Michelangelo’s Inspiration: The Belvedere Torso
The story of an ancient sculpture that inspired artists from the Renaissance onwards
The Belvedere Torso was an example of a work whose style and technique were thought to express the perfection of the ancient past. One artist who was especially impressed with the statue was Michelangelo (1475–1564). He admired the contorted pose of the torso, how it twists around on itself to bring out the muscularity of the whole body.
The Belvedere Torso was a fragmentary statue carved sometime around the 1st century BC. It was rediscovered at the beginning of the 15th century in Rome, probably excavated from among the ancient ruins.
Over the course of the next hundred years, the marble sculpture gained admirers and went on to become a significant point of reference for Michelangelo and many other artists.
The figure probably represents Hercules, because of the animal hide the figure is sitting on. The artist who made it left a signature on the stone block beneath the figure: “Apollonius, son of Nestor, Athenian”. Because of its style, it is generally thought that Apollonius…
