patriot, is credited with the first introduction of the “liberty cap” (modeled after the Roman pileus traditionally associated with the practice of freeing slaves) in the allegorical representation of the rebellion of the colonies in a plan for the construction of a memorial obelisk erected in Boston in 1766 in honor of the rebellion against the Stamp Act (1765). The cap appeared twice, both on the tip of a pole held by one by female figures representing the Goddess of Liberty.
Four years later, Revere himself designed the frontispiece that began featuring in the “Boston Gazette” from the first issue in January 1770. In this case, the female figure associated with the “liberty cap” was explicitly Britannia in her classic pose seated on a British shield (1606 version of the union jack) dating back to the seventeenth century, became more established in the first half of the eighteenth century through illustrations, medals, and coin. It was ultimately immortalized in an engraving by Francesco Bartolozzi, based on a design by Giovanni Battista Cipriani—a Florentine and one of the founders of the Royal Academy of Arts. Paul Revere’s combination of the Goddess of Liberty with Britannia might seem contradictory for a patriot supporting the colonies’ rebellion. However, it underscores how images and text were pliable for various political messages. Such a combination between 1780-90 was undermined in the fledgling United States of America by an original and youthful “Libertas Americana” in part due to the contribution of French artist Augustin Dupré, a collaborator of Benjamin Franklin who, with a commemorative medal of the Declaration of Independence forged in 1783, influenced the following coin production. In U.S. illustrations, this shift was symbolically represented by the transition of the cap from Britannia’s hands to America’s, marking a kind of symbolic dethroning.
Thanks in part to the iconographic transformations of the female allegory in revolutionary France, which led to its consecration as a symbol of liberty, its dissemination became possible even in the Italian peninsula from 1796 onward through coins, municipal seals, and engravings. Familiarization with the symbolic practices associated with the allegory of “Liberty” was such that it triggered appropriations. A noteworthy source for examining the reuse of the figurative elements of “Liberty” is found in the Carbonari seals. These seals serve as an intriguing study, illustrating the allegory’s success in its politicized form, even during the Restoration years. The Atlantic revolutions moved through Italian clandestine networks.