Fidia

The Capitoline Museums, in Villa Caffarelli, host the first prestigious monographic exhibition dedicated to the legendary and emblematic Greek genius of classical art. 

A masterful sculptor and extraordinary architect who lived in Athens in the 5th century B.C., Phidias invented the technique of "wet drapery", which, through the effect of chiaroscuro, enhances the form of sculpted bodies. He created colossal works of the Golden Age of ancient Athens, working as superintendent of the restoration of the Parthenon and realising its sculptural decorations and the magnificent chryselephantine statues (in gold and ivory) of Athena Parthenos and Zeus of Olympia.

Curated by Claudio Parisi Presicce, the exhibition winds through six sections - The Portrait of Phidias; The Age of Phidias; The Parthenon and the Athena Parthenos; Phidias outside Athens; The Legacy of Phidias; Opus Phidiae: Phidias beyond the End of the Ancient World - which retrace life and work of the great protagonist of art history.

The selection of more than 100 works of art, some never displayed before, includes archaeological finds, Greek originals and Roman replicas, paintings, manuscripts and drawings, together with multimedia installations, and comes from the Sistema Musei di Roma Capitale, Italian institutions ― such as the Archaeological Museum of Bologna, the Fine Arts Academy in Ravenna, the Archaeological Museum of Naples, and the Cambellotti Archive ― and from some of the most prestigious international museums, including the Acropolis Museum, the National Archaeological and Epigraphical Museums of Athens, the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Vatican Museums, and the Louvre Museum in Paris. 

On display are extraordinary loans which have never left their museum locations, such as the two original fragments of the Parthenon frieze from the Acropolis Museum in Athens and two original fragments with knights and bearded men from the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna. Among the other pieces are the vase engraved with the inscription 'Pheidiou eimi' (I am Phidias) from the Archaeological Museum in Olympia; the replica of the shield of Athena Parthenos, the so-called Strangford shield from the collection of the British Museum; two bronze statuettes representing the figure of the craftsman from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the Archaeological Museum of Ioannina; the marble head of Athena Lemnia, an Augustan copy of a Pheidian original, from the Archaeological Museum of Bologna; the 15th-century manuscript Codex Hamilton 254 (Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin); the so-called Carrey drawings (1674) from the National Library of France; a 1997 model of the temple of Zeus in Olympia from the Musée du Louvre in Paris.

The exhibition, enriched with multimedia installations and digital content, accompanies the public on an immersive journey through the installation Phidias and the Parthenon, where a large photorealistic projection reconstructs in 3D the Acropolis and its  temple-symbol, offering visitors the chance to admire, in flight and changing the light of the day, the monument, and discovering all the scientific details through a touch interface.  

Fidia inaugurates the series I Grandi Maestri della Grecia Antica, five exhibitions dedicated to the greatest exponents of Greek sculpture, and is promoted by Roma Capitale, Assessorato alla Cultura, Sovrintendenza Capitolina ai Beni Culturali with the organisation of Zètema Progetto Cultura.

Photo: Shield of Athena Parthenos so-called Stragford, From Athens, Pentelic marble, 3rd century AD, London, British Museum, inv. 1864.0220.18 ©The Trustees of the British Museum