Neptune

NeptuneA soft greyscale photograph of the Fountain of Neptune in Florence, cropped to capture the Roman sea god's imposing figure. Originally commissioned by Cosimo I de' Medici. Part of the Light & Shadow collection.

Roman sculpted busts of Mars are typically helmeted and bearded

with the hero borne aloft through smoke and cloud as the gods come down to meet him

the coil of snake against hair

the drawn bow

one of the Argonauts and the leader of the great hunt that killed the Calydonian boar — an enormous beast sent by Artemis to ravage the country in punishment for a neglected sacrifice

The statue was unearthed in the 16th century in the Baths of Caracalla in Rome and entered the Farnese collection — hence the modern name

the stones held loosely in the fingers

The horror of the Dante passage — that Ugolino's final hunger may have overcome him before death — is left deliberately ambiguous in Carpeaux's gesture

Hephaestus hears of it

the Greek god of war

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Travelling through Italy