Belvedere Torso

The head and limbs are missing, but the body still turns. Follow the change between the seated hips, the abdomen and the broad chest of the Belvedere Torso. The surviving marble gives you the movement without a face to explain the figure's mood. An inscription names Apollonios, an Athenian sculptor. The fragment dates to the first century BC and entered the Vatican collections between 1530 and 1536. In the Hall of the Muses, it is a body you have to read through what remains. Its subject has prompted different interpretations. One favoured reading identifies Ajax, the Greek hero, contemplating suicide. That reconstruction supplies a lost head, arm and sword to complete a proposed action. Those parts are hypotheses about the original figure. Begin with the marble that survives before imagining them. The turn of the torso and the changes in the muscles can hold your attention even while the figure's precise identity remains debated.