1805/08 for Pius VII Chiaramonti (1800/23)
under the direction of Antonio Canova
(1757/1822) in the gallery (about 300 m - 985 feet - long) known as Corridore
della Libraria (Corridor of the Library) designed by Donato Bramante (1444/1514) to connect the Papal
Palace with the Belvedere Palace
“Restoration of the arches of Septimius
Severus and Constantine” (niche VI) by Luigi Durantini
(1791/1857)
“Purchase of medals for the museum by Pius
VII” (niche XII) is by the Berliner Karl Eggers
(1787/1863) who also painted in the Berlin Museum
Among other painters who painted lunettes there were Vincenzo
Ferreri (1762/1837), Giuseppe Caponeri and Giovanni Colombo
The exhibition of the statues is still the
original one with the statues densely packed in the long corridor, emphasizing
even more the significant amount of works
Between the Old Wing of the original
Chiaramonti Museum and the New Wing the works are about 1,000 in total
The
odd-numbered niches are on the left, the even ones on the right:
COMPARTMENT I
Alcestis is represented sacrificing her
life instead of her husband's. He should have died for having forgotten to make
a sacrifice to Diana. Eventually she was brought back to life as a reward for
her sacrifice
COMPARTMENT II
Hephaestus was the Greek god of fire and
Romans identified him with Vulcan
“Alkà menes was a Greek sculptor, a native of
Athens, or Lemnos, active in the second half of the fifth century BC, pupil and
rival of Phidias. Pausanias ascribes to Alkà menes the whole west pediment of
the temple of Zeus at Olympia, which is however in Severe style. They might be
his, therefore, only some of the angular figures, in Classical style. (...) He
has been credited with the Caryatids of the Erechtheum” (Enciclopedia Treccani)
COMPARTMENT IV
“Statue of Igea” I century AD from original of
the end of the fifth century BC for the head and from the third century BC for
the body
COMPARTMENT V
Antoninus Pius was born in Lanuvio from a
family of French origin (Nimes) and it seems to he had been an excellent
administrator of the empire
He had good relations with the Senate of
which he expanded the powers and with the Roman people especially after he
increased the donations of wheat and added oil and wine as well
He was called Pius for his devotion to
his adoptive father Hadrian
Edward Gibbon in the eighteenth century described his
reign in this way: “The moment in History during which the human condition
could enjoy the greatest happiness”
“He was a handsome man of great wit:
balanced and noble, he had a face that expressed unusual poise and
intelligence. (...) His appearance had a severe majesty. He was tall, and for
this reason, when he began to bend down to old age, he kept himself upright
tying his chest with strips of linden wood. Even when he was already advanced
in years, every morning, before the courtiers came to greet him, he used to eat
dry bread to keep fit. His voice was hoarse and coarse, but not at all
unpleasant” (Historia Augusta)
COMPARTMENT VII
Fragments of relief with the so-called “Aglauridi” of Hadrian's period from a
neo-Attic original, including the famous Gradiva (she who walks) made famous by the 1903
novel Gradiva. A Pompeian fantasy by Wilhelm Jensen and by the passion
of Sigmund Freud (1856/1939)
“Jensen tells of a young German
archaeologist, Norbert Hanold, who sees a relief in a museum in Rome and
becomes fascinated. After buying a cast of it that he would always bring with
him, he begins to dream: he imagines Gradiva advancing in the streets of
Pompeii and he follows her until she disappears into the night of the eruption
of AD 79. Awake, he decides to leave for Pompeii, where he will see a girl with
the features of the image etched into the marble and, with a happy surprise, he
will find out that it is a girl with whom he used to be a partner in games of
childhood and forgotten with time. It was Carl Jung who pointed out this novel
to Sigmund Freud, who examined the literary event as a psychiatric case. In his
essay 'Delusion and Dream in Jensen's Gradiva' (1906) Freud took inspiration
from the literary story to explain how external forces can bring to the surface
tensions hidden in psychological depths. These are expressed sometimes in the
form of delirium, as in the case of the protagonist, who lives an experience
between reality and imagination. In turn Freud, a collector of ancient art,
visited the Museum Chiaramonti (in a letter he wrote of his 'meeting' with
Gradiva) and he bought a plaster cast of the relief on display there, which he
hung to the wall of his studio near the famous sofa-bed, on which his patients
stretched” (Giuseppe Nicosia)
COMPARTMENT IX
Telephus was the son of Heracles and Auge,
the daughter of the king of Tegea in the Peloponnese, and he would become king
of Mysia in Turkey
COMPARTMENT X
Publius Nonius Zethus was a miller and
flour dealer as evidenced by the reliefs on the monument with craft objects
COMPARTMENT XI
COMPARTMENT XII
COMPARTMENT XIII
“Shepherd Ganymede with the Eagle” second
century AD from original of the early Hellenistic period. Ganymede was abducted
by Zeus, transformed on the occasion into an eagle
The god, seized with sudden homosexual
passion, took him to Olympus and made him his and the gods' butler
COMPARTMENT XIII
Inside a cave Mithras is sacrificing the
bull by order of the Sun in the upper left. The Moon in the upper right
guarantees the scenario in which cosmic sacrifice is underlined by the seven
stars and seven trees above the ceiling of the cave, allusions to the seven
planets
The dark spots are all that remain of the
original gilding. This figure of the Mithraic cult with a lion's head and two
pairs of wings symbolized the eternal time and the coils of the serpent alluded
to the cyclical alternation of stellar motions
COMPARTMENT XVI
The panther was part with Sileni,
Bacchantes and Satyrs of the triumphal procession which, according to the
various versions of the myth, accompanied Dionysus around the world
COMPARTMENT XIX
“Portrait of a Roman” second half of the first
century BC. It is a portrait of extraordinary and, perhaps, even overemphasized
realism
COMPARTMENT XX
“Statue of Athena” from an original by an
artist of Myron's circle in the fifth century BC
COMPARTMENT XXI
“He devoted much attention to detail and was
able to find a harmonious accord between the proportions of the body and
posture, giving a more natural dynamic to the figure, aimed to reproduce men
not as they were, but as they appeared to the eye, thereby affirming the
originality of the artistic vision. (...) Such special treatment of the hair, the
proportions of small heads compared to lean and slender bodies, with a
fundamental organic symmetry, with a refined sense of fine detail. Deep was the
influence he exerted on the art of Hellenism” (Enciclopedia Treccani)
COMPARTMENT XXXI
“Relief with the Three Graces” (Charites
for the Greek, mythical embodiments of Joy, Beauty and Grace) of the end of
the first century BC from original by Sokrates of about 470 BC which was in the
Propylaea of the Acropolis of Athens
It was found in 1769 in the area of the Hospital of St. John's Lateran
COMPARTMENT XXXII
Highlighting the strength of the subjected
prisoners was probably a not too subtle reference to the obvious greater force
of the Romans winners
COMPARTMENT XXXV
COMPARTMENT XXXVI
COMPARTMENT XXXVII
COMPARTMENT XL
This copy albeit with good working in the
drapery, pales in comparison to the irresistible beauty of the copy kept at the Centrale Montemartini
COMPARTMENT XLIII
COMPARTMENT XLVII
COMPARTMENT LVIII
“Winter” of the Antonine period (138/192).
Female figure lying in a river with fish and water birds captured by cupids
COMPARTMENT LIX
“Fall” also of the Antonine period. Female
figure with cupids harvesting
“Relief with meal preparation and dinner
over a stibadium” semicircular sofa which in late antiquity replaced the
triclinium for meals
