Horse Tamers
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
|
Related e |
|
Featured: |
The colossal pair of marble "Horse Tamers", often identified as Castor and Pollux, have stood since Antiquity near the site of the Baths of Constantine on the Quirinal Hill, Rome, too large to be buried or to be moved very far, though Napoleon's agents wanted to include them among the classical booty removed from Rome after the Treaty of Tolentino, 1797 (Haskell and Penny 1981 p 136). They are fourth-century Roman copies of Greek originals. They gave to the Quirinal its medieval name Monte Cavallo, which lingered into the nineteenth century. Their coarseness has been noted, while the vigor, notably that of the horses, has been admired. The Colossi of the Quirinal are the original exponents of this theme of dominating power, which has appealed to powerful patrons since the seventeenth century, from Marly-le-Roi to Saint Petersburg.
