Soter Kosmoi
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Soter Kosmoi[1] from Richard Payne Knight's A Discourse on the Worship of Priapus (1786), Plate II, figure 3. It is described on page 61 of the book, as follows:
- "the celebrated bronze in the Vatican has the male organs of generation placed upon the head of a cock, the emblem of the sun, supported by the neck and shoulders of a man. In this composition they represent the generative power of the Eros(in Greek), the Osiris, Mithras, or Bacchus, whose centre is the sun, incarnate with man. By the inscription on the pedestal, the attribute this personified, is styled The Saviour of the World [Soter Kosmoi); a title always venerable, under whatever image it be represented."
The bust is known as the Albani bronze[2].
Malcolm Jones in The Secret Middle Ages calls these kind of sculptures priapi gallinacei.
A photo of the Albani bronze (or a very similar one) is found in Otto Augustus Wall's Sex and Sex Worship.
Sources agree that it is held at the Vatican treasury.
See also
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