Roman aristocrat on horseback.
The Bronzi Dorati are four gilded bronze statues which were presumably made between the 50s and 30s BCE. They comprise two Roman men on horseback and two Roman women on foot who all belong to the same aristocratic family. Since they can be counted among the most important archaeological finds of the Marche, the Bronzi Dorati have for a long time been the focal point of a legal struggle between the national archaeological museum of the Marche in Ancona and the municipality of Pergola. This struggle has not yet come to an end, and there is no indication whatsoever that the statues will leave their purpose-built museum in Pergola anytime soon.
History
In 1946 two farmers from Cartoceto, a village just north of Pergola, were digging a ditch when by sheer chance they found a metal horse hoof. When the men, who were brothers, started cleaning the hoof, they discovered that the object had been gilded. The discovery gave them a taste for more, and ultimately the brothers managed to unearth 318 pieces. These would no doubt have ended up on the black market had not a priest from Fossombrone heard rumours about the finds. This Giovanni Vernarecci also happened to be honorary inspector for the archaeological department. He immediately reported the discovery to his superior in Ancona, who ordered the confiscation of the hundreds of kilograms of gilded bronze. The confiscation was followed by a complicated process of cleaning and restoring. The first restoration took place between 1946 and 1959. The restored statues were then put on display in the museum in Ancona until 1972. A second restoration took place between 1972 and 1988. During this restoration all the pieces of bronze that had not yet been used were reassembled.
The four Bronzi Dorati.
In 1988 the restored statues were lent to Pergola, the town where they had been found. After a temporary exhibition there they were supposed to be returned to Ancona. However, things took a different turn, and the inspector sent to Pergola to reclaim the statues was not treated kindly, to put it mildly. By now the Pergolese were looking for a new and permanent location for the statues, where they could be put on display under the right (climatological) conditions. In the end the authorities opted for the former convent of San Giacomo, once administered by Augustinian nuns. The convent was converted into a museum, which opened its doors in 1999. In 2001 a compromise was reached, which stipulated that the statues would rotate between the museums in Pergola and Ancona. When Pergola has the originals, Ancona puts copies on display and vice versa.
Former convent of San Giacomo.
It does not look like the compromise was ever put into practice. Between 2001 and 2024 several authorities, including the Italian Council of State, have given rulings about the issue, but the statues seem to have remained in Pergola all the time. I therefore assume that the statues that I saw in the summer of 2024 were the originals. The archaeological museum of Ancona supposedly has the copies, but when I visited that museum in that same summer of 2024 they were nowhere to be found. What I did see was a perfect copy of the group – i.e. a complete reconstruction – on the roof of the museum (photo below).
Copy of the Bronzi Dorati in Ancona.
The statues
From the previous sentence readers may deduce that the original Bronzi Dorati are not in perfect condition. The 318 rediscovered pieces of gilded bronze were insufficient to completely reconstruct the four statues. One older Roman woman or matron has been almost entirely reassembled, while one male horseman is now largely whole again (a project of 195 pieces). By contrast, of the second male horseman basically only the horse has been reconstructed, while of the man himself we only see the legs. The second woman only has the lower part of her body. If we compare this to the perfect copy on the roof of the museum in Ancona with its four fully intact figures, we may conclude that the restorers must have made full use of their imagination to reconstruct the missing parts.
Two horse heads.
Roman matron with distinctive hairstyle.
The big question is, of course, who these four people were. There can be no doubt that they were members of a prestigious family, probably even of the senatorial class. All kinds of clues support that conclusion. First of all the fact that we are looking at equestrian statues, but also elements such as the decorative disks (phalerae) of the horse trappings, the patrician boots that the men wear, the military cloak (paludamentum) of the reconstructed horseman and the ring on the finger of the reconstructed woman. It is currently assumed that the statues were made between 50 and 30 BCE. The most important element to support that assumption is the hairstyle of the reconstructed woman. She is middle-aged and wearing a veil, but we can still see that her hair is tied together in the neck, with one curled lock visible next to the left ear. Researchers have concluded that this hairstyle is typical for Roman women in the middle of the first century BCE.
