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Course: Ancient Mediterranean + Europe > Unit 9
Lesson 8: Middle empire- The Pantheon
- The Pantheon
- Pantheon
- Bronze head from a statue of the Emperor Hadrian
- Hadrian's Villa, Tivoli: A virtual tour
- Hadrian, The imperial palace, Tivoli
- Maritime Theatre at Hadrian's Villa, Tivoli
- Rome's layered history: the Castel Sant'Angelo
- Pair of Centaurs Fighting Cats of Prey from Hadrian's Villa, Tivoli
- Hadrian, Building the wall
- Hadrian’s Wall
- Empire: Medea Sarcophagus
- Equestrian Sculpture of Marcus Aurelius
- Equestrian Sculpture of Marcus Aurelius
- Equestrian Sculpture of Marcus Aurelius
- The importance of the archaeological findspot: The Lullingstone Busts
- Julia Domna’s Portraits
- The Arch of Septimius Severus, portal to ancient Rome
- The Severan Tondo: Damnatio Memoriae in ancient Rome
- Damnatio memoriae—Roman sanctions against memory
- Baths of Caracalla
- Severan marble plan (Forma Urbis Romae)
- Ludovisi Battle Sarcophagus
- Ludovisi Battle Sarcophagus
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Equestrian Sculpture of Marcus Aurelius
Empire: Equestrian Sculpture of Marcus Aurelius, bronze, c. 173-76 C.E., (Capitoline Museums, Rome). The original location of the sculpture is unknown though it had been housed in the Lateran Palace since the 8th century until it was placed in the center of the Piazza del Campidoglio by Michelangelo in 1538. The original is now indoors for purposes of conservation. Marcus Aurelius ruled 161-180 C.E. Created by Beth Harris and Steven Zucker.
Want to join the conversation?
- Although moved indoors for preservation, the statue seems far less monumental and grand now that it is inside the museum, with a roof over its head and walls surrounding it, not to mention the modern nature of the building. This might be an interesting contrast, but I find it distracting. It indicates to me that WHERE a statue is placed is an extremely important consideration! Is it true that its original site is unknown?(14 votes)
- I may be wrong, but I believe a replica is now sitting in the original spot.(4 votes)
- How can these guys be sure who the statue is a portrayal of?(4 votes)
- Aurelius was a philosopher-king and wore a beard, I'm sure he is also depicted along with his name somewhere.(2 votes)
- When was it determined that the statue was Marcus Aurelius and not Constantine? Wasn't Marcus Aurelius a stoic? What did that mean?(3 votes)
- Marcus Aurelius was a stoic of the late stoic type. Usually that would mean depicting the world as it is without the bias of transient emotion. The over-sized Caesar on a small chubby horse may constitute a biased depiction and therefore untrue to stoicism. Marcus Aurelius was indeed so stoic that he wrote a book about stoicism.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stoicism(4 votes)
- I've always heard that there was another figure with this sculpture, possibly a bound barbarian enemy. Is there any truth to this or can we know?(4 votes)
- Do you think the contrast of the firey horse and the calm emperor have anything to do with his supposed belief in a stoic philosophy?(4 votes)
- Dr. Zucker and Dr. Harris said that the bronze was cast in pieces. Was this so that it could be hollow? Is it hollow? It would be extremely heavy if it was solid. Also, in the picture of it's previous location it looked perfectly fine without any corrosion to be seen. How recent was the corrosion that is shown in the picture of the current location. Thank you!(2 votes)
- The statue was cast following the "lost wax" technique - https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/ancient-art-civilizations/roman/middle-empire/a/equestrian-sculpture-of-marcus-aurelius. This technique results in a hollow bronze. Since this equestrian group is so large, its pieces would have been cast and then soldered together before installation in the original (now unknown) location where the statue was displayed. The original statue suffered major environmental damage - the original statue was moved indoors in 1981 and replaced by a hi-tech replica. Air pollution and acid rain were destroying the statue. In Rome today you can view the original in a magnificent new pavilion of the Capitoline Museums and see the replica of the original in the Campidoglio.(5 votes)
- When was this statue moved inside?(2 votes)
- Is he barefoot? It looks to me as if he is.(2 votes)
- I thought it looked like he was wearing high-heel boots. :)(1 vote)
