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Benvenuti in queste pagine dedicate a scienza, storia ed arte. Amelia Carolina Sparavigna, Torino

Showing posts with label Leiden. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Leiden. Show all posts

Saturday, March 9, 2019

Un Cesare Chiaramonti a Leida (Rijksmuseum van Oudheden, Leiden)

Mi riferisco ad un busto di Cesare che è conservato al Museo di Antichità di Leida.
https://www.rmo.nl/museumkennis/klassieke-wereld/romeinen/julius-caesar/
Il museo possiede due busti. Uno è molto rovinato.
Dice il Museo di questo busto: "Het Rijksmuseum van Oudheden heeft nog een tweede portret van Caesar. Deze marmeren kop (tweede afbeelding) is vrij zwaar gehavend. Het voorhoofd is horizontaal ingekerfd en de kin en de neus zijn grotendeels weggeslagen. De verdwenen neus was trouwens niet de oorspronkelijke; een rond gat bewijst dat er ooit met behulp van een ijzeren pen een nieuwe op is gezet. De hals is schuin afgebroken. De kop zou afkomstig zijn van de Hunerberg in Nijmegen, maar dat is niet zeker. Hij is in 1931 als onderdeel van het legaat van P.A. Gildemeester in het museum terechtgekomen. Hoe hij eraan kwam, is niet bekend; vermoedelijk heeft hij de kop bij een kunsthandel gekocht. Op de Hunerberg in Nijmegen lag tussen 71 en circa 104 na Chr. het kamp van het Tiende Legioen, dat oorspronkelijk door Caesar is opgericht. Het zou dus niet verwonderlijk zijn als in deze legerplaats een beeld stond van de legendarische stichter." "The National Museum of Antiquities has a second portrait of Caesar, this marble head (second image) is quite heavily damaged, the forehead is notched horizontally, and the chin and nose are largely smashed away. The missing nose was not the original one. A round hole proves that with an iron pen a new nose had been set up, the neck is cut off obliquely. The head would come from the Hunerberg in Nijmegen, but that is not certain. It was in 1931, as a part of the legacy of P.A. Gildemeester in the museum. How he got it is not known; presumably he bought the head at an art shop. On the Hunerberg in Nijmegen, between 71 and circa  104 AD, there was the camp of the X Legion,a legion originally established by Caesar. So it would not be surprising if there was a portrait of the founder, in this camp. "

Il Cesare di cui si parla lo vedete a sinistra nell'immagine seguente. Ma di che Cesare si tratta? Ossia, di quale tipo di ritrattistica antica di Cesare? Alcuni ritratti di Cesare sono come quello del Museo Chiaramonti (Musei Vaticani), e lo vedete a destra. Altri sono come quello del tipo Tuscolo, oggi al Museo Archeologico di Torino. Ho provato a miscelare il ritratto di Leida con quello di Tuscolo - e potete vedere il risultato al link - ma è molto meglio se si usa il ritratto Chiaramonti. 



L'immagine è un morphing dal busto Leida al Chiaramonti. Guardate i capelli, gli occhi, la bocca, e la forma stessa della testa. E' un Chiaramonti.



Ho fatto in precedenza alcuni morphing anche con altri busti, ma ora mi sono convinta per il Chiaramonti.  Come mai non ho apprezzato subito nel busto di Leida un Chiaramonti? C'è un motivo. Il Museo di Leida ha commissionato una ricostruzione in 3D, di cui discussi abbondantemente, nella quale chi ha fatto la ricostruzione ha usato il busto di Tuscolo per ricostruire le parti mancanti del viso, e questo è stato fuorviante.
Peccato non aver puntato sul Charamonti. Il risultato sarebbe stato molto migliore, e anche più corretto dal punti di vista della comparazione stilistica dei busti. 



Ecco come poteva apparire in origine il busto di Leida, se lo pensiamo del tipo Chiaramonti.
In effetti, il naso del Chiaramonti è un restauro moderno, come anche il profilo della bocca. Ma non per questo è possibile usare il Tusculum.


