Athlete mosaics from the Caracalla Baths
The two athlete mosaics from the Caracalla Baths are now in the Vatican Museums . They were found during the excavations of Count Egidio Di Velo in the apses of the palaestra of the Caracalla Baths in 1824 and brought to the Museum of the Laterans in 1838 . In 1963 they were transferred to the Vatican Museums, where they can still be seen today. The two floors each form semicircles with a diameter of around 24 meters and show life-size athlete figures in various fields, but also busts, referees and sports equipment as well as competition prizes. The athletes can be clearly distinguished by certain attributes. There are boxers, discus throwers, javelin throwers and wrestlers. Winners in a competition are shown with a crown and a palm branch. The referees, on the other hand, wear long robes, have a beard and a palm in their hands. With the latter they could give signals in competition. Devices are shown in the fields at the edge of the mosaics, where the fields are no longer rectangular because they cut into the semicircle of the edge of the mosaics.
The figures each stand on a small indicated stand line, with the background otherwise being empty. The busts, on the other hand, rest on the decorative ribbons that frame the fields. The characters look realistic and are sometimes even described as brutal in literature . But they are more likely to represent stereotypes of athletes.
The dating of the mosaics is controversial and varies between the reign of Caracalla (211-217 AD), under which the baths were built, and the 4th century. However, there is no valid reason to assume that the mosaics were made later than the thermal baths.
If the dating under Caracalla is correct, then the mosaics are of art historical importance. The mosaics no longer try to copy paintings, as was the rule with figurative mosaics in the 2nd century, but are more schematic and broader and therefore more adapted to the mosaic medium.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Piranomonte: The Caracalla Baths , p. 53.
- ^ Dunbabin: Mosaics of the Greek and Roman World. P. 68.
literature
- Katherine MD Dunbabin: Mosaics of the Greek and Roman World. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2001, ISBN 0-521-00230-3 , p. 68.
- Marina Piranomonte: The Caracalla Baths. Leader. Electa, Milan 2008, ISBN 978-88-370-6303-0 , pp. 53-56.
