Museo Torlonia | |
| Established | 1859 |
|---|---|
| Dissolved | 1976 |
| Location | Rome, Italy |
| Type | Sculpture collection |
| Collection size | 620 |
| Founder | Alessandro Torlonia |
The Torlonia Museum (Italian : Museo Torlonia; not identical with the Villa Torlonia on the Via Nomentana [1] ) was a museum in Rome, which housed the Torlonia Collection (Collezione Torlonia) of ancient sculptures.
The collection of 620 marble and alabaster statues and sarcophagi dating to the Roman Empire period [2] has been described as the "most important private museum of sculpture in the world" by Italian art critic Federico Zeri and, according to The Daily Telegraph, has been "said to rival [the ancient sculptures] of the Vatican." [3] The Encyclopædia Britannica considers the most significant of the works a relief of Heracles freeing Theseus and Peirithoos (4th century BC, attributed to the school of Phidias) and a sculpture of "Hestia Giustiniani" (5th century BC, attributed to Kalamis). [4] Overall, the collection contains 20 statues of Hercules, about 30 of Venus, and 100 of the Caesars and their families, [3] among them a bust of Julius Caesar. Besides, it includes sculptures of the gods from Roman mythology and Roman copies of Greek statues. [2]
According to the newspaper The Daily Telegraph, the namesake of the collection and then the museum, the Roman Torlonia family, received ownership of the collection around 1800 or in the early 19th century. The previous owners, the Giustiniani family, had taken out a loan from the Torlonia dynasty and secured it with the collection, but then defaulted on paying back the loan. [2] (According to earlier information by the same newspaper, however, Prince Giovanni Torlonia himself was the founder of the collection when, in 1810, "he bought some works and unearthed others on his land in Portus". [3] )
Alessandro Torlonia, heir to Giovanni, opened the collection to visitors in their family palace on Via della Lungara, close to the Tiber River, in 1893. In the 1960s, the museum was dismantled and the 77-room palace was illegally converted into a 93-unit apartment building. [3] The collection was put into storage and has not been publicly displayed. In May 2005 the government attempted to buy the collection for 1.2 billion but the offer was declined.
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The Farnese Hercules is an ancient statue of Hercules, probably an enlarged copy made in the early third century AD and signed by Glykon, who is otherwise unknown; the name is Greek but he may have worked in Rome. Like many other Ancient Roman sculptures it is a copy or version of a much older Greek original that was well known, in this case a bronze by Lysippos that would have been made in the fourth century BC. This original survived for over 1500 years until it was melted down by Crusaders in 1205 during the Sack of Constantinople. The enlarged copy was made for the Baths of Caracalla in Rome, where the statue was recovered in 1546, and is now in the Museo Archeologico Nazionale in Naples. The heroically-scaled Hercules is one of the most famous sculptures of antiquity, and has fixed the image of the mythic hero in the European imagination.
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The Giustiniani Hestia is a finely-executed marble sculpture, a perhaps Hadrianic Roman copy of a Greek bronze of about 470 BCE, now in the Torlonia Collection, Rome, but named for its early owner, marchese Vincenzo Giustiniani. It is the only known Early Classical bronze that was reproduced at full size in marble for a Roman collection: Roman taste ran more towards the Hellenistic baroque.
Prince Don Alessandro Raffaele Torlonia, Prince of Fucino, Prince of Civitella-Cesi, Duke of Ceri was an Italian nobleman of the House of Torlonia, titled Duca di Ceri, Prince di Fucino. He was the son of Giovanni Torlonia, 1st Prince di Civitella-Cesi (1754-1829).
The Palazzo Bolognetti-Torlonia, today demolished, was a palace located in Piazza Venezia, Rome, Italy.
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The Torlonia Collection is a private art collection of 620 Ancient Greek and Roman art works assembled by the noble Torlonia family of Rome, Italy. It has been called "the greatest private collection of ancient Roman antiquity" by archaeologist Darius Arya. Around 180 pieces are busts, one of the largest collections of Roman portraiture in the world.
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