Athena Giustiniani
Encyclopedia
Parian marble
Parian marble is a fine-grained semitranslucent pure-white and entirely flawless marble quarried during the classical era on the Greek island of Paros in the Aegean Sea.It was highly prized by ancient Greeks for making sculptures...
Athena Giustiniani or Giustiniani Minerva is an Antonine Roman marble copy of a Greek sculpture of Pallas Athena, of the late fifth-early fourth century BCE.
The sculpture was probably a cult image
Cult image
In the practice of religion, a cult image is a human-made object that is venerated for the deity, spirit or daemon that it embodies or represents...
rather than a decorative culture trophy. The serpent at Athena's right foot recalls the archaic myth of Erichthonius
Erichthonius
Erichthonius may refer to:*Erichthonius of Athens*Erichthonius of Dardania...
in his serpent form. The forearms are restorations, as are the spear and the sphinx
Sphinx
A sphinx is a mythical creature with a lion's body and a human head or a cat head.The sphinx, in Greek tradition, has the haunches of a lion, the wings of a great bird, and the face of a woman. She is mythicised as treacherous and merciless...
upon the goddess's Corinthian helmet
Corinthian helmet
The Corinthian helmet originated in ancient Greece and took its name from the city-state of Corinth. It was a helmet made of bronze which in its later styles covered the entire head and neck, with slits for the eyes and mouth. A large curved projection protected the nape of the neck...
.
Discovery and reputation
It was discovered in the early 17th century, reputedly in the ruins of a ten-sided nymphaeumNymphaeum
A nymphaeum or nymphaion , in ancient Greece and Rome, was a monument consecrated to the nymphs, especially those of springs....
on the Esquiline Hill
Esquiline Hill
The Esquiline Hill is one of the celebrated Seven Hills of Rome. Its southern-most cusp is the Oppius .-Etymology:The origin of the name Esquilino is still under much debate. One view is that the Hill was named after the abundance of holm-oaks, exculi, that resided there...
which thus mistakenly identified as a "Temple of Minerva Medica
Temple of Minerva Medica (nymphaeum)
The nymphaeum called the Temple of Minerva Medica is a ruin of late Imperial Rome, between the via Labicana and Aurelian Walls and just inside the line of the Anio Vetus. Once part of the Horti Liciniani on the Esquiline Hill, it now faces the modern Via Giolitti...
" Pietro Santi Bartoli
Pietro Santi Bartoli
Pietro Santi Bartoli was an Italian engraver, draughtsman and painter.-Biography:Bartoli was born at Perugia....
, also in the 17th century, gave an alternative discovery site, in the Orto di Minerva adjacent to the church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva
Santa Maria sopra Minerva
The Basilica of Saint Mary Above Minerva is a titular minor basilica and one of the most important churches of the Roman Catholic Dominican order in Rome, Italy. The church, located in the Piazza della Minerva in the Campus Martius region, is considered the only Gothic church in Rome. It houses...
, which was widely thought to have been built over a temple of Minerva (dedicated by Pompey the Great in 62 BCE). On the basis of its quality, it was reputed well into the 19th century to be a copy of a statue by Pheidias, and was included among stucco casts representing Europe's great sculpture that formed part of the German pavilion at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition
Louisiana Purchase Exposition
The Louisiana Purchase Exposition, informally known as the Saint Louis World's Fair, was an international exposition held in St. Louis, Missouri, United States in 1904.- Background :...
, St. Louis, 1904.
The statue receives its name from having been in the collection of Vincenzo Giustiniani
Vincenzo Giustiniani
thumb|upright|Vincenzo Giustiniani in a portrait by [[Nicolas Régnier]] Marchese Vincenzo Giustiniani was an aristocratic Italian banker, art collector and intellectual of the late 16th and early 17th centuries, known today largely for the Giustiniani art collection, assembled at Palazzo...
