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Museums of the Mediterranean Museums of the Mediterranean

The reconstructed Laokoon group and the huge guilded bronze Hercules belong to the main attractions. The latter was found
in 1864. The statue had been struck by lightning and had been granted a ritual burial together with the remains of a lamb. The
statue was restored by Pietro Tenerani with plaster and bronze. Cast in Late Antiquity

The Museo Pio-Clementino staircase which was built 1505 as connection between
Also this museum would easily make a museum on its the Palace of Pope Innocent VIII (1484-1492) and Rome
own; it shows the “jewels“ of the Greek and Roman (not to be confused with the modern spiral staircase).
collection of the Vatican. There are masterpieces like a The doric columns are made by granite, the paving pat-
giant statue of Hercules made of gilded bronze which is tern is in heringbone style. This Bramante Staircase had
class one world attraction. no artistic but a practical background: People and an-
imals could walk from the Vaticanian rooms to Rome
Among the statues, the most impressing comprise the without interruption, and Pope Julius II could drive in
Belvedere Apollo created in Rome in the 2nd cent. AD his carriage to his private rooms.
and the Laocoon group from the 1st cent. AD which was
found on the Esquiline Hill in 1506. It shows the priest The museum includes the “Greek Cross Gallery“, the
Laocoon in Troja who realised the danger inside the Tro- “Sala Rotunda“, a smaller neo-classical quotation of the
jan Horse and therefore the goddess Athena, who pro- Pantheon with the gilded bronze statue of Hercules, the
tected the Greeks, condemned him to death. A new in- “Gallery of the Statues“ with the “Sleeping Ariadne“,
terpretation of the ancient mythology is on display with the “Gallery of the Busts“, the “Cabinet of the Masks“
a work of Antonio Canova, who finished it in 1801: it with a floor mosaic from the Villa Adriana and statues of
shows Perseus with the terrible head of Medusa. The the “Three Graces“, the “Sala delle Muse“ with statues
“Belvedere Torso“ was highly esteemed by Michelangelo of Apollo and the nine muses from a villa near Tivoli and
who used the torso as model for canonical proportions. the “Sala degli Animali“ with sculptures of animals. The
Round Room‘s attraction is the architecture: Michelan-
The Museo Pio-Clementino has a remarkable architec- gelo Simonetti designed it at the end of the 18th cent.
ture, too. The visitors cross a square vestibule, pass a with a monolithic porphyry basin in the center.
Roman copy of a Greek bronze and look to the Bramante

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EXPOTIME!, issue October / November 2017