The Bronzes of Pier Jacopo Alari-Bonacolsi, called Antico
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that would make it an suitable counterpart to the Spinario. That the motif of Hercules and Antaeus was created
criginally for the Bishop is attested in a letter from Antico to Isabella of April 1519 listing possible replications
of statuettes formerly made for the Bishop, and the group in Vienna (cat. 18, B) bears Isabella’s inscription.
The first documents concerning Antico’s statuettes for the Bishop are letters of 1498. These concerned the illicit
use of Antico’s raodels, or, more likely, molds, of an Apollo and of the Nude of the Tortoise - a tortoise, it is
learned later, upon which she was kneeling. In 1501 an Apollo is again mentioned, now a replica which the Bishop
planned to send to Venice. It may be presumed that the two motifs were creations based upon the Roman
sculptures of the “Apollo”, which was later famous as the “Apollo Belvedere” 87 , and the unique Madrid “Venus
Kneeling upon a Tortoise”. A discussion of Antico’s bronzetti of women in the early years of his midperiod will
follow that of the males below. Three autograph statuettes of Apollo survive. Two of these, those in Frankfort and
Venice (cat. 13, A; 13, B), appear to follow closely upon one another and the details of their hair, while fresh, are
not so exquisitely rendered as those of other autograph statuettes of both the mid- and late periods. Both are
parcel-gilt and their eyes are inlaid with silver. The earliest “Apollo” is represented by the specimen in Frankfurt.
Inhibited by the Quattrocento emphasis upon the four-sided statue, Antico was obviously uncomfortable with
the mild figura serpentinata and gliding stance of the “Apollo Belvedere” and here stiffened his figure to form a
Polykleitan posture by placing the lef t leg further to that side and lowering the heel toward the right. He completed
the right arm, which in the prototype lacked only fingers and thumb, and the left arm from slightly beyond the
drapery in a manner permitting the hand to hold a bow 88 . He was, apparently, the first to restore the left arm to
this purpose 89 . The profile of the face with its full chin and small features is analogous to the portrait of
Gianfrancesco on the Fortuna medal and those of the Venus Felix and the Cupid. The lips are slightly separated
as in the antique marble, and corkscrew curls were added to the hair to give it greater symmetry. The drapery has
been slightly shortened and regularized and has a more mellifluous outline. This bronze is, presumably, the model
of 1498. Not satisfied with this Version, and possibly with the shorter stature of the Gonzaga in mind, it was
probably not much later that he imposed a more personal style upon the “Apollo”. The result was the Ca d’Oro
“Apollo”. This Statuette is now a confident High Renaissance figure in Antico’s mature style and stylistically a
key to other earlier statuettes for the Bishop. Compared to the Frankfort “Apollo” the stride is freer and more
similar to that of the antique figure, but, proportionately, the legs are shorter, the neck and torso heavier - as well
as more sensuously modelled - and the head larger. The face is now expressive, and the hairstyle more compact,
the incongruous corkscrew curls of the Frankfort model eliminated. As the right wrist is flawed, the position of
the right hand differs from that of the Frankfort “Apollo”. Very likely it was a replica of this Statuette that was
sent to Venice in 1501 as its model can be presumed to have originated at an earlier date. Its first casting may be
the Ca d’Oro “Apollo”, which by tradition was connected to the main Gonzaga house.
The Hercules (cat. 19) and the “Meleager” (cat. 21) have proportions similar to the Venetian “Apollo”.
Stylistically these two motifs can be presumed to originate in its orbit, that is, in the period c. 1500. The Frick
“Hercules” (cat. 19, A) and the “Meleager”, together with the Jantzen “Young Hercules” (cat. 17, A), have large
areas of gilding and silvered eyes. Along with the Apollos, these statuettes and the Rothschild “Nymph” (cat. 23,
A) are among the most sumptuous bronzes produced by Antico. The Frick “Hercules” (cat. 19, A) may be the
bronze commissioned by the Bishop in 1499. It is a restless motif for which the prototype is likely to have been
the bronze Statuette of “Hercules” in the Musee du Louvre (cat. 19, D). The “Meleager” (cf. cat. 21) has been
87 ) The provenance of the “Apollo Belvedere” is uncertain (cf. Brummer, op. cit., cf. n. 83, pp. 44 f). The statue once belonged to Pope
Julius II when a Cardinal and was placed by him in the Vatican Belvedere Court. The “Codex Escurialensis” documents its location in the garden
of his Roman church, S. Pietro in Vincoli, where it was possibly available as early as c. 1490 (H. Egger, Codex Escurialensis, Vienna, 1906,
fol. 53, 54; fol. 53 bears the inscription nelorto disapiero invinhola). Antico no doubt saw it on his Roman trip in 1497, if not earlier. It was
hot restored in Antico’s lifetime. Although the right arm is now truncated near the elbow, before the restoration of the statue by Montorsoli
in 1532 or 1533 the original lower arm was in a similar position to that of Antico’s two bronzes, the hand lacking the fingers and thumb (cf.
M. Winner, Zum Apoll von Belvedere, in: Jahrbuch der Berliner Museen, X, 1968, pp. 181 f). At that time the left arm ended slightly beyond
the drapery hanging from it.
88 ) The object in the left hand may not be Contemporary with the Statuette.
89 ) In the early Cinquecento the bow was thought by some to belong to the right hand. The “Antiquarie Prospetiche Romane”, dated c. 1500
(cf. D. Fienga, Antiquarie Prospetiche Romane composte per Prospective Milanese Depictore, diss. University of California, 1970),
mentioned that the Apollo had a bow at his side: Ha el cappelgenouesum certappollo che ha gettato el carcasso alle spalle collarcho lento spinto
fiacho e mollo. Which side of the figure was unspecified, but, as the left hand was lacking until Montorsoli’s restoration, it can be presumed
that the bow was in the right hand. Variants in the first years of the sixteenth Century placing the bow in the lower hand are: Dürer (Poynter
Apollo, The Metropolitan Museum of Art; Apollo, Bibliothek des Kunsthauses, Zürich) and Filippino Lippi (?), Musee du Louvre, Cabinet
des Dessins, No. 9877).
