Capitoline Wolf
Capitoline Wolf | |
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The Capitoline Wolf (
The age and origin of the Capitoline Wolf are controversial. The statue was long thought to be an
The image of the she-wolf suckling Romulus and Remus is a symbol of Rome since ancient times, and one of the most recognizable icons of ancient mythology. are in various places around the world.
Description
The sculpture is somewhat larger than life-size, standing 75 cm (30 in) high and 114 cm (45 in) long. The wolf is depicted in a tense, watchful pose, with alert ears and glaring eyes, which are watching for danger. By contrast, the human twins – executed in a completely different style – are oblivious to their surroundings, absorbed by their suckling.[6]
Attribution and dating
The she-wolf from the legend of Romulus and Remus was regarded as a symbol of Rome from ancient times. Several ancient sources refer to statues depicting the wolf suckling the twins.
The Capitoline Wolf was widely assumed to be the very sculpture described by Cicero, due to the presence of damage to the sculpture's paw, which was believed to correspond to the lightning strike of 65 BC. The 18th-century German art historian
During the 19th century, a number of researchers questioned Winckelmann's dating of the bronze. August Emil Braun, the secretary of the Archaeological Institute of Rome, proposed in 1854 that the damage to the wolf's paw had been caused by an error during casting. Wilhelm Fröhner, the conservator of the Louvre, stated in 1878 that the style of the statue was attributable to the Carolingian art period rather than the Etruscan, and in 1885, Wilhelm von Bode also stated that he was of the view that the statue was most likely a medieval work. These views were largely disregarded, though, and had been forgotten by the 20th century.[11]
In 2006, Italian art historian Anna Maria Carruba and archaeologist Adriano La Regina contested the traditional dating of the wolf on the basis of an analysis of the casting technique. Carruba had been given the task of restoring the sculpture in 1997, enabling her to examine how it had been made. She observed that the statue had been cast in a single piece, using a variation of the lost-wax casting technique. This technique was not used in Classical antiquity; ancient Greek and Roman bronzes were typically constructed from multiple pieces, a method that facilitated high-quality castings, with less risk than would be involved in casting the entire sculpture at once. Single-piece casting was widely used in the Middle Ages to mould bronze items that needed a high level of rigidity, such as bells and cannons. Like Braun, Carruba argues that the damage to the wolf's paw resulted from an error in the moulding process. In addition, La Regina, former superintendent of Rome's archaeological heritage, argues that the sculpture's artistic style is more akin to Carolingian and Romanesque art than that of the ancient world.[11]
Radiocarbon and thermoluminescence dating were carried out at the University of Salento in February 2007 to resolve the question. The results revealed with an accuracy of 95.4% that the sculpture was crafted between the 11th and 12th centuries AD.[citation needed] A 2019 radiocarbon study based on organic residues in the casting cores recovered from the inner part of the statue claims to "firmly anchor the statue to the XI-XII centuries CE, in the Middle Ages."[12]
However, a recent study by John Osborne at the British School at Rome concluded that the radiocarbon and thermoluminescence dates were totally inconsistent. He pointed out that metal from which the wolf is made is of the Etruscan type, using copper from Sardinia, and that there is no sign of the adulteration common in medieval times. On the balance of probabilities, Osborne argues that the wolf should be considered Etruscan.[13][4]
History of the sculpture
When the sculpture was first erected is unclear, but a number of medieval references mention a "wolf" standing in the Pope's Lateran Palace. In the 10th-century Chronicon of Benedict of Soracte, the monk chronicler writes of the institution of a supreme court of justice "in the Lateran Palace, in the place called the Wolf, viz, the mother of the Romans." Trials and executions "at the Wolf" are recorded from time to time until 1438.[14]
The 12th-century English cleric
The present-day Capitoline Wolf could not have been the sculpture seen by Benedict and Gregorius, if its newly attributed age is accepted, though it could have been a replacement for an earlier (now lost) depiction of the Roman wolf. In December 1471,
Modern use and symbolism
The governments of Italy and the mayors of Rome donated
The Capitoline Wolf was used on both the
It was used as the logo for Artie Ripp's record label Family Productions, which in 1971 released Billy Joel's first album as a solo artist, Cold Spring Harbor. Due to contractual obligations, it continued to appear on numerous Joel albums even after he was subsequently signed to Columbia Records.[19]
The programme of conservation undertaken in the 1990s resulted in an exhibition devoted to the Lupa Capitolina and her iconography.[20]
Anthony Mann's 1964 epic film The Fall of the Roman Empire prominently features an enlarged replica prop of the Capitoline Wolf as a republican symbol at the back of the Senate House, where, historically, the altar and statue of Victory would have stood.[21]
The 1976 TV series I, Claudius also features the statue in its depiction of the interior of the Senate House.
