The Apennine Colossus ( it, Colosso Appenninico) is a stone statue, approximately 30 m high,
[Morgan, Luke (2015), p.12] in the estate of the
Villa Demidoff
The asterisk ( ), from Late Latin , from Ancient Greek , ''asteriskos'', "little star", is a typographical symbol. It is so called because it resembles a conventional image of a heraldic star.
Computer scientists and mathematicians often voc ...
in
Vaglia
Vaglia is a ''comune'' (municipality) in the Metropolitan City of Florence in the Italian region Tuscany, located about north of Florence
Florence ( ; it, Firenze ) is a city in Central Italy and the capital city of the Tuscany Regions of ...
,
Tuscany
Tuscany ( ; it, Toscana ) is a Regions of Italy, region in central Italy with an area of about and a population of about 3.8 million inhabitants. The regional capital is Florence (''Firenze'').
Tuscany is known for its landscapes, history, art ...
in Italy.
Giambologna
Giambologna (1529 – 13 August 1608), also known as Jean de Boulogne (French), Jehan Boulongne (Flemish) and Giovanni da Bologna (Italian), was the last significant Italian Renaissance sculptor, with a large workshop producing large and small ...
(
Flemish
Flemish (''Vlaams'') is a Low Franconian dialect cluster of the Dutch language. It is sometimes referred to as Flemish Dutch (), Belgian Dutch ( ), or Southern Dutch (). Flemish is native to Flanders, a historical region in northern Belgium; ...
sculptor Jean de Boulogne) created the colossal figure, a personification of the
Apennine mountains
The Apennines or Apennine Mountains (; grc-gre, links=no, Ἀπέννινα ὄρη or Ἀπέννινον ὄρος; la, Appenninus or – a singular with plural meaning;''Apenninus'' (Greek or ) has the form of an adjective, which wou ...
, in the late 1580s. It was constructed on the grounds of the
Villa di Pratolino
The Villa di Pratolino was a Renaissance patrician villa in Vaglia, Tuscany, Italy. It was mostly demolished in 1822. Its remains are now part of the Villa Demidoff, 12 km north of Florence, reached from the main road to Bologna.
History
Th ...
, a
Renaissance
The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history marking the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and covering the 15th and 16th centuries, characterized by an effort to revive and surpass ideas ...
villa that fell into disrepair and was replaced by the Villa Demidoff in the 1800s.
Description of the sculpture
The colossus is about high
[Morgan, Luke (2015), p.12] and is meant as a personification of the
Apennine Mountains
The Apennines or Apennine Mountains (; grc-gre, links=no, Ἀπέννινα ὄρη or Ἀπέννινον ὄρος; la, Appenninus or – a singular with plural meaning;''Apenninus'' (Greek or ) has the form of an adjective, which wou ...
.
It was the water source for the Pratolino,
its fountains and secret water plays. The colossus has the appearance of an elderly man crouched at the shore of a lake
and is surrounded by other sculptures depicting mythological themes from
Ovid
Pūblius Ovidius Nāsō (; 20 March 43 BC – 17/18 AD), known in English as Ovid ( ), was a Roman poet who lived during the reign of Augustus. He was a contemporary of the older Virgil and Horace, with whom he is often ranked as one of the th ...
's
Metamorphoses
The ''Metamorphoses'' ( la, Metamorphōsēs, from grc, μεταμορφώσεις: "Transformations") is a Latin narrative poem from 8 CE by the Roman poet Ovid. It is considered his ''magnum opus''. The poem chronicles the history of the wo ...
including
Pegasus
Pegasus ( grc-gre, Πήγασος, Pḗgasos; la, Pegasus, Pegasos) is one of the best known creatures in Greek mythology. He is a winged divine stallion usually depicted as pure white in color. He was sired by Poseidon, in his role as hor ...
,
Parnassus
Mount Parnassus (; el, Παρνασσός, ''Parnassós'') is a mountain range of central Greece that is and historically has been especially valuable to the Greek nation and the earlier Greek city-states for many reasons. In peace, it offers ...
or
Jupiter. It is presumed that Giambologna was inspired by the description of a mountain-like
Atlas
An atlas is a collection of maps; it is typically a bundle of maps of Earth or of a region of Earth.
