Famed statue helps Vatican Museums celebrate 500th anniversary

Published: 2006-11-22

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- On a cold January morning in 1506, a spectacular marble statue was unearthed in a hillside vineyard in central Rome. The sculptural group depicted Laocoon, a Trojan high priest, and his two sons being strangled by a sea snake -- divine punishment for having warned the city of Troy not to accept the Trojan horse. Artists of Renaissance Rome, including Michelangelo, flocked to the site and immediately recognized the discovery as a famous work by Hellenistic sculptors. According to the ancient Roman historian Pliny, it had once decorated the home of the Emperor Titus. Pope Julius II, an art lover, immediately dispatched an expert to take a look. A month later, the pope bought the work and had it transferred to the Vatican, where it became the centerpiece of a "courtyard of statues." Eventually, the papal collection grew into the Vatican Museums, which today house about 150,000 works of art. The name is "museums" because the Vatican's art and artifacts are divided into more than 25 different collections and architectural areas.

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