Given this dating, the theory that the two horsemen are the sons of the Roman general Germanicus can be rejected. After all, Germanicus (15 BCE-19 CE) lived several decades later. The number of alternative identifications is still pretty limitless though. Do we see Julius Caesar and his sister, or perhaps the orator Cicero?[1] In the information that I got from the museum a couple of less famous Romans are suggested, i.e. members of the Domitius Ahenobarba or Licinius Murena families. It does not seem very likely that the identity riddle will be solved anytime soon. One big problem in identifying the four figures is that it is unclear where the group originally stood. It must have been an important public place, where everyone could marvel at the gorgeous statues, but where was it? In Sentinum (Sassoferrato) or Forum Sempronii (Fossombrone)? In Ariminum (Rimini) at the end of the Via Flaminia or Pisaurum (Pesaro)? We only know that the statues were rediscovered quite far from these cities. They had been broken up with a sharp object and had subsequently been buried in parts. Why this happened is one big puzzle. If the statues represented enemies of the ruling dynasty, then it would have been much more logical to melt them down. Perhaps the parts of the statues were hidden to dig them up again later, something that also happened in Brescia with a bronze winged Victoria and six gilded bronze busts.
Fact is that, much like in Brescia, the parts remained hidden for centuries. As a consequence we nowadays have the privilege of admiring the Bronzi Dorati in the museum. The statues were made using the so-called lost wax method. YouTube has many insightful movies that explain this casting technique in a visually attractive way, for instance this one. After the casting process the bronze statues were covered with a wafer-thin layer of gold leaf, which was just a few thousandths of a millimetre thick. A movie in the museum also explains the techniques of casting and gilding to the visitors and tells them the whole story from the rediscovery of the statues to the restoration and identification (the feud with Ancona is, for reasons that are quite understandable, omitted). I myself was especially impressed by the many details of the statues. Note for instance the aforementioned phalerae on the horse trappings, which feature the heads of many deities.
Roman aristocrat.
Other things to see in the museum
Although the Bronzi Dorati get most of the attention, the full name of the museum is the Museo dei Bronzi Dorati e della Città di Pergola. I.e. it is also the municipal museum, and it has several other interesting objects on display. In the archaeological section we for instance find the tombstone of the praetorian guardsman Lucius Naevius Verus, who died in the middle of the first century CE at the tender age of twenty. Very nice are the mosaic floors which were found in 1969 in the vicinity of Pergola. According to the information panel they date from Late Antiquity, so they cannot be older than the third century CE. The floors may once have been part of a Roman villa.
Roman mosaic floor.
A number of splendid objects come from the former convent, such as a Pietà from 1400-1410 made of painted plaster. The artwork was perhaps made in an Austrian studio. Equally impressive is the so-called polyptych of San Giacomo, which dates from the end of the fifteenth or beginning of the sixteenth century and was painted by an unknown master from the Marche. In the Napoleonic era much Italian art was stolen by French forces. In 1811 these took the five large panels of the polyptych to Milan. Nowadays the Pinacoteca di Brera in Milan is still the owner of the panels, but they have been on loan to the museum in Pergola since 2004. The museum has given the reconstructed polyptych a place of honour. On the panels we see from left to right: Saint James the Great, Saint Monica (mother of Saint Augustine), the Madonna and Child, Saint Augustine and Saint Thomas (with a carpenter’s square). Three of the saints depicted have a direct link with the Augustinian convent of San Giacomo. In the smaller lunettes a risen Christ is flanked by a two-part Annunciation. On the far left and right we see Saint Secundus, patron saint of Pergola, and Saint Sebastian, a protector of plague-sufferers.
Pietà di Sant’Agostino.
Polyptych of San Giacomo.
The former church of San Giacomo can usually be visited as well. It was built in the thirteenth century just outside the city walls. Not much later a congregation of Augustinian nuns settled in the convent next to the church. Pilgrims could find shelter there, which explains the dedication of the complex to Saint James the Great, who is commonly depicted with a pilgrim’s staff and known from the pilgrims route to Santiago de Compostella in Spain. Above the high altar we see a photographic reproduction of the polyptych discussed above. The large fresco in the apse represents the Holy Trinity. I have not been able to establish the identity of the maker, but in terms of style and colour the fresco reminded me of work of Giovanni Anastasi (1653-1704). If an employee of the museum happens to be present in the church, you may ask him or her to take you to the nearby Oratorio dell’Ascensione al Palazzolo (which can be reached by foot in five minutes). The small oratory is also very much worth a visit.
Church of San Giacomo.
Apse fresco in the San Giacomo.
Website of the museum: Scopri il Museo dei Bronzi Dorati e della Città di Pergola
Note
[1] These possible identifications are mentioned in Bradt travel guide, Umbria & the Marche, 2021, p. 292.