#giambologna
Shrouded within the park of Villa Demidoff, in Medici Villas (Unesco World Heritage List, 2013), Tuscany, just 7 miles north of Florence, there sits a gigantic XVI century sculpture, 14-meter-tall masterpiece - known as the Appennine Colossus. The brooding structure was first erected in 1580 by Flemish sculptor Giambologna, pseudonym of Jean de Boulogne (Douai, 1529 - Florence, 1608).
The Colossus once had rooms, caves and inner passageways, and even a hydraulic system that connected the head of the giant to the various water sources in his body.
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The Rape of the Sabine Women
Carved from a single block of marble, by the 16th-century Flemish sculptor Giambologna.
- Loggia dei Lanzi, Florence.
An engraving from Fischer von Erlach and Johann Bernhard’s Entwurff einer historischen Architectur (1725) illustrating the ancient Greek architect Dinocrates’s proposal for a city on Mount Athos, complete with a massive depiction of Alexander the Great carved into the side of the mountain that would appear to hold the city in his hand. According to Wikipedia, the planned city was rejected as unlivable.
Full text available here.
This reminded me of Vincenzo del Vecchio’s anthropomorphic cities in the book Terraneo. Below, the artworks that inspired their impossible -yet fascinating- architectures.
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Detail of Hercules and the Erymanthian Boar, after a model by Giambologna
Italian, mid-17th century
bronze with red-brown lacquer patina
Metropolitan Museum of Art
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