Ludovisi Gaul, H. 2. 11 m (6 ft. 11 in. ), Palazzo Altemps

The Ludovisi Gaul Killing Himself and His Wife (sometimes called "The Galatian Suicide") is a Roman marble group depicting a man in the act of plunging a sword into his breast, looking backwards defiantly while he supports the dying figure of a woman with his left arm. It is a Roman copy of the early second century AD, of a Hellenistic original, ca 230-20 BC, one of the bronze groups commissioned from Greek sculptors by Attalus I after his recent victories over the Gauls of Galatia. This article focuses on the cultural aspects of the Hellenistic age for the historical aspects see Hellenistic period. Attalus I ( surnamed Soter ( "Savior" 269 BC &ndash 197 BC ruled Pergamon, a Greek Polis in what is now Turkey Gaul (Gallia was the Roman name for the region of Western Europe comprising present day northern Italy, France, Belgium, western Ancient Galatia was an area in the highlands of central Anatolia in modern Turkey. Other Roman marble copies from the same project are the equally famous Dying Gaul, and the less well-known Kneeling Gaul. The Dying Gaul (in Italian: Galata Morente) is an ancient Roman Marble copy of a lost Hellenistic sculpture that

The sculpture group made its first appearance in a Ludovisi inventory taken 2 February 1623, and was probably found in the grounds of the Villa Ludovisi, Rome, shortly before that. The Villa Ludovisi was regarded as one of the most beautiful Villas of papal Rome. The area had been part of the Gardens of Sallust in Classical times, and proved a rich source of Roman (and some Greek) sculpture through the nineteenth century (Haskell and Penny, 282). The Gardens of Sallust ( Latin: Horti Sallustiani) were Roman gardens developed by the Roman historian Sallust in the 1st century Among the last of the finds at Villa Ludovisi, before the area was built over, was the Ludovisi Throne. The Ludovisi Throne is not a throne but a block of white marble hollowed at the back and carved with Bas-reliefs on the three outer faces

The Ludovisi Dying Gaul, a Roman marble copy of a Hellenistic work of the late third century BCE Capitoline Museums, Rome

The sculpture, now in the Museo Nazionale delle Terme, Rome, was greatly admired from the seventeenth century. The Dying Gaul (in Italian: Galata Morente) is an ancient Roman Marble copy of a lost Hellenistic sculpture that This article focuses on the cultural aspects of the Hellenistic age for the historical aspects see Hellenistic period. The Capitoline Museums ( Italian Musei Capitolini) are a group of art and archeological Museums in Piazza del Campidoglio The National Museum of Rome ( Museo Nazionale Romano in Italian is a set of museums in Rome, Italy, split between various branches across the city It appeared in engravings in the repertory of sculpture in Rome by Perrier^[1] and was codified by Audran^[2] as one of the sculptures of Antiquity that defined the canon of fine proportions of the human body. Nicolas Poussin adapted the figure for the group in the right foreground of his Rape of the Sabine Women, now at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (Friedlaender 19 and fig. Nicolas Poussin (15 June 1594 – 19 November 1665 was a French painter in the classical style The Metropolitan Museum of Art is an art museum located on the eastern edge of Central Park, along what is known as Museum Mile in New York City, 108). Visitors and writers of guidebooks found many subjects drawn from Roman history to account for the action: the 1633 Ludovisi inventory lists it as "a certain Marius who kills his daughter and himself",^[3] drawing upon the story of a certain patrician Sextus Marius, who in seeking to protect his daughter from the lust of Tiberius, was accused of incest with her.

Giovanni Francesco Susini rendered the group in a small bronze. Giovanni Francesco (Gianfrancesco Susini ( Florence c 1585 Florence &ndash after 17 October 1653 was a Mannerist Florentine sculptor in bronze The marble was copied by François Lespingola for Louis XIV and may still be seen paired with the Laocoön at the entrance to the Tapis Vert at Versailles; the cast prepared in preparation for the copy was retained at the French Academy in Rome (where it remains). François Lespingola ( Joinville, 1644 - Paris, 16 Jul 1705) was a French sculptor in the team that provided original sculptures vases and copies Early years Birth and ancestry Louis XIV was born in the Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye on September 5 1638 and bore the Heir apparent The Palace of Versailles, or simply Versailles, is a royal Château in Versailles, in France 's Île-de-France region The French Academy in Rome (Académie de France à Rome is an Academy located in the Villa Medici, within the Villa Borghese, on the Pincio (Pincian Hill The Ludovisi heirs prohibited further casts, but in 1816-19 prince Luigi Boncompagni Ludovisi, sent plaster casts to some major figures of the post-Napoleonic era, the Prince Regent, the Grand Duke of Tuscany, Prince Metternich and the diplomat at the Congress of Vienna, Wilhelm von Humboldt (Haskell and Penny 284). The Congress of Vienna was a conference of ambassadors of the major powers of Europe, chaired by the Austrian statesman Clemens Wenzel von Metternich Friedrich Wilhelm Christian Karl Ferdinand Freiherr von Humboldt ( June 22, 1767 April 8, 1835) government functionary

Notes

1. ^ François Perrier, Segmenta nobilium signorum et statuarum que temporis dentem invidium evase, 1638, pl. 32.
2. ^ Gérard Audran, Les proportions du corps humain mesurées sur les belles figures de l'Antiquité, 1683, pls 8 and 9.
3. ^ "un certo mario ch'ammazza sua figlia e se stesso" (quoted Haskell and Penny 282).

References

• Francis Haskell and Nicholas Penny, Taste and the Antique: The Lure of Classical Sculpture 1500-1900 Cat. 68, as "Paetus and Arria" pp 282-84.
• Walter Friedlaender, Nicolas Poussin: A New Approach (New York: Abrams) 1964. Walter Ferdinand Friedlaender ( March 10, 1873 - September 8, 1966) was a German Art historian.