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From ruins to Renaissance riches.
In the early 1500s, Rome was littered with ruins from the days of the ancient Empire,
including great artworks buried amongst the rubble. The Renaissance had seen a sudden
growth of interest in all things classical, and the popes were the richest and most
cultivated art collectors in Italy. They began offering cash rewards for sculptures,
until Rome was scoured by freelance treasure hunters on the prowl for pagan masterpieces.
The most dramatic discovery occurred in 1506, when a father-and-son team of excavators
reported a find near the ruined Baths of Titus. Michelangelo himself excitedly hurried
over to help with the work, followed by the pope’s official agent, Guiliano da Sangallo.
When the excavators brushed away the dirt of 1,000 years, they found an enormous
marble sculpture, perfectly intact, of a muscular Trojan hero being attacked by
giant snakes. Guilano cried out in amazement, "This is the very Laocoön described
by (the ancient Roman author) Pliny!" The spectacular image was carted off to the
Vatican, and the lucky discoverers were awarded a lifetime pension of 600 ducats
a year – the equivalent of approximately $75,000 a year now. Today, the Laocoön
can still be seen in Octagonal Court of the Vatican Museums, where it graced the
new art collection of Pope Julius II (the man who also commissioned the Sistine
Chapel). The displays were greatly expanded by the next Pope, the young, art-loving
Leo X, who appointed the painter Raphael as superintendent. These early 1500s would
be remembered as a golden age of discovery in Rome, with hundreds of pagan sculptures
saw the light. Julius and Leo were also responsible for another revolutionary move,
for which we can all be grateful – they were the first to open their private art
collections in the Vatican and nearby Campidoglio to public visitors, thus creating
the first “museums,” designed to encourage the appreciation of beauty and culture.
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