The difficult rebirth of the hermbust

Abstract

It was supposedly during the excavations of the ruins of Hadrian’s Villa at Tivoli that the architect Fra Giocondo da Verona conducted around 1488, that the first ancient herm portraits were found again[*]. Often broken, as they had been re-used as building material, these herms retained the names of famous men from Greek Antiquity, to which they had been dedicated, thus stirring the interest of antiquarians.