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| Pasquino | |
|---|---|
| Pasquin, Latin: Pasquillus | |
 | |
| Type | Talking statues of Rome |
| Subject | Menelaus (supporting the body of Patroclus) Supposedly named for Pasquino, a neighboring tailor |
| Location | Piazza Pasquino, Rome, Italy |
| 41°53′51.8″N 12°28′20.3″E / 41.897722°N 12.472306°E | |
Pasquino or Pasquin ([paˈski.no]; Latin: Pasquinus, Pasquillus) is the name used by Romans since the early modern period to describe a battered Hellenistic-style statue perhaps dating to the third century BC, which was unearthed in the Parione district of Rome in the fifteenth century. It is located in a piazza of the same name on the northwest corner of the Palazzo Braschi (Museo di Roma); near the site where it was unearthed.
The statue is known as the first of the talking statues of Rome, because of the tradition of attaching anonymous criticisms to its base. The satirical literary form pasquinade (or "pasquil") takes its name from this tradition.[1]
The actual subject of the sculpture is Menelaus supporting the body of Patroclus, and the subject, or the composition applied to other figures as in the Sperlonga sculptures, occurs a number of times in classical sculpture, where it is now known as a "Pasquino group". The actual identification of the sculptural subject was made in the eighteenth century by the antiquarian Ennio Quirino Visconti, who identified it as the torso of Menelaus supporting the dying Patroclus; the more famous of two Medici versions of this is in the Loggia dei Lanzi in Florence, Italy. The Pasquino is more recently characterized as a Hellenistic sculpture of the third century BC, or a Roman copy.[2]
- ^ Nussdorfer, Laurie (23 April 2019). Civic Politics in the Rome of Urban VIII. Princeton University Press. pp. 8–10. ISBN 978-0-691-65635-9.
- ^ Early discussion was summarised in B. Schweitzer and F. Hackenbeil, Das Original der sogennanten Pasquino-Gruppe (Leipzig: Hirtzl) 1936; the modern opinion is from Wolfgang Helbig.