Giacomo da Pietrasanta (active since 1452/d. about 1497) from a design by Donato Bramante (1444/1514) who built it as a square
courtyard with no portico. It was known as GIARDINO DEL BELVEDERE (Belvedere
Gardens)
It was converted into an octagon with the
addition of the portico in 1773 by Michelangelo
Simonetti (1724/87)
It was the first area of the Vatican, where
Pope Julius II in 1506 exhibited ancient statues including Laocoon found in the
same year. The huge Vatican Museums of today began then from this court
“Apollo Belvedere” Roman copy of the second century
AD from the bronze original maybe of the fourth century BC by Leochares, found
at the end of 1400s in the Villa of Nero
at Anzio and exhibited by Julius II Della Rovere (1503/13) in his garden at St.
Peter in Chains
Forearms and hands were added in 1532/33 by
Giovanni Angelo Montorsoli (about 1507/1563) a
follower of Michelangelo. They were taken off in 1924 and put back again in
1999
In the left hand Apollo holds the bow and
in the right hand used to have a sprig of laurel wrapped in bandages symbol of
his healing power
The image of the face was used as a badge
for the astronauts of Apollo 17 in 1972
“The statue of Apollo is the highest ideal
of all art works of antiquity which have escaped destruction” (Johann Joachim
Wickelmann)
“The great purity and nobility of the gods
is so personified through this arcane form of light, where even the unleashing
of vengeful force becomes an act without pain, an expression of beauty, a game
of style” (Andrea Pomella)
The head was added by a follower of
Michelangelo Buonarroti
“Laocoon” found in seven pieces on January 14,
1506 in the Domus Aurea, although the precise location is unknown
The noble of low rank Felice de Fredis fell
into a hole that had suddenly opened in his vineyard, and found the pieces that
were recovered in the days immediately after, in the presence of Michelangelo
and Giuliano da Sangallo, generating boundless admiration so that a reporter
wrote: All of Rome day and night runs to that home and there it seems like a
jubilee
The attribution and dating are still cause
for lively academic debate
It was executed, according to Pliny the
Elder, by the sculptor of Rhodes of the first century AD Agesander and his sons Athenodorus
and Polydorus
The three artists were also the authors of
the Group of Scylla in the Sperlonga Cave
According to some scholars this statue is a
copy of a Hellenistic original in bronze. According to Filippo Coarelli this is
the late-Hellenistic original
Pliny adds that it is a unicum (unique)
and, in fact, so far antique replicas are not known, unlike many other ancient
masterpieces
The sculpture represents the Trojan priest
Laocoon, who, as told by Virgil in the Aeneid, for trying to warn his
countrymen of the deception hidden in the wooden horse, a gift of the Greeks,
was sentenced to die by the wrath of Athena with his two children, victim of
snakes come from the sea
In another alternative version of the myth,
Laocoon, the priest of Apollo is killed by the god because he had broken his
marriage ban
In yet another version, the appearance of
snakes and the killing of Laocoon and one son (in the marble group actually the
son on the right seems to be able to escape), frightening Aeneas and his
soldiers, had the effect of saving them from the slaughter of the Trojans that
would happen in the following night and then, indirectly, ensure life and
future of Aeneas: Laocoon would then be the sacrificial victim for the future
founding of Rome
In 1532/33 the follower of Michelangelo,
Giovanni Angelo Montorsoli (about 1507/1563), completed it incorrectly with
terracotta arms that were remade exactly the same but in marble in the years
1725/27 by Agostino Cornacchini (1683/1740)
Montorsoli made arbitrarily the right arm
of Laoocon tense up, even if it seems that Michelangelo believed that the
original arm was bent
In 1960 the Laocoon was released from the
additions and completed with the original “Pollack Arm” from the name of the
merchant who had accidentally found it in 1906 in the Roman antiquities
circuit, and donated it
The right arm is then bent, in the position
that Michelangelo assumed was the original one when the group was found to be
free of the arm itself. Being part of the history of archeology did not save