, who in the beginning of the 17th century built the Roman Palazzo Giustiniani and formed the art collection luxuriously engraved and published as the Galleria Giustiniana, Rome, 1631. Apparently the sculpture was never copied during the time it was in the Giustiniani collection: Winckelmann
Johann Joachim Winckelmann
Johann Joachim Winckelmann was a German art historian and archaeologist. He was a pioneering Hellenist who first articulated the difference between Greek, Greco-Roman and Roman art...
never mentioned it, though the austere classical style it exhibits was first isolated and described by him. Towards the end of the century it had become an object of admiration especially among the British visitors: a custodian of the Giustiniani told Goethe
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was a German writer, pictorial artist, biologist, theoretical physicist, and polymath. He is considered the supreme genius of modern German literature. His works span the fields of poetry, drama, prose, philosophy, and science. His Faust has been called the greatest long...
that the restored hand was whiter than the rest of the work because the English had kissed it so often. A bust adapted from this "Minerva" (the similar Athena of Velletri
Athena of Velletri
The Athena of Velletri or Velletri Pallas is a type of classical marble statue of Athena, wearing a helmet.-Original:All statues of this type are 1st century Roman copies of a lost Greek bronze, possibly a bronze of c. 430 BC by Kresilas. The oval face and the sharpness of the eyebrow ridge, nose...
was a later discovery) appears as a tabletop accessory in more than a dozen of Pompeo Batoni
Pompeo Batoni
Pompeo Girolamo Batoni was an Italian painter whose style incorporated elements of the French Rococo, Bolognese classicism, and nascent Neoclassicism.-Biography:He was born in Lucca, the son of a goldsmith, Paolino Batoni...
's portraits of English visitors to Rome. When the French sculptor Claude Michel
Claude Michel
Claude Michel , known as Clodion, was a French sculptor in the Rococo style. He was born in Nancy. Here and probably in Lille he spent the earlier years of his life. In 1755 he came to Paris and entered the workshop of Lambert Sigisbert Adam, his maternal uncle, a clever sculptor...
, who adopted the Greek name "Clodion", was a pupil at the French Academy in Rome
French Academy in Rome
The French Academy in Rome is an Academy located in the Villa Medici, within the Villa Borghese, on the Pincio in Rome, Italy.-History:...
(1762–71), he made a refined and highly-finished terracotta Minerva that is a pastiche of several approved antiquities, notably the Minerve Giustiniani.
The Minerva Giustiniani as it was called, escaped the fate of the rest of the Giustiniani collection, which had been removed in 1807 during the Napoleonic occupation to Paris, where it was to some extent broken up. In 1815 all that remained of it, in particular about 170 paintings, was purchased by Frederick William III of Prussia
Frederick William III of Prussia
Frederick William III was king of Prussia from 1797 to 1840. He was in personal union the sovereign prince of the Principality of Neuchâtel .-Early life:...
and removed to Berlin, where it formed a portion of the royal museum.
The Minerva however had been bought by Lucien Bonaparte
Lucien Bonaparte
Lucien Bonaparte, Prince Français, 1st Prince of Canino and Musignano , born Luciano Buonaparte, was the third surviving son of Carlo Buonaparte and his wife Letizia Ramolino....
in 1805, and was installed in the grand hall of his Roman residence, the Palazzo Nunez. In 1817 he sold it to Pope Pius VII
Pope Pius VII
Pope Pius VII , born Barnaba Niccolò Maria Luigi Chiaramonti, was a monk, theologian and bishop, who reigned as Pope from 14 March 1800 to 20 August 1823.-Early life:...
who was commissioning the Braccio Nuovo of the Vatican Museums. When the Braccio Nuovo was opened in 1822, the sculpture was installed as it is today.
See also
- Athena of VelletriAthena of VelletriThe Athena of Velletri or Velletri Pallas is a type of classical marble statue of Athena, wearing a helmet.-Original:All statues of this type are 1st century Roman copies of a lost Greek bronze, possibly a bronze of c. 430 BC by Kresilas. The oval face and the sharpness of the eyebrow ridge, nose...
, a closely similar type. (An image is here.)