A pagan display? The gallery of statues and the Vestibolo Rotondo of the Museo Pio Clementino

Abstract

Realized in the Vatican between 1771 and 1793, the Museo Pio Clementino has always been considered as a model, as well for the choice of sculptures as for their display. This paper is focused on strategies of display. It wishes to renew the debate on the architectural choices made by Michelangelo Simonetti in the Vestibolo Rotondo and in the Gallery of Statues. As a matter of fact, printed views of these rooms made at the end of the 18th century prove that architectural models that Simonetti and his illustrious patrons had in mind were an heritage of the antique as well as of 17th- and 18th-century Rome. When we decipher better the strategies of display of marbles in these two rooms, we understand better how and why the perception of art changed so radically between the beginning and the end of the century. Between study of visual tradition and history of taste, this article is a first step of a larger research which wishes to rewrite some chapters of artistic historiography through the study of display and visual perception rather then through the study of texts.