The Vatican Museums this week unveiled one of its most celebrated acquisitions, the Apollo Belvedere, after years of intensive restoration work by Patrons of the Arts in the Vatican Museums (PAVM) on the ancient marble statue. Source: CNA.
Following the discovery of the statue in Rome in 1489, Pope Julius II requested the Apollo Belvedere to be brought to the Vatican in the early 16th century to be part of a papal collection known as the Courtyard of Statues in Belvedere, which highlighted the mythical origins of ancient Rome.
Msgr Terence Hogan, PAVM coordinator and a priest of the Miami Archdiocese, said the restoration of Apollo Belvedere is “significant because it gives us an insight into the early history of Rome” before the rise of Christianity.
“It gives us an insight into culture and also faith and history,” Msgr Hogan said in an interview with EWTN News.
“We [the Vatican Museums] are the oldest museum in the world and so people from all around the world now can appreciate the faith, the art, the history, the culture of so many centuries.”
The restoration of Apollo Belvedere, directed by the Vatican Museums’ Department of Greek and Roman Antiquities, faced several challenges before its official unveiling on Tuesday, including the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in December 2019, which delayed the project.
Claudia Valeri, curator of the Greek and Roman antiquities department said the “preciousness of this sculpture is infinite because it is an iconic statue among classical sculptures”.
According to Ms Valeri, a significant archaeological discovery in northern Naples in the 1950s recovered the original plaster casts of the missing left hand of the Apollo Belvedere.
The cast was used by the Vatican’s restoration teams to create the marble copy of the hand now seen on the newly unveiled statue.
Ms Valeri also said further study analysis of the statue of the ancient Roman god indicates that the all-white marble statue once had golden hair.
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Vatican Museums unveils ‘iconic statue’ Apollo Belvedere after years of restoration work (By Kristina Millare and Angelina Martsisheuskaya, CNA)
