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Male portrait 'Copenhagen - Florence - Liverpool' type on modern herma, so-called Socrates

Roman Art

Date
First half of the 1st century A.D.
Collection
Sculpture
Location
Storage Rooms Uffizi
Technique
Greek marble
Size
h. 61 cm; h. of the oldest part 35 cm
Inventory
1914 no. 383

The portrait depicts a man of mature age, with a thoughtful face marked by wrinkles on the forehead and on the sides of the nose. The face is framed by a long, wavy beard. The long moustache partly conceals the tightly closed lips. The hair, which almost entirely covers the nape of the neck and the ears, appears thinned towards the top of the head, while it is more worked and three-dimensional on the forehead and on the sides compared to the back.

The nose, the central part of the hair, part of the forehead, the neck, the torso of the herma, and various sections of the hair, beard and moustache are the result of modern integrations.

The right side of the bust bears the inscription SOCRATES in black, which was used in the past to identify the portrayed man. However, apart from the short, flattened nose, which is the result of modern restoration, nothing allows to compare the man's features to those of the philosopher, who according to the sources (Plato, Symp., 215 A-B; Plato, Theaetetus, 143E; Xenophon, Symp., IV, 19 and V, 5.6) should have resembled a Silenus or the satyr Marsyas, and whose face is known thanks to numerous replicas from the imperial age. For what concerns these copies, they have been associated with two portrait types from the 4th century B.C., known as type A and type B.

According to studies, the head of the Uffizi should pertain to a type that dates back to the second half of the 4th century B.C., known as the 'Copenhagen - Florence - Liverpool’ type, of which six other replicas were found. However, there is still uncertainty about the identification of the character. Based on the similarities observed in the bust with armour of the replica preserved in Naples (National Archaeological Museum, inv. 6132), the character had to be of military rank. The soft use of the drill and the rendering of the hair and the beard, the locks created with a chisel by means of fine incisions, as well as certain details like the slightly protruding eyelids and the round shape of the inner corner, can be also found in other works, such as the one exhibited in Naples, thus favouring the hypothesis that also this piece should date back to the Julio-Claudian period (1st century A.D.).

This work, which supposedly portrays Socrates, became part of the Uffizi collections thanks to Luigi Lanzi, who in 1781 (AGU, XIV [1781] a 36) sold to Count Pandolfini a portrait of Lucius Verus that was preserved in the Gallery in exchange for this herma. The lack of the philosopher's effigy determined the success of the transaction, even though the head owned by Pandolfini was acknowledged to be of lesser quality and value than that of Lucius Verus. The head of Socrates was then exhibited, together with other portraits of 'Illustrious Men' on herma, in the room that already housed the grand ducal epigraphic collection, the so-called Hall of Inscriptions, on the third corridor

Bibliography

F. Paolucci in V. Saladino (a cura di), Le antichità di Palazzo Medici Riccardi, II: Le sculture, pp.156 – 159, n. 52, Firenze, 2000 M. Caso in C. Gasparri (a cura di), Le Sculture Farnese, II: I Ritratti, pp. 24 – 25, n. 8, Milano, 2009; A. Muscillo, Ritratto virile tipo ‘Copenhagen – Firenze – Liverpool’ su erma moderna, cd. Socrate in Divina Simulacra. Capolavori di scultura classica della Galleria degli Uffizi, catalogo della mostra (Firenze, Gallerie degli Uffizi, 12 dicembre 2023 – 30 giugno 2024), a cura di F. Paolucci, pp. 80 – 81, Livorno,, 2023, e bibliografia precedente

Text by
Ambra Famiglietti
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