The Farnese Bull.
The mountain range of Cithaeron is the spot where a feast in honour of Bacchus was held, at which Dirce, the enemy of poor Antiope, was present. It was not long before the eyes of the queen, quickened by jealousy, discovered her fugitive slave; Antiope was seized, tried, and condemned to suffer death.—Dirce delegated the execution of the sentence to Zethus and Amphion, who, as Theban shepherds and her subjects, were bound to obey her commands and they prepared to bind Antiope to the horns of an infuriated bull, to be, by him, dragged and tossed to death. The twins proceeded to carry this sentence into execution.—The infuriated steer was brought forward.—The agony of the victim reached its culminating point.—At the instant when the involuntary matricide was about to be consummated, a recognition was effected. The shepherd to whom the rearing of the boys had been entrusted, came forward and revealed the secret. Antiope was at once released from the fearfully perilous position in which she had been placed; but the wrath of the youths, who had been so nearly the unconscious instruments of the crime of matricide, was now turned against the royal persecutrix. Queen Dirce was seized and subjected to the same cruel torture which she had intended to be the fate of Antiope.—The infuriated bull tossed and dragged her to death.—When all was over, Bacchus transformed Dirce into a fountain. Such is the legend, which the sculptors Apollonius and Tanriscus of Tralles took as the subject for illustration in their famous and beautiful group, generally known by the appellation 'which we have chosen as the heading of our present article.
"IL TORO FARNESIANO", The Farnese Bull, was exhumed in the year 1526, during the reign of Pope Paul III., near the Thermae of Caracalla.
For a time the group remained amongst the statuary of the Neapolitan Villa Reale, until later on, it was brought into the Galleria Lapidaria of the museum.
Pliny mentions the work, but only in a very cursory manner.PLINIO says:
"Amongst the monumental works in the possession of Pollio Asinius are, Zethus and Amphion, Dirce and the bull with a cord, hewn out of a single block of marble; a piece of work, executed by Apollonius and Tauriscus of Trtliles, which was brought from Rhodes to Rome."
It has been a question, which has been vehemently combatted and as vigorously defended, whether or not the group, which at present stands in the Neapolitan museum, is the actual original of which Pliny wrote.
But, although it seems impossible to produce such tangible evidence as shall silence either of the disputing parties, it does seem highly probable that such is really the case.
When the "Toro Farnese" (for that is the Italian name by which the group is frequently designated) was first discovered it was terribly mutilated; still this group has been more fortunate than most of its neighbours in the matter of the restorations which have been effected upon it.
Usually, when restorations have been necessary to render antique works of art pleasing and instructive to the eye of the untaught, somehow or other such restorations have left much to be desired, whereas, in the present instance, they appear to have been eminently successful.
Large portions of the three chief figures, the head of the bull and almost the entire figure of Antiope have been restored; but, when we whisper the fact that it was the hand of Michael Angelo Buonarotti that effected the restoration, we have perhaps at the same time given the reason why it has been so successfully carried out.
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