Il  Cesare Chiaramonti è un busto di Gaio Giulio Cesare, in marmo bianco lunense, altezza totale 52 cm (il solo volto h. cm 26). Databile all'età augustea (44-30 a.C.). Oggi conservato nei Musei Vaticani (Museo Pio Clementino, Galleria dei busti, inv. 713). Questa testa di Cesare, insieme al ritratto conservato al Camposanto Monumentale di Pisa, è riconosciuto unanimemente come ritratto di G. Giulio Cesare e viene detto "Chiaramonti-Pisa". Nel 44 a.C. il Senato di Roma decise che Cesare avrebbe avuto una sua statua in ogni tempio di Roma e dell'Italia (Cassio Dione Cocceiano, Storia romana, XLIII, 14 e 45; XLIV, 4).
Da https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Gaius_Iulius_Caesar_(Vatican_Museum).jpg

La folta capigliatura del Cesare Chiaramonti non era quella di Cesare, che notoriamente, per pronunciata calvizie, usava pettinarsi riportando i capelli in avanti.  Sul Chiaramonti c'è una capigliatura come quella di Ottaviano Augusto, segno che Augusto voleva avere delle statue di Cesare che fossero a lui somiglianti il più possibile. La mamma di Ottaviano, Azia, era la figlia della sorella di Cesare, Giulia minore, e di Marco Azio Balbo; Ottaviano, pertanto, era pronipote di Cesare.
Insomma, c'era aria di famiglia.

Su Augusto. http://www.storiainrete.com/9380/in-primo-piano/dal-senato-ai-tweet-in-latino-cosi-augusto-invento-la-politica/
"Fin qui il politico. Ma l’uomo? Un attentatore arrivò a tiro di daga, ma fu bloccato dalla dolcezza aliena del suo sguardo. Scultori e bronzisti hanno consumato molto materiale per tramandarne le fattezze. Un eterno ragazzo, fuori dal tempo, con le ciocche ribelli, color sabbia, sulla fronte pensosa, corazzato per una parata di trionfo, più che per una battaglia vera. Un sacerdote dei riti. Una padre della famiglia e della patria. Un custode delle tradizioni."


Secondo le descrizioni degli storici, Ottaviano Augusto aveva gli occhi azzurri, di un colore intenso,  capelli castano chiarissimo, quasi biondi, inoltre si diceva fosse molto bello. Insomma, un bjuŋd, che, in Piemontese, non significa solo "biondo", significa anche "bello". Doveva somigliare a Cesare, altrimenti il suo rimarcarne il legame familiare non avrebbe avuto senso. 

Thursday, September 20, 2018

Morphing of a bust of Julius Caesar at the National Museum of Antiquities, Rijksmuseum van Oudheden, Leiden.

Morphing of a bust of Julius Caesar at the National Museum of Antiquities, Rijksmuseum van Oudheden, Leiden.: Here we show some morphing of a marble head of Julius Caesar which is today on display in the National Museum of Antiquities, Rijksmuseum van Oudheden, Leiden. For the morphing we will use the marble head of Caesar of the Centrale Montemartini, Roma, the Caesar’s head of the Camposanto Monumentale in Pisa, the Chiaramonti Caesar, and the Tusculum bust. Two lifelike reconstructions will also be proposed.

A figure from the article

Monday, September 17, 2018

Leiden bust of Caesar (Rijksmuseum van Oudheden) Morphing with Tusculum bust.



This is a morphing of the Leiden bust of Julius Caesar. From the left: Leiden bust, 2/3 Leiden and 1/3 Tusculum bust, 1/3 Leiden and 2/3 Tusculum, the face of Tusculum on the Leiden head.


Lifelike rendering of the morphing

Tuesday, June 26, 2018

On d’Hollosy reconstruction of Caesar - continued

In the post of June 26, 2018
http://stretchingtheboundaries.blogspot.com/2018/06/on-maja-dhollosy-reconstruction-of.html
I discussed the reconstruction of Caesar's head made by Maja d'Hollosy, proposed in http://www.rmo.nl/reconstructiecaesar. She used data from a Leiden bust and the Tusculum bust. So I measured two rectangles to compare the face of Tusculum bust and the face of d'Hollosy reconstruction. Here the result.



The rectangles of the Tusculum bust (left). Rectangles of a frontal view of Maja d’Hollosy’s 3D reconstruction (Courtesy: elu24.postimees.ee Kuvatõmmis/Youtube,  Let me stress that the image on the right is here used for scientific and cultural purposes). The sizes are in pixels.
To the reader, the exercise to evaluate the ratios. Differences are of about 10%.

However, a reader could tell me that I have not investigated the other bust used for the reconstruction, that which is in Leiden. Actually, the bust is in bad condition, so I "restored" digitally its image. And the result is the following. 



