Lo Spinario at Palazzo dei Conservatori, Musei Capitolini, Rome

myminifactory

Boy with Thorn, also known as Fedele (Fedelino) or Spinario, is a remarkable Greco-Roman Hellenistic bronze sculpture of a boy carefully removing a thorn from the sole of his foot, proudly displayed in the Palazzo dei Conservatori, Rome. A stunning Roman marble of this subject from the Medici collections stands tall in a corridor of the Uffizi Gallery, Florence. This incredible sculpture was one of the very few Roman bronzes that managed to avoid being lost to history. It was standing outside the Lateran Palace when the Navarrese rabbi Benjamin of Tudela saw it in the 1160s and identified it as Absalom, who "was without blemish from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head." The English visitor Magister Gregorius noted it in the late twelfth or early thirteenth century, remarking that it was absurdly thought to be Priapus. It must have been one of the sculptures transferred to the Palazzo dei Conservatori by Pope Sixtus IV in the 1470s, though it is not recorded there until 1499-1500. This sculpture was celebrated in the Early Renaissance, becoming one of the first Roman sculptures to be copied: there are bronze reductions by Severo da Ravenna and Jacopo Buonaccolsi, called "L'Antico" for his refined classicizing figures. He made a copy for Isabella d'Este about 1501 and followed it with an untraced pendant that perhaps reversed the pose. For a fountain of 1500 in Messina, Antonello Gagini created a full-size variant, probably the bronze that is now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. This remarkable object is part of "Scan The World", a non-profit initiative introduced by MyMiniFactory, through which we are creating a digital archive of fully 3D printable sculptures, artworks and landmarks from across the globe for the public to access for free. Scan The World is an open source community effort, and if you have interesting items around you and would like to contribute, email stw@myminifactory.com to find out how you can help.