Portrait of Caligula
The youthful features of the face, the proud gaze and the tightly closed lips allow us to identify this work as a portrait of Caligula, known in history for his cruel and senseless deeds. While the traits of his physiognomy were carefully carved, the anonymous sculptor paid less attention to his hair, whose locks are ill defined. The alabaster bust shows a cuirass and a paludamentum gathered in folds and buttoned with a fibula on the left shoulder.
The work forms part of a series of the 16 busts formerly held in Palazzo Borghese di Campo Marzio, where they were installed within a plaster decoration by Cosimo Fancelli in the Gallery of Mirrors; they have been displayed in Villa Pinciana since at least 1832.
Object details
Inventory
Location
Date
Classification
Period
Medium
porphyry and oriental alabaster
Dimensions
Provenance
Included in decoration of the Gallery of Palazzo Borghese in Campo Marzio between 1674 and 1676 (H. Hibbard, ‘Palazzo Borghese Studies. II, the Galleria’, The Burlington Magazine, 104 (1962), pp. 9-20); Inventario Fidecommissario Borghese 1833, C, p. 49, no. 111. Purchased by Italian state, 1902.
Conservation and Diagnostic
- 1995/1996 C.B.C. Coop. a.r.l.
Commentary
This bust depicts Gaius Caesar Augustus Germanicus, the third Roman emperor. A member of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, he is universally known by his nickname Caligula. He reigned from 37 to 41, the year he was killed. In spite of the damnatio memoriae associated with his person, several portraits of him are still extant, with which the present work has certain elements in common.
Although only roughly characterised in several points, the hairstyle – in particular the short locks that partially cover the forehead – generally reproduces that adopted by Augustus and used by his family and successors to identify their belonging to the Julio-Claudian dynasty. Yet in contrast to other ancient depictions of Caligula, the hair on the back of his head is quite long here. His proud, direct gaze and small, closed lips reflect the cruelty and determination for which he is known and allude to the sinister personality traits described by Suetonius.
The bust shows the paludamentum gathered on his left shoulder, buttoned with a round fibula (which was not taken from the same block of alabaster). He wears a cuirass with fringed ends covering the right shoulder and a toga. The alabaster contains a crack at the centre of the cuirass.
The work forms part of a series of 16 busts in porphyry from Palazzo Borghese in Campo Marzio: they reproduce the Twelve Caesars narrated by Suetonius, with the addition of Nerva and Trajan and second versions of Vitellius and Titus. They were formerly placed in recesses in the gallery and framed by an arrangement of plaster reliefs depicting key episodes in the life of each and personifications of their respective virtues; this decoration was executed by Cosimo Fancelli between 1674 and 1676 (Hibbard 1962). The busts remained here until roughly 1830 (Nibby, p. 360): two years later, they are documented as forming part of the display of Room 4 of Villa Pinciana (Nibby 1832, p. 96). To the series was now added a second bust of Vespasian, sculpted by Tommaso Fedeli in 1619, which had been in the Gladiator Room.
According to documents from the Borghese Archive, the series was composed, as we have seen, of the ‘Twelve Caesars’, with the addition of Nerva and Trajan as well as second versions of Vitellius and Titus (Vatican Secret Archive, AB, b. 5688, no. 15, published in Hibbard 1962, appendix, doc. I, pp. 19-20). In 1830 Nibby saw the series when it was still in Campo Marzio, describing the works as ‘16 busts with heads in porphyry, representing the 12 Caesars and 4 consuls’. Two years later, when they had been moved to Villa Pinciana and displayed along the wall of Room 4, he listed them as Trajan, Galba, Claudius, Otho, Vespasian (two exemplars) Scipio Africanus, Agrippa, Augustus, Vitellius (two exemplars), Titus, Nero, Cicero, Domitian, Vespasian, Caligula and Tiberius; this catalogue was confirmed by the 1833 Inventario Fidecommissario.
Yet if this description (which includes a second Vespasian, executed by Tommaso Fedeli in 1619 and transferred from the Gladiator Room) corresponds to the current state of the series, we are left with several uncertainties: to begin with, we must ask what happened to the busts of Caesar, Titus and Nerva, which were present in 1674-76 but do not form part of the series today; secondly, we must wonder who the fourth consul referred to by Nibby in 1830 could be, given that currently only three are represented (Agrippa, Cicero and Scipio Africanus); and finally, we must inquire where the busts of the consuls came from. It is therefore possible that the sculptures displayed in the gallery, which were already present in Palazzo Borghese, did not correspond to those envisioned for the iconographic programme of the vault: this discrepancy may have indeed complicated the identification of the portraits. This theory is supported by the common date of execution of the busts, which critics believe were all sculpted in the same period during the 17th century (Faldi 1954, pp. 16-17; Della Pergola, 1974; Moreno, C. Stefani, 2000, p. 129; Del Bufalo 2018, p. 116).
Sonja Felici
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