For comparison, I rotated a little the image. Here the result and comparison.



The rectangles of the Tusculum bust (left), of a frontal view of Maja d’Hollosy’s 3D reconstruction (middle) and Leiden head (right). The numbers (in pixels) are given to the reader, in such a manner that  any measurement and ratio can be easily evaluated. 
The most evident defect of the 3D  reconstruction is in the fact that it has the head which has a square as its frame, whereas the two busts have rectangles.  




On Maja d’Hollosy reconstruction of Caesar's head


As we have previously told in [1], on 22 June 2018 an article has been published by the National Museum of Antiquities (Rijksmuseum van Oudheden) of Leiden [2], showing a new 3D reconstruction of Julius Caesar’s head based on a bust of the museum. 
Ref.3 is telling that this 3D reconstruction is "including the bizarre proportions of his [Caesar’s] cranium." To this conclusion given in [3] we answered in [1], telling the following. Suetonius, in De vita Caesarum [4], is not mentioning any bizarre proportion. And, to the author’s knowledge, no witty remark exists on Caesar’s head, besides his baldness of course.
 In fact, Suetonius tells that Caesar “was tall, of a fair complexion, round limbed, rather full faced, with eyes black and piercing”; only his baldness “gave him much uneasiness, having often found himself on that account exposed to the jibes of his enemies.” 
 In spite of Suetonius’ words, the result of the 3D reconstruction made by Maja d’Hollosy and given in [2], is the following: “Julius Caesar's head reconstructed with 3D technology - and it reveals something odd about his birth. The legendary Roman emperor has a 'crazy bulge' on his head, according to one expert”, as told in [5]. And also, the head reconstruction proposed in [2], is rendering Julius Caesar basically like E.T. [6]. 
 In [2], it is told that Maja d’Hollosy used a bust in Leiden (that shown by the web page) and the bust of Tusculum [7], today exhibited at the Museo Archeologico of Torino [8]. The Leiden bust shown in [2] is in bad conditions.  
Actually, at the web page https://elu24.postimees.ee/4509811/video-3d-busti-kohaselt-ei-olnud-julius-caesar-just-ilus-mees, we have a front view of Maja d’Hollosy reconstruction. So we can use it for comparison (let me stress that the image from the above-mentioned web site is here used for scientific and cultural purposes). In the Figure, the Tusculum bust is given on the left and the so-called 3D reconstruction on the right. The reader can easily note the different proportions of faces’ features. From the comparison, the differences are so evident that we can make easily some measurements. For instance, we could measure the distances between eyes and so on: but, I stress once more, differences are so evident that we can simply use two frames, for instance, two rectangles (red and purple). In the image, the numbers of pixels represent the size of the sides.



On the left, the Tusculum bust. On the right a frontal view of Maja d’Hollosy’s 3D reconstruction (Courtesy: elu24.postimees.ee Kuvatõmmis/Youtube). Let me stress that the image on the right is here used for scientific and cultural purposes. The rectangles are showing the quantitative differences. 


As we can see from the Figure, we have  ratios 113/170 and 235/270 for the Tusculum head and 115/156 and 255/260 for the Maja d'Hollosy's reconstruction. That is: 0.66 and 0.87 (Tusculum), 0.73 and 0.98 (3D d'Hollosy). As a conclusion we can tell that the proportions of the Tusculum bust had not been respected in the 3D reconstruction. But the main defect of  d'Hollosy reconstruction is in the fact that the purple frame is a SQUARE, whereas that of the Tusculum is a RECTANGLE. The square enhances the effect of a rendering based on small and too close eyes, deliberately chosen by d'Hollosy.


References
[1] Sparavigna, A. C. (2018, June 24). Julius Caesar in a 3D rendering from a 2D picture. Zenodo. http://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.1297051
[2] http://www.rmo.nl/reconstructiecaesar
[3] https://www.rt.com/news/430659-caesar-head-reconstructed-rome/
[4] Suetonius, Divus Julius, Alexander Thomson. Available at www.perseus.tufts.edu/
[5] https://www.mirror.co.uk/science/julius-caesars-head-reconstructed-3d-12794457
[6] https://metro.co.uk/2018/06/25/new-3d-reconstruction-reveals-julius-caesar-basically-looked-like-e-t-7658540/
[7] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tusculum_portrait
[8] http://museoarcheologico.piemonte.beniculturali.it/index.php/9-uncategorised/129-museo-di-antichita-di-torino