Torlonia marbles: An archaeology of a 19th-century antiquities collection

Today, it seems obvious that ancient statues should be preserved, but it was not always so. For almost a thousand years, from the mid 5th century AD through to the 15th century, the sculptures populating the ruins of Rome were valued as a raw material rather than for their aesthetic qualities. While the ease with which bronze figures could be melted down to turn a tidy profit left them particularly vulnerable, many stone statues were also condemned to the furnaces as a source of lime. Others were dismembered for reuse as building stone. Contemplating such brutal treatment of ancient masterpieces may cause shudders now, but it also raises a crucial question. Given the perfectly profitable and practical purposes that Roman sculpture had been put to for centuries, where did the sudden interest in collecting and preserving them come from?

An opportunity to explore the answer is occasioned by an exhibition in Rome showcasing 92 highlights from one of the great collections of Roman sculpture: the Torlonia marbles. These extraordinary works of art have been out of the public eye for more than half a century, making their appearance a cause for celebration among aficionados of the Roman world. Although the Torlonia collection itself only dates back to the early 19th century, when this princely family began to amass antiquities, its origins stretch back far earlier. Because the nucleus of the Torlonia marbles was created by buying up various existing sets of sculpture, the result is essentially a collection of collections. This means that its contents can shed light not only on the Classical era, but also on why and how these sculptures became prized possessions once again in the more recent past.

Valuing the past

‘In order to understand the process of collecting, and the very meaning of collecting, we need to look at the very long period when the ruins of Rome were filled with bronze and marble statues, and no one cared about them,’ says Salvatore Settis, professor of Classical archaeology and curator of the exhibition. ‘Back then, it would have been easy for anyone to go and pick up ten or 20 statues and bring them home to start a collection, but nobody did. Instead, the process of preserving, restoring, and collecting was a novelty when it started happening in the early 15th century. This more or less coincided with the popes returning to Rome permanently after almost a century in Avignon, France. While the popes were physically absent from Rome, they had still theoretically been in control of the city, but in practice its government and citizens were freer than they previously had been to govern themselves. This changed drastically when the popes came back.’