This marble sculpture depicting the divine Apollo, son of Jupiter and Leto (Latona), the twin brother of Diana, is a Roman copy from the II century of a statue which was initially made of bronze. The original is considered to be a work of Leochares and dates back to the IV century B.C. This copy was buried until the end of the XV century, when it was accidentally discovered near Anzio, on the premises of the villa of Emperor Nero, on the property of the then cardinal della Rovere. It was his personal property until he became Pope Julius II. Then it was transferred to the Vatican and placed in the Belvedere there (hence the description of Apollo). In time it became one of the most valuable objects of the Vatican Museums. Unfortunately the excavated statue lacked a right hand and fingers of the left hand, which caused its owners to commission the missing pieces, which at that time was rather typical and happened to most of the sculptures which were excavated (e.g. Laocoön Group). And while the left hand was fitted with a whole palm, in which Apollo is holding the remains of an (unpreserved) bow, the right hand was experimented on by the then  restorer, a student of Michelangelo himself, Giovanni Angelo di Montorsoli, making a cardinal mistake in doing so. He cut off the preserved right arm below the elbow with the aim of recreating the arm along with the hand, but he miscalculated in its length. Apollo’s hand, in the original form resting, it would seem on a tree branch (the purpose of which was to support the marble sculpture), was suspended in midair. In this situation the author of the reconstruction had to lift the branch a good several centimeters – and the inferior outcome can still be seen today. Fortunately there is a drawing from 1530 by Marcantonio Raimondi, representing the statue prior to supplementary works, which allows us to see what the original statue looked like.

The bow itself, which Apollo probably held in his left hand was not reconstructed and neither was the arrow – which he most likely held – in his other hand. With these attributes of the hunter he was presented when he was to be shown as a god of the hunt or of the Sun (life). However, Apollo was also the god of beauty, music, poetry, and numerous other “spiritual” fields – and in that embodiment he held a lyre. Here however, he seems to be captured at the moment when he draws the string of his bow in order to shoot a serpent, which mythology presents as the first deed of the young god. This serpent persecuted his mother Leto. Hit with an arrow, he escaped to Delphi, where he finally met his end, from another of Apollo’s arrows.

The moment the sculpture was discovered it aroused admiration and inspired artists. Surely, only a few people are aware of the fact that, people were familiar with it in the far north of Europe, of which an example is the figure of Adam on a beautiful painting of Albrecht Dürer entitled Adam and Eve. The greatest praise hymn in its honor came from under the paintbrush of another artist – the divine Michelangelo. When looking at the figure of the his Christ judging the living and the dead in the scene of The Last Judgement (the Sistine Chapel), do we not see the resemblance to Apollo? Yes, it was he who inspired the ingenious artist, doing something without precedence, giving Christ the features of a pagan god.

The sculpture achieved the pinnacle of its popularity at the end of the XVIII century, during the period of developing Classicism and later Romanticism. Artists copied it, writers and poets immortalized its timeless beauty in writing, while visitors from all over the world stood, staring at it for hours, to have their fill. Such an act of devotion, was also another statue inspired by this work – Perseus with the Head of Medusa by Antonio Canova, which is also located in the Vatican Belvedere, not far from Apollo. However, in the XX century the statue no longer evoked such emotions. In the 1920s the hand which was reconstructed during the Renaissance was even once again cut off, but surprisingly at the end of the previous century it was once again put back in its place. Today, it unequivocally testifies to the fact that the perception of art undergoes constant fluctuations and trends. Perhaps the impeccable beauty of Apollo seems rather bleak to us in face of the misfortunes which Europe suffered in the last century. And perhaps it was those very misfortunes that caused us to lose the innocence which allows to admire beauty for the sake of itself… .

Belvedere Apollo, white Tuscan marble, Ht: 224 cm, Musei Vaticani (Museo Pio-Clementino)