Atlases have traditionally been bound into book form, but today many atlases are in multimedia formats. In addition to presenting geographic ...
in Ovid's Metamorphoses, when he designed the figure of Apennine.
Other sources cite the Atlas as described in the ''
Aeneid
The ''Aeneid'' ( ; la, Aenē̆is or ) is a Latin Epic poetry, epic poem, written by Virgil between 29 and 19 BC, that tells the legendary story of Aeneas, a Troy, Trojan who fled the Trojan_War#Sack_of_Troy, fall of Troy and travelled to ...
'' of the Roman poet
Virgil
Publius Vergilius Maro (; traditional dates 15 October 7021 September 19 BC), usually called Virgil or Vergil ( ) in English, was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He composed three of the most famous poems in Latin literature: t ...
as an inspiration. With his left hand in front of him, the Apennine seems to squeeze the head of a sea monster
through whose open mouth water emanates into the pond ahead of the statue.
The stone colossus is depicted naked, with
stalactite
A stalactite (, ; from the Greek 'stalaktos' ('dripping') via
''stalassein'' ('to drip') is a mineral formation that hangs from the ceiling of caves, hot springs, or man-made structures such as bridges and mines. Any material that is soluble an ...
s in the thick beard
and long hair to show the
metamorphosis
Metamorphosis is a biological process by which an animal physically develops including birth or hatching, involving a conspicuous and relatively abrupt change in the animal's body structure through cell growth and differentiation. Some inse ...
of man and mountain, blending his body with the surrounding nature, populated by aquatic vegetation.
The statue is described to originally have been emerging from its environment
like being alive. The giant was able to sweat and weep over a network of water pipes.
In the winter season,
icicle
An icicle is a spike of ice formed when water falling from an object freezes.
Formation and dynamics
Icicles can form during bright, sunny, but subfreezing weather, when ice or snow melted by sunlight or some other heat source (such as ...
s would cover his body.
The work was made of stone and plaster and appearing to be partially covered with moss and lichens.
Within the giant exist a series of chambers and caves on three levels.
In the ground floor of the colossus exists a cave containing an octagonal fountain dedicated to the Greek goddess
Thetys
Thetis (; grc-gre, Θέτις ), is a figure from Greek mythology with varying mythological roles. She mainly appears as a sea nymph, a goddess of water, or one of the 50 Nereids, daughters of the ancient sea god Nereus.
When described as ...
.
The Italian painter
Jacopo Ligozzi
Jacopo Ligozzi (1547–1627) was an Italian painter, illustrator, designer, and miniaturist. His art can be categorized as late-Renaissance and Mannerist styles.
Biography
Born in Verona, he was the son of the artist Giovanni Ermano Ligozzi ...
adorned the Grotto de Thetys with frescos of villages from the Mediterranean coast of Tuscany in 1586. In other chambers mining scenes based on the book ''
De re metallica'' by the mineralogist
Georgius Agricola
Georgius Agricola (; born Georg Pawer or Georg Bauer; 24 March 1494 – 21 November 1555) was a German Humanist scholar, mineralogist and metallurgist. Born in the small town of Glauchau, in the Electorate of Saxony of the Holy Roman Empir ...
were to be seen. In the giant's upper floor is a chamber big enough for a small orchestra and in the head a small chamber holds a fireplace out of which the smoke would escape through his nostrils.
The chamber in the head had slits in the ears and the eyes.
Francesco enjoyed fishing while sitting in the head chamber, throwing the
fishing line
A fishing line is a flexible, high-tensile cord used in angling to tether and pull in fish, in conjunction with at least one hook. Fishing lines are usually pulled by and stored in a reel, but can also be retrieved by hand, with a fixed attachm ...
through one of the eye slits.
At night the chamber was illuminated with torches, following which the eyes appeared to glow in the dark.
Initially, the back of the Colossus was protected by a structure resembling a cave, as seen on an etching by
Stefano della Bella
Stefano della Bella (17 May 1610 – 12 July 1664) was an Italian draughtsman and printmaker known for etchings of a great variety of subjects, including military and court scenes, landscapes, and lively genre scenes. He left 1052 prints, and sev ...
