Giacinto, Villa Palombara (1781)

Speranza

The Discobolus Palombara, the first copy of this famous sculpture to have been discovered, was found in 1781.

It is a first century AD copy of Mirone's original bronze.

Following its discovery at a Roman property of the Massimo family, the Villa Palombara on the Esquiline Hill, it was initially restored by Giuseppe Angelini.

The Massimi installed it initially in their Palazzo Massimo alle Colonne and then at Palazzo Lancelotti.

The Italian archaeologist Carlo Fea identified the sculpture as a copy from the original of Myron.

It was instantly famous, though the Massimo jealously guarded access to it (Haskell and Penny 1981:200).

In 1937 Adolf Hitler negotiated to buy it, and eventually succeeded in 1938, when Galeazzo Ciano, Minister of Foreign Affairs, sold it to him for five million lire, over the protests of Giuseppe Bottai, Minister of Education, and the scholarly community. It was shipped by rail to Munich and displayed in the Glyptothek; it was returned in 1948. It is now in the National Museum of Rome, displayed at the Baths of Diocletian.