Il Nettuno di Lione al Museo Barracco (The Neptune of Lyon at the Barracco Museum)

In the ground-floor hall of the Giovanni Barracco Museum of Ancient Sculpture, a hidden gem among Roman museums, the Neptune is on display, an exceptional loan from the Lugdunum-Musée et Théâtres romains in Lyon.

This is a truly remarkable exhibition, the result of a significant international exchange, which brings a special guest to the Museum. The hall will feature the large statue of Neptune, one of the most significant works from the ancient Roman colony of Lugdunum, now Lyon.

The Neptune of Lyon is one of the largest bronze statues from ancient Gaul, characterized by its adoption of a typically Greco-Roman iconography, free of the eclecticism so common in the sculpture and art of Roman provinces. At the same time, its stylistic and formal features reveal the nature of a work from a local workshop, not imported from Italy or Greece. It is therefore a work rich in interesting insights, worthy of study and analysis in its various aspects: from the historical-artistic (Roman provincial art) and iconographic (the image of Roman Neptune, assimilated to that of the Greek Poseidon), to the technical (ancient bronze-working techniques).

Also significant is this god's role as protector and lord "of the waters", though not primarily of the sea as among the Greeks and Romans, but rather of inland, riverine waters. The location of its discovery is interesting in this regard: the statue was fished out of the Rhone in 1859, in the stretch where the river flows through the city of Lyon, almost as if to underscore the god's connection to the aquatic world of the rivers, a connection to be contextualized in the religiosity and cult dedicated to him in Celtic times.

The statue's provenance is interesting, the Roman city of Lugdunum, a colony founded in 43 BC. Provincial capital and the main economic centre of the Gallic provinces, the city still boasts a wealth of monumental archaeological sites and extraordinary remains, testifying to its ancient splendour. Not to mention the Lyon museum's very rich collection, which currently houses the statue of Neptune. This collection n fact, boasts marble and bronze sculptures, mosaics, frescoes, epigraphs - including monumental ones - exquisite glasswork, and much more, all artifacts that complete the historical and historical-artistic picture of the ancient Lugdunum.

Photo: official poster of the exhibition