In the 2009 film Agora, set in 5th-century Alexandria, the Capitoline Wolf—complete with the del Pollaiolo twins—can be seen in the prefect's palace. This is visible in the scene before Hypatia's capture, directly behind her character.
In Rick Riordan's
In the first episode of the American television programme The Addams Family, a mirror-image sculpture of the Capitoline Wolf is on display in the Addams's living room. It can be seen standing atop a table, just to the right of the main staircase.
The Boston Latin School uses an image on the cover of their agenda book as well as being the official school emblem.
The Capitoline Wolf is used in Romania and Moldova as a symbol of the Latin origin of its inhabitants and in some major cities there are replicas of the original statue given as a gift from Italy at the beginning of the 20th century.
The Capitoline Wolf is reimagined in
See also
- Capitoline Wolf statues in cities
Notes
- ^ (Lacus Curtius website) Rodolfo Lanciani, Ancient Rome in the Light of Recent Discoveries ch. X; Musei Capitolini website Archived 19 March 2007 at the Wayback Machine; Capitoline Museums:Exhibition "The Capitoline She-Wolf", June-October 2000 Archived 16 May 2006 at the Wayback Machine; Lupa Capitolina Elettronica A site devoted to the Capitoline Wolf (in progress)
- ^ "Sculpture" . The Oxford Encyclopedia of Classical Art and Architecture. Ed. John B. Hattendorf. Oxford University Press, 2007.
- Discovery Communications. Archived from the originalon 16 January 2013. Retrieved 10 May 2015.
- ^ ISBN 978-1-108-83458-2.
- ISBN 978-8871401485.
- ISBN 0-534-64095-8
- ^ Livy Ab Urbe Condita Book X ch.23
- ^ In Catilinam 3.19.
- Ficus Navia").
- ISBN 0-300-02641-2
- ^ a b c Adriano La Regina, "Roma, l'inganno della Lupa è "nata" nel Medioevo. La Repubblica. 17 November 2006
- S2CID 104414775.
- ^ Archived at Ghostarchive and the Wayback Machine: "Dating the Capitoline Wolf". YouTube.
- ISBN 0-405-08727-6
- ^ G. McN. Rushforth, "Magister Gregorius de Mirabilibus Urbis Romae: A New Description of Rome in the Twelfth Century", The Journal of Roman Studies 9 (1919, pp. 14–58), p. 28f. Magister Gregorius' description seems independent of the well-known topography Mirabilia Urbis Romae.
- ^ Lupa etiam quondam singulis mammis aquam abluendis manibus emittebat, sed nunc fractis pedibus a loco suo divulsa est
- ^ a b c Laskow, Sarah (16 October 2015). "Neither Rome, GA, Nor Rome, NY, Could Handle a Statue with Wolf Teats". Atlas Obscura. Retrieved 5 January 2018.
- ISBN 9781623760519. Retrieved 2013-05-04.
- ^ White, Timothy (September 4, 1980). "Billy Joel Is Angry". Rolling Stone. Archived from the original on June 12, 2018. Retrieved June 11, 2018.
- ^ Capitoline Museums: Exhibition "The Capitoline She-Wolf", June–October 2000 Archived 16 May 2006 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Allen M. Ward, "History, Ancient and Modern, in The Fall of the Roman Empire", in Martin M. Winkler (ed.), The Fall of the Roman Empire (Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009), pp. 51–88 [87–88].
References
- Lombardi, G. (2002). "A petrographic study of the casting core of the Lupa Capitolina". Archaeometry. 44 (4): 601ff. . (X-ray diffractometry, thermal analyses, chemistry and thin sections identify the casting site in the lower Tiber valley.)
Further reading
- Carcopino, J. (1925). La louve du capitole (in French). Paris: OL 16519753M. (This paper initiated modern research into the sculpture's history.)