The Sculpture Museum - Catalog - Page 18
vincenzo foggini (active c. 1728–55), attributed to
4
Florence, mid-18th century
Menelaus with the Body of Patroclus
After the Antique
Bronze, with dark brown patina
51 cm (20 in.) high
32 cm (12½ in.) wide at base
27 cm (10½ in.) deep at base
fig. 1
Roman, Il Pasquino, erected
next to Piazza Navona, Rome,
by Cardinal Carafa in 1501
Vincenzo Foggini was the eldest son of the celebrated Baroque sculptor Giovanni
Battista Foggini, under whose guidance he was initiated to the art of sculpture.
Following in his father’s footsteps, Vincenzo became court sculptor to the Medici,
taking over the foundry at Borgo Pinti which had been passed down from the
time of Giambologna. During his career, Vincenzo executed many compositions
drawn from drawings and prototypes by his father. His most celebrated work is
the signed marble group of Samson and the Philistines of 1749, conserved in the
Victoria and Albert Museum, London.
This bronze is a fine eighteenth-century cast of a composition, titled Il Pasquino,
known primarily thanks to the ancient marble version – considered by some to
be the prime one – discovered in Rome and installed by Cardinal Carafa next
to Piazza Navona in 1501. This is one of three antique fragmentary versions of
this model, discovered during the course of the sixteenth century, and certainly
the most famous, albeit incomplete (fig. 1). The identification of the subject has
proved since its discovery difficult to ascertain. During the sixteenth century it
was first thought to represent Hercules defeating Geryon, and later on a wounded
Alexander the Great being held by one of his soldiers, but neither of these two
hypotheses reached wide consensus. The name ‘Il Pasquino’ derives from the fact
that the marble acquired by Cardinal Carafa used to be located, until 1501, next
to the house of a schoolmaster called Pasquino. For the Feast of St Mark on 25
April every year, it was traditional to attach erudite verses in Latin to this statue,
as a gesture to promote the study of human letters. With the passage of time, the
tradition changed and the theme of the poems attached to the sculpture gradually
shifted from erudite to satirical; for this reason members of the Church, including
Popes Leo X and Adrian VI, disapproved of St Mark’s feast day. Yet the Pasquino
certainly had its admirers, such as the famous sculptor Gian Lorenzo Bernini, who
once defined it as the finest piece of Antique sculpture in Rome (see Haskell and
Penny 1981, pp. 292).
Flaminio Vacca reported in 1594 that a second and more complete version of
the group had been found in the estate of Antonio Velli, near Porta Portese in
Rome, and in 1570 acquired by Cosimo I, Grand Duke of Tuscany. It was restored
half a century later by Lodovico Salvetti, on the basis of a model by Pietro Tacca.
Once completed the group represented the figure of a warrior holding the dying
