Winckelmann’s ravishing description of the statue of Apollo in the Cortile Vaticano del Belvedere features in the Second Part of his History of Ancient Art (1764). By emphasising the coexistence of oppositional elements in the sculpture's dynamic appearance, Winckelmann's approach shows interesting similarities with an ekphrastic tradition that dates back to the end of the fifteenth century, when the statue was excavated from the soil of Latium and literary texts celebrating its recovery began to circulate. Winckelmann's description may thus be more fully appreciated within a broader context, where ancient as well as early modern descriptive formulae concur to illuminate the genesis of his lyrical response to the beauty and charm of ancient art.
Carlo Caruso is Professor of Italian Literature and Philology at the University of Siena (Italy). He is the author of Adonis: The Myth of the Dying God in the Italian Renaissance (2013), the editor of The Life of Texts: Evidence in Textual Production, Transmission and Reception (2018), and the co-editor of Italy and the Classical Tradition: Language, Thought and Poetry 1300–1600 (2009) and La filologia in Italia nel Rinascimento (2018). He has also published critical editions of Paolo Rolli, Libretti per musica (1993); Paolo Giovio, Ritratti (1999); and Diomede Borghese, Orazioni accademiche (2009).
The lecture will be held in English and will be chaired by Paola D'Andrea. Anyone interested is welcome to attend and join for coffee and refreshments at 4 pm. The lecture will start at 16:15.