the poor Pollack who was Jewish: he was taken in a Nazi roundup in Rome and
died in an extermination camp
In 1799 the Laocoon was stolen by the
French and put in a place of honor in the Louvre. It was returned in 1815
It had a huge impact on the visual culture
of the sixteen century and it was even reproduced in frescoes on exterior
façades of Roman houses: a particularly large reproduction in the Monti
district originated the name of Via dei Serpenti (Snakes Road)
“The plastic energy reveals a kind of a
refrained tragedy, a drama in the making suspended in a present of measured
anguish. The torment of the bodies afflicted by the terrible divine sanction
can be interpreted as a metaphor for the mocking pain to which the bearers of
truth are condemned” (Andrea Pomella)
On either side of the entrance of the Hall
of Animals, there are “Two mastiffs” of the third century AD from
originals of Pergamum art
“Hermes” formerly
known as the Belvedere Antinous, of the Hadrian's period from an
original of the fourth century BC by artists influenced by Praxiteles
It was discovered in 1543 near Castel
Sant'Angelo. Maybe Hermes is represented here as a conductor of souls to Hades,
so-called Psychopompos
“Group of happy Venus and Cupid” with head of a
Roman woman of the second half of the second century AD (maybe Faustina Minor,
wife of Marcus Aurelius or Crispina, wife of Commodus) and body copy of the
Aphrodite of Cnidus by Praxiteles (about 395/326 BC)
It was probably found near the Basilica S. Croce in Gerusalemme
Testified in 1550 in the villa of Julius
III Ciocchi Del Monte (1550/55), Villa Giulia, and moved here in 1776. It was
restored many times
The faces of Achilles and Penthesilea have
the features of the couple of dead who were buried there, according to a use
common in ancient Rome. The style of the work is typical of the first half of
the third century AD
The cupids are often associated with the
world of the dead, and in these reliefs they go hunting, playing, riding on
dolphins and carry garlands and shields
“Perseus” 1800
clearly inspired the Apollo Belvedere and the two boxers “Creugas” 1795/1801 and “Damosseno” 1795/1806 by the giant of
Neoclassicism Antonio Canova (1757/1822)
They were then the first works of a
contemporary artist to be exhibited in the Vatican Museums
The story of the two boxers is told by
Pausanias: during the Nemean games, having sustained the match more than
expected, the fighters agreed to hit each other by imposing a single hit at a
time
Creugas of Durres (Albania) was pierced by
the hand that Damosseno of Syracuse sank in his opponent's belly for the
hardness of his sharp nails. Removing his hand pulled out the entrails and
killed Creugas
The hits, however, were considered to be
technically two and Damosseno was disqualified. Poor Creugas was dedicated a
statue
“They belonged, due to the cruel nature of
the subject, as Hercules and Lichas, to the 'terribile' (frightful) series of
heroic neoclassicism, that, in the sublime representation of dramatic events,
allowed to explore, to the ends dictated by the respect of the classical
expression, exasperated nudes and faces loaded with tension” (Stefano
Grandesso)
On the right there is a Roman general
seated and crowned by Victory, on the sides there are scenes of military
triumph. The characters are strongly characterized and there is considerable
emotional involvement
They were found on the slopes of Oppian
Hill in 1693 and probably they used to decorate with other fragments now in the
Capitoline Museum a large public building by the end of the second century AD
This black granite is Egyptian and comes
from the quarries of Aswan near the area where the red porphyry was dug
Very restored and integrated by Francesco Antonio Franzoni (1734/1818), who gave it to
the Vatican Museums in 1789
Eight muses standing and one sitting with
the face of the bride in front of her husband also sitting down
The classic Bacchic procession is made of
satyrs, cupids and sileni as well as centaurs both male and female
The relief was probably inspired by the
name of the deceased, Diadumenos or athlete who wraps bandage around
his head, gesture immortalized by a famous bronze statue by Polykleitos of
about 420 BC
The writing ad pinum
and the pine tree carved in relief on the side perhaps refer to the cult of the
Magna Mater to whom the pine was sacred
