50 - Priest
November 25, 2004
Laocoön
Laocoön, priest of Apollo, and his two sons
sculpture by Agesander, Polydorus and Athanodorus (?)
Vatican Museum, Italy
"'O my poor people,
Men of Troy, what madness has come over you?
Can you believe the enemy truly gone?
A gift from the Danaans, and no ruse?
Is that Ulysses' way, as you have known him?
Achaeans must be hiding in this timber,
Or it was built to butt against our walls,
Peer over them into our houses, pelt
The city from the sky. Some crookedness
Is in this thing. Have no faith in the horse!
Whatever it is, even when Greeks bring gifts
I fear them, gifts and all.'"
(Virgil, The Aeneid, Book II, 59-70)
One of the major discoveries of the Italian Renaissance, this sculptural grouping was found in Rome in 1506 in the ruins of Titus' palace. It depicts an event in Vergil's Aeneid (Book 2). The Trojan priest Laocoön was strangled by sea snakes, sent by the gods who favored the Greeks, while he was sacrificing at the altar of Neptune. Because Laocoön had tried to warn the Trojan citizens of the danger of bringing in the wooden horse, he incurred the wrath of the gods.
G.A. Montorsoli, protege of Michelangelo, restored the sculpture 's missing right arm wrongly, instaed of a bend arm he replaced it with an outstretched one. The original arm was only found in 1906.
Laocoön by other artists (notice the difference in the right arm...)
painting by El Greco. Laocoön. c.1610. Oil on canvas. National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, USA.
drawing by Giovanni Antonio da Brescia 1506
Düsseldorf, Kunstmuseum
The Finding of the Laokoon 1773 by Hubert Robert (1733 - 1808)
Oil on canvas, 119 x 163 cm
Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond
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