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The Capitoline Venus

3/27/2024

The number of sculptures I admire is endless. Here are a few more from Rome.

Above, The Capitoline Venus from Wikipedia Commons against a dark background. This is another of the great ancient sculptures often seen in reproduction in museums, stately homes and garden settings, one of many representations of the goddess Venus or Aphrodite, the ideal of beauty and love.

Capitoline Venus as it is displayed in the Capitoline Museum, Rome, in my photos from April, 2023.

Content of the text label accompanying the statue:
"The Capitoline Venus: The small octagonal room was built in the early 19th century to provide an evocative setting for one of the museum’s most famous sculptures.
The statue, slightly larger than life size, was found sometime between 1667 and 1670 near the basilica of San Vitale and given to the Capitoline Museums by Pope Benedict XIV in 1752.
The Goddess is nude, portrayed in a sensual but modest gesture, her arms attempting to hide the harmonious shapes of her body from the viewer’s sight. The objects at her feet, her nudity, and the arrangement of her hair indicate that she she is bathing. The statue is a variant of the Aphrodite sculpted by Praxiteles in the fourth century B.C. for the goddess’s shrine at Cnidus Turley
The number of know replicas and variants of this work attest to its success in the Roman world. The high value ascribed to this statue is borne out by the fact that it was discovered hidden in a walled up space, where its owner hoped to save it from some impending danger."
The statue is in Palazzo Nuovo on the Campidoglio. The Capitoline Venus was removed by Napoleon to Louvre and returned in 1816. About 50 copies exist, most in museums; more are found as garden sculptures.
Below, the Capitoline Museum Buildings on the piazza as designed by Michelangelo. Please click on the images for larger versions.

Above, bronze Equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius, Roman Emperor, created in 1981, a replica of the original which now resides indoors for its protection from the elements.
Below, the original. Almost fourteen feet tall, the bronze was created about 175 AD and is one of few surviving bronzes from that period. It was originally elsewhere and moved to the Campidoglio as part of Michelangelo's design about 1538.

Above, left, Lupa, the famous Roman sculpture of Romulus and Remus, the twins who founded the city, after being orphaned and raised by a she-wolf. Right, Boy with Thorn, aka Spinario, a bronze version; the same figure in marble can be found in the Uffizzi. Dated c.1st Century AD.
More sculptures to come. Have you a favorite?

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Palladian Bridges

3/2/2024

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The Palladian Bridge, in the midst of the Stowe Landscape Garden, is an iconic symbol of the 18th C. English countryside. For many years, I yearned to visit, and at last, in May 2023, I achieved my wish, my fourth Palladian Bridge. Someplace, probably Wikipedia, I read that four Palladian Bridges existed in the world.
Below, left, the first was built in 1736-37 at Wilton House in Wiltshire on the edge of Salisbury. Below, right, second was built the next year, 1738, at Stowe in Buckinghamshire. Please be sure to click on the small photos for complete versions.

Above left, Prior Park, Bath, a copy of the bridge at Wilton house, was built in 1742 for Ralph Allen. Above right, the bridge at Stourhead in Wiltshire was designed by Henry Hoare II, finished in 1762, without a colonnade or pedimented arch. Now I have seen and/or walked across each of them.
Below, left, a Marble bridge from Russia. When we visited St. Petersburg years ago, we toured the Catherine Palace in the countryside, but when I asked the guide if we could see the Palladian Bridge in the gardens, she laughed, explaining that it was far away and inaccessible to us. So I have to content myself by knowing I was in the neighborhood and looking at pictures from the web such as the one below, the Russian Marble Bridge as it appears on Wikipedia. One might, I suspect, say there are five Palladian Bridges in the world.

