APOLLO BELVEDERE The Apollo Belvedere is a celebrated marble sculpture from Classical Antiquity. It was rediscovered in the late 15th century, during the Renaissance. From the mid-18th Century, it was considered the greatest ancient sculpture by ardent neoclassicists and for centuries epitomized ideals of aesthetic perfection for Europeans and westernized parts of the world. The sculpture depicts the Greek god Apollo, who has just overtaken the serpent Python, a monster recently ravaging the coast of Delphos. The arrow has just left his bow and the effort impressed on his musculature still lingers. The marble masterpiece is now located in the Vatican Museums, and is either an Hellenistic or a Roman copy of a lost bronze original made between 350—325 BC by the Greek sculptor Leochares. When discovered in 1489 it was installed in the Cortile Belvedere, the large courtyard that links the Pope’s Summerhouse to the Vatican Palace.
Measures: h. 80,71 in.
Material: Lost wax bronze casting replica
THE RAPE OF THE SABINES BY GIAMBOLOGNA The Rape of the Sabine Women is an episode in the legendary history of Rome in which the first generation of Roman men acquired wives for themselves from the neighboring Sabine families (in this context, rape means abduction—raptio—rather than its prevalent modern meaning of sexual violation). The sculpture by Giambologna (1579–1583) was reinterpreted as expressing this theme and it depicts three figures (a man lifting a woman into the air while a second man crouches) carved from a single block of white Carrara marble. This group is considered Giambologna's masterpiece and it is intended as a demonstration of the artist's high ability. True to mannerist densely-packed, intertwined figural compositions, the statue renders a dynamic panoply of emotions, in poses that offer multiple view points. The work is signed OPVS IOANNIS BOLONII FLANDRI MDLXXXII (Work from Johannes of Boulogne from Flanders, 1582). Francesco I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany asked for a public location of the group in the Loggia dei Lanzi in Piazza della Signoria in Florence, where it is still located nowadays. Measures: h. 86,61 in. Material: Hand carved white Carrara marble