Crouching Venus – eavesdropped on for the last two thousand years

When wandering the museum rooms of the Roman Palazzo Massimo we reach this place, we can be under the impression that we are surrounded by ancient gods and heroes, and each of them wants to attract our attention, stop us, and tell us their own story. We find ourselves among snow-white statues, which like actors play roles that only they are aware of. We can look at them from all sides, and admire their beautiful bodies and elegant gestures captured in stone. It is here that we will see the crouching Aphrodite as if surprised by our coming. Her face is only partially preserved. She is also miss...

Michelangelo’s Nude Christ – miraculously duplicated

Yes, miracles do happen, since that is what we can call the event that occurred over twenty years ago thanks to, two Italian art historians. In the sacristy of the Church of San Vincenzo Martire in the provincial town of Bassano Romano, seventy-two kilometers from Rome, they discovered something, which caused a veritable euphoria – a statue that had until then been considered the work of an unknown Baroque sculptor, turned out to be the forgotten work of Michelangelo.

The Holy Family with St. Elizabeth, the Young St. John the Baptist, and an Angel – a family meeting with an angel in the background

The married couple of Mary and Joseph lean over their son in pious adoration, Mary’s aunt – Elizabeth (also a young mother) – is kneeling, holding her son John, who in the future will be given the nickname “the Baptist” and at the same time gently embraces her tiny relative – Jesus. He, with one hand, blesses his distant cousin, and with the other carefully touches the dove, that John is handing to him. The group is accompanied by an angel standing in the background, however, the viewer's eye focuses on the crib found in the foreground. It aroused such admir...