Vase monumental de Lungotevere in Sassia - Palazzo Massimo alle Terme

The Torlonia Vase or Cesi-Albani-Torlonia Vase is a colossal and celebrated

neo-Attic Neo-Attic or Atticizing is a sculptural style, beginning in Hellenistic sculpture and vase-painting of the 2nd century BC and climaxing in Roman art of the 2nd century AD, copying, adapting or closely following the style shown in reliefs and stat ...

Roman white marble vase, tall, made in the 1st century BCE, which has passed through several prominent collections of

antiquities Antiquities are objects from antiquity, especially the civilizations of the Mediterranean: the Classical antiquity of Greece and Rome, Ancient Egypt and the other Ancient Near Eastern cultures. Artifacts from earlier periods such as the Meso ...

before coming into the possession of the Princes Torlonia in

Rome , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus (legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg , map_caption ...

. The vase is of calyx krater shape, with a high frieze carved with a Bacchic symposium and an everted rim, standing on a

gadroon Gadrooning is a decorative motif consisting of convex curves in a series. In furniture and other decorative arts, it is an ornamental carved band of tapered, curving and sometimes alternating concave and convex sections, usually diverging obliquel ...

ed base imitative of metalwork. It has three handles, joined to the body with bearded

satyr In Greek mythology, a satyr ( grc-gre, σάτυρος, sátyros, ), also known as a silenus or ''silenos'' ( grc-gre, σειληνός ), is a male nature spirit with ears and a tail resembling those of a horse, as well as a permanent, exa ...

s' masks. It stands on three lion's legs, and a triangular base, all provided for it in the 16th century. For centuries, until the discovery of the Tazza Albani, it was the largest in diameter of known antique vases. The whereabouts of the vase can be traced through the interest it incited in artists, starting in the 16th century, when the vase was drilled to serve as a garden fountain. The earliest visual documentation is a drawing by

Giuliano da Sangallo Giuliano da Sangallo (c. 1445 – 1516) was an Italian sculptor, architect and military engineer active during the Italian Renaissance. He is known primarily for being the favored architect of Lorenzo de' Medici, his patron. In this role, Giulia ...

in the Barberini Codex,

Vatican Library The Vatican Apostolic Library ( la, Bibliotheca Apostolica Vaticana, it, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana), more commonly known as the Vatican Library or informally as the Vat, is the library of the Holy See, located in Vatican City. Formally es ...

, made after 1488, which bears an inscription of its location, at Santa Cecilia in Trastevere, Rome.

Amico Aspertini Amico Aspertini, also called Amerigo Aspertini, was an Italian Renaissance painter and sculptor whose complex, eccentric, and eclectic style anticipates Mannerism. He is considered one of the leading exponents of the Bolognese School of paintin ...

also made a drawing of the vase, but giving a location ''a santo francesco in tristeuaro''. At any rate, by the time it was drawn by

Maarten van Heemskerck Maarten van Heemskerck or ''Marten Jacobsz Heemskerk van Veen'' (1 June 1498 - 1 October 1574) was a Dutch portrait and religious painter, who spent most of his career in Haarlem. He was a pupil of Jan van Scorel, and adopted his teacher's Ital ...

in the 1530s the vase had been erected in the garden of Cardinal

Paolo Emilio Cesi Paolo Emilio Cesi (1481–1537) was an Italian Roman Catholic cardinal."Paolo ...

, on the northern slope of the

Janiculum The Janiculum (; it, Gianicolo ), occasionally the Janiculan Hill, is a hill in western Rome, Italy. Although it is the second-tallest hill (the tallest being Monte Mario) in the contemporary city of Rome, the Janiculum does not figure among t ...

near

St Peter's Basilica The Papal Basilica of Saint Peter in the Vatican ( it, Basilica Papale di San Pietro in Vaticano), or simply Saint Peter's Basilica ( la, Basilica Sancti Petri), is a Church (building), church built in the Renaissance architecture, Renaissanc ...

. A statue of

Silenus In Greek mythology, Silenus (; grc, Σειληνός, Seilēnós, ) was a companion and tutor to the wine god Dionysus. He is typically older than the satyrs of the Dionysian retinue ('' thiasos''), and sometimes considerably older, in which ...

emptying water from a wineskin into the vase, which had been drilled for use as a fountain, was associated with it.

Ulisse Aldrovandi Ulisse Aldrovandi (11 September 1522 – 4 May 1605) was an Italian naturalist, the moving force behind Bologna's botanical garden, one of the first in Europe. Carl Linnaeus and the comte de Buffon reckoned him the father of natural history st ...

described it in a new, central position in the Cesi garden in 1550, with the Silenus standing inside the bowl of the vase; this revision was probably carried out for Cardinal Francesco Cesi. The Flemish artist Pieter Perret created an engraving of the Fountain with Silenus in the Garden of the Cesi Palace in 1581. Towards the end of the 16th century the contents of the Cesi garden began to be dispersed, and no further artistic record of the vase was made until the 18th century, when both the vase and the ''Silenus'' were purchased by

Alessandro Albani Alessandro Albani (15 October 1692 – 11 December 1779) was a Roman Catholic cardinal, but should be best remembered as a leading collector of antiquities, dealer and art patron in Rome. He supported the art historian, Johann Joachim Winckelmann ...

. Luca Leoncini suggests the possibility that the vase had been in the Palazzo del Drago 'alle Quattro Fontane, which Albani purchased from the heirs of Cardinal Camillo Massimi, with all its contents. In 1760 Albani moved it to his newly built

Villa Albani The Villa Albani (later Villa Albani-Torlonia) is a villa in Rome, built on the Via Salaria for Cardinal Alessandro Albani. It was built between 1747 and 1767 by the architect Carlo Marchionni in a project heavily influenced by otherssuch as G ...

, where the vase at first was a feature in the hall of the ''caffè'', then in the villa's Porticus Romae. There, in Cardinal Albani's much-visited collection, it provided a model for the

Piranesi Vase The Piranesi Vase or Boyd Vase is a reconstructed, colossal marble calyx krater from ancient Rome, on three legs and a triangular base, with a relief around the sides of the vase. It is 107 inches (2.71m) tall and 28 inches (0.71m) in diameter. T ...

, a pastiche composed of various antique fragments and modern elements created by

Giovanni Battista Piranesi Giovanni Battista (or Giambattista) Piranesi (; also known as simply Piranesi; 4 October 1720 – 9 November 1778) was an Italian Classical archaeologist, architect, and artist, famous for his etchings of Rome and of fictitious and atmospheric ...

. When the Albani collection was eventually inherited by the Castelbarco family, the vase was resited in the villa's casina. In 1869 Prince Alessandro Torlonia, having inherited the collection, moved the vase to his private museum, leaving the ''Silenus'' at the Villa Albani. A comparable neo-Attic marble vase was unearthed in fragmented condition near the Ospedale Santo Spirito, on the Lungotevere in Sassia, Rome, in 1929. It is conserved in the

Museo Nazionale Romano The National Roman Museum (Italian: ''Museo Nazionale Romano'') is a museum, with several branches in separate buildings throughout the city of Rome, Italy. It shows exhibits from the pre- and early history of Rome, with a focus on archaeological ...

.Leoncini 1991:100f

References

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External links

Plant Pots & Flower Pots
Satyrs Garden vases 1st-century BC Roman sculptures Hellenistic and Roman sculptural vases Hellenistic-style Roman sculptures

See also

References

External links