The Capitoline 'Antinous' is a marble statue of a young nude male found at

Hadrian's Villa Hadrian's Villa ( it, Villa Adriana) is a UNESCO World Heritage Site comprising the ruins and archaeological remains of a large villa complex built c. AD 120 by Roman Emperor Hadrian at Tivoli outside Rome. The site is owned by the Republic of ...

, Tivoli, during the time when Conte Giuseppe Fede was undertaking the earliest concerted excavations there. It was bought before 1733 by Alessandro Cardinal Albani. To contemporaries it seemed to be the real attraction of his collection. The statue was bought by Pope Clement XII in 1733 and went on to form the nucleus of the

Capitoline Museums The Capitoline Museums (Italian: ''Musei Capitolini'') are a group of art and archaeological museums in Piazza del Campidoglio, on top of the Capitoline Hill in Rome, Italy. The historic seats of the museums are Palazzo dei Conservatori and Pala ...

, Rome, where it remains. The restored left leg and the left arm, with its unexpected rhetorical hand gesture, were provided by

Pietro Bracci Pietro Bracci (1700–1773) was an Italian sculptor working in the Late Baroque manner. Biography He was born in Rome and became a student of Giuseppe Bartolomeo Chiari and Camillo Rusconi. His most familiar works are the colossal ''Oceanus' ...

. In the 18th century it was considered to be one of the most beautiful Roman copies of a Greek statue in the world. It was then thought to represent

Hadrian Hadrian (; la, Caesar Trâiānus Hadriānus ; 24 January 76 – 10 July 138) was Roman emperor from 117 to 138. He was born in Italica (close to modern Santiponce in Spain), a Roman ''municipium'' founded by Italic settlers in Hispania B ...

's lover

Antinous Antinous, also called Antinoös, (; grc-gre, Ἀντίνοος; 27 November – before 30 October 130) was a Greek youth from Bithynia and a favourite and probable lover of the Roman emperor Hadrian. Following his premature death before his ...

owing to its fleshy face and physique and downturned look. It was part of the artistic loot taken to Paris under the terms of the

Treaty of Tolentino {{unreferenced, date=June 2018 The Treaty of Tolentino was a peace treaty between Revolutionary France and the Papal States, signed on 19 February 1797 and imposing terms of surrender on the Papal side. The signatories for France were the French Di ...

(1797) and remained in Paris 1800–15, when it was returned to Rome after the fall of Napoleon. In part due to its hair being unlike that in better-attested Antinous-types, which closely follow a very few iconographic models, it is now considered''E.g.'' in Wolfgang Helbig, ''Führer durch die öffentlichen Sammlungen klassischer Altertümen in Rom'' 1963-72, II:230f. to be a Roman Imperial era copy of an early 4th century BC Greek statue of

Hermes Hermes (; grc-gre, Ἑρμῆς) is an Olympian deity in ancient Greek religion and mythology. Hermes is considered the herald of the gods. He is also considered the protector of human heralds, travellers, thieves, merchants, and orato ...

. Such a change of identification was already underway before 1900, when

Augustus Hare Augustus John Cuthbert Hare (13 March 1834 – 22 January 1903) was an English writer and raconteur. Early life He was the youngest son of Francis George Hare of Herstmonceux, East Sussex, and Gresford, Flintshire, Wales, and nephew of ...

observed in his ''Walks in Rome'' that:

References

* Caroline Vout, ''Power and Eroticism in Imperial Rome''
page 80
Statues mistaken for Antinous

Roman copies of 4th-century BC Greek sculptures Marble sculptures in Italy Sculptures of men in Italy {{Italy-sculpture-stub

See also

References