The Kouros of Lentinoi, a jewel of Greek Sicilian statuary, on display in Catania

An exhibition that sees the torso of the Kouros of Lentini and the Biscari Head finally assembled opened in Catania on June 8: the rooms of the Museo Civico di Castello Ursino in fact welcome the reunion of the two finds until November 3, 2019.

The Apollonian Head found in the 18th century by Ignazio Paternò Castello, prince of Biscari, and now preserved in the Castello Ursino Museum, has been reunited with the torso of a headless ephebe acquired in 1904 by Paolo Orsi, preserved in the Regional Archaeological Museum of Syracuse.

The Kouros, a Greek statue with a funerary or votive function depicting a young man, was widespread in the Archaic and Classical periods, between the 7th and 5th centuries BC.

From an idea launched by Vittorio Sgarbi and the mayor of Catania, the statuary of Greek Sicily has been enriched with a new work: the Kouros of Leontinoi. Theproject came to fruition thanks to the former Regional Councillor for Cultural Heritage, Sebastiano Tusa, who, with the Sicily Foundation, promoted its restoration work carried out by the Siqilliya company, presenting it for the first time in Palermo.

The second exhibition stage of the project, in the Ursino Castle, includes an enrichment and a reinterpretation of the kouros through an installation with strong suggestions and original lighting solutions.

The project for the enhancement of the Kouros, curated by Sebastiano Tusa before his untimely death, aimed at restoring its integrity, resolving the debate on the actual relevance of the two finds to a single statue of the Archaic age. Petrographic and geochemical investigations had already been carried out in 2011, thanks to which it was possible to affirm that both elements were obtained from the same block of marble, taken from the Greek island of Paros.

Theassembly of the two finds was accomplished with reversible systems, using a hole already present at the base of the head, which was sharply truncated in the eighteenth century, by filling “the very short gap” with a specially designed and prototyped high-strength plastic prosthesis. Cleaning was then carried out to remove deposits and encrustations on the marble surface of the back and sides of the torso.

The recovered kouros will later be transferred to the Paolo Orsi Archaeological Museum in Syracuse, where an international conference will be held to conclude the event.

Image: Kouros of Lentinoi. Ph.Credit LapiS Association.

The Kouros of Lentinoi, a jewel of Greek Sicilian statuary, on display in Catania

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