MiC, Gladiator Giustiniani returns home

As part of the 100 works come home project, the Gladiator Giustiniani kept in the storage rooms of the Archaeological Park of Ancient Ostia has returned to Bassano Romano at Villa Giustiniani, the place from which it came and where, in the past, it decorated the park’s large pool.

The sculpture is a late Renaissance pastiche, composed of ancient and modern fragments brought together and made integrated by Marquis Giustiniani according to the taste of the time: a lion’s head and an ancient Roman torso. Originally, the Roman part, of which the torso remains, depicted the god Mithras killing the bull. Mithras held the animal still by resting one knee on its back, with his left hand he pulled the head toward him, and with his right hand he was ready to strike it with a knife. In the seventeenth century, on the other hand, it was presented with the appearance of a gladiator killing a lion.

In the 20th century the statue was dismembered and the pieces sold separately on the antiques market. The ancient torso was recovered at the Getty Museum in Malibu and returned to Italy in 1999, while the lion’s head was found at the Villa Capo di Bove, now part of the Appia Antica Archaeological Park. Both sculptures, after their recovery, were kept at the Ostia Archaeological Park. This is also home to the sculpture Mithras killing the bull attributed to the Neo-Attic sculptor Kriton, of which the Giustiniani torso is said to be a replica.

The Gladiator will be placed on display in the Hall of Cupid and Psyche on the main floor of Villa Giustiniani.

Image: Torso of the so-called Gladiator Giustiniani (AD II).

MiC, Gladiator Giustiniani returns home

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