Referring to the the image above, Wikipedia writes, "The Siberian Marble Gallery is a decorative pedestrian roofed Palladian bridge (gallery walkway) in Empress Catherine Park in the former royal residence Tsarskoye Selo (now town of Pushkin). ...It connects the Swan Islands — an artificial archipelago of seven islets in the landscape park of Tsarskoe Selo — spanning a rivulet flowing between several ponds. The bridge was modelled after the Palladian Bridge (1736) in the park of Wilton House, in England, and served as a showcase for Ural marble ... assembled in the workshop of Vincenzo Tortori in 1774...called Siberian due to its construction with marble from the Urals."
Below left, the river at Wilton House, Wiltshire; right, looking through the columns at the park.

Above left, approaching the bridge at Wilton; right, Rex Whistler's 1935 painting of Wilton House with the bridge at the left.
Below, left, the Palladian Bridge at Stowe Gardens from a distance. The Stowe version is wider and without step stairs to allow carriages touring the grounds to pass through the bridge.

Above, two views of the South Facade of the Palladian House at Stowe, built beginning in the late 17th century and continuing for the next. Some of Britain most famous architects, such as William Kent and Robert Adam, contributed to the final product. 'Palladian' is an architectural term for the style most popular in the new classical era of the 18th century based on the designs of Andrea Palladio (1508-80) in Venice and the Veneto region.
Below, left, Palladio's Church of Giorgio San Maggiore in Venice; right, Villa Barbaro, in Treviso, Veneto, both by Palladio.

The Royal Institute of Architecture (RIBA) website writes, "This is a Classical style, named after the Italian Renaissance architect Andrea Palladio (1508-1580) whose work and ideas had a profound influence on European architecture from the early 17th century to the present day. Palladio re-interpreted Roman architecture for contemporary use ... In the United States, Palladianism remained the prevailing style for public buildings until the 1930s and has never quite gone out of fashion for domestic architecture. Even today, some contemporary architects are influenced by Palladio’s ideas on planning and proportion, without the use of elements of classical architecture."
Below two examples of Palladian style in England. Left, the Mansion House, London, official residence of the Mayor of London, built by George Dance in the 1740's. Right, South facade of Stowe House, Buckinghamshire, designed and re-designed by numerous architects, but now appearing primarily as created by Robert Adam (1728-92).

Above left, the White House, north and south facades; right, the Supreme Court, both in Washington D.C. My photo of Stowe House, others from Wikipedia Commons.
Based on ancient Greek and Roman sources, the principle features of Palladian architecture are symmetry, proportion, balance, and grandeur-- with columns, colonnades, arches, pediments, porticos, and other classical elements. All reflected the sober values of republicanism epitomized in ancient Rome.
Below left, La Rotonda, Vincenza, begun by Andrea Palladio in 1567; right, Chiswick House, 1729, designed by Richard Boyle, 3rd Earl of Burlington (1694-1753), near London, built after Burlington's study of Italian architecture with his mentor William Kent (1685-1748).

Above left, Thomas Jefferson began remodeling Monticello, Charlottesville, VA, in the late 17th C and continued work on the house and grounds until his death; right, Jefferson National Memorial, Washington, DC, designed by John Russell Pope, built in 1939-43.
Below, Canaletto's painting Capriccio with Design for Palladio's Rialto Bridge is dated 1742. Text in the Royal Collection Trust says, "Palladio published his design for the Rialto Bridge in 1570 with the words: 'Most beautiful in my judgement is the design of the bridge which follows, and very well suited to the site … in the middle of a city, … one of the greatest and most noble in Italy … there is an enormous amount of trade … and the bridge came to be exactly … where the merchants gathered to do business.'" This design was not chosen but lives on in the Palladian Bridges now existing.

Finally, below, my photographs of the Pulteney Bridge in Bath, not precisely a Palladian Bridge, but a commercial one in the style of the Rialto plan. It was designed by Robert Adam in the neoclassical style and constructed 1769-1775. Wikipedia says it cost £11,000. Like the Rialto and Firenze's Ponte Vecchio, 'Good shopping!'

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The Capitoline Venus

Palladian Bridges

Victoria Hinshaw, Author

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