.
As Giambologna was an admirer of the Italian sculptor
Michaelangelo
Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni (; 6 March 1475 – 18 February 1564), known as Michelangelo (), was an Italian sculptor, painter, architect, and poet of the High Renaissance. Born in the Republic of Florence, his work was ins ...
the cave-like structure was also compared with Michelangelo's style of the
non-finito.
On top of it, there was a terrace.
The cave-resembling structure was demolished around 1690 by the sculptor
Giovan Battista Foggini
Giovanni Battista (Giambattista) Foggini (25 April 1652 – 12 April 1725) was an Italian sculptor active in Florence, renowned mainly for small bronze statuary.
Biography
Born in Florence, the young Foggini was sent to Rome by the Medici Gran ...
, who also built a statue of a dragon to adorn the back of the colossus.
The dragon was described to have been a fountain, but it is assumed the dragon's belly was transformed into a fireplace while the dragon's neck and head had the function of its chimney. In 1876, the Italian sculptor
Rinaldo Barbetti renovated the giant statue.
Location and ownership
The Pratolino is located about north of
Florence
Florence ( ; it, Firenze ) is a city in Central Italy and the capital city of the Tuscany region. It is the most populated city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants in 2016, and over 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area.Bilancio demografico an ...
at the foot of the Apennine mountain range. In it, there is a rectangular square called the Prato del Appennino, situated in front of the colossus.
After Francesco de' Medici's death in 1587 and that of his wife
Bianca Capello the next day, the villa and its surroundings fell into decay.
The Villa di Pratolino was demolished in 1822
and in 1872, the heirs of
Leopold II, Grand Duke of Tuscany
Leopold II( it, Leopoldo Giovanni Giuseppe Francesco Ferdinando Carlo, german: Leopold Johann Joseph Franz Ferdinand Karl, English: ''Leopold John Joseph Francis Ferdinand Charles''. (3 October 1797 – 29 January 1870) was Grand Duke of Tusc ...
, sold the estate
to the
Demidoff family who built their own villa on it.
In 1981, the Villa Demidoff was purchased by the
Province of Florence
The province of Florence ( it, provincia di Firenze) was a province in the northeast of Tuscany region of Italy. The city or ''comune'' of Florence was both the capital of the Province of Florence, and of the Region of Tuscany. It had an area of ...
and today the park and its giant are accessible to the public.
Gallery
File:Appeinine Colossus by Stefano Della Bella.png, Etching by Stefano Della Bella
Stefano della Bella (17 May 1610 – 12 July 1664) was an Italian draughtsman and printmaker known for etchings of a great variety of subjects, including military and court scenes, landscapes, and lively genre scenes. He left 1052 prints, and sev ...
File:Parco di pratolino, appennino del giambologna 11.JPG, Front of the Colossus of the Apennine
File:Parco di pratolino, appennino del giambologna 04 (2).JPG, The Apennine Colossus overseeing the pond
File:Italy from the Alps to Mount Etna (1877) (14773634911).jpg
File:Parco di pratolino, appennino del giambologna 10.JPG, Detail of the Colossus of the Apennine
File:Grotto of Thetys by Giovanni Guerra.png, Fountain of Thetys in the ground floor by Giovanni Guerra
Giovanni Guerra (1544–1618) was an Italian draughtsman and painter from Modena who worked in Rome, where he probably arrived in 1562, though he was not documented until 1583, when he frescoed three friezes of allegorical figures in the Palazzett ...
File:Parco di pratolino, appennino del giambologna, grotta superiore 02.JPG, Upper chamber within the statue
File:Parco di pratolino, appennino del giambologna, drago del foggini 02.JPG, Dragon at the back of the Colossus by Giovanni Battista Foggini
Giovanni Battista (Giambattista) Foggini (25 April 1652 – 12 April 1725) was an Italian sculptor active in Florence, renowned mainly for small bronze statuary.
Biography
Born in Florence, the young Foggini was sent to Rome by the Medici Gran ...
References
External links
*
{{Giambologna
Medici villas
History of Florence
Sculptures by Giambologna
Colossal statues
1580s sculptures