This is the Apennine Colossus - a 36-foot-tall colossus built almost 450 years ago by one of the finest sculptors of the Italian Renaissance. A brief thread 🧵
The extraordinary brick and stone figure, completed in 1580, is the work of the renowned sculptor Giambologna. Approximately 7 miles north of Florence, it lives on centuries later as a brooding guardian of the Villa di Pratolino.
The Villa di Pratolino, now the site of the Villa Demidoff, was a Renaissance villa built by Francesco I, the second Grand Duke of Tuscany and member of the House of Medici. He built it in part to impress his Venetian mistress, Bianca Cappello.
How do we go back to being a society that creates art like this?
Psyche Revived by Cupid's Kiss (1793) - Antonio Canova. The craftsmanship is so fine that its marble wings become translucent in the sun's rays.
Master of neoclassical sculpture, Canova carved numerous impossibilities from marble, exhibiting soft skin, supple movement and complex folds of clothing. But perhaps none are more remarkable than his depiction of Cupid and Psyche.