- Who created this sculpture(1 vote)
- From the author:That information has been lost to time.(2 votes)
- It's said in the text that the original sculpture was moved indoors for conservation. How do conservators accurately make a copy of a statue this gargantuan? From what I've seen online the replica is quite close to the original.(1 vote)
Video transcript
SPEAKER 1: We're in
the Capitoline Museums in Rome, looking at the
equestrian sculpture of the emperor Marcus Aurelius. We're not exactly
sure of the date, but it's sometime
around 176 or 180 CE. SPEAKER 2: It's in a new
space, because it was suffering some conservation
problems and so had to be removed from
the Campidoglio, where Michelangelo had put it. SPEAKER 1: And actually,
that's an important point, because we don't know where
it originally was in Rome. SPEAKER 2: No. What's really important is that
this is the only equestrian sculpture of this size to
survive from antiquity. SPEAKER 1: And we know that
there had been dozens of them in Rome. SPEAKER 2: They were
created to celebrate the triumphal return
of an emperor. SPEAKER 1: There's
so much authority as a result of him on
horseback, clearly ruling. His left arm is lightly
holding the reins-- or would have been lightly
holding the reins of the horse. The right hand protrudes out. SPEAKER 2: Addressing
the troops, or addressing the
citizens of Rome. SPEAKER 1: There's a sense
of confidence in his posture and, of course, in the scale. SPEAKER 2: It is enormous. This survived because
it was thought to have represented
Constantine, the emperor who made Christianity legal
in the Roman Empire. And so this wasn't melted
down for its bronze the way that almost all other
equestrian sculptures were. SPEAKER 1: This could
have ended up as a cannon. That's right. SPEAKER 2: So we're
lucky it survived. And it had an enormous
influence in the Renaissance for artists, beginning with
Donatello and Leonardo da Vinci. And of course, also the
ability to cast something this size in bronze
had also been lost. SPEAKER 1: And it just shows how
accomplished the ancient Romans were, both in their
handling of the material, but also in the representation,
the real understanding of the body, of its musculature. SPEAKER 2: And of the anatomy
of the horse, striding forward. It's so animated and lifelike. SPEAKER 1: The folds of the neck
as his head pushes downward. SPEAKER 2: And the folds of the
drapery that Marcus Aurelius is wearing, how it comes down
and drapes over his leg and the back of the horse. SPEAKER 1: There's also
something really wonderfully momentary and also,
at the same time, I think, very timeless here. The horse is striding,
his arm is raised, but there's a wonderful
sense of balance. The horse is in motion. He's pulling to the right. SPEAKER 2: He had in
his left hand the reins, so there's a tension in
that he sort of seems to be pulling back. And the horse pulls its
head back a little bit. At the same time, the
right side of his body seems to be moving forward. SPEAKER 1: And
leaning to the right. SPEAKER 2: There's a kind
of animation throughout. SPEAKER 1: There's
also this unity between this incredibly powerful
animal and Marcus Aurelius. He's in full control
of the horse. And I think that
that's the point. SPEAKER 2: And even
kind of moving forward while pulling the
horse back slightly. SPEAKER 1: With his body. SPEAKER 2: Like he's
holding it back. SPEAKER 1: And you're right, his
left hand is holding the reins, but it's a light
touch even though he's in command of this
incredibly powerful animal. SPEAKER 2: Is it me or
does he seem a little too big for the horse? Do you know if this
was cast in one piece? SPEAKER 1: It would have been
cast in individual pieces. And then it would
have been assembled. And then the bronze
would have been worked so as to erase the seams. SPEAKER 2: And so this
commemorating of a great man and his great deeds
was an important idea in the Renaissance with
the flowering of humanism, this recognition of the
achievement of an individual, the representation of that
individual in a portrait. These were things that had
been lost in the Middle Ages. SPEAKER 1: This interest
in representation, both of his authority, of
his position in society, but also the ability to
render the body, and then the interest in rendering. All of those things come
together in the Renaissance again, having originally
come together, of course, in the classical world.