|
|
 |
It seems that this bust
belonged once to a sculptural group representing Achilles holding the body of Patroclus.
However, the fragment is now universally known as Pasquino, Rome's most famous
"talking statue".
 It is said that the name originally belonged to a gossipy shoemaker whose shop
stood in the vicinity. At his death, the name passed on to the statue, which since then
took up a sort of conversation with another statue, called Marforio, which originally
stood at the foot of the Capituline hill. In a country in which freedom of speech and of
press were not admitted, placards surreptitiously nailed to these statues by night
constituted for centuries the only form of opposition, and the statues became a medium for
political and social satire. To avoid the statue's criticism in the 16th century Cardinal
Carafa had the statue decorated on the day of St.Mark's procession, which passed this way.
Pope Hadrian VI instead had Marforius shut up in the courtyard of Palazzo Nuovo on the
Capituline Hill. But he was unable to imprison Pasquino, as he was opposed by the statue's
legitimate owner, Duke Braschi. Some epigrams, called "pasquinate" passed into
history: the depredation of the Pantheon bronzes by the Barberini and the
greediness of Innocent XI's sister-in-law, Olimpia (nick-named olim pia, that is,
"the Once-Virtuous), and even Napoleon became his victim. It seems that, during the
Napoleonic occupation, Marforio commented the depredations of works of art by declaring:
"I Francesi sono tutti dei ladri" ("The French are all
thieves"). Pasquino answered this by saying: "Tutti no, ma Buonaparte
sė" (Not all of them, but Buonaparte, yes). The play on words is here due to
the fact that Napoleon's surname, was also spelled "Buonaparte", which in
Italian means also "the greater part".
Accessibility
The statue is in a small square adjacent to Piazza Navona. There are no architectural
barriers. in the photo: the statue of Pasquino |
