Disiecta Membra: Frammenti di statuaria bronzea di età romana del Museo Civico di Catania

Description

Investigations carried out in the warehouses of the Civic Museum of Castello Ursino in Catania have led to the identification of a large collection of fragments of bronze statuary from the Roman period. The fragments come from the eighteenth-century collections of Benedictine monks and the Biscari family, which finally became part of Catania's civic heritage. The pieces are relevant to statues of both life and larger-than-life sizesl, made in the lost wax technique. The analyses of the chemical composition of the alloy, carried out with non-invasive techniques, allowed to confirm the hypothesis of a unitary purchase of pieces, then randomly divided between the two collections in Catania; and to anchor fragments without information of archaeological origin to others for which, instead, these exist; finally, to provide additional elements for a reading of the production processes of the Roman workshops and the reference statuary types. The volume offers a historical overview of the pieces in the eighteenth-century collections of origin; a reconstruction of collecting events; an examination of the technical aspects and production processes of Roman statuary bronzes in the light of the results of archaeometrical investigations; the reasoned catalogue of the fragments; their stylistic and iconographic classification. The appendix presents the analytical results of the diagnostic investigations on the individual pieces.