On the Laocoon...

It is difficult to imagine how a Humanist could envision an ancient sculpture only through the descriptions handed down by Pliny. But in a season when the ancient was a model for the present (and even for everyday’s life) those stories must have caused vivid dreams. And so rapt and thorough were those humanists in reading the Plinian pages that they were likely to have formed an accurate and faithful idea of many celebrated yet still unknown marbles.

When, in January 1506, the pointed forms of a monumental group started to appear near the Domus Aurea, Giuliano da Sangallo immediately recognized the signs of the very same Laocoon so highly praised by Pliny. Michelangelo, then in Rome, was hastily summoned, and treasured the discovery so much that soon after he gave to one of his nudes in the Tondo Doni the posture of the Trojan priest. It was the beginning of the fortune of an ancient sculpture that is still an emblem of pathos, strength, languor, poignant lyricism. Some fifteen years afterwards Baccio Bandinelli would start his imposing, majestic replica that now shines again along with the other restored sculptures: the ancient copy of the Farnese Hercules, that inspired innumerable modern artists as the model hero at rest, and the Wild Boar, one of the most famed marbles of the Medicean collection. The enterprise, that has renovated the whole head of the third gallery, has been generously supported by the Amici and Friends of the Uffizi Gallery.